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Parenting

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TW - help/advice needed with teenager

4 replies

Fatoldtiredboring · 19/01/2026 04:26

My daugter (14) was severely disturbed by her father leaving us very abruptly to go live overseas with his girlfriend (we were married but he had had the girlfriend throughout our marriage, unbeknownst to me). He pays nothing towards her or her 2 brothers and sees them once a year for a couple of hours. She idolises him. She complains that I hate her, she wants to go live with him, etc. a lot. I've done my very best as a single mum. Worked as much as I could. Taken them for meals out. Paid for school trips. Expensive hobbies. Music lessons of their choice. Taxied. All the usual parent stuff you'd expect. And I've reassured them they are all very much loved, and I would never leave them.

Tonight, I've emailed school as my daughter struggles with a particular subject. Within minutes she came crashing downstairs, screaming at me to delete the email. I've no idea how she read it, but suspect her dad has access to my email (he's hacked me before and was given a non-molestation order for this and other domestic abuse which I discovered once he'd left - putting trackers on my devices, car, etc.). Cue a huge meltdown, during which time I prised her phone from her hands as she needed to calm down urgently. She then berated me for a good 30 mins. at which point I just gave her the phone back. I was sick of the upset. 30 mins. later, Police arrive with a report of assault on a child. She had reported me (possibly with her dad's input). Police were great. Spoke to her alone and told her I was simply parenting and that she hadn't been assaulted. SS now involved as I'm struggling with her volatile emotions. I feel awful, can't sleep and have no idea how to approach things tomorrow. Please help.

OP posts:
Fatoldtiredboring · 19/01/2026 04:28

Should add, her dad has been gone 3 years.

OP posts:
ShawnaMacallister · 19/01/2026 04:32

Take her phone away and go through it with a fine tooth comb to find what her dad has been saying to her. Look for evidence of him getting her to provide him with information about you. Go through your own devices and look for spyware and change passwords on EVERYTHING.
Then you need to have some hard conversations with her about her father. It's time for the scales to drop. She won't like it, but she needs to understand reality.

Fatoldtiredboring · 19/01/2026 04:38

@ShawnaMacallister Thank you so much for replying. I feel so alone. She point blank refuses to give me her phone and would die before let me see anything in there. I tried to speak to her dad but his response is 'yeah, she hates her life there and feels sad/lonely/isolated, sorry.' He has no intention of having her over there (he's too mean with money, and it's not a safe country, plus I'd die before let her go), he just likes being the favourite parent. My boys completely respect me and know he's let them down badly. I've always let them keep their phones private - stupidly trusted them, I suppose. But maybe I should reset the rules?

OP posts:
ShawnaMacallister · 19/01/2026 04:57

Your 14 year old deserves some privacy but shouldn't have the expectation of a totally private phone at that age. Regardless, it's gone too far for this, she's being fed information by her dad that she isn't entitled to have, and this has led to her phoning the police on you. You take the phone and you take it out of the house and go though it without her there. This has to be non negotiable. You have no idea who she is talking to on there or what she's being exposed to, even leaving aside the harmful contact with her father.

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