Daughter feeling abandoned by ex

[NotEverAgain]

Hi everyone,

This is my first time posting on an advice forum, but I'm pretty desperate so any help would be much appreciated.

My husband left me last January and moved to a different part of the country. He promised to keep in touch with our daughter (16), offering to have her come and stay with him during the school holidays and so on. That invitation was never followed up and the last time he saw her was last March. Our divorce came through in June and since then he's made three 'dates' with her but has broken them by text saying he 'had a meeting to go to', 'had to tidy the house', and so on.

She was devastated, so I've spent most of the last year telling her that he's not really a bad person, he just has problems with relationships with everyone, including me and his parents, so she's not to take it personally but needs to accept that he loves her in his own way.

That was fine until my former mother-in-law told me that he remarried last July, now has a 10-year-old stepdaughter and two baby twin girls.

Guess what? My daughter now thinks I was wrong all of that time and actually he just loves his new family more than her.

I've no idea what to say. I can't argue with her logic. She's been missing school, stopped sleeping, and when I ask her what she thinks about the whole situation she just says she doesn't want to know and would rather ignore it.

He now says he wants to come to visit her and explain his side of the story, but I'm terrified in case he promises her the world again, and once again fails to deliver.

Help?

I am not sure of the 'right thing' but if she is 16 then surely it is up to her to decide? There is no need for you to mediate between your ex and and your DD.

BTW I am not surprised she is devastated. A similar thing happened to a friend of mine. It helped her to write a letter to her father explaining exactly how he had made her feel - in venting her anger she made it his problem, not hers IYSWIM.

Unfortunately he couldn't accept his faults and she no longer has a relationship with him at all. However, that is his problem, not hers and not her mother's.

Is there a school counsellor she can see? Often teenagers will take advice/support from 'strangers' before their own parents.

Hope this helps and things get better for her soon.

Hello Notever

my daughter had this same problem, and when she was at her lowest about it I asked at school and they set her up with a counsellor.

They were very good , and she seems to be fine now, in that she accepts that her father is useless. It upsets me more than it does her to be honest!

What made it a bit worse was that at the time her father was all over her brother,but couldn't be bothered with her.

It is up to your exH and her really, all you can do is be there for her. And I wouldn't make excuses for him either, why should you?

Thanks for the advice. My DD and I have had a really rough couple of years - lots going on even aside from the divorce - so I've gone for the counsellor route. I made an appointment today for later in the week. Fingers crossed!

I would agree with Geordie. She is 16, so old enough to contact him herself, and make arrangements.

However he sounds an utter twat to have dumped her like he did, remarried, and not even told her that she has two half-siblings. Unforgiveable in my view.

It is terrible that her grandmother also failed to tell her, and didnt do anything to encourage her son to stay in contact with his daughter.

To be fair, you really cant argue with your daughters logic, because I cant see that she is wrong. He has abandoned her, and it really does look like he doesnt give a shit about her sadly.

I would let her make her own decisions, and I certainly wouldnt push her to build any bridges with him, as he is more than likely to let her down again.

A very very sad situation, and I feel so sorry for your poor daughter. :(

He is indeed an utter twat. Grandma's off the hook though as she was nursing her husband of 63 years through cancer and he sadly died at the end of last year. I can't forgive my ex for the way he's treated my daughter, or for the way he used his own mother when she was having such a tough time herself.

She's seen the counsellor and has really taken to him. I feel sad that I can't sort her out this time, but pleased to have found someone she feels she can trust. Ex is visiting next Sunday (at daughter's request) so that's going to be fun! One day at a time...

And thanks everyone for your support. I've never used a site like this before and am so pleased that I did.

My parents split when I was 16 and it was up to me to arrange contact with my father. And it was always me. He'd never phone or come to visit - I always went to his house to see him. It was the first time I began to realise what my mother had been putting up with all those years, the selfishness, laziness, complete inability to conduct a sensible grown-up relationship, etc. It was a very eye-opening experience for me. I still wound up in therapy a few years later, but it meant I was receptive to the therapist and other family and friends telling me how useless my father was, because I'd seen it for myself. After years of pitying him, thinking he was the good guy being nagged crazy by my mother, I finally saw him for the waste of space he was, which made it far easier when the time came to end contact.

Your daughter is going to hurt through this, but let her see him (if he actually makes it this time), then talk to her like an adult, let her tell you how he makes her feel, have a mature woman-to-woman conversation about his faults, and let her feel like she's reached her own conclusions about him, and not been influenced by you.