ex husbands relationship with dd - im worried, but what do i do?

[watchoutforthatsnail]

I know its all down to control and hes trying to get at me via dd.
Obviously this isnt on. DD is 6 in jan, last night she said that daddy keeps asking her what house she likes the best and when she says both, he just keeps asking until she says his, She said she has to say his or he will get upset and cross.

I think this is appaling. He also keeps going on to her, and me, that when shes 12 she can pick to live where she likes and if one day she decides she doesnt want to come back to mine, then he wont bring her and there is nothing i can do about it.

The fact that he is forces, and is more than often away for 6 - 8 months of the year is apparently not an issue.

I do not think its right that he is saying these things to a 5 year old girl, and i dont know what, if anything i can do about it. or what i can say to dd to try and minimise the impact of this. I called him to talk to him about this last night and he denied it.

He is most likely moving to norrthern scotland in the summer next year, we are in east anglia... contact is going to be difficult, he suggests dd traveling via plane on her own at weekends..... ?????

I dont think thats on either, shes little, too little to do that on a weekend when shes at school.

Depending on who she would be flying with, he could have a problem with that anyway. AFAIK Ryanair and Easyjet won't accept anyone under the age of 14 as an unaccompanied minor, and they don't do an escort service either. I know some airlines do, but he will pay through the nose for it.

Stupid fucker.

well, quite.
I also cannot afford to drive to and from stanstead every other weekend as he says i will have to do.
I cant see how that is even possible, she would be shattered and i would not at all be comftable with her doing that.

FFS why do some men do this? Your DD is being used as a pawn in his game of revenge against you. What a stupid nobber.

Can he not for one minute stop and think of her feelings?

Sorry, can't think of what to say that is helpful, apart from maybe try to equip your DD with some suitable phrases for when he starts trying to play you off against him. Something like "I love living with mummy, but it's fun to come to your house and visit". Would that work? I suspect anything she says would be twisted by him anyway.

I'm angry for you and your DD.

This is the thing. I told him, that if he is doing that ( which he denies) then to stop it, because its basically emotional abuse.
She is 5, and he should not be putting her in a position to feel like she needs to be chosing between her parents.

I do not know why he is doing this, other than to get at me and he is adamant she will live with him when she is older ( again, with him being away 6 months of a year i cant see how that is practical)

I can say things like that to DD, but it doesnt stop him saying it does it, and her feeling awful.
:(

You need to start leaving a "paper trail". Talk to the school, to your GP, to local authority children's services, to start with. The more people that know what's going on, the better.

Ye, what he is doing is very, very wrong, it is child abuse. He will not accept that, because they never do, but if enough outside agencies are supporting you, and dd, then the more you hold on to YOUR sanity, and if it does get seriously heavy at some point in the future...all of this will be on record.

We went through a stage of this happening with my DSD, who lives with us. One thing that seemed to help her deal with it was explaining that mummy said that because she loved DSD & missed her during the week, but that it wasn't DSD's job to make her mummy happy, it was all of our jobs to make DSD happy.

DSD said all along that she liked living with us but didn't want to say so to her mum, and having it reiterated that she didn't have to seemed to help. We couldn't find any way to stop DSD's mum manipulating her like that though She has been consistently outraged that we think it's bad to talk to your child about your feelings

Doesn't understand at all that she is trying to make her feelings DSD's responsibility

Re the travel, no advice from experience there! What an idiot! If he's moving, surely it's his job to travel to see your DD?! I would refuse air travel too. Maybe the reduced contact to distance will lessen the manipulation?

try and get all this recorded in emails so there is a record.

eg email him saying "dd has said xxxx and i jsut wanted to check this was not the case as clearly we both love and want the best for her"

if dd getting v upset take to GP - so it is recorded . gp might not think it mertis referral to therpaist jsut eyt - but you will have it recorded as a concern.