Is this ok or not?

[feelingpositivemum]

I have posted ages ago but would like to ask you for some advice as I'm very confused.

History is that I am divorced from controlling exH for 2 years and the DC's spend more than half their time with me and then the rest with exH. He is quite controlling with them but I try and give them perspective when they are with me to help them when with him if you see what I mean.

Anyway, older two DC's, 13 and 15 are becoming more able to put their foot down about things when they are with him and there was an incident last week when they fell out with him over something they felt they didn't want to do, he insisted and they continued to refuse and succeeded. I was upset about this as my DD1 kept texting me with updates as to how the evening was going! I was letting her know that she was right to tell him if she wasn't comfortable but not slating him at all (I try and am successful at not doing that) What upset me more was then DD1 and DS1 were told they musn't tell me what goes on in his house, 'what goes on between these 4 walls remains between these 4 walls'.

This has upset me as I feel it is so wrong but am I overreacting due to my history with him?

Please help me put this into perspective. I have told DD1 that she should always be able to talk to me, and it is wrong to be banned from telling me things, especially if they are upsetting. Interestingly, she didn't seem upset from the argument as she said she knew she was right. Oh to have that confidence.

What if he continues saying this and tells DD2 and DS2 not to tell me things. I would hate that they have to put up with his behaviour and keep it a secret. Or does he have a point?

I will be flitting in and out of post as DC's are here and loitering!

Yes it's wrong. Children shouldn't be asked to keep their parents secrets.

If he's abusive, he's likely to be abusive to your dcs. Do they have to see him?

You are not overreacting at all.

He is controlling them in the way that he controlled you. You've done absolutely the right thing in telling your children that they can talk to you and that they are banned from telling you nothing at all.

What an utter wanker - and good on your children for having the confidence to stand up to him.

Thanks for your assurances, although I'm not sure where to go from here. My instincts are to tell him not to say it again, but then the DC's will think I have broken their trust.

They see him because he is better with them (mostly) and they want to see him. I thought that if it went to court, and he would if I reduced access, he would be given similar amounts of contact as it is difficult to prove emotional abuse.

My thoughts were that I would gradually introduce the idea that they don't have to see him. My DD1 was very ill last year and chose not to see him for 4 months so she goes now presumably at her free will.

I think they would miss him terribly if they didn't see him so much but then how do you ask them without coming across as divisive. Very hard! Its that balance between validating their feelings, empowering them to stand up for themselves and not slating their Dad.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

Is this a voluntary arrangement you have with him or has contact been decreed by a Court?

Your older 2 dc are of an age where they can decide for themselves whether they wish to see him and it sounds as if they may soon vote with their feet.

How will you feel about your younger dc not having the protection of their older siblings when they stay with him?

I know and I think that is what is holding me back from saying to the older two that they don't need to go. It is a voluntary arrangement. I would never have taken it to court as I'm too scared to challenge him and I doubt myself as to how bad it was.

I am in denial I think so I am not addressing it. I got out but they haven't. But they seem happy going and the younger dc chat happily about their time with him. He definitely isn't anywhere near as bad with them, I was the one that was out to get him all the time apparently, he does adore the dc and will check himself re his controlling ways.

Or maybe he is bad and I'm not there to see it.

I am going to have a chat to DS1, who is 13 to talk to him about his thoughts of last week.

He is completely out of order, but your DCs are too grown up and too sensible to be cowed into going along with that. Of course they can talk to you if they want to about things that have happened to them, wherever they happened. He's trying to insist because he can see they are slipping out of his control and he wants to regain his grip. He won't. They won't let him and you won't let him.

Maybe your older Dc are still going because they want to protect the younger DC?

I think you have handled the situation very well and re enforcing honesty and openess is the way to move forward.

So your DCs were in their fathers care, refusing to do what he asked them to do and you supported them by text. Without knowing if what he was asking was going to damage them it's difficult to respond. However I'm going to assume that it wasn't a totally unreasonable suggestion (apologies if I've missed an explanation).

How would you feel if whilst the children (which they are) were with you, their father supported them in being disobedient to you? Children of seperated parents can play each of against the other, sometimes the only reward is the attention of both parents.

I hope that you can get this sorted.

As I was reading through this, I was thinking exactly what pandy has posted.

A controlling parent is also not the same as a controlling husband. Husband and wife should be an equal partnership, but a parents relationship with their children is completely different, and to a certain extent yes, a parent should be reasonably controlling, not their best mate.

And as said above, if you were having a disagreement with your kids, how would you feel if it was being relayed back to him every few minutes by text? and you found he was supporting the kids rather than backing you up?

I do understand what you are saying and I have also thought of that. I wasn't telling them to disagree with him, I just said you must do what makes you feel comfortable and only you know what that is.

The actual argument was that he had arranged for a photographer to come and photograph them eating their tea as she was doing a research project. He didn't know this person, she had put a flyer through the door. Mealtimes are hideous in his house, very very stressful.

So, not the end of the world. They had told me about it before and I had just said that it was up to them presumably, they should do it if they didn't mind but if they did they had to talk to him. (Slightly stressed as DD1 has just recovered from a year of anorexia, 8 mths in an ED clinic so did feel that it was not really a good idea from that perspective)

So after a lot of thought, I don't think I was winding the DC up to disagree, I was just responding to her texts and in fact told her that only she knew how strongly she felt about doing it or not. If she didn't feel that strongly then do it. I didn't ever say, don't do it! Just that she must listen to herself. In fact, my DS1 who I wasn't in text contact with was the one who was the most vehement that he wasn't doing it. I found that out later.

It is so difficult to get a balance. I don't want to interfere but equally they need a voice, and need to know its ok to say no, something he's not good at allowing.

Having read your last post, I think that you need to talk to him about this situation. Your children were obviously unhappy for the situation, and you are right, they do need a voice.

Based on your DD's illness and what your XH was requesting, on that basis alone he sounds like an utter dick. I wouldn't want some random person coming to photograph me eating my tea, and I'm not recovering from an eating disorder.

Oh dear! Can you get a Doctor or someone to speak to him? I know as part of my friend's daughter's treatment for Anorexia the family had to undergo family counselling. I really think you may need to seek medical advice here, as I am not sure that contact with her father is good for her, at this level, even if she doesn't object.

I would normally say that undermining the other parent is not the way to go.

But getting someone in to photograph an anorexic girl having her dinner? Wtf was he thinking of? Has he no idea what she has been through? Why has he got anything to do with this photographer and research project?

I think he needs to be more clued up about the emotional support that your daughter needs to get through her illness. He was wrong to tell the children to keep secrets from you.

He has had lots of medical people speak to him! Last year, she was an inpatient for 8 months and we had family therapy but had to have it separately as she wouldn't have anything to do with him. On one occasion they thought it would be a good idea if I sat in on one of his sessions and told him how his behaviour affected everyone, (like I hadn't before!)

It was quite possibly one of the worst days of my life and I have never felt so stressed afterwards. He sat there looking woebegone and confused, whilst I wept and pleaded with him to consider his behaviour as our DD was starving herself to death and the four professionals sat there, 3 behind a mirror saying 'there seems to be a lot of emotion in the room' and 'Ex DH is looking very quiet, shocked and sad'. I walked out in the end - less professional I know! On the back of that, he thinks its a good idea to get a photographer in without asking them and then going ballistic when they refuse. He has now rewritten last year as she refused to see anyone but me.

On a positive note, the ED clinic gave my DD a very powerful voice that she uses all the time now, as you can see. I worry less for her than the others really. She is doing brilliantly by the way, we think about last year less and less and she eats all the time, typical teenager!

Katandkit, she put a flyer through the door. He loves an audience you see.

But why does he need to get a photographer in at all? What is the point of it? Why upset the kids. If they don't want to do it then why doesn't he just say, ok fair enough we won't do it.

I am sure it must be awfully tough to have a child with a psychiatric illness like anorexia, perhaps he is in some sort of denial about the whole thing. But that isn't going to help anyone.

I'm glad your daughter has recovered well. I would give her the option of staying away from him for the time being if he is stressing her out like this.

He wanted to give the photographer a break. They are doing a degree and needed the photos for a study they are doing. He didn't know her though, she just targeted the area. It doesn't make sense really. He just forgot to ask the DC for their permission, it wouldn't have entered his head. They are just DC you see. He is the Dad.

So he put some random photographer above the wishes of his children. Not thinking how upsetting it might be for one of them in particular? And he decided to start a massive row over it rather than just accepting they didn't want to do it and saying no to the photographer.
Is he always such a massive cock?

Despite the issue that caused the resistance from the children I do think you need to remove your children from between the pair of you as parents.

One of your children doesn't want to do something their Father has asked of them so they text their Mum whilst in Dad's care to garnish support. Yes they may be older children but even at that age there is only so much independence they are capable of and old enough to handle. There is also no respect for their Father being shown.

If they have issues with either of you they should discuss it when they get home with the other parent - AFTER giving the parent they have issues with an opportunity to talk it through - then BOTH parents discuss it either over the phone or face to face in between handovers.

A parents relationship should be very separate from the ones they have with their children. Children should not know everything that parents discuss about their kids nor feel they have the same authority as a parent.

So if it were me I would be contacting EXH and 'asking' (incase someone has got the wrong end of the stick and to save face if they have) what the situation is with the photographer because it appears to have caused a few ruffled feathers and taking it from there. Although you have your children more than him you still have to show a united front as parents in front of your children or else this kind of situation will crop up forever more.

I do understand what you are saying and I know it is what I should be doing.

How do you separate showing a united front as parents to the DC with sometimes letting the DC know that their outrage about something is in fact right and he is behaving badly. I really struggle between being united versus validating their feelings that things sometimes just are wrong. If that makes sense.

All parents disagree at some point about things in their children's lives whether they live together or not yet somehow still manage to raise them.

You can still validate your children's feelings without compromising your parenting relationship. Parents do it every day. DH and I occasionally come up against differing opinions on things but we talk it through and get to a mutual understanding, sometimes it is quickly other times it can take more than one conversation!

If your EXH's decision making skills are putting the children's welfare at risk then you need to question whether he should be having them unsupervised. If this is a one off situation where is just made a huge gaff - and we have all made them from time to time in our lives - then just accept that it was an error in judgement and move on from it.

Even if I disagree with my DH's choice of action I would not put up with my children being disrespectful to their Dad OR allow them to think I was 'on their side' thereby giving them power. DH and I lead our family forward until such times as they are old enough to make their own decisions and fly the nest. We love and raise our children but we are more a parent than a friend to them.

DH's EXW and him have the same approach - they discuss things at handover. EXW will tell DH if she has been unhappy about something with one of the stepchildren which has yet to be resolved and vice versa when DH returns the kids. They find it a strain at times because they are not very keen on each other but they DO work at it in order to keep a sense of respect for each other in front of the kids and to show the kids that there are ways to overcome conflict without manipulation.

That has been my experience to date.

Yes well that's all well and good SparkleSoiree, but do you have experience of controlling and difficult people who would take an attempt at 'talking something through in a civilised fashion' as an invitation to manipulate and control in a very uncivilised fashion?

It is a nightmare dealing with an ex partner who cannot/will not talk something through. The DC has had anorexia! He brings in a photographer to photograph her eating!!

I think you are coping very well indeed OP, and I think you should continue to let your children know that if there is something they feel uncomfortable with they have the right to say no.

The days of children not having any rights are long gone thank god. I would like to see Sparkle trying to talk something through with my exH. Now that would be entertaining.

I'll be honest, I don't see how it's possible to present a 'united front' even on a parenting level with someone who is a known manipulator and controller.