DD and DP...problem

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Hi

I have posted before about my tricky relationship with DP, but this morning things took a turn for the worse in his relationship with both DD and I.

DD was supposed to go out with him today (school hols) while I went to work but didn't want to and was really crying and sobbing. It was my idea that she went with him and I tried to encourage her. He was getting annoyed by her crying and saying he had to go and would be late and it was all my fault and I had to hurry her up and she just wanted to stay and play with her friends but she told me it was because she doesn't like going out with him. I told him that he should ask himself why she had said that (it's because he is very bossy to her and tells her off in general for crying ) but he said it was my fault for trying to drive them apart . I said why don't you go and talk to her kindly and encourage her to go with you and he tried but it didn't work so he just stormed out and he's not answering texts, I haven't tried to actually phone him.

what on earth can I do? He is very sensitive about his relationship with her as she is never usually keen to go out with him without me, what else can I say except that he should ask himself why that is?

thanks in advance for your wise words of advice ...

Why did you leave her with him? (No judgement just wondering about your option)

OP, are you sure there's not more going on here. And if you're sure, how are you so sure?

I feel so sorry for you both :(

hello there

I have my wi-fi back now so can be a bit better at typing longer replies

apparently I cried as a baby when I was put in my father's arms, I just knew he didn't like me much even then

and I was proved right as time went on

it's a very damaging lesson to realise as a young girl your own father sees you as an inconvenience (no major physical or sexual abuse here, "just" a low-level dis-satisfaction with me...and later as I grew up a peculiar kind of jealousy of me)

the choices I made in my teenage years are a damning indictment of my formative years wrt looking for male approval (but let's draw a veil over that)

OP, you shouldn't be colluding with your 7yo daughter to micro-manage your husband's attitude towards her

she is just a child, she shouldn't have that responsibility

Your daughter is being immotianlly and psychologically abused.

You are aiding this abuse, you are putting your daughter in to the hands of an abuser.

Why can't you see that is wrong?

OP, the clock is ticking on the amount of time you have to make things OK for your daughter and save your relationship with her. It doesn't matter what his problems are or what his childhood was like. You shouldn't be prolonging her distress by keeping her in this situation. You have to act quickly to stop more emotional damage to her.

Incidentally, my father had an abusive father. My DF survived, and is a wonderful man who did not go on to perpetuate the cycle. It is not an inevitability. Don't let the fact that you feel sorry for what happened to your DP as a child stop you from acting to protect your daughter.

I wonder when parents who enable the abuse of their children actually leave to stop the damage, or do they just ask questions and then ignore it?

Flaming the OP is unlikely to help.

OP, sorry things aren't good, hope you follow up on some of the suggestions on this thread.

OP your thread is quite painful to read for me. My stepdad (so slightly different set up) didnt like me. He married my mum when I was 11 and a year later stopped acknowledging me. He wouldnt speak to me, involve me in family time. He would come in from work and we would be sat round the table. He would say hi to mum, my brother and ignore me completely. I became very isolated and very unhappy. Every time I told my mum how unhappy I was she told me that she had "tried to talk to him" and would say "what more can I do?". I
I saw this as her allowing him to continue to isolate me and to this day cannot forgive her. I was a child and my mum did nothing to protect me. I became ill with the strain or unhappiness that the situation put on me. I was underweight, had erratic periods, was physically sick every morning and sometimes during the day and would lay on my bed and sob whenever they were out.

I went on to have dysfunctional relationships with males in my late teens, didnt have boundaries where relationships were concerned and have been in several abusive situations and one very abusive relationship. I have been damaged by my stepdad and by my mums actions and I now cant have a relationship with her. There is SO MUCH anger and resentment there that i cannot physically stand to be in the same room as her and am determined that my DC will NEVER have a relationship with her.

My situation is far more extreme because my mum never started a thread like you have, never admitted there was a problem and continued to fail me throughout my entire teenage years. She had always been strict but in the later years became abusive herself which I now suspect had something to do with her own endurance of my step-dads abusive nature.

I can remember word for word the conversation where I first begged my mum to listen to me, to protect me, to leave him. I remember it like it happened five minutes ago. Ive struggled for years to be able to even talk about the pain that I carry from watching my mum do nothing. IME of abusive people, an experience which sadly includes several examples, counselling etc doesnt work and esp doesnt work if you remain in the relationship while they try and access the counselling because by still being there you are still enabling their behaviour.

Ive spent since this time last year trying everything under the sun to get my very abusive ex to access help for the abuse he suffered which I knew was responsible for his behaviour. It took me enduring horrific escalations of abuse to understand that he wasnt going to change and that by staying with him I was allowing the abuse to continue. Its sad that he suffered as a child but I had to prioritise my DD and myself. You have to take the stance that he will only change when he wants to change and issuing ultimatums rarely provides a self-motivated reason for change. He will do the minimum to satisfy you and then will stop. Maybe in years down the line he will realise for himself and access help, and in a way you need to give him that chance by walking away.

You say you dont want to go into a refuge (although I would ask you to consider having been in two lovely one myself) but WA can offer alternative options and a wealth of advice which I would urge you to access. Financially they can advise you - just give them a call. Think about everything we're telling you but dont think too long. When a child knows a situation is "bad" its time to act.

ok I left DD with her Dad because she wanted to stay at home as she was watching sth on tv, it was her choice to stay with him. I just went out to get the car washed and do some shopping and collect a friend of hers who was coming for a sleepover, 1 hour max.

I spoke to him last night, telling him that he is scaring her and making her feel like an inconvenience and an annoyance. He was genuinely upset as he does love her and is very proud of her. I was surprised that he listened to me and took in what I was saying. This morning he made a special point of giving her a kiss and a cuddle and making sure she was ok. After he had left for work, I asked her if she was feeling better now and she said she was.

This is positive I think and means that he is willing to change but just needs help to do so. I know that he loves her.

OP this is, unfortunately, classic behaviour from you. When you get overwhelmed or close to making that big decision you start the "it's not so bad" routine.

He has a lot of work to do. He should leave and do it elsewhere. Then maybe there will be a place for him in this little girl's life.

If you continue to allow the situation, taking scraps of kindness when he throws them, then you're BOTH to blame for this child's unhappiness.

Did you read Twinkle's post? Is that what you want for your dd?

You should be able to go out with no qualms and leave your dd in her father's care

You shouldn't have to help him with the basics of being a father

Too much responsibility for you to constantly police whether he is being nice/nasty. Will you have to ask your daughter how he has been with her every time you are not there ? Does that seem fair on a little girl ? Over time, she will either lie to you because she fears you will split or human nature will kick in and she will use the opportunity to do a bit of shit stirring just because she can. Not a good position to put her in.

One cuddle and kiss has sorted all this ? Really ?

I didn't say one kiss and cuddle had sorted it out, I said it was a start...I will not let her stay in this situation if it does not improve immediately...looking back I think my own family situation was quite similar, my father was rather distant and jealous of the attention (excessive) that my mother gave me...strange how these things are repeated...I just want to give him a chance, if he does not shape up he will be asked to leave

You should be able to go out with no qualms and leave your dd in her father's care

You shouldn't have to help him with the basics of being a father

I absolutely agree, but due to his own abusive childhood and parents he needs help...At least he has accepted that and is making an effort. As I said above, if things do not change to my and my DD's satisfaction, he will be out.

Why don't you make him leave while he gets help? He's an adult SHE is a child who is relying on you to do the right thing.

I know it's difficult but it does seem like you don't want to make the right decisions because they are hard/inconvenient. You'll probably get offended by that but I hope you also take a look at whether its true or not.

I have been asking myself that question all weekend...I am not offended at all.

Would your H accept he needs counselling on his own account, to help prevent him making the same mistakes his own parents made ?

You are not qualified to help him. You are too close to the situation.

Ok back so if you're still questioning it don't you think maybe some distance would be a good thing?

I would say a year at least.

OP you are saying exactly what I said about my ex and Im sorry but you HAVE to chose which one of these two people in your life you are prioritising. It is not safe or healthy for your DD to be in a house with this man if he doesnt access counselling because he will have "good" days and he will have "bad" days. If he DOES access counselling and really gets on board with it (which I doubt) then he will be revisiting painful abusive memories and the emotional fallout from that is something which your DD mustn't be exposed to.

I know its hard when you know that an adult's behaviour is down to something they suffered as a child. That is not your responsibility. You cannot help him while you are still so close. And Im afraid that for a child to actually cry out for help shows they are extremely unhappy. If you dont listen to her now she will always remember that when she begged you to act, you didnt. Get her out of there and then try and help him if thats what you want to do, but protecting your child has to be your priority. Please dont sit back and um and ahh and think "next time something happens Ill act" because this little girl needs you, her mother, to act now.

I really want you to carefully re-read my earlier post.

Also children that were abused (as your DP was) grow up with very inbuilt learned behaviours that sometimes make them behave in an abusive way. It takes huge amounts of therapy to even begin to reverse behaviours that have been ingrained since childhood. Its like you having to learn that crying when you are sad, or shouting when you are angry are not just things you must control, but inbuilt responses that need to be replaced with a different emotion ... and how bloody difficult does that sound?

Your DP would need to first work through all the pain and hurt and issues he has by revisiting all the abuse he suffered. He would then need to explore all the issues thats led to through his teens and into childhood. He would then need to explore and understand how thats affected his ability to empathise and form relationships. Then he would need to look at how he reacts emotionally in a variety of situations and begin to understand why those reactions are wrong and harmful. Then he would need to do CBT to attempt to change the way that he reacts.

This amount of re-programming is so vast and so complex that very few men who have abusive traits ever managed to commit to so much therapy or want to undergo therapy which is horrifically traumatic. It takes years to reach a point where they are even beginning to make progress.

You cannot honestly expect him, a man who has suffered and been damaged, to just want to change and then stop these behaviours? They are the same natural responses to him, as crying when sad is to you, and they are learned behaviours which he has been conditioned to have since childhood.

OP you cannot fix this man. You will never be able to fix this man. You can either bury your head and keep plugging away at a relationship which is harming everyone concerned or you can walk away and prevent your daughter from learning these same behaviours.

I am damaged and have some weird emotional responses to things because I was exposed to abuse at a time (childhood) when i was learning how people react from watching my parents. If you leave DD in this environment then you are exposing her to the same things which have caused your DP to be this way himself and she will be affected in how she herself forms relationships and how she empathises and responds emotionally to situations and people. I have had and still need huge amounts of therapy because of the environment I grew up in. You dont want that for her.

Twinkle thanks for your post. It's very sad to read how your life is still affected by your unhappy childhood and the very best of luck with getting over it via therapy.

I think I will show my partner your post if you don't mind.

BTF, I would just like to say I admire the way you are taking some of the posts that vilify your partner

it's a hard thing to take, and a lesser person would have run away screaming

My mother never listened, or she might have listened but she never heard

thanks HHMF, believe me I know how f*ed up he is, I am totally ashamed that I didn't see until now how much our DD has also been affected...

I get that. But now you do....

indeed.

OP Im happy for you to show your partner any of my posts which you feel you would like to show him.

Im bowing out of this thread now. I hope that you can take some action which prevents your DD from having to endure anymore unhappiness.

FWIW Im not unhappy, Im angry more than anything, to a degree which if Im honest scares me.

Good luck x

thanks Twinkle for your honesty and advice x