Exhausted and dont know what else to try

[cls77]

Hi all, been reading on here for most of the day trying to find a way out of the clouds I am currently in. My marriage ended last August after 15 years together (6 married) and we have a DD who is 11. Despite me trying my hardest, and believing that marriage is a constant work in progress, there was only me in it really. My DH was a compulsive liar who constantly smoked marijuana, denied and denied and denied it and the breaking point was a total outburst from him in front of my family and our daughter whilst travelling on holiday (I realised due to the fact that he wouldnt have any for a few days) I asked him to leave, and he moved back to his mums, I honestly thought we would again work through it, until the lying made me look further into things, more than I ever had before, and checked his phone bill to find an overwhelming amount of calls and texts to a female "friend" all of which he said was "helping him through trying to stop his addiction", um yeah ok?!! This was the last straw for me, and there was no going back. The last 11 months have been really hard, at times darker than I thought they ever would be, but overwhelmingly the thing I am struggling the most with, is his total disregard for our DD. He sees her on average 6hrs every three weeks, and only speaks/texts her a couple of times between visits. She seems to enjoy time with him at the time, but soon after returning she vows never to see him again, and she rarely answers her phone to him or even has it on. I have tried so much to encourage her to speak to him, text him, reply, but have realised that I have done enough of this, and feel I should just take a step back, but this feels wrong. Especially given the fact the Ex feels I poison her against him, and that she "has no chance with you as a mother" Yes I work full time and as a result she has to go to after school club on 4 days a week, but I love her dearly and am only trying to keep my head above water for the sake of her future.
The latest concern which has led me to look on here is that he has a new partner, one that my friend told me about (cheers for that, but Id rather not know!) and I discussed with him that I knew, and could he please speak to me when he felt it may be going somewhere as we would need to organise how and when to tell our DD, to which he agreed. The next visit (two Saturdays ago) he collected her as planned, then proceeded to tell our DD that he had a new girlfriend, explained that she had two children (my daughter always wanted siblings, but Ex didnt want kids!) and then took her to her house for the afternoon to spend time with them. DD was reasonably happy on her return, and who wouldnt be spending time having water fights etc with new "friends" - but has since been extremely quiet/angry/emotional and generally I dont know what to do/say to help her :(
Sorry such a long post............

I find acknowledging their feelings is a good place to start... e.g. 'you seem quiet/angry/emotional. If you want to talk about anything, I'm willing to listen'. Then resist the temptation to keep pushing but wait. If I was your DD I'd be seriously hacked off that 'Daddy' can't be arsed to spend five minutes with her but will happily spend afternoons with the new partner's children. She'll feel like she's been replaced. He sounds like a prize knob...

Cogito thanks for the reply, yes he is a prize knob! and that's being polite. It makes me so sad when he treats her like this too. I will try your suggestions though, thanks.

Do you think this thread would be better on the single parent area? If so how do I do that?! Only joined today

I think you can report your own thread, select 'other reason' and write a short request to have it moved.

Your DD has had a lot of changes to cope with in a very short space of time. Being age 11 I don't know if she's in Y6 did her SATS this year, but some kids find that quite tough all by itself. Of course you want her to be happy and not have any of these problems at all but, as that's not going to happen, you'll have to play it by ear. On the one hand, build her confidence, give her lots of attention and listen when she wants to talk. On the other, actively demonstrate to her that you're 100% on her side with the Dad business by standing up to him ... same as you would with anyone else who was making her life miserable. 'Bad mouthing' is discouraged but, if you think he's a prize knob and so does she, you're fully entitled to say so.

Your DD is processing it all.
My DS seems fine most of the time, then comes out with questions.

All you can do is keep th doors of communication open.
Allow her to talk about her worries, including about her dad, with you, and try to be neutral.

I reassure DS as much as possible, but don't sugar coat it and allow him to decide whether to talk to his dad or not. He's 8.

Your DD, at 11 is almost allowed to decide on that.

And ignore any of his criticism.
My exH actually raises a smile when he criticises me.

Cogito - Yes she had her Sats this year, starts secondary in September - her dad didnt even want to come with us to look at prospective schools, he hasnt taken any interest in what school she is going to and doesnt even know the name!
Lweji - DD is the same, randomly comes out with questions or gets really upet - usually at bedtime. She goes between wanting to see him and dreading seeing him as he "is always on his phone" when he has her. He has taken her to an indoor climbing centre recently, but he is out of work again so DD knows he wont be able to do this as much anymore (which was once a month before)

This was the love of my life, the person I should have got old with. And he's just forgotten about both of us (I know I shouldnt care about my side of it, but I do :( ) I cant believe he can treat her like that, or me in front of her. She read one of his messages to me the other day and it really upset me (she knows not to look at my texts for that reason, I tell her its private) he was being abusive as usual, and it really upset her that she wanted to ask him why he said it, it took me ages to calm her down to not ring him, I said thats just how daddy talks to me sometimes and why I am not with him :(

I think you and DD have to decide between you that Dad is basically history and you're going to make a happier, better, more interesting, fun life between you than you could have done with him letting the side down. Not suggesting you burden her with grown-up matters (it's a shame she saw that abusive text... do you keep a record of this stuff?) or try to be her best friend but it might help to treat her in a more mature way, do things together as 'women', involving her in household decisions and being more of a partnership than just Mum and DD. I'm a lone parent to DS and we've always taken the attitude that we have to work as a team, it's 'us vs the rest of the world' and we always have each other's backs when the chips are down. He seems to respond well to that. Maybe she would?

Thats a lovely idea Cogito! Made me well up that did :) thankyou so much for the advice x
Yes I do keep the texts, not sure why, my friend always deletes everything once shes read it, whereas I tend to keep things. Do you think it would be better to just get rid?

of the texts lol

From what you're describing, there may come a point where DD doesn't want to have so much contact. If your ex objects, it may help your/her argument if you can point to this kind of verbal abuse as a contributing factor. I've no idea how you keep old text messages in a practical sense... some kind of back-up on the computer perhaps?.... but you never know when this kind of evidence can come in handy.

Thanks Cogito :)