Husband doesn't speak to daughter directly

[bluebell2017]

Dd1 started uni a week ago. During this time, we have texted each other several times a day, and had a couple of phone calls. Her younger siblings have been talking to her through social media.
Today, dh asked if I had any "news" about dd1. I replied along the lines of "she seems to be enjoying herself. Why - haven't you spoken to her?".
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His response ran along the lines that I had very strange ideas about how families operate, and that it is pretty much my job to talk to the children and pass on their news to him and he didn't see the point of both us doing this "job". My response was that I thought it was normal for a father to drop a few texts to their daughter when it was their first real time away from home. But apparently I am wrong and "weird" according to him.
I tried to explain that I feel uncomfortable just passing on news about dd1 to him (and the other children, for that matter) when he could just as easily ask them things himself. To me, because his interaction with the children is minimal, it feels almost akin to gossip when I talk to him about things that have been doing. Maybe that is a strange way to feel?
Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts or advice? Children are 18, 13and 10, if that makes any difference. Dh thinks I turn the children against him, but I really don't think that's true.
He is currently sulking in the next room. May or may not be able to add more later, depending how the afternoon goes. Thanks.

One of my sons describes this behaviour as 'The Moving Finger'. Pointing the finger of blame at anyone ecept themselves.

My dad was a great communicator despite an Horrendous childhood (with a capital H). Always chatty and welcoming.

My sons both communicate a lot. We have group and individual WhatsApp pages and one son rings me most days from Uni and we watch TV whilst chatting about it. The other rings me less often but some of that is due to his Autism.

So really age, childhood, means and opportunity are not barriers. If men wanted to keep in touch they would. They just don't want to. They will regret it when they are lonely and living alone.

You're definitely not the one with the problem.

Use his voice back at him. Explain in a very cold and calm voice that it is he who needs to be in touch with his children if he wishes to hear how they are doing.

And LTB. It doesn't sound as if staying together for the sake of the kids is a thing you need to concern yourself with.

My dad’s not much of a one for calling or texting. My mum is in touch almost daily. But DF and I have always been good buddies and share a love of hiking and good beer. I’d be devastated if he didn’t want to spend time with me.

Bluebell - its not you its him. Please believe this.
He is very good, your H, at tying you up in knots and making you out to be totally unreasonable. What he is doing here is also projecting his own self onto you, this is all the abusive man's MO.

Abusive men try and be plausible to those in the outside world but I would think Bluebell that one or two of your own friends have their own private based suspicions about your H.

But if he goes out 4-5 times a week can't you call your friend back then?

I am planning on calling back once he's out. Just saying that I feel a bit crap about lying to one of my closest friends because I didn't feel able to chat with dh being around. Which I thought wasn't a normal way to feel.

Bluebell have a read up about narcissistic personality disorder, some of the things you've said sound awfully like my ex.

I never speak to my Dad unless I see him. It hasn't affected our relationship. It is just what he is like. He is not much of a chatter.

I do get why he says that. Calling for a chat and catch up is something that women did more than me.

I would find it weird if my parents didn't talk to each other so I don't get the gossip thing. I don't want to spend 30 mins talking to my mum and then 30 mins the following day telling my dad the same thing when my mum can pass the message on. That is inefficient. Maybe I'm still stuck in the mindset from when communication was more expensive though.

But he's supposed to be interested in what they're interested in, not the other way around!

Does he have an inflated ego? Does he like to be in control? Do you feel like he wouldn't be delighted if you achieved highly? Does he have a curiously low self-esteem that would sit oddly with also thinking he's god of everything?

Why are you bringing DD into this at all? You say you are worried for their relationship. Are you? Really and truly, is that the reason? Are you not just using that as an example of how bad he is, and to give more ammo to leave him? Be careful you don't drag the kids into your rows.
If your DD wanted anymore from him she would be texting him herself. Sounds like she's nearly a grown woman now. Leave them to it. A lot of mothers would be the main communicator with the kids. That's the way it is in our house. They have a good relationship with their Dad it's just different to my relationship with them.

It reads as though he sees himself as the Big Boss. You are the Supervisor who works beneath him, and the children are the lowest-ranked employees. He sees it as your role to do all the supervising and managing and then report back to him on anything that might be relevant to him.

He really doesn't view you as a partnership at all, does he?

I think the Big Boss sums it up pretty well.
Dh sometimes asks my opinion about big decisions. If I disagree with him, he will usually go ahead and do what he wants, anyway. And if I disagree, the 8mplication is always made pretty clear that I have a different opinion be a use I am a bit thick and if only he explains enough, I will come to understand.

He sounds like a right dullard!

It all sounds "too little too late" the time to tackle his complete lack of effort and willingness to spend time with you and HIS kids was when you had them - hell before you had them!

And it's always bloody cyclists that are like this! Why? What's that about? (And I have a few friends with cycling mad husbands BUT they also spend quality time with their wives and kids and have good relationships with them).

With all the time he spends cycling AND chatting with everyone BUT his kids AND another hobby I can't help but wonder if he actually wanted a family.

Basically he's been an all but absent husband and father, I'm truly shocked you're still with him I wouldn't put up with any of that nonsense at all - especially when you had 3 young DC at one point.

Presumably all the graft of family life was left to you too?

Was dc1 planned? It's no excuse for his behaviour but might go some way to explaining it a little. Although ultimately if that was an issue he's still chosen to stay with you, to marry you to have 2 more DC and supposedly plan to raise that family together - instead he sounds little more than a lodger

I too am thinking npd. Very odd behaviour.

What do your friends think of him?

I hate the fact he'll text friends and chat on the phone to his mum but won't do either for his own daughter.

That is also my dad all over. Unfortunately my mum passed away when I was 28 (10 years ago) and my dad and I now have little/no relationship. I think dad feels bad about this but we have no short hand. We just don't know how to communicate. We aren't horrible to each other it's just...odd, I don't know!

I have made my DH promise to make sure he maintains a relationship with our children. That he gets to know them as people; as the adults they will become. Because it's a pretty shitty feeling that my dad basically lost all interest in conversing with me once I ceased being "cute". Prob around 10/11. He'd talk to me but yeah mum was the one who was interested. And now she's gone.

Not saying anything will happen to you! But just imagine. He needs to sort this out.

The more you post, the more obvious it becomes that he is emotionally abusive.

Signs of emotional abuse
The Abuser Profiles

Please call Women’s Aid for advice and support. Read “Why does he do that?” by Lundy Bancroft. Consider getting counselling (for yourself - not couples counselling) and/or doing the Freedom Programme.

Ultimately you need to lawyer up and LTB.

I wondered for a moment whether my mother had time-travelled from the early 2000s to write this.

My parents eventually divorced when my sibling and I were in our 20s. Contact with my father was dutiful and awkward for a decade after that, because he'd never bothered to have much of a relationship with us. I get on better with him now because he's very lonely and wants to be closer to my DC than he was to his own kids. He's seen his other grandchild for about two hours in six months. He's still incapable of seeing his own role in this - it's all my sibling's DP's fault for being evil and manipulative, of course.

All the children were planned. He was quite a good dad to dd1 at first, although in retrospect he started to lose interested she was around 3 years old. I guess I was the one wanting more children. I thought dh did too, at the time, but looking back I think he probably wasn't very interested.

He never goes to parents evenings or anything like that. Last Christmas I realised I had been attending school activities or Christmas services for 14 years straight. 15 if you count preschool. Dh has never attended. Not once. Usually dd1 goes with me to watch her siblings if they are ever in a show or anything because she feels bad for them that their dad never goes.

I doubt he could name their friends or teachers or anything like that.

But It's apparently my fault that there is basically no communication at all between him and dd1.

I was very close to my father but once I left home for uni and phoned home it was ‘Hello darling, how are you, I’ll get your mother’ . She was the official news conduit and enjoyed chatting on the phone, whereas he didn’t - he loved to talk in person when I visited, though, and we stayed very close.

When our girls went away to uni, I was the main point of contact and organiser but that was how it was their whole upbringing as he travelled hugely on business. I am still more in contact with them on family organisation matters, or on day to day chatter or personal matters , but he will have separate communication with them about common interest sports for one of them or music for the other, or relevant career items for both of them. He is more comfortable being subject specific but doesn’t mean he is not an involved and caring father.

Bluebell he does sound really disengaged from them their whole lives.

People's own actions and reactions are nobody's responsibility but their own.

I wish this was universally accepted.

A guy who went through the holocaust once said that. If he can own his own reactions to torture on an unthinkable scale, none of the rest of us have any excuses.

He is responsible for his relationship or otherwise with his children. End of story.

“He is out maybe 4 or 5 nights per week and has been ever since dd1 was a baby.”

“He was quite a good dad to dd1 at first”

Doesn’t sound like it!

Good point.

Maybe better to say that he at least showed a bit of interest at first and seemed to enjoy spending time with her.