DW can't stand DD

[fredthemed]

Not sure what to do. DW is really nasty to 11yr old DD. DD does misbehave. DW thinks DD is exceptionally bad and has "betrayed her trust too many times". DW admitted she would be happier if DD left. She claims she loves DD but evidences this by saying she buys her nice clothes etc. DD said she wants to go far away from her mum. But she doesnt want to leave her younger sister who gets on fine with DW. DD is imo a fairly normal girl with a strong tendency towards play and fun and games and a hatred of hard work. DW is very strict about work and hates mindless and messy play. I get on ok with DW but find it very difficult living with the shouting and crying. DW things she has done nothing wrong and anyone would act the same as her. She would never accept parenting advice or therapy.

Maybe not if it's food that is being stolen and eaten?

If your 11 year old is taking food, they're bloody hungry.

Sorry posted too early. If you can't bring yourself to do this alone then get some therapy with the hope the therapist helps you to find a backbone.

I too hope it's a troll but there are plenty of enabling parents out there.

Definitely not "completely unrealistic" *advice.

I also said in my second paragraph that he needs to protect his children.

Just saying "He needs to do more" will not get him to do more if he's "spineless".

Like a pp said, if I knew them, I'd be reporting them myself.

It’s a vicious cycle that needs breaking. Your dw is nasty to your child as she lies etc, but that gets worse because of your wife’s response.

Your dd needs better treatment and a feeling of being loved by your wife. If Dw can’t or won’t change her behaviour long term, then the only way to protect your dd is to leave.

Not all DCs that take food are hungry. Not all adults that remove food are abusive. There are hundreds of threads on here with parents removing food because DCs are refusing to eat it or DCs have binged on snacks then aren't hungry etc.

Oh get away with you.

Just read the thread title.
No child deserves to live with a parent who "can't stand them."
Are you seriously suggesting the the child is just inherently evil, & the mother is responding to that in ways that can't be helped?
Like screaming at her, unfavourable comparisons, getting the older child to gang up with the mother against the younger, the mother saying she wants her 11 year old to leave?

Your wife frankly sounds like an abusive cunt. Withholding food? Really?

She either needs to see a GP and get therapy for her issues or you divorce and take both kids with you.

Protect your children ffs.

Clearly he is. His wife punishes one of the children by denying her food.
Screams at her, hates her, wants her taken away from the family home.
What advocating & protection has he done so far, if his wife's still abusing their child?

Exactly

but he isn’t going to report to SS is he?!

He’s a failure of a parent and utterly spineless

So literally zero chance of him going to social services if he can’t even step in to cook dinner for his child when her mother doesn’t

Do you think the wife's 'consequences' are acceptable?
Fuck me, even if this is a troll the apologists for the mother's shitty behaviour are just as bad!

Agreed

but in this scenario (which we are discussing), it is a reasonable assumption that it is done in anger with the intention to deprive

No. I'm saying that the OP may have omitted important details, so that the portrayal of the situation is skewed.

I'm saying that maybe there were difficulties with the child, maybe slowly, over time, over years, the mother has reached her wits' end, maybe she cries to herself about how things have gotten out of control and how she can't cope. Maybe she shouts at OP rather than at the child, as people have assumed, because maybe OP is a parent who is soft and undermines his wife when it comes to the children and their discipline, and maybe that has slowly caused problems with the child. Maybe one or two added details or omitted details have turned OP's reality of "my wife can't cope and I'm not exactly helping" into a story for us, for effect, of "oh and did I mention she doesn't feed the kid sometimes".

Somebody will say that it's a lot of "maybe"s. Yes, because I don't know them. I'm as unsure of the situation as you lot who are also making your own assumptions based on the limited information OP has given us.

I'm sure we all know people who have a child they just keep having problems with, and as far as we know the parent is doing all they can but they simply cannot get things under control. For all we know, it could be that kind of situation, which is what I meant when I said maybe the lying and stealing came first. Okay, these behaviours will be driven by something going on at home, but not necessarily the abusive mother OP has told us about.

i think this probably needs specialist help. Could you speak to a GP?

What is DD like at school? Lying, cheating and stealing are problematic behaviours if they spill out into school or adult work life. However they could be a reaction to dislike of certain things. In adults such behaviour is seen as a moral issue and anti-social - perhaps the DW views it in those terms. But children need to be treated differently. Put your kids first and seek out help gp, teacher, nurse, social services.

@uhOhOP

But your “logic” could be applied to every single theses ever started on an anonymous chat forum.

Perhaps online chat forums aren’t for you if you’re going to respond with “well perhaps there’s more to this” to every thread 😂

*Somebody will say that it's a lot of "maybe"s.

Somebody?

Everybody more like!

DW says to me is it ok to lie, to cheat, to steal all the time? Its true she does these things despite me asking her not too

Maybe she's behaving like that because she's unhappy?
And what child wouldn't be unhappy, if their parent's dislike of them is so obvious?
Your poor, poor child.

Just to add that if I knew your family IRL and I knew that meals were being held as punishment, I'd be contacting SS.

I think you all need some therapy, whether you continue as a family unit or not.

So you can't even tell that the OP and the two or three replies since are strangely written and actually feel as though things aren't adding up? Well, you aren't alone, anyway. The majority of people here have fallen for this. It's got you all nice and riled up, just as OP intended.

Tbh @uhOhOP I kind of agree with you. The posts don't add up.

Yes it's very possible that the mother is truly abusing her child and if this is the case then the OP must do everything he can to protect his daughter.

But equally I can see how situations can be twisted and manipulated to make them seem something they are not.

I'd be reporting you and your wife to ss if I knew you, I don't care how "rarely" your wife refused to feed your child but starving a child as punishment?? Are you really standing by and allowing this to happen? You are part of the abuse if you aren't stepping in. This is awful, what am I reading?

Break up and remove your children from this woman's care.

You've read an awful lot between those lines, haven't you? OP doesn't say his wife screams at the child, just to be clear. You've misremembered that, unsurprisingly.

Sometimes you just have to be considered the Bad Guy and not let that stop you doing what you know to be right, which is protecting your youngest DD from a mother who wants her out of the house and is encouraging the elder sister to be unkind to her to.
Of course DDs behaviour is not what it should be, she's being treated badly
Its up to you to help her.

DW says to me is it ok to lie, to cheat, to steal all the time? Its true she does these things despite me asking her not too

Sounds like your wife is at the end of her tether with DD’s behaviour and that DD needs some strong parenting. At 11 she’s more than old enough to know that lying and stealing is wrong.

What have you done to try and improve your DD’s behaviour?

It's got you all nice and riled up, just as OP intended.

That's a nasty way to refer to posts that include people taking about their own abusive childhoods