Did your children eventually realise whilst growing up that their NRP (father specifically) was abusive and made their own decision to limit/cut contact?

[DarkModeWarrior]

Just interested in experiences/opinions.
Ex is highly abusive but DD sees him on a limited basis. I have done my utmost to never criticise him and be neutral about him and have supported the contact that she does have with him.
He behaves impeccably with her but to me is an utter vile animal.
I am just wondering if one day she will see the light?
I was at my hair dressers recently and the young lady doing my hair told me how abusive her father was to her mother but at the time she spent a couple of years blaming her mother for breaking up the family. It's only as she got older she realised it was her father and that her mother was just trying to keep her safe. Subsequently she stopped seeing her father.
I am just wondering if anyone else's children have seen the light as they have become teenagers/adults?
I

I am that child.

My biological father was physically abusive to my mum, a convicted criminal etc, but as a person was so lovely and funny…very charismatic.

I loved seeing him as a child, but as an adult I began to see how he was trying to manipulate me and could be mean and I also had the maturity to reflect on what he’d done to my mum. He’d also let me down a lot when he promised he’d visit me (he’d moved to a completely different country when I was 7, so the couple of times a year I got to see him were so precious to me as a child).

Immediately after giving birth to my first child, something in me clicked and I decided there was no way I wanted him to let my child down like he had me and I went ultra low contact.

Thank you for your reply. I think I am just scared of the resentment of my daughter. One of my biggest fears was her one day wanting to live with him, after everything we went through to get away from him. I have kept quiet about it all and not muddied her view of him because I was scared of the resentment from her later down the line.
He has a small amount of contact from the family court but it is likely it may progress as time goes on.. it sounds so awful but I just hope one day she sees it for herself how he really is (I don't mean him physically harming her etc)

My two adult children abhor their father and never see him.
They know what he put me through. To be fair, he was awful to them as well. He once threw them out of the car on the hard shoulder of the M1 and drove off. They were 12 and 10 at the time and had no money.
I got a phone call from a railway station staff member, asking me if I'd pay for them to travel back to London.
They'd managed to find a station and asked him to help them. This was years before mobile phones.

That is so awful :(
You honestly wonder what goes through their minds.

In a word, yes. Around age 13-14 the penny dropped for both. After years of walking on eggshells around him and him being inconsistent with contact, they are both now low contact. It has been tough on their mental health though.

I don't know as I haven't been in that situation. But I don't think you should be hiding the truth from her. it's one thing to be ranting on about him and giving all the details, it's totally another to let her think you "just grew apart" or whatever platitude you roll out. She won't recognise the abusive behaviour if you've been hiding it the entire time.

This is what I worry about also, I don't want her to ever feel rejected or caught in the crossfire by either parent. At the moment his contact is very limited but there is a chance it could progress in the future.. the Court have to be satisfied he won't hurt her again (he hurt her previously)
She enjoys her time with him and inside I am screaming but I don't ever show it.. I guess kids are very forgiving and just want to feel loved by both parents.
I feel horribly guilty for wanting her to realise in the future exactly what he is like.

I was that child, mine was physically and emotionally abuse to mum, emotionally abusive to me. Been 12 years no contact and mum divorced. Best decision ever made

Ex is highly abusive but DD sees him on a limited basis. I have done my utmost to never criticise him and be neutral about him

I know this is the commonly accepted way of doing things but I still resent my mum for doing this. I hated seeing my dad. My mum kept encouraging us to go so that he wouldn't accuse her of alienating us. But it was torture (not physically but emotionally).

If he's an abusive man, why would you want to facilitate contact with your daughter? Why are you hoping she'll see his abusiveness for herself and load the responsibility on her to protect herself from the discomfort of seeing him?

It took me till I was nearly 30yo to break contact with my dad, at least 25y too many, frankly.

If I were you I'd tell my dd really seriously "do you enjoy seeing your dad? You don't have to if you don't want to."

I think it's deeply hypocritical when mums leave an abusive man, protecting themselves, but expect their children to keep seeing him.

Sorry if this is projection. But you've used the word "abusive". I'd do anything to protect my loved ones from abusive people. My mum did what she did out of cowardice and misplaced obligation.

She enjoys her time with him

Just be careful she's not telling you what she thinks you want to hear, because you effectively lie about how abusive he is by being "neutral".

My ex very rarely sees DC. He married again and second wife wouldn't let him see them so on the rare occasions that we did see him, he'd be dressed in work clothes to pretend he was at a meeting 😂

I carried on the charade for years so that DC had some kind of relationship with their DF but once they were old enough to make their own decisions, they didn't see him again. Don't think DC1 even messages him a happy birthday any more. He's got the measure of him and isn't remotely interested in him or his new family.

I agree completely, however it is not so simple when you have been dragged through the family court. It is a boys club, misogyny at it's finest.

Inside I want to tell her exactly what he is like, how insidious he is.. but then I remember she is a 5 year old. I don't want to alienate or brain wash her, but similarly I am extremely scared for the future for her...

I feel stuck between a rock and hard place. x

I agree with this.

There's no need to go on long rants. My mum oscillates between thr occasional explosive rant, then strictly "neutral", pulling us up if we criticised him "you should love him as he's your father". Omfg.

If I were you I'd be objective and factual:

Your father did X. Which is unacceptable because Y. Good husbands/fathers don't do Z. He's still your father. Some men are better fathers than others.

My ex was violent to me but not to our sons. After getting away he had contact every weekend (he was very charming in court, I was a nervous wreck). I didn't badmouth him to the kids as I thought they might be able to have a good relationship with him.

They were showered with sweets at his, trips to Lego-land, McDonalds etc. I was the skint woman who said no to treats as I had to count every penny - the ex managed to not pay any maintenance. The boys often told me they were going to live with their dad, the youngest actually did for a week - but he was 19 at the time.

The eldest went low contact at 15 of his own accord, middle son decided to go no contact in his early 20s, youngest will return a phone call to him every 6 months or so.

Two of my sons still live with me while saving to get on the housing ladder. One son moved away to live nearer his wife's family, when they visit they stay here despite me having no spare rooms and their father having two sitting empty. They just don't like him.

That should be in the past tense, oscillated! She knows not to hassle me about seeing him any more now I'm in my 30s...

My kids have worked it out but it's taken different amounts of time for them.
Even on here you see adults describing their partner's terrible behaviour and they defend them even though that behaviour has triggered a post on here.
I know that your dd has a little contact but it may be harder for him to keep up the pretence when contact sessions are longer. It's easy to be fun for a couple of hours but when you're overnight and say dad won't come to your bed when you wake up at night then things change. Does he have a partner ? Dd will study the way that he treats his partner and what problems they have. If he reverts to old behaviours then she will be noting that even though he's different with her.
I've read stories on here where kids go and live with Disney Dad for a while and they realise that they swap the "problems" living with mum with a new set of problems when living with dad.

My DD (23 now) unfortunately still doesn’t see what a pathetic abuser her father is.

We split up when she was tiny, after I’d been subjected to emotional, physical, sexual and financial abuse by him.
20 ish years later I still hate him. He’s the only person I’ve ever truly hated.
He makes my skin crawl (when I sometimes see pictures she posts of him on SM)

I never told her exactly what he did to me, not the sexual abuse anyway. Although she does know he was abusive, controlling and ultimately treated me like his personal slave (whilst I worked all day and he sat at home on his arse playing computer games)

I hate that she thinks he’s a ‘good man’ I hate that my grandchildren cuddle him, I hate that he makes out that I was mentally ill if his behaviour was ever questioned.
I hate that he always comes up smelling of roses and gets away with everything.

I hope that one day she realises what a repulsive sack of shit he is.

Also, sorry to keep harping on, but it's not "alienation" or "brainwashing" (!!) to keep a girl safe from an abusive man.

It's only brainwashing if you lie. Arguably staying "neutral" about him is the brainwashing. She'll grow up with his volatile moods and selfish outlook, but her mum never criticises him, she'll not realise how unacceptable it is for a man to be like that.

Imo the no1 message she needs to grow up with is "good husbands/fathers are not like that"

As small dc (3 under 7) ex fought me for 4 years to keep MY contact with the dc to a minimum.. I had dared to ltb. At 12 and 14 2x dc came to live with me. Unbeknown to me ex continued to see them not regularly (I would have noticed their not being home) and plied them with posh meals out until their childhood was a distant memory. The abuse papered over.

He died last year and they both sport huge DAD tattoos. Made me actually puke. Never underestimate how abused dc are groomed... I dread when they have dc and those memories flood back.

I am that child.

As I grew up I became very aware of who my dad really was

I still maintained a relationship but I knew who he was

My daughter is only 6 but she can see that my ex (her father) is not a good person, and despises spending time with him. She is basically forced to see him because the court says "he has rights." I just wonder where the rights of the children are in these situations. Whether young or adults, a narcissist will be a detriment to their wellbeing.

It is so incredibly sad.

My ex was emotionally abusive to me and all his children (2 with me, 3 with previous relationships). He regularly gave drugs to our son starting about when he was 10 (I found out many years later). His kids (all of them) adored him when they were little. My kids were tweens when we got divorced and he moved back to the UK (we're in the USA). He had liberal visitation in the divorce, but rarely made the effort to see the kids or call them or acknowledge any major milestones. Certainly never paid a penny in child support. My two stopped even trying to communicate with him on their own in their teens. I was honest about him to the kids (ie I didn't pretend that he was trying to reach them or remind him of their birthdays, or pretend that he was paying support), and I didn't actively bad mouth him until they had broken communication for some years and were older. His other 3 kids stopped communicating with him in their 20's. So now, none of his 5 children talk to him. (I'm still very friendly with all of them and their mums)

I was that child - parents only divorced semi-recently now I'm an adult and by that time I was cheering for my mum to leave him. My dad can be very charming and when I was younger, I definitely sided with him but as I grew up, it was obvious what a massive wanker he was and now we've not spoken for years, while I chat to my mum once a day