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

Eldest made up their mind at 7 and explained exactly why to SS and Cafcass they no longer wanted contact. He hit me but in doing so he hit the eldest.
I had bruises the police refused to do anything. And he denied it, in fact he goes beyond denying it and made up I was insane, mentally ill, he laughed at me and took all our family money. Absolute hell.

The courts knew he was abusive but they still gave him lots of access to the other children - they do - so every one saying why do you allow access- we don’t get a choice - failure to comply they give custody to the father ….. they gave him every weekend initially to promote contact, phone calls and so on … he isn’t abusive to them just me. Although he doesn’t turn up for contact at least once a year. He showers them with computer games and every possible toy at his house but makes them leave it there, his intention is to get them to move there. I’m also like you OP very neutral and kind but I do tell them, what he was like as in recently he was telling them and showing them all his stuff from India and stories - and they came back wide eyed and in awe and I said ‘yes that’s the trip to India he took one summer back when you were two / four in 2009. (Or whatever date) he didn’t tell me or the court he was going he just didn’t show up for your contact for 4 sessions. I still have the emails. So I took you every week as per the court order to the contact centre and then he wasn’t there. You were very upset at the time, just more difficult to explain and soothe then. That trip to India was a holiday for him but it had consequences for all of us.
The children are toys to him. At the moment one is no contact, and the others see him as per the order.
But I do correct the narrative and I have kept all the paperwork. Mine texted me vile stuff so I have kept it and yes I would do it.

I chose badly for my father material but I’m the oak and I teach them boundaries. As they get older they are exerting themselves more.

Goodnightjude1 , my ex and his new partner , are the only two people on earth I truly hate . He had an affair when dd 1 was three months old , then had another family with his new partner. He stopped seeing dd 2 when she was five , she is now 24 !

I think its so much more incredibly common than I thought.

I hope the mask slips off my ex and my DD sees it for herself..

Is that any consolation if she's facing imprisonment/the abusive ex being awarded residence (and then he'll inevitably cut off all contact) if she tries to do that?

They're so quick to shout Parental Alienation and once the initial order for contact is made in favour of the NRP, it's all about maintaining that, not looking at whether it should have made in the first place.

Yeah, my eldest child had a scales and eyes moment at 14, and now says she won’t stay with him. He is much kinder to my youngest child who he sees as an extension of himself. It’s so sad for my eldest, to be the scapegoat. It was when the eldest developed opinions and got teen stroppy that the overt problems started between them.

He has also accused me of parental alienation, but it is all of his own doing. It’s the last refuge of the abuser losing control.

unbeknown to me, my eldest had been reading a lot of stuff on the internet about emotional abuse and can very clearly articulate what is going on with her and her father.

like others I am unwilling to sugar coat the situation and gloss over her dads behaviour. I don’t bad mouth him and will identify his good points but I also don’t gaslight her by denying her reality when she says he’s done XYZ, and feels like she’s going mad. She isn’t. He is treating her exactly as he treated me. It’s horrible.

DD knew for sure at 8/9. I waited until she could have her say legally in court (12) to divorce him, but lived apart.

She has refused to see him for 2 years now. Divorce nearly over. (He hasw delayed and delayed and contested it) She will never see him again I think.

He is very, very emotionally and financially abusive and controlling. What I will say, is until 10 I did the "no criticism of father" which she said was confusing to her, as she could see how horrendous he was. So I did give it a shot. Maybe I shouldnt have. But you must be careful of being accused of parental alienation.

All the best x

A friend's DD is, I think, starting to have the scales fall from her eyes. We all watched her running around after a school performance looking for him. He hd told her he might come, did come and she'd seen him in the audience, but then he left before the end and she was desperate for him to say well done and giver her a hug. Honestly, DH and I wanted to cry - my poor friend had to be strong.

Yes, hundreds of examples lke the above ^ and worse, it is terrible and nobody quite believes it (including the child)

Some of these are just so heartbreaking..
I should wish it upon my DD, but i do and I feel horribly guilty.
I have taken steps to try and tell her in a child friendly way why she only sees her father at a contact centre.
I've been recently been forced by the court to provide the name of her school also to him so he now knows where we are located which I've managed to keep secret for close to 4 years.
I'm terrified of him tormenting me via her..I'm terrified of him brainwashing her and trying to alienate her from me. I pray daily the mask slips and the court see it but so far he's been Oscar worthy.

I hope one day DD sees exactly what he's like.

This. We were basically forced to spend time with our bio father, who had serious MH problems and who had spent 13 years beating my mum up regularly in front of us. It set me up for years of confusion and repeating the patterns I’d seen throughout my childhood. It took me till my early 30’s (I’m 50’s now) to be brave enough to cut contact with him completely. Sadly I picked badly with my EXH, but I have gone the whole hog and got court orders etc to make sure that she doesn’t have to go through what I did and that her relationship with her dad is safe and beneficial to her (ie supervised!!!) I love my mum very much, and I know she was terrified of him and was doing the best she could, but I hold a very deep sadness that she didn’t protect us from him, that she didn’t stand up for us in the way that I have done so for my daughter.

It's bleak to think I have another 10 years of this.

My exh isn't and wasnt Abusive. But he was and is a selfish arse. My DD's were 7 and 9 when we split up, now late teens. They have recently begun to see him for what he is after the intervening years of thinking the sun shone out of him.
I've been neutral, or in fact encouraging about him and their relationship for the most part, (except where things were obviously alarming or indefensible-his girlfriend, who my Dd doesn't like, accessing DD's medical records via her unrelated role at the hospital where dd had been admitted for mental health issues, and him defending her, for example), so they are reaching their conclusions on their own just through the way he behaves.
It's actually quite sad to watch them realise what he is, but other than supporting them by being the mum I've always tried to be to them I consider it to be his problem not mine. It doesn't make any odds to our relationship really.

My 18 year old is very low contact with his Dad but unfortunately my 17 year old has fallen for every single lie that his Dad has fed him. I even think it would qualify as parental alienation as my 17 year old has nothing to do with me and said he wished he wasn't related to me. I'm hoping that one day things will change but ExH is very wealthy and DS has a lovely life with him. My heart, meanwhile, is broken into a thousand pieces.

I'm so sorry xxx

It would be interesting to know if anyone was forced to see their father as a child by the courts and how that has now ended up in adult life for them.

I am a gp carer and my gs1 was ordered to attend contact with his dad and paternal gp's in the family courts where I was cast as a villain simply because his dad had become violent (again) and had hurt gs1 and I refused contact on this basis. I was not believed but it made little sense as to how I had encouraged contact supervised by his parents then stop for no apparent reason.

He stopped turning up for contact and his parents did it all. I suspect they did not trust him either and all contact was at their house. Because gs only saw his dad occasionally he had a bit of a disney dad feel about him. That soon wore off and gs particularly disliked his paternal granddad. He took us back to court for the slightest thing over the years until the Judge told him he did not want to see him in court again. The last 2 years of contact were bad, gs did not want to be there and played them up.

Once gs was 16 he refused to see them ever again. He said he had done his time having his childhood spoilt and being forced to spend time with whom he described as "randoms". They had every opportunity to make a good relationship with him but they failed to do so.

As for his dad, he went on to nearly kill someone and was convicted of gbh and also another offence of abh.

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I have two DC, the 18F has, not the 16M (yet?).

Read When Dad Hurts Mom by Lundy Bancroft, or available to list to for free if you start a month's trial of Audible.

I have mixed experience.

EXH is a covert narc, and the emotional abuse of me was extreme. Got out broken after 2 years of WA support.

DS experienced some of thr same and cut contact at 14. ExH could not accept this (in his mind, he’s father of the year) and it ended with police warnings of harassment.

DD (now 17) has always been the golden girl (DS the scapegoat). Is enmeshed with her dad in an unhealthy way, Blames DS for upsetting dad.

thankfully DD and I have a good relationship. I hope - like you op - that one day she will see. But where they are thr golden child, I just don’t know.

Meant to say - I have also done the ‘neutral’ thing but on reading here, wondering if I should be more open with Dd.

Just to say that of course, I hope your DD does start to see it and I am a big fan of not avoiding the truth. BUT... as you know from experience, covert narcissists or people with CN behaviours are very very good at making up seem down and black seem white. So be prepared for that.

My dcs still think their father is amazing and the oldest is 24. I wonder if when they have children they might think otherwise. It really upsets me as he is still controlling to me (as much as he can) even after divorce. Like previous posters, he still causes me huge anxiety.

(That said, they choose to spend very little time with him).

I'm still at the point where 3 years later in court proceedings a screen is provided between us. I don't know how they can possibly expect us to coparent.

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