my DF hasn't seen his DD (from prev relationship) for over a year, need advice plse!!

[mummee09verity]

Hi Ladies;

I really need some advice and i'm sorry this is so long!!

I have been with my DF for just over 2 yrs. I have a 3 YO DS, from a prev relationship. My DF has a DD, 12, from his prev marriage. I have never met her. DF and her mum split around the time we got together although he didnt leave her for me, he'd been unhappy for years but scared to leave for fear he would be denied access to DD.

The first few months after they split, his ex allowed him to see her, but he daren't tell them he was seeing me so as not to rock the boat. We moved in together in Jan 2008 and he then told his ex he was seeing me. This did not go down well and his DD refused to see him anymore because of it. However in June 08, she finally agreed to start seeing him again but didn't want to meet me. This was understandable so I accepted that and DF got to take her out a few weekends in a row. His ex doesnt seem a nice person and we think she slags him off to their DD which obviously doesnt help.

Then in sept 2008 when my DFs ex found out we were having a baby, she absolutely hit the roof and that was it, according to her, his DD said she no longer wanted to see him. I advised DF he should still keep trying with her, to make sure she knows that he still loves her and wants to see her even though she doesn't want to see him at the moment.

However, he totally seemed to give up on her, he hasnt contacted her (apart from sending birthday and xmas cards and money) or tried to see her since it all came out about our baby. I really really believe that he needs to keep trying with her, otherwise, in her 12 year old mind, she will just think he doesn't want her anymore.

She occasionally sends him the odd nasty text or email saying she hates him and hates me etc, but I really think her behaviour towards him is purely a cry for attention, it isn't that she doesn't want him in her life anymore, she is just messed up. She already believes he left them to have a "new family" with me, ie me him and my DS, so what must the knowledge that we have a new baby do to her?? and that combined with his not trying to see her must re inforce the belief that he doesnt want her as he has a new family.

And also, in the back of my mind, part of me is thinking, what kind of person is DF if he doesn't want to try and see his daughter? What if we split up, would he just give up on our child too? He says he doesnt try coz he can't stand the rejection from her and it hurts him. thats understandable but he is making it all about him, there is a little girl out there who probably believes her dad doesn't want her.

I am really upset and feel incredibly guilty about this (even though i know it isnt my fault) but I daren't speak to him about it because he makes me feel like it isn't my business, but it is, our DD is his DD's half sister and eventually i hope they will know eachother. He won't speak to his ex about it either as he hates her, well i'm sorry, i'm not too keen on my DS's dad either but if u have a child with someone you have no choice but to speak to them! and if i had a situation like this i would bloody well be civil and speak to him for the sake of our child!!!!

anyway - recently i have been considering contacting his ex myself, to talk to her face to face, if only to let her know that my DF DOES want to see his DD and ask if
there is any way that they can be reconciled, and so i can explain how DF feels about the whole thing.

i feel sad every day that there is a little girl out there who doesn't see her dad anymore, and i just want it sorted for everybodys sake.

what should i do???? would i be crazy to try and speak to the ex myself???

xxxx

i would love to be a step mum given the chance!! i am sure she is a sweet little girl despite things she has said to her dad; she is just a confused little girl who is angry with her dad for leaving.

my DF says she was a real daddys girl before he left, they would always spend time together. he has also shown me cards, lettres etc she had written him before things got ugly and it was clear how much she adored him.

i feel guilty because i feel like its my fault. but i did not take him away from them, he left of his own accord and we only got together after he moved out and called it off with his ex.

and we decided not to tell them how long we had been together so as to minimise upset; DF told his ex we only got together in jan 08 when in reality it was at least 6 months before that.

well, i didn't accept her fbook friend request, i simply sent her a message saying this: (and just to explain - the myspace bit is because she saw my old myspace page a while back and was upset coz there were pics of me n her dad on it)

Hi **,

I saw your friend request last night. I didn't accept as I didn't want you to get upset, as I know you were, understandably, quite unhappy with me a while ago when you saw my myspace, which was the reason I made it private and stopped using it.

However if you would like to be facebook friends, please let me know and I would be more than happy to add you. I have heard such a lot about you and you sound a lovely girl.

I would love to hear back from you. Take care, * x

not had a reply yet but i expect she is at school, so i am hoping i get a positive response

xx

Sorry - don't understand this.

She sent you a friend request on FB, which you've refused - but you've written to her saying let me know if you'd lke to be friends?
Err - isn't that exactly what she did?

Yeah that's is odd! I personally would feel very strange about a man who gave up quite so easily on his DD. I think you need to talk to him about this, the current partner talking to the Ex is a HUGE No No!

All this Facebook stuff is completely over my head I'm afraid; have no idea what it's all about.

In the real (non cyber) world however, I think you sound like a very nice person, who just wants to do the best for everyone. I'm not surprised you're concerned about the situation, and in particular your df's attitude toward his dd, which I think is cruel and selfish. Even more now you've mentioned how she was a Daddy's girl and must have adored him.

How can he be so hypocritical as to say he can't contact her because he feels rejected without stopping to think how rejected she must feel? Does he know nothing of children, especially pre-teens, and the way they test your love by pushing you away to see if you'll come back again? THe poor girl must be so confused, and not surprisingly, if very unfairly, you're being painted as the bad guy.

I don't see a problem with trying to make contact with the mother and daughter, although obviously you will need to be very diplomatic. If your partner is as much of an arse as I'm afraid he's coming off here, you may find that he's represented his ex-wife unfairly and made her out to be much worse than she is.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

For those who are confused about FB - OP has not refused the FB request, merely deferred accepting it while she sends a message and sees what response she gets.

Mummeee, I think your message on FB was very sensible and because she initiated contact with you I don't see how this can cause any problems. Ands you will get a chance to see her reaction before opening up access to your FB wall etc to her - it would be a shame if she got access to this only to abuse it - a possibility if she is feeling hurt and venting her anger at you. Hopefully this is a genuinely positive development.

thanks for all your replies ladies i really really appreciate it. well there has been a few developments...!!

last friday evening i got a message back off his DD saying this;

**lets get something straight here..
i dont think my dad has done anything to make contact with me !
He didnt even send me a xmas present so if you call that "making contact" then youve got issues !it's your fault that my mum and dad split up, and dont think i dont know you have a baby girl with my dad and he hasnt even told me. as if i want to be your friend!**

so now I find out he didnt send her an xmas present!!! i went MAD at him, absolutely hit the roof. and his reasoning was that he had been told by his ex AND his ex's mum to not bother sending her one as it would just upset her more??!!! so he didn't!!! what an idiot, he played right in to their hands, i would have just sent one anyway.

and THEN his ex sent me a massive ranting msg fri night thru fbook, saying all sorts, but what really upset me was that she said i shouldn't believe a word he says, and suggesting he is a shit father and hasnt tried as hard with DD as he says he has, and not only that she says he never told either of them about the baby, i don't know how they found out but it wasn't through him. it has got to the stage now where i don't know what to believe.

also, theres a bit more to it than what i have said so far coz i didnt wanna complicate things. but i am gonna say it now. basically, 6 mths in to our relationship he left me over a silly row. then it came out he 'd gone back to his ex for a few days. He says it was just so he could see DD, as his x was blackmailing him, saying if he didnt come home he'd never see his DD again....but in the end he couldn't stand it coz he just didnt wanna be with her, he had fallen out of love with her years ago. so he left AGAIN, and came back to me, begging me to take him back, he loved me more than anything etc etc.
he crawled and begged for weeks and eventually i gave him another chance and we moved in together, that was jan 08 and believe me he has been the model boyfriend to me and model dad to the kids since then.
and i truly believe that he made a mistake going back to her; it really was just thru fear of not seeing DD.
(and his x has already told me all this because about a year ago she emailed me to tell me he once went back to her, then left her again, just to cause shit, as if it was something i didnt know about it!! so i know that it did happen as he had told it.)
but obviously, going back to her then leaving againjust fucked things up for him even more coz thats why she hates him so much and of course it wasnt nice for DD having her dad come home and then leave again. so of course she is gonna still be angry with him.
so fri night all this shit got raked up again coz of me getting that msg and we ended up rowing til like 3am.

i'm sorry this is so long i am so depressed, i don't know what to think or believe.

Hmm. I think that you sound very reasonable and sensitive to his daughters needs. However, I think that there is basically very little that you can do and that it is unlikely that you are getting the full picture from him. He sounds quite unpleasant, sorry. The anger from the ex and the daughter sound quite understandable, and I hope that you dont take it to heart as it is not really yours to have to carry round iyswim. I think you need to take a long hard look at what you want from your relationship with him. Much as I understand you wanting to, you need to stay out of his relationship (or lack of) with his daughter.

the guilt is killing me, i know how much i love my kids and if they didnt want to see me my life honestly wouldn't be worth living.

i feel angry as well because as guilty as i feel, NONE of this is my fault, i don't feel any animosity to his ex wife and all i have ever wanted is for my DF to have a good relationship with his daughter.

so why are they blaming me???? HE left because he didn't love his ex anymore - I didnt make him!!!!

oh and she has got 2 older kids as well (from prev relationship, boys, 16 and 21) and the 16 year old also emailed me calling me a dirty slag and saying he was gonna come round the house and kick karls head in. and that we need to watch our backs.

i don't believe he would but it isn't nice to hear.

hiya slimbo, awww i am so sorry to hear about what happened with you that really is awful

the thing is, if my DF was not such a brilliant father to DS and our DD i would be tempted to believe everything his ex etc is saying to me.

BUT he is absolutely brilliant, i cannot fault him, i know what a rubbish father is like, DS's dad is one!! when DS was born, he wouldn't do night feeds, couldn't be bothered to make him bottles, never cuddled him or spent time with him, never helped round the house or financially, to the point where i kicked the selfish twat out when DS was a few months old. and now DS is 3 he's a part time dad that lets him stop up till all hours and feeds him sweets and mcds!!

anyway i digress but DF is the polar opposite. even tho DS isnt his, he loves and adores him, he plays with him, cuddles him, reads him stories, bath's him, buys him things, cooks for him and basically is a brilliant stepdad. DS loves him too.
and it goes without saying that hes amazing with DD as well, he does everything for her too (well i do my share of course too haha!) he loves her to death, its touching to watch him with her, it has bought tears to my eyes on several occasions.

and on top of that he is a fantastic boyfriend. he is kind, romantic, generous, funny, loving and gorgeous. (and great in bed - sorry blushes) we also share the same interests (music and more music haha)
2 1/2 years in to our relationship and we both feel like we are still in the honeymoon stage, we are both still absolutely smitten. and we have both said we have never had these kinds of feelings for anyone else before.

so as you can imagine all this is hard to handle because i cannot reconcile this supposedly horrible person and shit dad that his ex n DD paint him as to the man i have loved for all this time.

I think with some guys the guilt of leaving a child is so bad that they manage to convince themselves that it wasn't their fault and that it is easier to not make contact as it hurts them so much. So they twist it a bit to seem as if they a completely blameless and that they are not contacting the child for the benefit of the child.

If I were you I would ask your DF does he actually actively WANT to be involved in his DD's life. If he does he needs to contact her. HE needs to contact her. She will be angry and she will give him hell at first and he needs to be prepared for that. She will push and push and push all the boundaries imaginable to prove that he still loves her. She will do the same to you. So you need to be prepared for all of that. But if you can all get past it, he will hopefully rescue his relationship with his DD. And he shouldn't do it for him. He shouldn't do it for you. He should do it for her. She needs her Dad. She needs to know he loves her. He will have to be big enough to be completely and totally honest with her though and admit his mistakes.

The poor girl is probably distraught. He Dad left, came back, left again, had a new child (which he didn't tell her about) and stopped showing any interest in her! How on earth can she be expected to be all fine and lovely about it!

The way her Father has treated her is horrific.

buda; thank you for your message. TBH I really think you may have hit the nail on the head there. Am gonna speak to him and suggest what you have said. xxx