DP still has no contact with his DD

[MycatsaPirate]

God knows why I'm posting again, I get such a hard time on here but I feel like I need to get this out of my system and sometimes just writing it all down helps.

His DD will be 15 this month. He hasn't had her here for contact for two years and doesn't see her at all except for when he goes to her parent's evenings at her school. She lives with her step dad and her mum died a year ago.

DP and her stepdad went to mediation after her mum died and it was agreed that DP would ring stepdad every Friday evening to talk about DD and see how things were and basically let DP know what was going on in her life. There have been weeks with no contact where stepdad has been out for the evening or just hasn't answered the phone but mostly they have kept in touch.

The problem is that DP is no further forward in trying to speak to his DD or see her. He has offered to see her at her house with others there, on her own, take her out in the town where she lives, have a meal out - pretty much anything but the response is always silence. She will not communicate with him at all.

At what point does he just stop trying? I feel like it's not great for him to be putting so much time and effort into something that makes him upset and it affects him badly that she really won't talk to him at all.

He still sends presents for birthday and Christmas and the only time he has actually spoken to her on the phone is when he rings to see what presents she would like, that's the only time she has willingly come to the phone and spoken - every other time she tells her stepdad she doesn't want to talk to him.

I know she is still grieving the loss of her mum. She also lost her grandmother (her mum's side) and an uncle very shortly afterwards. She has little family left that she sees. She has no contact with dp's family and spends all her time with her stepdad and an aunt on her mums side.

Her stepdad has three children, all adults, and one of his own daughters has had her own kids removed from her and it's taken her two years to get them back. He has said to dp that it's been awful for her not seeing her children, absolutely heartbreaking and yet he can't see that DP is feeling the same pain as his daughter??

I feel like the phone calls are going nowhere. There is no movement towards getting his DD to discuss why she won't see her dad. There's no effort to find out what on earth he has done wrong or why she has effectively cut herself off from him.

Bizarrely she speaks to my DD's on social media but my DD's are very good and won't discuss it with her and won't bring us up in conversation, they just keep communication lines open.

What does he do? Where do you go when nothing gets talked about and nothing changes?

Who said the court would have sided with his ex? It wasn't a solicitor because as you've been told on multiple threads, that's not true AT ALL.

He wasn't damned, he chose not to get access established in court. That's on him. Sorry but your DP sounds like a deadbeat. There's a certain kind of father who absolutely refuses to go to court for access. They'd rather wait til their child grows up and then feed them some story about the bitch ex. Be honest, your DP backed off thinking that in a few years your DSD would be older and it would be "easier" to reestablish contact. But your ex died and suddenly another man is raising his daughter.

@Sayia06 - that’s really nasty and uncalled for. You have absolutely no idea about what’s gone on, who the hell are you to judge?

I’ve witnessed this first hand. A vitriolic bitter EW using children as weapons. My OH did fight and it breaks men. He did fight and got access but it wasn’t easy.

Not everyone is as ‘lucky’ as my OH it gets a sympathetic judge.

You come on here and you criticise - you have absolutely no idea how tough it is going through the courts, fighting to see your own children because the mother with golden uterus syndrome wants to get back at the EH.

If you can’t say anything nice jog on.

Agree with Northern - that was uncalled for.

No one goes to court with a dying individual to fight for what might be right. If someone had done that to my mother as she was dying, I would have become apoplectic.
As it was EX made me get solicitors letters if I wanted to do anything with the DCS as my Mum was dying. - I wanted to take them away for a long weekend to Spain, in the middle of my mothers chemo, siblings radiotherapy and other shit - I was close to breaking point. I had to get a sworn affadavit and provide all details - cost me more for that than the bloody flights and accomodation but it was worth it.
That was stressful enough for me and I was not the sick person, my mother was so upset at what he was doing to us - she really did not need that.

what my mother never found out - was his bitch of an OW, reported me to immigration as an abduction risk - 4 hrs at the airport on the way back courtesy of that malignant cow!

I completely get why he did not go to court - that is humanity.

saiya My dp went to court for contact to his oldest DD. And that was when he was with his ex. You don't know my dp at all and to call him a deadbeat dad is not only uncalled for, it's fucking nasty.

He works hard for his family, both his biological children and his step children. He has been woken up in the middle of the night by calls from both his eldest and my oldest asking to be picked up from a club. And he goes, and he doesn't complain. He just does it. Because he's a dad.

I can just imagine the reactions if I had posted a thread saying 'my dp's ex has terminal cancer, should he put her through the ordeal of a court case while she's on morphine and dying?' We'd have been shredded and quite rightly so.

When the ex moved is when things deteriorated. At that point DP was still not working, still suffering from considerably bad injuries from his accident (a road accident which nearly killed him

How much did DSD know about what was going on then? Did she know her dad nearly died, and was she well supported at the time? Or was she left in the dark about what was happening with her dad? It must have been a scary, worrying time for her, and then her mum becoming ill and dying soon after. I wonder if the issues go right back to the time of her dad's accident, that either she didn't know what was happening and felt excluded, or she did know, but wasn't helped to cope? Possibly her mum was beginning to have her own health worries around the same time.

But if she won't communicate, and the step dad won't communicate, it's difficult to see how to move forward.

DP had his accident in December 2013. His ex was one of the first people I informed so she could let their DD know, show was 9 at the time. I also rang his oldest to tell her.

There was a lot of fuss by ex who insisted their DD be able to visit him in HDU. Unfortunately you can't go in if you are under 18. She kicked off at me about it and said I was stopping their DD seeing her dad. She even got her BIL to ring the hospital to try and force them to let her in. It was a stress I didn't need.

As soon as DP was on a ward I rang his ex, told her where he was and visiting times and also asked everyone else to stay away from the ward for a day so his DD and my dc could get into see him. His oldest was 18 at that point so able to see him in HDU.

Her mum didn't get ill until 2015. Obviously DP still had injuries he was healing from which meant he couldn't go back to work but his work involved heavy lifting. If he had been working in an office he could probably have returned to work sooner.

I don't know how much support she got about dp's accident but his ex was a bit dramatic about stuff and did tend to over egg things so instead of being reassuring and assertive and stating that yes Dad has x, y and z wrong but he will be fine, she's was more apt to do the tearful routine and lots of fussing which really isn't great for little kids who need facts rather than hand flapping and tears.

DP rang step dad last night at the allotted time. No answer from either house or mobile phone again.

You can name call me all you like. Your DSD knows the truth.

The details change from thread to thread but you've exposed your DP multiple times as a deadbeat father. He and you can spin it all you like.

The only one namecalling is you @saiya06

He's not a deadbeat. A deadbeat dad is one who doesn't bother trying to call or see his child. Doesn't pay maintenance. Doesn't bother with birthdays or Christmas despite not seeing them. A bit like my ex actually, who really IS a deadbeat dad. He slags off me to my children, doesn't pay maintenance, denied paternity to the CMS, threatens to kill me and generally is a waste of oxygen.

My DSD's birthday is today. We ordered a moonpig card for her and got it sent direct to her. DP spoke to her this morning before she went to school - he is over the moon at actually getting to talk to her. She has invited him to her birthday bbq tomorrow and he is going. I have ordered the DVD boxset she wants on an urgent delivery to hopefully get it here before he goes to see her.

Deadbeat? No. A dad just wanting to see his daughter. A dad who has always been there for her no matter what. A dad who has a fantastic relationship with his oldest daughter who we see regularly.

Quite honestly, I am sick of him being portrayed as a bad father. He's a man struggling to find a way through the mess that's been made, mostly by his ex, over the last four years. Because she really was the master of manipulation.

Two things stick out to me

1. DD is 15. At this age she is not to be be easily manipulated away from a father who has been consistently loving supportive and there for her, which you are implying has happened. If a 15 year old wants nothing / very little to do with her biological father to the extent she would prefer to live with her stepdad of three years - then there’s a serious back story you are not telling us

1. You couldn’t afford to pay “£60 a month Petrol money” to see DD.

You say she lived and hour away and who had her her every other weekend. That is not even close to £60 worth of petrol! Little fibs like that make me question all the details of the post that can’t so easily be confirmed.

@Sayia06 - why are you being so nasty to the OP?

Are you actually a SM yourself?

Is your life so unfulfilled that you have to berate others?

Who are you to say the father is ‘deadbeat’? You know nothing of their lives. You say in one of your posts that it’s a certain type of father who doesn’t go to court to get access. Fathers shouldn’t have to go to court to get access to THEIR OWN kids, because some bitter EW (i’m guessing you are one of them) has decided to play god and use her own kids as weapons.

It’s not nice being attacked is it?

Leave the OP alone - you know nothing that’s gone on and the OP has come on here for advice. What’s wrong with you?

Trouble is op you're not quite being honest here. Your dp only went to that club because he was taking your dd. Posters previously pointed out that would have hurt her.

highhorse There and back through rush hour traffic. 8 times a month. That's a full tank of fuel. It wouldn't really matter if it was £10 a month, we had no money at all. We were living on charity handouts to eat. I don't know if you can comprehend that level of poverty but we were in it. We paid the child maintenance out of the tax credits for my dc and then used the rest to pay as many bills as possible. We really struggled for a very long time.

As for a 'backstory'. I guess there's a back story to everything, nothing just happens out of the blue. HIs ex had far too much to say about our living arrangements, sleeping arrangements, money, what we spent money on, his DD was quizzed by her and we would be asked things like 'how much did that cost' if she noticed anything in the house that was new. She was 8 years old ffs! What 8 year old bothers about money? I distinctly remember her saying to her Dad that it was unfair that my DD1 had all new school uniform (I had been moaning about the costs to my mum on the phone - we had just moved and needed everything for high school) and she said to her dad that that money should have been spent on her. Again, she was 8. And secondly I had paid for that uniform, not him. Don't underestimate the manipulation that came from his ex from day 1.

Hercules My DD stopped doing that activity a long while ago and dp kept on going down to see his DD but her aunt runs it and she was always 'busy elsewhere' when dp turned up. Often in the boatyard that dp wouldn't have access to. Bear in mind that before they moved away I used to take DSD to and from her activity every week, I'd pick her up from her house and then DP would drop her back afterwards. At that point DP's hours meant he was rarely home in time to take them but would always take her home afterwards.

NorthernSpirit: This is not the first post the OP has done. The OP has a history and the full story is very unflattering to her DP. Her DP loves the theatrics (big presents, desperate phone calls) but avoided establishing contact at the time his DD needed it most. She continues to insist that "no court would have allowed him" to gain visitation with his daughter whilst she was living with her unrelated mother's BOYFRIEND whilst her mother was sick in a hospice.

Fathers shouldn’t have to go to court to get access to THEIR OWN kids, because some bitter EW (i’m guessing you are one of them) has decided to play god and use her own kids as weapons.

Wrong and wrong. Fathers SHOULD have to go to court to get access if a bitter EW stops contact. It's called being a parent. The solution for some fathers is to give up and feel hard done by then are surprised that their kids don't see it the same way. The OP's DP thought once his ex was dead, his DD would come running but she's not interested. Surprisingly child abandonment doesn't sit well with the child being abandoned.

saiya06

nailed it

@Saiya06 - i’m only going off what is written in this post.

We disagree or maybe you have misunderstood what I have written? Mothers shouldn’t have all the control with regards to contact. Who are they to dictate and decide? How would a mum like to be told when she can see her own children, or not see them for weeks on end because a bitter EX wants to get back at them. No one should have to go to court to see their own children (unless there are safe guarding issues). Children are a product of 2 parents, not just 1. Why does the golden uterus get to decide?

So no.... dads shouldn’t HAVE to go to court. They do go to court because they are forced to through the actions of bitter EW’s.

My OH had to take his EW to court as she used the children as weapons. After the 3rd breach and court appearance for breaching a judge told her that if she continued to stop the children seeing their father he would take the children off her. I would never stoop to her very low level - but I wounder how she would feel seeing her kids EOW? How she would feel if the phone wasn’t picked up on a court ordered phone call? Or how she woukd feel having agreed a holiday she decides to cancel the kids going the night before. Bet she wouldn’t like it? Using the kids as weapons is disgusting behaviour.

saiya Wrong again. No big presents, just normal presents for a child of her age. None of our kids get huge presents because we don't have the money! Not sure where you have misinterpreted that from!

No 'DESPERATE' phone calls either. Just regular calls to both his DD and her mum to try and establish contact, all of which were ignored. And no I didn't say Court wouldn't give him contact, I did say that Courts would probably frown hard on a man taking a very ill woman through the Court system. As would most of mumsnet.

You are twisting my words and twisting what has happened. DP is definitely not about the theatrics.

And if you read my update on this thread you'll see that he's SEEING HIS DD TOMORROW!

FFS!

saiya06
Wrong and wrong. Fathers SHOULD have to go to court to get access if a bitter EW stops contact. It's called being a parent.

A father shouldn't have to go to court to get access to his child.

A father should go to court if a bitter ex stops contact.

But all involved shouldn't use a child as a weapon as that isn't being a parent.

So then perhaps tomorrow will mark the end of your multiple posts on this issue op

Hopefully it will highhorse but if it doesn't, feel free not to read or add to them.

I am glad that your life seems to be free of issues/problems/troubles so you have lots of free time to slag off someone who does have a few things going on!

“Slag off”

So much going on all at the same time, a lot of stress, hard decisions to make, everyone trying to do their best, and things going wrong.

My gut feeling is that everything went pear shape because the ex, and his DD felt that when your OH fell on difficult time, he prioritised you and your family above her, and from what you've written, it does sound like there could be some truth in it.

You say that he couldn't afford the journey to see pick her up, not even once a month at £10, yet you mention your DD doing activities, which would have cost money. You said you lived off ESA and benefits, didn't you work?

You see the situation that he had no choice but not see her for that time period because his time and little money he had had to go to you and your family first. His ex and DD will have interpreted the situation that he did have choice and pick you and your family before his DD, this at a time when her step-dad was coming into the picture and giving her more time and maybe financial support. She probably felt that he was being more of a father to her than and it's gone downhill from there.

I do sympathise with your situation and your OH at that time. It must have been hard to adjust to his accident, not being able to work etc... but from what you've written, it does sound like contact with his daughter was on a the far least of his priorities, even if you see it differently. £10 is nothing, even on benefits and him seeing his daughter should without any doubt have taken precedence over your DD doing an activity.

He made poor decisions at the time and even at her age, she would have felt that his loyalties laid elsewhere. I think he has a very good chance to make amends, but it is going to be hard work. She's probably testing his loyalty at the moment, seeing how much she can reject him without him giving up. She needs to be 100% certain that he is committed to be a dad, in the good times and bad times. The poor girl must be scared of being abandoned again. She sounds like a very strong girl.

So no.... dads shouldn’t HAVE to go to court. They do go to court because they are forced to through the actions of bitter EW’s

Erm.... in my experience, some dad’s take their ex’s to court as a means by which to control and abuse. I don’t personally know of anyone who has been through the court system where this wasn’t the case. In my case, my ex was actually awarded less contact than we had agreed through a private arrangement. Game-playing and bitterness is not the sole domain of the bitter ex wife.

It's good news that he is getting to see her.

Swing has in my opinion stated how it probably felt for his DD. The feeling of being abandoned by him not seeing her.

A child doesn't really understand the level of poverty you describe.

I don't really honestly believe that in such extreme poverty he didn't have even one single family member or friend that would give him the money to see his DD.

OP... You're a mother. Would you not have found a solution if this was your child?

@ohreallyohreally - i’m absolutely amazed that you only know of dads who have taken EW’s to court in order to control her.

From what i’ve seen, it’s the other way round, bitter women using the children as a means of control over their EH.

This board is littered with stories of desperate men who want to see their kids but are prevented from doing so by mums using their children as weapons. Absolutely disgusting behaviour. I always wounder how they would feel if they weren’t ‘allowed’ to see their own kids for weeks on end simply because the EX was being vindictive?

My OH is an example of someone who went through the court system to see his own children. And no - he doesn’t want to ‘control’ his EW (she’s an emotional bat shit crazy bully) he wants to see her s kids because he loves them.

That’s part of your problem, Northern, complete inability to see that not everything is about a bitter ex wife. Control is a massive issue in many post-divorce relationships and children are the means by which that can be done. The relationships board is full of it. But only women are capable of it, eh?!