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?

NorthernSpirit

becareful, any time now you will be accused of believing your DP's lies about his ex and he is in fact controlling and abusive whilst she is in fact a martyred saint.

Sigh

@ohreallyohreallyoh - oh I do see that in my OH’s case it’s all about control. All about the EW’s control. I’m not saying only women are capable of it. In my case the EW has tried to control (through withholding contact). For example if you don’t give me a £3k lump sum you’re not seeing the kids (I didn’t realise kids were pay per view)? - thankfully since a visit from SS and a threat from a judge that he woukd take the children off her and they would live with the dad the bat shit crazy actions have lessened (although she did threaten to strip her 12 year old daughter naked rather than she goes to her dads in ‘my’ (the mums purchased) clothes. Please, these aren’t the actions of a sane person.

@BoneyBackJefferson - I know.... unbelievable that a man can be the victim? Or emotionally bullied. Or that I can make my own mind up post some of the bat sit crazy stuff the poor EW has done?!

I wounder why so many poor men go to court so that they can see their own children. Must be because they want to make the poor EW’s life hell? Not because they’ve been prevented from seeing their own children?!

ohreallyohreallyoh

"sigh" all you like, but on this thread we have gone from "if he does not go to court he is a dead beat dad" (paraphrased)

To "If he goes to court he is controlling" (paraphrased).

Do you not see the hypocrisy?

I don't know the full backstory but I just want to address this issue that going to court about children is cruel when the other parent is terminally ill. That's not something I've gone through myself, but I was in various different support groups for partner's of people with terminal cancer, and then young widows/widowers, and met a lot of people who were involved in court cases like that. The reason is that when one parent might not be there to raise the DC, it is doubly important for everything to be agreed and legally watertight. For example, a widower I met had got PR in the months before his wife died, so they could continue living with him and not move abroad with their father; this was negotiated and the father agreed to share PR in return for getting longer holiday periods with his DC and a drop in maintenance so he could afford all the flights.

I'm not saying your DH necessarily did the wrong thing at the time - I don't know. But I don't want people to think that going to court like that is a last resort for only certain circumstances - I think it is a sensible and important step in a lot of cases.

No, I didn’t say ‘he is controlling’. I picked Northern up on her affirmation that people only go to court because the ex wife is using contact as a weapon. There are many, many men who use contact as a weapon - men who have not had an issue seeing their children (or wouldn’t if actions were more important than slagging off the ex on Facebook). It is tiring to read ‘she’s bitter’ when for many of us, bitterness has sod all to do with it. Men are capable of deep bitterness. I am commenting generally, not on the situation of the OP and her partner. Court cost me - not just financially but mentally it was hell. Exactly the reason my ex did it. Fortunately my ex is an idiot and we had a judge who saw it. Many women have to deal with the same shit for years.

@Ohreallyohreallyoh - I have never said people only go to court because the EW is bitter. Of course, there are many reasons, this is just one.

You are right, you didn’t say ‘only’. You did say ....They do go to court because they are forced to through the actions of bitter EW’s.

There are other reasons. That’s al, I wanted to say!

Of course there are exes who will use the fact they are resident parent to control the other parent. I'm an ex and I've met a few of these. They think that because their ex have taken some control in their relationship, it is ok to take control using the kids. It's easy to lose perspective in such case but oh so wrong.

However, the fact that such women exist doesn't mean that a child who refuses to see one parent is inevitably a child manipulated by a controlling ex who is stopping the child to have access. There is enough evidence in this thread to understand why the girl could have chosen herself not to go see her dad any longer.

Just to pick up on the point made about DP prioritising us over his DD.

At that point in time, in those months after his accident, our sole income was child tax credits and child benefit for my two DC. We continued to pay child maintenance out of that money. The activity my DC's went to were very supportive and let them attend for free. The other activity DD1 did helped us get a bursary to fund her continuing to go.

Three charities which help ex-military helped us pay our bills and buy food. So we literally just scraped by every month. DD1's school helped us apply for a bursary to help with travel costs to get her to school. Other than that I was struggling to get money for fuel to get DD2 to school.

No, I wasn't working, I am disabled and had only recently had major spine surgery when DP had his accident. We had Christmas decorations in the living room for 6 months as no one could get them put away.

As for asking for money to go and see his DD, we really did expect his ex to understand the situation we were in. She moved just after the accident and divorce hearing. The accident was in December, the court hearing was scheduled for the day after his accident and I spent that day trying to get evidence of the accident to the Courts from the hospital.

They rescheduled for January and he was still too poorly to attend and then rescheduled for February and despite being in pain and really doped up on medication, they said if he did not attend they would bill him for her barrister's time. So he had little choice. He certainly couldn't afford any legal help.

So she was awarded most of the money and equity because she needed to pay the rent in the house so their DD could remain in the same school. Two months later he got an email saying they were moving in July and that was that. She moved in with her partner and took their DD with them. That was when contact stopped. The house had to be put on the market, we had to find somewhere to live and had absolutely no money.

There is no extended family to help with things like fuel. His parents are dead, mine had done as much as they could but couldn't support us long term. I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of asking any of our friends to loan us money with no end date for repayment.

When they moved DP was told his DD was busy every weekend he was supposed to have her. He didn't refuse to have her, he didn't say she couldn't come but his ex refused to help by at least doing half the driving and made endless excuses about why DD was unable to see him.

DP certainly didn't prioritise me and my DD's. To be honest, we were existing for months. It took 6 months to sort benefits out, it took another 6 months wrangling with the insurance to get an interim payment which paid for rent on our new home. My priority at that point was his health, farming my kids out to friends to enable me to get to and from the hospital (my parents paid my fuel), dealing with insurance and benefits agencies, contacting charities and taking DP to endless hospital appointments. I ended up really ill and permanently disabled from that time, I didn't recuperate as I should have done as I took on DP's personal care at home for weeks, did far too much dashing about and it's taken it's toll on me physically.

DP did see his DD on Saturday. He stayed for a few hours and come home and said she had barely spoken to him, told him she didn't want him to phone her, didn't speak to anyone else and sat in the corner with headphones on and phone in hand the entire time. He went back over on Sunday morning to drop off her present and again she just wouldn't speak to him.

It's confusing and worrying. I know teens go through moody phases but this was her birthday party, one she had wanted, one that she was in charge of the guest list and she basically just didn't take part at all. I also know and understand she is still grieving for her mum but there doesn't seem to be any support in place for her. DP has no say in her life and can't actually do anything to get that help for her.

He stayed for a few hours and come home and said she had barely spoken to him

It sounds like the damage has been done in the father daughter relationship.

Sounds like she may need counselling to help with her mum's death.

It's a really sad situation all round tbh. Moving your child do far away from one parent isn't good. I think the parent who does this is only thinking of themself and not the child.

Although I must also say that if a child had a good solid relationship with the NRP prior to moving...they would want to see them.

They would be wanting to at least talk to them. I would expect they prefer to see the parent on the weekends at least some of the time..over their activities.

It just comes across like his Ex wanted him out of their lives and to replace him.

I have known some mothers to do this. .but it's not the norm.

Was she a difficult person during their relationship? Was it an acrimonious split?

You can try to justify it as you want, no-one here will know the situation, but it is clear from what you've written that she doesn't believe that it was the case that he genuinely had not even £10 to make the trip to see her and she will have her own reasons to believe that this is the case.

If all he's done is try to justify himself, it probably only made things worse. I personally can't foresee a situation when you wouldn't have even £10 to ensure I would still see my child. Even if the activities were free for your children, you must have had to take them to these activities. Surely your OH must have been able to claim sickness cover from his job, or at least SSP if he couldn't work and what doesn't make sense is why he would have continued to pay maintenance above the minimum he had to pay if that meant not seeing his daughter. I'm surprise too that if the ex military was prepared to help, they wouldn't have agreed to £10 a month if that meant being able to go and see her.

In any case, the truth doesn't matter, what does is that she doesn't believe his truth and until she can forgive, your OH will struggle to get her to trust him in anyway.

This is really sad, poor girl. Can your DP speak to her school at all? Assuming he has PR can he enquire as to her wellbeing, see about setting up family counselling? It does sound like the damage is done to the relationship though sadly.

sandyY2K

I don't think they had a bad marriage, DP certainly didn't think so but she went out one Saturday afternoon leaving DD at home, came back and said she'd found somewhere to live and was moving out in two days with their DD. She has never given him a reason for the split, just that she no longer wanted to be married to him. When she was seeing her partner while living here she left their DD with us frequently, way above regular contact levels, we'd often have her Friday to Weds, then the following Weds through to Mon as she would stay with him and then commute to work. It was never an issue for us and I would take her to school in the mornings and DP would pick her up if he was back in time. Otherwise I'd collect her from her after school activities.

She definitely didn't want him back but I don't think she liked me being about either. As far as she was concerned (and she told him this in my earshot), DP should either have stayed single or found someone with no kids or adult kids because DD needed to be the centre of attention and shouldn't have to have other kids around. She also regularly said that DD was coming to see him and not 'that woman and her kids'. The irony was that on the days his DD forgot her lunch her mum would ring me and ask me to make her a lunch and take it up to school as she wasn't able to get back from work. I also looked after her when she was off sick and she couldn't/wouldn't take time off work. Clearly I was ok for doing those sorts of things.

swing

No sickness cover, he was working for an agency. Benefits, as I said previously, took 6 months to sort. All monies we received from charities were in voucher form for supermarkets or paid directly to utilities for us.

DP has never had a chance to talk to her because the contact hasn't happened. The one time she did come to us was a couple of Christmasses ago for a couple of days. She asked to go and stay at a friends overnight and dp said no, not this time as I've not seen you for ages and she said to her dad 'well you didn't want to see me, any time mum rang, you said you were busy'. Which is bloody crap. And he told her that it wasn't true but I guess when you've been told the same thing over and over for 3 years you tend to believe it.

DP is going to speak to her school Luna He's really concerned about how withdrawn she is and also about the massive amount of weight she's put on. Both things indicate that she's probably depressed and I'm not sure the stepdad is addressing that.

Does her stepfather have PR or an SGO?

Neither

she said to her dad 'well you didn't want to see me, any time mum rang, you said you were busy'

I guess it's hard to know goes on in people's mind...but it's sad that she would deliberately damage the father daughter relationship.

That's why him visiting her was even more critical.

I just can't imagine not seeing my child for 3 years for any reason though. If I didn't...I would not expect us to pick up as if nothing happened.

It's like he's just been replaced.

Somerville

You're wasting your time. OP repeats the claim that no court would have given custody or visitation to her DP even though it's been shot down in every thread she's posted, even by posters who are solicitors. It's not true but she just ignores it because her DP should have gone to court and he didn't. He had excuses for three years for not enforcing contact. He's the victim and is willing to do anything to maintain that.

OP

The explanations change every post. You've posted before about how the DSD calls up with huge requests for presents and then DP kills himself buying them - but of course now it's just normal presents. No one can help you if you continue to lie and obfuscate.

I have to say I'm surprised he hasn't been in touch with the school before now.

LunaTrap
Because that would have been parenting. Instead he bought her lots of presents and called the house a lot. That proves he's a good dad. Not going to court for contact.

Lunatrap He has been in touch with the school. He attends parent evenings and also has been in touch to discuss things not relevant to this thread.

Saiya Please do link to exactly where I said that his DD called him with a list of huge presents. Please. Because a) she's never rung him and b) she has never requested anything which costs more than about £15.

I just still don’t get this. There’s a big gap between when his DD did talk to him and when she didn’t that hasn’t been explained. Also why there wasn’t regular contact for a period of time, like years?

I know you are defending your man OP, but I don’t know what you think may help or change. It sounds as if the step Dad is quite a decent man. I don’t think moving away results in a child not wanting any contact with their other parent. I moved away and my DS still maintains a good relationship.

I don’t know. Being supportive of the step Dad and just helping in the background are still good things your DP can do without demanding DD talk. He could buy her school books for example. If she does talk and have a relationship with her step Dad then helping him, to do that difficult job, is key?

I agree with Banana, you are clearly totally devoted to your OH, which is great, but it does sound like it is clouding your judgement.

You say that things started to go wrong three years ago when she moved and stopped all contact a year later, at a time when her mum was starting to be very unwell (and maybe her GM too?). You say that your OH had had his accident already before she'd moved, sound like quite a few months before then. You also said that you had absolutely no money at all because he wasn't entitled to sick leave and it took 6 months for the benefits to be sorted.

So from that, we can conclude that your joint benefits were sorted BEFORE she stopped seeing him all together, and therefore, he could have found £10 to go and see her before she stopped seeing him altogether.

I do feel sorry for your your OH, but I just can't buy that his behaviour has nothing to do with why she won't be in contact with him. Saying that, it is still very sad that this poor girl with almost no family wouldn't want to try to rekindle the relationship, so I hope that he doesn't give up and that his persistence will pay off and amends can be made.

That's good then that he has contact with the school. I do think there is a tendency on your threads to refuse to acknowledge any fault at all on the part of your partner. It's as though he couldn't possibly have done anything any differently and he is beyond reproach. I find this attitude odd- I'm a parent and I regularly think I could have handled things better or differently. No parent is perfect and a parent who has had little to no contact and zero current relationship with their child should be reflective about where they may have gone wrong and how things could be improved. I understand that these are your views but if your partner shares the idea that he has nothing to be sorry or regretful for then I can't see the situation improving because from his DD's perspective he hasn't done enough. She has lost her mother, is living with someone she has no legal relationship with and is clearly depressed and struggling. She really needs to hear that her Dad is sorry, not that nothing is his fault.