If you saw your dad for 6 hours once every two weeks as a child, what sort of relationship do you have with him as an adult, if any?

[LaosCambodia1950]

Hi All,

My husband and I are having a very tricky time with his son. The son is 10 years old. The son's mother and grandad are consistently saying very negative things about the boys father and only allowing contact for 6 hours on a Sunday every other week. This does not allow my husband to rectify any of the negative things said about him

An example - In our (my husband and my) culture it is respectful to nod your head when greeting an older relative and call them aunty or uncle even though they may not be your blood aunty or uncle

The son's mother has kicked up a fuss and said how dare we make
the son bow down (we most certainly have not made him bow down!) to his uncle

So, sadly there is a clash of culture amongst other things. My husband is unwilling to do anything about this. He has full trust/faith that when his son is old enough to have his own mind the son will come back to him and all will be fine

I am concerned that a childhood spent only seeing your dad for 6 hours every 14 days and a constant stream of negativity about your father and your own culture etc will not = a happy adult son/father relationship or a person who is comfortable in his own skin for that matter!
I understand that for anything to change my husband needs to change his attitude and possibly fight in court to see his child more but is there anything I can do, or if you are an adult and were in a similar situation as a child how has it impacted you as an adult and your relationships with both your parents?
I always just think what is going round in this poor boys head, it must be a confusing place to be in and he must constantly feel like he is stuck in the middle

By not fighting for more responsibility in raising his child your partner is pretty much reinforcing any negative messages that the child may be hearing!

Yeah, your husband isn't really being a dad, is he?!

If his biggest worry is whether or not his son nods his head to older relatives, then I'd say he hasn't got a bloody clue what real parenting actually entails!

Well, he can go to court and fight for more contact or he keep with what he has. I do understand why some people see "fighting for contact" as too much of a negative thing. It can be brutal for everyone. I'd support your husband in how he chooses to approach it. The boy isn't yours and ultimately you need to detach a bit here.

6 hours every 14 days isn't really enough to establish a strong bond with his father or an understanding of his culture. He needs to get ordered contact. I'm afraid there is little more you can do apart from be understanding and kind when your step son is with you.

Fighting for more time can be an absolutely brutal process, most especially for the child I’m sorry to say. It’s not an easy route to pick but equally I’m not sure I’d cope with seeing my DC for six hours once a fortnight. Your DH is the only one who can make a decision on whether to try and get more time via court.

Re making his son nod his head in respect per your culture? I am British born and bred and I was raised by both of my (non British bred) parents who also tried to instil their culture into my every day existence. I hated it, it was not my culture and to this day I practise none of it precisely because of what they tried to do. That child will most likely identify with a very different ‘normal’. Showing respect toelders is universal across all cultures, you don’t have to force him to nod his head.

If he grows up in a home where that is not his norm, and your husband only spends 6 hours with him, that is less than 2% of this child’s life. I suggest that that time is not spent expecting that child to adhere to your culture. But is spent getting to know him. Finding out what he enjoys and spending that time trying to find common ground and bond.

Just my tuppence worth.

That's more than I saw my df and we have a great bond. My ds's see there df for that amount, sometimes more ( very rarely) and they have a good relationship with him. It's not about the amount of time which people get very confused about it's the quality of that time. Different relationships happen with different parents and mothers in general find that hard to understand when they do so much and their dc love their dad just the same.
The concern in this matter is your dp lack of action to see his son more and the negativity coming from the mothers side.
The nip picking of who said what and why they think that way isn't important it's just adding fuel to the damage relationship.
Not sure how the dc got to 10 with out a court order, or if one wasn't needed before what has broke down the relationship.

My advice would be to minimise the cultural clash. It’s a clash that doesn’t need to exist and you are both in charge of bringing that clash/ friction into a situation when it really isn’t needed.

Let the cultural stuff go and just enjoy this child’s company. That’s what you can do.

My daughter saw her father for about 4 hours a week from she 8-18. Shes's bow at uni (4th year) and her relationship with him as always been better than any other teen/young adult I know.

It's not quantity it's quality. He spent time with her on a one to one and not just taking him to his house to be fitted in with his new family.

Does he call him in between? Does he go to parents evenings, attending activity events, take him on holidays? You can have a strong relationship with a parent you don't see often but that is if the parent remembers the child has a life outside of the few times they see them and show an interest in that life.

I would reiterate what @swingofthings & @RuthW - it really is quality not quantity. My kids see their dad a lot but he is cranky (& childishly doesn't hide it) from work & two smaller kids & the time they spend with him has very little quality to it - increasingly they are struggling to find the will to stay at his.

I find it incredibly hard to swallow the numerous posts stating that quality is more important than quantity.
It's the same pile of codswallop my DP's EW continues to throw out, utterly outraged that he has fought for more time than she thinks he should have.

I would love that for all of you stating this, that you become the NRP's and for you to be told, don't worry, quality is more important than quantity....4 to 6 hours EOW/ every weekend is ok isn't it? I would bet that the sun would rise in the West before any of you were 'ok' with that.

If the NRP is useless and grumpy and not child centric, totally understand. But there are plenty of NRP's who are none of the above and yet still the quality over quantity line continues to be a BS reason to justify kids not seeing both their parents with more equal divisions of time.

@stealthmode first the dc is 10 and the op dp doesn't want to go to court for an order or hasn't got one.
So instead of pp repeating that the op needed to tell her dp to go to court, other pp have offer that a relationship can be created in a short amount of time.

Had a very poor relationship with my DF when I was a child but it was due to the awful woman he chose to marry. She resented him having DCs and it caused constant drama. However I had a great SF so withdrew from my own DF and over time barely saw him. Now an adult I restablished contact with DF when I had my first dc, but on the basis I did not have to have a relationship with his wife. It works really well as I get to spend lots of time with him; his DW hates it, but hey ho that’s her problem. I just wish I’d had the emotional maturity when I was younger to focus on what mattered - being in my DF’s life and for him to be in mine as we are now having to make up for the time lost.

@Livelovebehappy I total agree with what you said and had similar experiences.

The thing most parents forget is that it's very hard to never have a relationship with a parent and parents either think it's best to limit or stop contact for their small dc or the other parent thinks they have more time or are willing to wait til they are older to have a relationship.

Parenting is long term, and it seems the issue that causes problem are parents reacting to the short term issues and thinking they are more important and will last forever or don't fit in line with want they want.

OP's dp has 6 hours, well make them work, enjoy the time so the dc wants more time or apply for an order. It's really quite simple. The dc is getting older and their own wants will soon be spoken. If a dc see their dad is kind and loving the negativity will not effect the relationship.
It will in fact reflect back to the other parent.

@stealthmode I can't speak for anyone else but I do believe a great bond can be established even if quantity isn't involved.

As I said, my exh sees our kids a lot. However, he does next to no parenting. He misses concerts, plays & other extra curricular stuff. He cancels promised day trips, never does a medical or dental appointment & never sees them alone (ie without their sm & toddler siblings), all because he thinks having them in his house regularly makes him a good parent. It doesn't, imo. Imo what makes a person a good parent is someone who can engage with their children & children see all of this.
Of course eow or worse 6hrs eow is not ideal in any way, & yes ideally this man should legally fight for more time with his son. However, bonding can be established with less than perfect access - if it's done with focus & commitment - I think.

@stealthmode, in a perfect world it should be either or nor. Children should be entitled to enough good times with their kids.

The issue here is when quantity isn't an option for whatever reason, can a bond still be firmed whrn quality is present.

As a kid who parents divorced before I was 2yo so never knew any different, I can say that quality is everything. I saw my dad and every other weekend although at some time of my life, I lived with my mum 5 hours away and during that period saw him only once a month and holidays.

I don't remember a time whrn I didn't feel my dad full presence in my life though. He called regularly, remembered important events in my life and asked about them. He drove long hours just to see me and always planned the times we were together so we had a good time. He was a salesman so during the hidaus, I used to go with him, stayed in the car during his appointments and we would thrm spe d time visiting the places we drove to.

He always got me the presents I wanted most for my birthdays because he would pick up on my little hints. He knew my friends' names and the details of my relationship with them. He knew my teachers' names.

He loved me deeply and showed it to me in many ways. His interest in every aspect of my life, rather than just my life when I was with him made me feel loved unconditionally.

This is one mistake many nrps make. Because they want to know nothing about their ex's life, they don't want to know what their kids are up to whrn they are not with them forgetting that kids don't end one life when they open the door of their fathers house to take on another one. They have one life and expect both parents to care about every part of it.

I saw my dad for school holidays until early teenage years, then shorter holidays but some weekends. So less regularly but for much longer.

We have a very close relationship. But it doesn't sound like the time is actually the problem here.

6 hours every fortnight is less than 1 full week per year. Why is he seeing so little of his child?

You can't blame that on his ex-PIL, if your DH had asked for 50% contact from the start, is there any reason why he wouldn't have got it (history of violence/substance abuse etc?) If not, why didn't he fight for 50%?

So many men say "Oh, poor me, I barely get to see my child." Whilst enjoying the carefree life & job opportunities that being essentially child-free allows, because they like the sympathy it evokes. But people who REALLY want something act accordingly, and do something, anything to try and achieve it.

Also, why are you trying to impress a culture onto a child who only shares that culture for 1 week per year? Does that mean if I go to Magaluf for a week I should spend my life speaking Spanish?

You are focusing in the wrong thing here. Parenting means school runs, looking after a poorly child, bedtimes, homework, buying school uniform, washing, cooking healthy meals, teaching manners, handwriting skills, reading, playing games, life skills. There is no way this can be achieved on 6 hours a fortnight.

Your DH is less of a parent & more like a friendly uncle who visits occasionally. If your DH truly wanted to be more than that, he'd do something about it.

My kids only spend 24 hours a fortnight with their Dad (and some of that is sleeping) so I am biased but I think that 6 hours a week is not enough contact with a parent. (I think that 24 hours isn't either but that's another story) I hope that he is contacting his son in between to hear about what's going on during the week so that at least the quality of time together is meaningful.

You can have a strong relationship even though the hours spent together is little on paper. I know a child who only sees their Dad every 6 to 8 weeks and they have a close relationship.

Personally I think that you should let go the cultural stuff or you risk him becoming angry at the pressure to conform. With only 6 hours per week contact, it is inevitable that his mother's culture will dominate. My parents are from different cultures but I've lived in the UK longer and been educated at English speaking schools so feel and live virtually 100% British. I am fluent in the other language and know about the culture in theory but my upbringing means that these feel alien to me and when I go through the expected motions then I feel self-conscious and awkward. It might be embarrassing for you when he doesn't bow his head etc but this is the cost of his Dad not spending time with him and instilling these norms.

I'm not sure the amount of time is the potential problem, but the bad mouthing. That's incredibly damaging to relationships in this kind of situation.

Dh saw DSDs every Sunday and one weekend a month as they were growing up. However, it was an acrimonious relationship between dh and his ex and that undoubtedly played an instrumental role in dsd1 going NC at 14. She's now nearly 22. This is sadly quite a common scenario where there is considerable acrimony in the years after divorce - the child simply checks out of the relationship to avoid the hurt, conflict and feelings of confusion that being in contact with the nrp brings.

My advice to anyone who has children and is separating/ divorced, and where there is no abuse involved, is to work incredibly hard at your relationship with your ex. Not easy at all in some cases, but it's so important - particularly for a nrp who often has the weaker relationship with the children and therefore more to lose.

I’m Indian. That’s about as often as I saw my dad and he and my mum were together (he just preferred to work overtime, spending time with his mates, and go on holiday without us). Our relationship now is distant. He’s closer to my brothers and sister because by the time they were 10 or so he sorted himself out, but as the eldest I never really got any kind of parental support from him.

As for bowing down to relatives - that’s really not something you should enforce when your child is a different culture. Your DH needs to get his priorities straight.

My father was a chronic violent alcoholic who beat my mum badly weekly or daily
He used to smash glass over her head knives to throat and I used to stand in the middle of them when I was 5-9
I didn’t like him and he died when I was 23 and my mum finally got rid of him when I was 9

So I barely saw him

Some people shouldn’t be parents he ruined my life and my brothers my brother is a chronic alcoholic and I developed IBS anxiety related

Growing up thinking you’d find your mom dead is such an awful life

I don’t think your husband can ‘rectify’ things said about him as such, all he can do is try to be a good dad and that will be what his son takes away from it all.

When I was a young child I saw my dad for two days every other week. By the time I was 10, I saw him for a weekend every 1-2 months. For the first few years there was ‘bad mouthing’ from both sides (mum and her family vs dad). I disliked all of it and all I took from it was that they wouldn’t stop going on about how much they didn’t like the other. As I got older, I started to tell them (all of them) that I didn’t want to hear it as it wasn’t my problem.

On the other hand, I knew that both of my parents loved me dearly and wanted the best for me. The issue was managing their relationship with each other, and thankfully they eventually learned to stop trying to bring me into that discussion and gradually even became amicable. I was never in any doubt that my dad wanted to be there for me, despite criticisms of him and not seeing him much, just as I was in no doubt that my mum did absolutely everything she could for me, despite claims that she was trying to ‘take me away’.

I felt confident of that because of how they treated me directly and what they did; my dad dropping little things off to the house that he saw and thought I’d like (not about money, things like a book I might like to read), helping me with homework, calling me very regularly just to chat and catch up, and my mum never actually blocking any contact, letting me spend holidays with dad and his parents, even attending events with my dad’s family even though she felt so uncomfortable because she did it for me, and being the parent who raised me day by day.

They probably made some mistakes along the way, and I didn’t always enjoy it, but regardless of what happened I always felt that they both loved me, that they were just a bit misguided and angry at times.

So the point of reflection from my experience here is, how is your husband’s relationship with his son? How does he try to be there as a dad, in whatever form, even if he only currently has access for 6 hours a fortnight?

FWIW I know someone else in a similar situation (some years ago), very acrimonious separation and the mum did not like the dad at all and would regularly speak very badly of him to the children. Children visited the dad every other week, then once a month as they got older and wanted to see friends. The dad was really worried about how their relationship would develop, did what he could in terms of supporting them financially and speaking with them as regularly as they would allow (phone calls and the like, in addition to their visits, trying to help with things like exams, university and so on). Both children are now adults and both have developed a positive relationship with their dad, even though at one point it looked in jeopardy, and both regularly catch up with their dad by phone and in person even though they don’t live in the same city (they actually come to visit him, as well as him going to visit them).

I saw mine less, much less. And from age 11 to 21 I didn't see him at all. We literally have the best relationship, closest bond and he is the one I get on with most out of my whole family.