OH will not speak to his exw about anything important, ever

[Beansbake]

OH has DC with his ex wife 50/50. They have been split for years.

It’s pretty non acrimonious - which is good, I want that for them. They chit chat and stuff but OH never speaking about any serious topics is making me quite angry with him. He seems to be afraid of her but I don’t know why

his DD is going through a very hard time and she is telling OH and I all kinds of things that are really affecting her that are going on at mums house. She is primary age and very emotional, trouble sleeping, crying a lot, clingy to dad and I, tries to stay with us at pick up, calls him crying from mums house all the time, even trying to get out of going to school. She is quite articulate and able to express herself and she feels like shit.

Mum has always been a gentle parent type but she has a partner who is allegedly pretty bossy and strict with a lot of rules. Mum leaves the DC with her partner quite frequently while she works on her time. I don’t judge, she needs to go to work but SDD is telling us that he isn’t all that nice to her and she is getting blamed for this that and the other. She is lashing out a lot there and getting in trouble and then gets told she’s upsetting mum so she is always anxious about her mums feelings. So she will not talk to her mum. She has started saying she’s not normal and she’s a bad person. She is absolutely nothing like this at our house.

I have my own experience as a mother of girls and know how to talk to them. But I am not her parent so I have encouraged her to share this stuff with her dad, which she has started to

I told OH I am quite worried about her. She’s a lovely sweet girl and I can see she’s anxious, losing her confidence and he agrees and is upset but he is still avoiding talking to her mum. Mum has decided with partner to take SDD to get some kind of therapy without inviting or involving dad in it. They seem to want to force change onto SDD into better behaviour and all the responsibility is all on her little shoulders.

Now I don’t think anything sinister is happening at all. But this man appears to be grumpy and controlling whenever I’ve met him and either mum is just turning a blind eye, oblivious or she is also in a shit situation.

I asked him why he wasn’t advocating for his DD and tried to give him non confrontational strategies to open a conversation with his ex to discuss the topic but he just wants to avoid it. I’m not advising he says to her hey your partner is an asshole but to encourage mum to spend 1:1 time with SDD and she might open up, and to listen to her.

Part of me cannot stand to watch this and it’s making me wonder what I even see in him in this case. I would never put up with this for my own kids without at least trying and I strongly believe in teaching girls/women to speak up for themselves.

This keeps me awake at night and it will come between us so I don’t know what to do.

For context I will add I do not know this guy well. I’ve met him a few times and my impression is that he has an high opinion of himself. He isn’t always friendly to us. He was over involved with the DC very quickly in ways even I wouldn’t be and has lots and lots of rules. SDD says he’s not my dad I don’t want him to tell me off so much and he makes her feel bad about herself. I get the impression he doesn’t have much patience and he doesn’t like it when little girls cry or know how to handle them or talk to them. He thinks he knows everything about everything though. It is not a far stretch for me to believe he isn’t a great guy with little man syndrome. My OH is easy going, a bit naive and has a high tolerance for parenting and kids stuff he is good at dealing with any drama or issues with them. He is more of a pushover

Tell your oh you are less in love with him every single day you watch him refuse to advocate for his child and you’re not sure how much longer you can continue. Everything about being a shit parent is a total turn off.

That sounds so tough, and as the previous poster said, tell him how it's making you feel about him, because once the ick sets in there's no real going back.

I’ve tried to say this but now it sounds like I am forcing or manipulating him into doing something he doesn’t want to do.

My way of seeing it is that she is just a child and watching a child suffer when you could do something to help and don’t as you are afraid to is selfish, he’s the adult we should put our neck out for our kids who can’t speak up for themselves. He doesn’t agree with me as he thinks he is doing the right thing for everyone keeping the peace.

Unfortunately I have my own experience with a controlling bully parent both as a child and an adult so I am trying hard not to project this into the situation but it brings up bad feelings. Not having someone advocate for you when you are small and having a massive fucking rug everything gets swept under sits badly with me.

Watching him cry about his DD when she has been distraught and confiding in me, then him just going back to daily life and taking nothing I say on board is shit to watch. He just thinks it will all sort its self out

Keeping the peace? He isn’t keeping things peaceful for his daughter, is he? No. I wouldn’t accept it. Either he steps up and protects his daughter, even by going full time at yours and just weekends with his ex and she can go to court for more, or by talking bluntly to her about what their child is saying and what he is seeing or I’d be out of there. Being a shitty parent just isn’t something I would put up with in a partner.

For your own peace of mind, maybe you should talk to the mum. He will probably be cross, but you don't sound like your relationship will survive him doing nothing.

Either way, you'll have a big blowout with him at some point, so you might as well do it while advocating for your step daughter, if only more children were lucky enough to have people like you in their life.

Every handover we have a whole day of DD anxious and emotional and then we get her bouncing back to her normal self then it just all goes back again every time she goes there

OH has concluded that he just needs to work on her self esteem and confidence and building it up and this will help empower her.

It won’t if stepdad is an angry impatient prick plus I said it’s not fair on mum, she might be oblivious to what is going on, or in her own bad situation and he should encourage it to be out in the open. Then mum can make a decision what to do. Pretending it’s not happening is not fair on anyone. Then it’s up to mum and this guy to modify their approach to SDD to see if this helps. Mum does seem invested in getting SDD to be compliant with the rules and is baffled why SDD is behaving this way. She will even text OH with theories and suggestions how to change SDD and he still doesn't even take the plunge!

I don’t know her that well and also he would hate me for talking to her.

He does sound very passive. Do you know what their marriage was like and what his ex is really like? Does he tend to be passive and anything for a quiet life about other things? Is there another possible explanation?

XH does a lot of stuff that makes things hard for our kids and there is absolutely no point trying to engage with him about it. In fact he will be worse if I say anything. I fought against 50/50 because of what he's like and kids are happy with their 2 nights a week with him. Its manageable and they dont want to not see him. I've said to our eldest if it gets too much I will back her stopping contact, but she knows that me talking to her dad won't actually help the situation. I can see how this could look from the outside but Im doing everything in my power to protect them. If he's just being passive I'd have no time for him, couldn't stay with someone standing by and watching this happen to their child. But if he knows he would definitely make things worse for his daughter by talking to her mum and he's had legal advice that he can't get DD more of the time to reduce the impact on her of that behaviour then that would he a very different situation. People assume the other parent is a half decent person who can be reasoned with, you will listen, but sometime they're an abusive jerk you can't actually co-parent with.

I have no advice, just wanted to say you are being so good to this girl 🙏 What you are doing - genuinely caring for this girl - is beautiful and good, and you are already touching her soul with it. Sorry for being cheesy, but I just felt emotional while reading you. Please, whatever happens, keep caring for her like you do.

How permissive is your DHs parenting style? It sounds like whilst there is an issue in the partners approach, mum is also having issues?
Does she have appropiate responsibilities and rules at your house?
If she's going from a situation of being able to do whatever she wants 50% of the time at yours (if that is the case) to having to do homework/tidy up after herself/be more polite at mums then I can see that being much harder than having 2 similar sets of expectations.
I think DH needs to have a conversation about what DDs triggers are at her house, what mums expectations with responsibilities and behaviour are, and then try to form a similar set up in both homes potentially with a reward chart to motivate her whilst adjusting.
The fact she doesn't want to go to school either hints that maybe she's a child who struggles with not having full autonomy, and having different rules in different places will make that harder.

Also, just as there is a male with unsupervised access, is there any risk of sexual assault?
Hopefully it's not the case but going over "pants" rules in an age appropriate way is probably sensible. Just opens up an opportunity to disclose anything in the hopefully very unlikely case that something more sinister is causing the emotional struggles.

I don’t think it’s sinister no. we have spoken about the pants rule she didn’t indicate anything in that respect she was fine talking about it.

SDD has what I see as normal rules at dads, it’s not too lax. She is a helpful child and isn’t lazy. She isn’t just doing what she wants at dads but here is the difference. The rules at the other house clearly separate SDD from her mother and sibling. The partner has imposed expectations of behaviour. She is having to sleep alone in a room for the first time ever in her life and she is not allowed to get up at all, call out, ask for mum, go into mums bedroom at any point etc. OH does comfort her if she wakes up she is a terrible sleeper from a small child. whilst I see this might be ok for some people at their houses it is alienating SDD. She also is left with someone who isn’t her parent so she cries a lot asking for her mum and dad. Then she gets in trouble for crying. The sibling is treated completely differently, this is very obvious. SDD rarely sees her mum 1:1. They had a reward chart this is another issue as when she does anything ‘bad’ she gets punished and by the time she comes back to her dad she is very sad and beating herself up for failing and letting everyone down. The sibling always gets the reward. The partner has told SDD that things are her fault and they talk to her like she’s an adult.

SDD does have strops sometimes but she isn’t rude to us very often and doesn’t say mean things. I gather she is saying a LOT of mean things at the other house as mum frequently complains to dad about it. IN FRONT OF SDD

I really don’t know all the ins and outs this is just what DD has said so I can’t judge mum and don’t want to do that.

OH has tried talking to her about all of this stuff and sometimes I think he is trying to get her to comply with it for an easy life for her. Go along with it to keep the peace. She is not that child though.

Their marriage wasn’t that great he seems afraid of her. OH is passive but I stick around as I know he isn’t doing it out of malice.

I don’t think she’s a jerk I don’t know. OH doesn’t say bad stuff, his friends and family do but from what I gather she undermined him a lot. She always got her own way even if he tried to stick up for himself. He says she isn’t the person or mother he thought he knew before.

I don’t know if he thinks it would make things worse. I think she would engage but OH feels like she would just spin it round to be all his fault somehow. She already does do this she is not good with feedback but I asked him if he thought the partner is influencing her and he thinks perhaps but nothing makes sense.

One day SDD is going to realise that dad enabled her stepdad to abuse her and make her feel shit. Doing nothing and turning a blind eye is as bad as what the mum is currently doing and it’s going to crush her self esteem to know that nobody thinks that she is worth standing up for.

I wouldn’t be able to stay with a partner who turned a blind eye to this. Poor girl 😢

Your OH needs to take some flak from the ex if it will improve his DD’s life. His priority should be peace and calm for his dd over his peace and calm. I’m not suggesting an all guns blazing approach but this is setting sd up for long term mental health issues if it’s not dealt with.

If Mum is already approaching your husband for ideas about this, could you suggest meeting as a four to plan the best way forward? Perhaps in a neutral public place e.g. pub? You could use the importance of consistency between households as an excuse. You would get a fuller picture and might manage to 'brainstorm' solutions without appearing too critical. You can model constructive, assertive but non-confrontational approaches to your DH (no pressure!). I wouldn't place too much emphasis on raising concerns initially, to try and keep the door open, and maybe suggest a 'review' in a few weeks where you could raise concerns if nothing is improving.

Hi OP, this is such a tough situation. Does your partner bury his sand about other things? Or is it just his DD situation?

This child is being abused by her step father and both her parents are ignoring the abuse. Disgraceful.

This. It makes me want to karate chop him in the neck.

I have had struggles with any emotional conversation with child's father and I have no words to describe how damaging and infuriating it is.

Why are you having to do all this. I honestly couldn't stand a minute of this - hence I remain single.

I'd be getting quite firm with him and letting him know this is not something you can sit back and watch much longer without his intervention.

it won’t sort itself out, she will just grow up an emotionally abused child, with a dad who did nothing about it.

I’m going to suggest a different pathway as it sounds like the actual parents are not going to do anything about this that is effective.

Go online to your local authority website and find the page for reporting safeguarding worries. Fill out the form, you should be able to say that you don’t want your details to be used/remain anonymous. This should then be seen by a multi agency team for school, health, police etc to pit the picture together of whether proper intervention is needed.

You can advocate to your OH all you want but if he’s not going to do anything useful then you need to make sure others who are qualified to can judge what’s going on.

I do love this child even though she is not mine. She is such a lovely little girl but also she’s just a child and I give shits about kids wellbeing. I’m angry with my partner too like others are saying

@Ramblethroughthebrambles I have invested so much time in describing this exact situation.. why dont you try this? Or that? It won’t be confrontational. It would be great for SDD to experience this model of communication and collaboration. He could find out their side of the story and give his and meet in the middle. They would meet OH if he asked them to.

Managing conflict is my real life job so I am not advocating for any guns and any blazing it wouldn’t help.

My ex does that, it's amazing how they can twist things. Has he considered other options? With my ex limiting their exposure to him is the only way to mitigate the harm that actually works. I tied myself in knots for years trying to help him understand. Thinking if only I could explain things in the right way he'd see the problem. You can't make people like that see anyone else's point of view. Getting DSD some mental health support could be helpful. Play theapy can work for young kids. She could do some sessions with a psychologist then do some family sessions with both her parents. That might be a useful, safe way to address the issues. Hearing how DSD feels from a neutral 3rd party could be a good way to get the message across. It does depend on exactly what she's like, it wouldn't work with my ex.

How old is she? Really at school age its typical to be sleeping alone not waking people during the night, that's something that working on in a positive way at your house could help improve.
Also with the crying "a lot", is that her genuinely being sad or is it her shouting for ages in a tantrum style?
Has anyone brought up referring her for a neurodivergence assessment. It could just be attachment issues with the 50/50 but it sounds like there's a lot of behaviours which aren't typical at school age. If the cause can be narrowed down then it might help the mum and stepdad understand and handle it better.

Would you be alarmed if a young kid said this kind of things?

• I have got goals to work towards being less angry.
• If I can stop being angry I will get this thing I really want (it’s something specific they have dangled as an incentive) but because I keep being angry they told me I can never have it
• I make my mummy sad when I am angry and it feels like she doesn’t love me
• Mum and partner argue about me and I think it’s my fault
• I have to learn not to need mum or dad all the time and be by myself
• Learning not to need mum or dad all the time will be good for me
• I tell mum she doesn’t love me when I am feeling really sad and I get in trouble then I am more sad
• I think I have something wrong with me and I am not normal
• I feel lonely at mums and like no one likes me and I need a hug