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.

What is wrong with your partner who is allowing another man to abuse and bully his daughter? Shame on him
His daughter is crying out for help and support and he is ignoring her. I wouldn't be able to look at him let alone have a relationship with him
Someone needs to protect this little girl who is being abused in plain sight with adults condoning this behaviour.

I don’t want to out this child. I am trying to do the right thing. You can PM me if you really want to know. She’s at primary school in the middle years. I am trying to be cautious as many of these details are quite outing and I am worried for her welfare. I don’t know if her mum reads here. I don’t know if mum is in a controlling relationship either. I have an alarm bell about this as OH does say she is acting out of character. She has rushed into this and he seems a dominant character. I have no idea if she is struggling and wouldn’t tell her ex husband to save face?

I give no shits what comes to my door personally, but I don’t want to become the scapegoat for them to all double down and focus on the wrong thing. I need to think it through. Going straight to school will cause a drama. Would that help her? I am not sure

This is not an excuse for my OH (there are none tbh) but as some background but he is not very resilient in these situations as he freezes up. He has a domineering mum and she has done a real number on him. I know her well. She can be dreadful.

Then he had a dysfunctional marriage and we have had problems with the same thing, the females in his life always ends up coming across as dominating and bossy because he is afraid of confrontation. I was dragged up by shitty parents in the same scenario as DSD and had to become empowered to survive I did not have this type of bossy smothering over bearing parenting he had. We are very different. Like I said I have some projection here from my own past and I can see in his eyes he thinks I am projecting. I am trying not to bring my own personal experiences in but I have been DSD, I was her. I can see it and I’m not imagining it. Hard relate

You don’t need to talk to the school if you go to the safeguarding team. The school will be notified of any concerns that they need to be watchful for by them. Go to the safeguarding team today. It takes a few minutes to complete the form.

What you do about your OH after that, I am not sure how much I could respect someone who has put their own interests for a peaceful life above their child’s safety.

Yes. Absolutely this!!

I'm so glad that she has you.

Is there anyway your husband would like to anyone else. His mum? His GP? Even a social worker or teacher?

His mum would go nuclear and OH would have a breakdown. OH is not doing anything!

I am going to make a final decision this weekend. I am not putting it off, it gives me more time to find out info. As I said this only just came to a head and I have one more opportunity to get information. Don’t want to be outing but I will see DSD. She will not be at risk over the weekend so she’s not left in the situation with that person while I am doing nothing she will be with us.

The problem is that you don't know whether what the dd is saying is true. You can imagine that it is but it could equally be true that she doesn't like the new person or doesn't like the new rules about sleeping in her own bed etc and so is being badly behaved. Many kids play parents off against each other being well behaved with one and difficult with another because they know it works.

Your DSD is so lucky to have you OP. She sounds like she’s in a lot of emotional pain.

Would you show your OH this thread so he can see how many people think his daughter needs his help? He may be trying to minimise it because the alternative, that his DD is in an abusive household, is too difficult to contemplate.

This is very valid and a large reason why it’s gone on so long, as we assumed it was the challenges of different houses with different rules.

Mum would not tolerate anything from my DP that she doesn’t approve of. She contacts him telling him off for stuff like don’t let them watch that kind of film or nagging him about something so she doesn’t let stuff slide when it’s DP. She has disapproved of what she sees DP’s lax parenting but only since she met her partner so we wonder if it comes via him.

Mum hasn’t said anything else negative about what happens at our house and she absolutely would have. All she reports is that DSD seems to say is that she misses us and wants go home to dad. She also reports all the mean things DSD has said to her and how bad it’s been. This upsets mum. We witness this stuff as DSD calls on the phone. DSD does not call her mum from our house, doesn’t cry for her.

DSD does seem to prefer dad but we don’t give a reason to play off. And she doesn’t get to stay with us we send her to mums. It’s consistently getting worse it’s been multiple years of the same behaviours

DSD is not complaining about her mum she is complaining about her mums partner, and taking it out on her mum. DSD tells us she upsets mummy and then feels guilty but she doesn’t ever say mum treated her badly directly. She won’t tell mum anything for worry of making mum upset - not through fear, just doesn’t like it. Mum has a bad case of main character syndrome with this though, telling DSD that her actions make her sad

Mum thinks that telling DSD the consequences of her actions make mum sad then it will inspire DSD to stop doing it, not working though is it

DSD spoke with me again at her instigation and said she liked talking to me because it felt easy and I don’t get upset about it, which makes a lot of sense. She asked me why OH and I don’t get mad at her as much. I said that I had lots of experience of having girls and that I was used to these things and I was a grown up and she isn’t responsible for grown ups feelings.

I do feel upset by what she says (for her) but I don’t let her know her I’m feeling upset for her. Whereas she keeps repeating to me: ‘I make mummy sad when I am bad’ or ‘when I try to talk to mummy that I feel sad and it makes her feel sad’. I asked what she meant by this and she explained she had tried to talk to mum about her confusing emotions and explain that she was feeling sad and sometimes the shouting was her feeling sad and frustrated and mum replied ‘it makes me feel really sad when you do it’ so DSD said ‘I don’t miss mummy very much when I am here’ which is a very sad thing for a little girl to say.

This is in keeping with OH’s experience in marriage, he wasn’t able to have his own feelings it was all about her feelings. She is a very silly woman as more and more DSD just equates mum with feelings of sadness, disappointment and frustration.

DSD announced to OH openly that her sibling had been given a special favourable treat by mum and partner and DSD was excluded from it specifically because she had been having strops over the course of a couple of days. She said she lay in her bed crying missing dad and felt very jealous. I don’t think the punishment of exclusion was in direct response to her behaviour ie took place within the same few hours as she was upset the most about this as she felt she hadn’t done anything wrong in the lead up to this being announced. Mum is complicit in this stuff it is clear.

I have not had any chance to speak with OH properly as so much going on this weekend but I asked if he thought she was being treated fairly and whether he thinks any of this sounds acceptable. He paused as I knew that her being excluded had got to him.

He replied he is unsure if she is just saying stuff to get a reaction. I pointed out I do not react when she tells me, I just let her tell me. I don’t tell her what I think of it and nothing changes for her so I don’t believe she is doing it just for attention or any benefit she is just spilling her emotions to someone she feels safe with. I had to walk away from him at this point. I plan to have a proper discussion with him and tell him I cannot just brush this under the carpet.

I’ve had a few experiences of DSD shouting and losing her temper at us but OH and I deal with this at the time and don’t keep bringing it up as a punishment later on. DSD once had a huge meltdown while we were driving and said all kinds of awful things to us lashing out. We stayed calm, tried to calm her down and she fell asleep crying. She was very remorseful when she woke up and said sorry to everyone. We all hugged and let it go and moved on.

This little girl is so lucky to have you. It sounds like she’s going through a terrible time at her mum’s.

So, it sounds like your DP grew up with an overbearing mother who makes everything all about her own feelings, and then married a woman who does the same. This is a parenting problem rooted in his own issues, so he needs some outside therapy to address how to handle it. I think you’re being naive to assume he can just change his reactions and feelings because his daughter needs him to without doing the work on himself, and he can’t do that alone. It’s not going to be a quick fix. Can you support him through that, I guess is the question you need to ask yourself.

I'm really sorry OP.

This is emotional abuse.

If I were you I would phone her school, ask to speak to the safeguarding lead and tell them everything you've told us here.

If things are as bad as you decribe, one of her school friend's mums is going to end up doing that anyway.

Your DH should take her to court for more contact. Perhaps the mum/SD would even welcome that, who knows?

Get her away from this dangerous man.

I always query sexual abuse when things like this come up - it's so much more common than people often want o acknowledge

By the step father not your do I mean. Of course if my might not be - he might just be abusive in other ways - but I'd definitely be investigating

Agree. This is so sad.

This is sadly the case I am seeing more and more. DP’s dad stuck around to balance it out with their mum and protect them, and I think that made a huge difference as he was able to counteract a lot of it. I think DP is trying to do the same but he isn’t in the same house, so he cannot have the same influence.

I am a child of emotional abuse and I always see that this has the long term impact on people in a few ways.

Either they hide from it (flight) and can’t deal with it, these people can end up becoming complicit with seeing emotional abuse but not knowing how to address it

Those who end up carrying out EA, parroting a lot of what they saw and taught growing up and refusing to recognise they have adopted the same patterns

and those who are triggered and fight back

OH is a victim of EA in his own way but he didn’t develop the skills to deal with it. I am not his therapist I can’t make him see any of these things. I know he doesn’t want his DD to suffer but he doesn’t have the fight I do.

I am not sure I can abandon her by leaving DP when she is having such a shit time so I am having a wobble. Maybe I need to support them both.