DD wanting to reduce contact with XH

[mumoftwoplusone]

DD is 13 and has been away on holiday with XH this week but has had a number of arguements with said XH and at one point DD called me in tears asking me to go and collect her. XH has already successfully managed to push away 16yr old DS and I can see this is going in the same direction. DD has always seemed to have a better relationship with said XH but this week he has turned on her as he did on our DS. DD is a lot more sensitive and whilst I don't speak bad of him around them I know that he is in an abusive marriage and would prefer if DD had limited contact. I can feel a stroppy teenager coming home tonight and DD has already mentioned that she does not want to go back. There is no court ruling over access. Any advice would be appreciated.

My understand is that if there is no court ordered access, then contact can stop and if your XH wants to he can approach the court for an order. But your DDs wishes would be taken into account because of her age

What are the current arrangements?

Maybe the type of contact needs to change rather than having no contact at all. eg she can visit for shorter periods, dinners together rather than a long period of time
How would your DD feel about that?

At 15 my DD decided she didn't want to have to go to her Dad's mid-week or for weekends though she does dearly love him and he's a loving (if a bit boring) Dad. She just got fed up of constantly shifting houses, carrying GCSE stuff about and being bored at his place. We are also very close. But I didn't encourage her to do this, I respected her views but tried to make sure she kept a close and loving relationship with her Dad. I made it very clear to him that I wasn't encouraging her to do this as I would be very sorry if my son chose to do this in the other direction. Plus I did quite like having free weekends for my private life!

I always knew that at some point the rigid contact arrangements wouldn't last with teenagers. I advised my ex to take her out more for dinner or for expeditions - like shopping or galleries - but just not to expect her to stay over. She is now re-considering reinstating the weekends with him though maybe with more flexibility on the advice of a friend whose father died, but that's her choice.

I'd encourage her to keep up some sort of contact/relationship with him - maybe she could think about how that might work? Appreciate that he may be awful but it is pretty normal to clash a lot with parents at that age and she may regret it later if she just drops him like a stone now.