Ridiculously long post but if you make it to the end I could really use some guidance. I don't really have anyone irl to talk to and I'm really worried I'm damaging my daughter.
I (F35 something) divorced DD's dad (M41) when she was around 7. Nearly 15 now. It was a relatively straightforward separation, no real arguments, I just wasn't `in love' with him anymore and we agreed to go our separate ways.
He moved back in with his mum and still lives there now. He sees our DD most weeks for an afternoon. Never stopped or even tried to limit contact between them - no reason to. She has stayed there overnight maybe 3 times in the 7 years since we separated and he took her away for a week last year.
She doesn't like going there as she says it's boring and he can sometimes be abrasive with her. Sends text messages and says things to her without thinking. She's sensitive and takes everything to heart, won't tell anyone they've upset her as she's really keen to please people.
She and I have a good relationship and she tells me most things although it can sometimes take her a few days as she likes to process first.
Recently DD was upset by a collection of things. Small in the scheme of things but enough to her. She canceled plans (to go to his house and play board games after school) by text the night before. Like most teens, she wasn't subtle and could definitely have worded her message better. The next morning, while she was lining up to go in her classroom to start school, she recived a really nasty message from him. "Wow! That was really cold and heartless. That arrived at 10pm just as I was about to go to bed. I barely slept at all! I don't know why you're treating me like that." - message was sent around 7. I knew this would have massively upset her and she told me, when home from school she 'had a breakdown ' there and then in the corridor.
That was the last straw. I wrong a really long email to him explaining that if he wants to have a good relationship with her he needs to step up. She doesn't have to see him if she doesn't want to and he needs to make her feel important, think before he sends messages like and not reprimand her over the small stuff. She's a great kid and to ease his relationship with her he needs to not swear the small stuff. I was furious wit him for upsetting her but I didn't my level beat to keep my emotions out of it. I suspect the email was more passive aggressive than it would have been but I stand by it even now. Over a week later.
I received a response last night and it is one of the most vicious things I've ever read. He says I'm a bully and I bully her the way I used to bully him. He claims I prioritise my job over DD (I have had to work some crazy long hours and she has had to hang out in my office in the past) when she was too little to be on her own). He says she's scared of me. He noticed her low self-esteem last year (yet still hasn't noticed she's been self harming for nearly a year) and he's heavily implied it's my fault. It goes on and on.
My questions (finally!) if I am on the wrong track as a parent, how do I fix it? If I am even half the monster he makes me out to be, I absolutely have to be a hundred times better. How do I ask her if this stuff is true without telling her what her dad said to me? I feel like an absolute failure as a human being let alone a mother. I just want her to be happy and to go forward in her life with the best emotional basis she can. How do I ask her what I'm doing wrong or what I could do better? She's unlikely to criticize me as she's a people pleaser.
Not sure if anyone can offer anything of use here but I figured I had to ask - I feel absolutely hopeless and I'm so scared for my kid.
Thank you for reading