Help? Need brutal honest advice.

[Chel14]

Daughter is 14.

just us for 10 years. Good life.

i was in abusive relationship, destroyed me, her, us. Changed our life.

long story short, I was in mental hospital, she had to stay with maternal grandmother, when we reconnected I wasn’t me. She didn’t receive the same love affection care effort as before.

•appreciate massively how fucking horrific this must have been for a 10 year old. Do not diminish this statement•

however

2 years, 1 relationship, mounds of professionals throwing help her way, school transfers, allowance of poor behaviour, to extreme levels later, I am unable to cope. She is literally ruining any remaining salvageable part of our relationship, ruining her entire life, ruining my relationship with my genuine love of my life, any chance she or I have at happiness. Can’t even ask how did ur day go without it ending in literal tears on my part because of the hatred, brutality and lack of respect or empathy for anyone she displays!
she treats everyone and everyone like less than, unworthy pieces of shit! Treats my partners children like shit, has recorded herself talking to teachers in school in a way I am still shocked about. Complete lack of any good quality right now. No joke. It’s THAT bad. Wish I could tell you it all.

caught her on FaceTime vaping once. Still denies it to this day. I saw it? Close enough to see the flavour? Still denies to my face.

we live alone. Things will go missing or be left out and she will try manipulate my mental health to make me believe it has nothing to do with her. It is scary. Makes up stories to other people that are nowhere near true. Scary.

i recovered so well. Went back to college, got a job. New relationship. New lease on life. Not me again, but better.

she is driving me into the ground. Hates me. Accepts to me it wasn’t my fault what happened in that relationship. Admits she has resentment towards me for various acceptable reasons ie lack of effort when seriously unwell, emotional outbursts etc. understandable. However says it isn’t our fault and doesn’t blame me?

she has adhd (on diagnosis pathway) and what I truly believe to be ODD, possible BPD (I have this)

I have exhausted every avenue tried every approach repeated everything for months day in day out 45 minute deep hearted chats before school she seems to take in. She returns that day from being suspended, to then after 2 hours - be suspended! So what was that mornings heart felt chat and agreement about?

I cannot do it anymore. I have no help.
dad useless. No1 to take her. Social are involved however they have not much advice to help in the immediate future other than wait 16 weeks for a measly parenting course and nowhere to even temporarily accommodate her as even a worst case.

someone please give me realistic advice.

I am not joking when I say I don’t know if I’ll survive this.
everyone who truly knows her agrees she is unbelievable. Deceitful. Has no empathy. Doesn’t care for consequences. Manipulates. Will use my mental health against me eg if I’m talking to her about something she’s done and she doesn’t want to admit it or is trying to twist how it happened she will say so calmly and seeming concerned ‘mum have you took your meds today? Are you ok I’m worried your going insane’

please hear the desperation of how severe this is. If needed I will give more examples. Just please need help.

im afraid for my life and afraid she’s ruined her own.

I am begging for help.

That would be one of the worst decisions she could make.

Her mother is unwell and you think she should remove her from the only stability she knows?

No it isn’t. You’re making a comparison between your wife’s abuse (who by the way, could have left when her ex was out ‘philandering’ so much as you put it) and that of a 10 year old child. Your wife was an adult and should have safe guarded her children at the first safe opportunity to do so after he held a knife to their throats. OPs child was a little girl.

So many posts attacking me that I have lost track and cannot find them to answer them.

So I will just say a few last things.
Look up the definition of psychological trauma.
Some of you get it, some of you don't.

And stop making assumptions based on partial understanding or inaccurate reading of others' posts.
This thread has descended into nasty innuendo based on nothing.

OP, I hope you get the care and attention you need and your daughter too

My DS was a milder version of your DD. Lived with his dad for a number of years because I couldn't cope. He's in his twenties now and he really is quite pleasant.

I understand how difficult it is....it's like being in an abusive relationship but instead of receiving sympathy, you get all the blame. And the child ends up with all the power because you blame yourself and let them get away with their difficult behaviour.

I would just keep going, trying to provide the best environment you can and hopefully as she matures, she will mellow a bit. To those saying you shouldn't have a relationship, well life's not that simple is it? Your mental health is important and not having that distraction and support could worsen your mental health.

You aren't being attacked. You're being pulled up and rebutted because you are trivialising and minimising abuse and trauma and laying into a child because she hasn't GOT OVER it yet... while using your own step kids as an example, and even by your account (which we can't fully trust), they were years older than she is by the time they GOT OVER their trauma.

You lecture us on trauma but your own account of it is selective (the kids had knives at their throats but that was something to GET OVER), centred on yourself as the benchmark and, as far as I can see, driven by your desire not to have children's trauma impact upon adult relationships. Adults are allowed to be centred and traumatised, children should GET OVER IT.

You mentioned putting on your hard hat, so obviously you realised people were going to have something to say in response to you. Should hope so too because the stuff you've got to say should not go unchallenged. (Pull the kid she says is ruining her life out of school and home educate her, really??)

If social services are involved I imagine Home schooling would be a no anyway

@StanleySteamer you are mansplaining trauma and trauma is such a unique personal
reaction anyway especially in the way it manifests.

Plus the OPs child here is clearly showing manifestation of trauma and the OP is one suspect having saviour complex about the boyfriend due to BPD

She absolutely is not the victim as much as the DD. Nobody is saying she deserves the consequences, but she made bad choices that put her DD at risk.

Given a majority of the posts on this thread I hope the OP doesn't come back. She's very vulnerable, very much wanting to do the best thing and people are brutal to the point of sheer destructiveness in some cases.

Too much nastiness in among the gold.

"Who by the way, could have left when her ex was out ‘philandering’ so much as you put it"

This comment says a lot about your lack of knowledge of the dynamics of domestic abuse. It is never really that simple and reducing it to such black and white simplistic thinking does a real injustice to women experiencing domestic abuse and actually makes it significantly harder for them to leave.

Which bad choices were those? Entering into a relationship with a man who abused them? That sounds like you have the crystal ball handy that tells us which men are the really harmful ones and which are the safe ones - if you could share with the rest of us that would be great. Because again - noone CHOOSES to be in an abusive relationship and it should not be treated as a choice.

No. What my comment is trying to do is highlight the fact that diminishing people’s experience of abuse and what constitutes trauma, like the man I am replying to in my comment, is a bullshit response. Especially when aimed at a 10 year old little girl.

Getting into an abusive relationship, staying and therefore exposing her daughter to harm, promptly getting into a new relationship instead of rebuilding her daughter’s life, focusing all her energies on moaning about her guilt rather than steps to remedy things, or pushing for therapy for her daughter….

OP - take a look at the resources offered by Beacon House:

beaconhouse.org.uk/resources/

beaconhouse.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Having-Difficult-Conversations-with-Teens.pdf

Also, the Centre or Excellence in Child Trauma can help you learn more about Therapeutic Parenting and dealing with a traumatised child who is trying to control their environment in an attempt to feel safe. You can have a chat with them on the phone:

www.coect.co.uk/therapeutic-parent-coaching
www.coect.co.uk/

Those look like fantastic resources. I hope OP is still reading and looks into them.

The one thing that gives me hope is the reasonable mn'ers that always seem to be in the majority who actually seem to prioritize putting children first. The ones that smartly remind other posters that it's the child who is vulnerable here and needs protecting, and that - no, everyone does not have a 'right' to be with their 'soul mate', especially when that 'right' comes at the expense of a child who has already been harmed by another relationship the parent chose to get into.

It gives me hope that there are people out there - or at least women out there - that actually understand what it means to carry the responsibility of really taking care of children

Happily we don't need a crystal ball because we have huge amounts of data that tell us the answers. One of the riskiest things a parent can do for their child is to move an unrelated male into their home. We know this. It's very possible to date without putting your child in this situation, so the guilt-trippy comment about single mothers never dating is silly.

I'm not even going to entertain the attempt to argue that this is a success story about "protective parenting" and safeguarding. OP moved an unrelated male into her child's home who went on to abuse her, resulting in a breakdown which left her child parentless for an extended period of time, and as soon as she's better she is doing the same exact thing again, only now with the added intention to have a baby with the latest bloke. No, that's not protective parenting or safeguarding. Not by any stretch.

Read my post properly. I did not have problems with my stepchildren it was MY WIFE (to be), who did so. They didn't last.
Now who is projecting?
You WANTED me to have had problems with them to make you right. You are not.
I also did not say that their father held a knife to their throats "on multiple occasions" You put that in, for some effect only you are aware of except that again you are trying to make some point.
It is your axe you are trying to grind.
And yes, due to their mother's love and care they DID get over it. None of them ever had to see a doc, a psychologist, a welfare or social worker, no one.
They grew up very well rounded, happily married and have raised children who are similarly happy.
You are just trying to make a personal negative point., and as you cannot read and comprehend accurately it is silly trying to converse with you.

"Repeatedly"? Do you know how many times he did it, did I mention how many times he did it?
No. I said "every time she tried to leave him."
Which happened twice.
She was never going to risk him going further a third time.
(Just realised I am answering inaccurate comments from the same poster yet again.) You really do want to take a step back and learn to read properly, rather than let your desire to misuse my own posts to attack me govern what you post.

Blaming op for "getting into an abusive relationship" is unfair because NO relationship ever starts out as abusive.

Staying? OP left in the safest way she could. If she can be blamed for staying she'd still be in it and she isn't. There's good reason why abusive relationships can take time to leave - leaving is the most dangerous time when women are most at risk of being murdered so judging women on why didn't they just leave sooner minimises how difficult that actually is to do.

"Focusing all her energies on moaning about her guilt rather than steps to remedy things, or pushing for therapy for her daughter" Op has clearly stated that she has been repeatedly pushing hard for services for her dd for the past 4 years. And op is "moaning about her guilt" because of the fucking trauma the woman has been through which she's obviously still trying to deal with and likely will be for the rest of her life in some way. Of course it would be so much easier if op didn't have that trauma to deal with - but she does and that complicates this situation which is really difficult. So hammering her and blaming her on here is not acceptable when she's asked for help. Trauma takes time and intervention to work through. You don't just stand up and shake it off because you need to parent unfortunately.

"OP moved an unrelated male into her child's home who went on to abuse her" could you quote where in ops posts it says her ex was living with them?

"she is doing the same exact thing again" OP has very clearly stated that she decided she would not move in with her current partner and would not have him around her dd. They only meet now when her dd is not there to witness it. She has been with this guy for 2 years, not 2 months. Obviously ops dd was not ready to meet or be around this guy or that changed in some way for her, but I don't think it's fair to assert that op hasn't done any due diligence on this guy when they've been around for quite a while. Many people would consider waiting around a year to sus out a partner before making an introduction sufficient and you don't know how long op waited. As soon as she saw it wasn't working for her dd she put a nail in it which is exactly what she should do.

"so the guilt-trippy comment about single mothers never dating is silly." OP has not moved this guy in and does not have him around her dd and only sees him when her dd is elsewhere - and is being told on this thread that's still inappropriate. So no it is not a silly guilt trippy comment.

Not going to answer the first para in great detail cos that is self-evidently so wrong, if you read my other posts. Kids who stop bothering simply drift away, ours have done the opposite.
Second para, your imagining that I don't know what trauma is, two examples, my first girlfriend got killed in a car crash at the age of 16. She and I were no longer going out but she was my first love. It hurt like mad, and it still upsets me a bit if I think about it. But it hasn't stopped me living my life. No psychologist or any intervention from anyone.
My father had TB, he didn't know it for a long time. This happened from 1939 onwards. As he didn't know it he behaved towards his fiancée as any normal man would. i.e. they kissed, a lot. (All that a good catholic would do, especially back then.) Until an army docotr finally recognised his symptoms. Sadly she developed TB as well and died of it 6 months later. He struggled on with it and the mental torture of believing he had basically killed the love of his life. Eventually was cured because the woman, who became my mother, became a doctor and was able to give him the streptomycin that other doctors wouldn't. But it haunted him for the rest of his life, he DIDN'T get over it as I mentioned in another post, he was in mental hospital from time to time.

And of course my wife's trauma lives with us all the time, usually in the background but never goes away. She has totally NOT got over it, for example we can never spend Christmas at home as we live in the house she bought her ex out of and that time of year, only, the memories are too bad for her.

So don't you dare tell me I have no idea what trauma is.

I have read your posts properly, and I have nothing to project onto this situation. I have no personal parallels with anything in this situation and I'm basing my responses purely on what's written on this thread. You, on the other hand, clearly do have an axe to grind.

Your previous post stated that your stepchildren had knives held to threat their throats "every time" your wife tried to leave her abusive ex. That clearly implies that it happened on multiple occasions. Thank you for subsequently clarifying that your partner actually only tried to leave twice in the 20 years that she was with her ex - that is quite surprising given the level of abuse that you describe and the fact that she had two children to protect, but the point still stands that your step children were exposed to violent threats on more than one occasion.

As to your claim that you had no problems with your step children, and that it was only your wife that experienced issues, I am afraid I don't believe you. You stated that your stepson acted up when you came on the scene and you also state that, in the end "we had to make him leave". It is very clear from that that you were involved.

As to how they reflect on their experiences now, I would be interested in hearing their perspective on that. I'm not sure that you are in a position to assess the extent to which they have got over it, and I'm also not convinced that you would be open and honest about it even if they were.

@StanleySteamer I am not saying you don’t know trauma I am saying you have no right to judge anyone else’s trauma and how it effects them - because as you can see from when you mistakenly believed that I was questioning it how upset you got.

and there is no shame in seeing someone just like there is no major prize for managing to get through it without

and given your responses on this thread and how you are interacting with myself and other posters and the constant need to make points you are coming across rather badly and unhinged and constantly changing the narrative of your story and questioning those who point this out

Bearing in mind your last sentence there is no point in my replying to you really since you think I am a liar.
And by the way there were three children involved not two, the middle daughter simply never had a problem with her mother.
The son's problems with his mother were there before I met her, and were caused by jhis father gaslighting him and trying to twist his mind against her. Thankfully with maturity he realised how much his mum had done for him and he said all this when he came to see her the day after Lady Di's death.

But then you cannot believe a word I say, can you?.
One thing I do believe is that you "have no personal parallels with anything in this situation" so I really do wonder why you are posting on this thread at all.
As I have said more than once, you need to know someone who has been in OP's position, or similar. I think it is just a shame I am the only man on here who knows a bit about what it is like, but then Mumsnetters don't like to see "mansplaining" as we are such inferior creatures.
Witness the other thread about "Do we have to put up with men on Mumsnet" that I noticed yesterday.