How to deal with being the boring parent.

[spacecowboypeanut]

My 11 year old dad has decided she wants to live with her dad full time. I know this is because of the novelty that he’s moved in with his new gf and her daughter. Has no rules there, no bedtimes, unlimited tech access. Has said she doesn’t want any over nights with me. 🙁 and the only reason I get it ‘ I dunno, just because’. I understand in the eyes of an 11 year old why they would make that choice but it’s still hard to hear.

That must be so difficult to hear OP! Obviously lots of kids would be excited to have no bedtime, unlimited tech, fun new adult/kid around but I think that will wear off. I would take the time to recharge yourself and try to make sure you are spending quality time with her as much as possible/practical. Kids need connection and someone they feel safe with even if they don’t have the emotional maturity to realise it. Spend time the time you do have with her doing fun things together that keep your relationship open. Enjoy being the Disney parent for now and make sure she always knows she can come back whenever she wants.

Does she get to make that decision at 11 years?

She does when her father has jumped at the opportunity to make it happen for her, won’t force her to do anything. Including even talking to me in public if she doesn’t want to.

Yes 11 year olds get a say, if it was an 11 year old saying she didn’t want to stay with her father anymore you’d not ask that question.

I think all you can do is support her decision if she's serious. Let her know the door is always open, that you love her and you just want her to be happy.
As hard as it is, at 11 her views would be influential in any family court.
What's the current arrangements? Could you consider an equal shared care arrangement instead?

up until recently it was a 70/30 split. With me doing the weekday slog and him doing weekends. I went through mediation to change this as I wanted some down time with them. And he decided he wanted 50/50 so he could stop paying child support and I could have my weekends. I agreed with this change. End of week 1 at his house and she’s decided not to come home at all, was happy to visit my house last week to receive birthday presents and then now she won’t even talk to me at my front door or come in my house. We still have a 50/50 schedule of my younger child.

You’ll soon become the fun parent.

And there lies some of the problem. I know being there is novelty and will soon wear off, but I don’t want to compete to be the “cool/fun parent”. I don’t want her to expect we will try out do each other. Life is sometimes boring, can’t be doing activities every week. I also don’t want to be the Disney parent, I want to parent. It’s hard to determine a balance between having fun but also not doing it to try buy her back.

Have you thought, perhaps she feels she needs to be there to drive the new gf away ?

I think a lot of it may have to do with a subconscious feeling of potentially being replaced by the gfs daughter. From what I know of the family the new gf has quite low self esteem and the daughter has attachment issues, because they are still in the honeymoon period they are lovebombing each other. I don’t want to sound negative about the new gf I don’t know her on a personal level and I’m hoping she’s bringing a positive to my daughter’s life.

Let her do it OP, you're playing the long game here - most of my divorced friends have had their daughters flounce off to live with their dads at some point (usually because of some perfectly reasonable parenting decision or sanction!) And each one of them have without fail ended up coming back to their mums within a few months. Turns out that their dads are too selfish and self-involved to bother looking after their children once the novelty has worn off!