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Daughters are torn ; Family time

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  • Daughters are torn ; Family time

    Sorry for the long post.

    D9 and D12. Since the time of separation (not my choice) and eventual divorce a couple of years after, we have had shared and joint custody.

    I had moved, and still live in a home which I bought about 500 yards from the matremonial home. Three years ago my new girlfriend moved in (I have had one relationship since the separation and this is it).

    The relationship with my ex has been absolutely horrible and continues to get worse. She has made all sorts of accusations, proffessionally as well as personally, even having gone so far as to accuse me of assaulting her, completely untrue (as was soon discovered by the investigating police service).

    My ex has not been stable, unfortunately, she has moved homes three times with our daughters, most recently, into and then from her boyfriends home with our daughters in tow in just over a year. She has has had an on and off relationship with her parents (having been out of touch for two periods about a year long wherein our daughters only saw their granparents when I could facilitate it) and she is estranged from her brother. She has also declared bankruptcy. She works, she always seems to have a safe place for our daughters, but the past two years has been horrible.

    She has always treated my relationship with our daughters as expendible. At first, she began attacking my character and parenting with our daughters. Mommy says you lie, mommy says you try and make us feel guilty, mommy says that you only think about you. Years of this. Finally I managed to get counselling set up for our daughters. Not only did she not bring them or participate, she withdrew consent, twice, from two different counsellors when she didn't like the feedback from them.

    A couple of years ago I began hearing that "mommy says that when I am 12 I can decide where I want to live", mommy says the courts won't separate us", these were so many, so consistent, coupled with the attacks on my character and motives as well as those of my first girlfriend and now legal spouse. Our daughters love her and she cares about them so deeply and it is always so positive. Things got so bad though, that, after she accused me of assaulting her, I file to have the OCL involved. Even before the investigation into the alleged assault was completed. I knew what had happened with that, and I figured I knew what was happening with our daughters. The co parenting relationship was broken down and she would do anything to have the girls "make up their own minds" to live with her. I figured the best way forward was to have a third party come in. I had tried to maintain counselling, mediation, conflict reduction counselling, everything. And everything kept breaking down when she'd refuse to participate, and she was still feeding our daughters that she is the one who cares about and for them.

    Well the legal matter was resolved with a new order which stated that our daughters existing counsellor would remain their counsellor and that that consent could not be withdrawn unilaterally. I thought that might be enough.

    This summer, though, our younger daughter started expressing this overwhelming need to be with her mother for the nightime. For the first time in years, their mother showed up at one of their counselling appointments with the party line of "if that what she wants, then she should be able to stay". She has always said that the girls should be able to make the decision as to where it is they want to stay, that they can come over whenever and we shouldn't dictate to them who's whom they should be in. This, since the ages of 8 and 5.

    The counsellor stated that it would be best for our daughters to feel safe and secure in both homes, and that the level of anxiety our younger daughter was feeling was new and unhealthy. There was not feer or discomfort in being in our home, just an absolute "need", to be in her home, in her bed, in the night.

    While my ex remained fixated on the idea that this should just be catered to, to her dislike, the counsellor stated that we should work on not only finding the cause of this, but also finding a routine which would make her feel comfortable at home, understanding that there was room for flexibility. It should be noted that on two occasion in the month prior, I had brought our younger daughter to their moms (for the first times and with consequence). On the first occasion my older daughter slept in our bed, feeling off with her sister not home. On the second occasion she was in tears as she wanted to stay but didn't feel right because she wasn't with her sister, so we took "the long way" to their mom's house when she made the decision that she wanted to go.

    I should note that I have my own issues to deal with. At the advice of a counsellor I attended anger management last year to assist in dealing with life's general stressors, with the most prevelant being the frustration I feel around my ex-wife. But of greatest consequence is the impact it has had on my relationship with my family. My spouse says she can see changes, as do my daughters, with the former smiling when she says she can see how I am working on being more patient and that it makes things far more comfortable, and my daughters, with who outright say that I am far less high strung.

    This past month, though, since we started addressing this issue with our youngest, has been extremely difficult. My ex continues to tell them that they should be able to just decide where they want to be in the evening, that if they ever need her she is up at any point for them. We had worked on a new routine in the evening which led to our younger smiling when she went to bed and laughing when she woke up with the counsellor stating "she seems pleased and keep it going...see you in a couple of weeks". WHAT A RELIEF. I reported that to their mom (who didn't go to that appointment), after the next two days with their mom, my younger again wanted to spend an extra night (our older came home). When I went to pick up my younger the next morning it was right back to tears in the younger ones eyes when I picked her up and my ex outright stating in front of them that I wasn't listening to our daughers, that that was the problem. My younger wanted to come home for the day and then back in the evening. My older wants to be home and misses her sister when she's not their and my ex is telling me that I'm not listeining instead of encouraging her to enjoy the day AND try to enjoy the evening, while I am trying to balance both of their emotional needs and convey that it is important not to treat our family time togehter whimsically.

    We came home, we enjoyed our family time, both day and night. Then again, our daughters go home with their mom. Then, and this is it, at 9pm as I am sitting int he hall about to play guitar for our daughters as they go to sleep, my older, 12 year old says "I want to go to moms". It becomes a discussion about the time of night, our last evening together, the disruption, her sister is finally comfortable (and was half asleep in her own bed at this point). I sit, I play, my older daughter keeps crying , "but mommy says I should be able to decide", back and forth and back and forth about it's a school night, how did she feel when here sister spent the other nights at her moms "but I want to go"...it's 10pm now.

    And then smash, I slam and break my guitar. I scare my girls.

    Instead of explaining my frustration at trying to balance their emotional needs with the emotional needs of the other sibling, and trying to keep from eroding our time together where it can't be counted on and becomes something instead that is hoped for because it "may or may not" happen.....I smash my guitar.

    So I wake up to an email from my ex.

    I scared the girls, and, of course, as of Friday night, they already want to stay there monday night, and she wants them to as well.

    I did this, I made this more difficult.

    This is going to be an extremely hard weekend.

  • #2
    Get disneyland daddy out.....

    Comment


    • #3
      I'm very sorry to hear about this - it sounds like an extremely frustrating situation. I agree however that you made things worse by smashing your guitar in front of the kids. You mention you have attended anger management classes in the past - it sounds like now might be time to go back. I also think that your best move is to apologize to both girls for scaring them and to reassure them that they are safe - you broke an object and you are very sorry, but you will never hurt a person and they are safe with you, you are taking responsibility for the incident and it is not their fault. Then maybe talk with your spouse about ways that you can de-escalate when you feel the anger rising (maybe she takes over while you go for a walk, whatever).

      I speak from experience because my daughter's father has a problem with anger management with his current wife (the one after me) - they yell, throw and break things, and recently have police at their house because of this. This behavior scares my daughter a lot, even though as far as I know she has never been targeted. Just witnessing it is frightening.

      However, I have to give my ex credit because in the aftermath of the worst of these incidents, he made a point of apologizing sincerely to her, explaining that he took responsibility for losing control, and was taking steps to make sure it would not happen again (counselling, addiction treatment). It was a bit heavy for a pre-teenager, but it helped her to feel more secure about going back to his house.

      So I would say - apologize, apologize, apologize to your kids (and if you feel up to it, maybe apologize to your ex as well - from my experience, it's pretty tough being the other parent who has to deal with the fallout from these situations).

      Comment

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