[QUOTE=Blackberry]
Sure, if he was involved, it would be her responsibility to keep up her side of it, but I just don’t think it’s fair or realistic to expect a child to initiate or lead a relationship.
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You’re missing the point. Maybe it isn’t “fair,” but it’s much better than having no relationship at all with her father. If your daughter flat out won’t call him, do what some other posters have suggested and call him yourself and give her the phone.
It’s just the right thing to do. Maybe he’s not exactly the father you want him to be, but a mediocre father is better than none at all. She’s only ten. It’s not too late to repair this relationship despite the fact that mistakes have been made on all ends. When she gets a bit older she can choose whether or not she wants to initiate contact, but right now, contact needs to happen regardless of how. Not having a father figure can seriously fuck with little girls.
He doesn’t get a choice of whether or not he wants to “father” her; he already did ten years ago. If he’s not making enough effort, Blackberry needs to close the gap, and no, it certainly isn’t “fair,” but she should still do it because** it’s the best thing for her kid.**
The comments about my daughter being selfish or bitter or whatever are very strange to me and I don’t know where you guys could have possibly gotten that from anything I said. Yeah, she doesn’t want to KEEP calling her dad who has had almost nothing to do with her since she was 5…what the hell is her problem? I’m sure it couldn’t be that she feels rejected and hesitant to try to force her dad to talk to her when she gets so little reciprocation.
Funny how it’s apparently more acceptable for the parent to not call the child than vice versa. HE has valid reasons left and right for ignoring her for half her life, but she should really get her act together and stop being so selfish like some kind of elementary school child or something.
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I have seemed to have touched a nerve here judging by your sarcastic remarks. First of all, you yourself projected your own resentments upon what I posted above and you yourself termed her “selfish and bitter or whatever” (very telling) because of my post describing that your daughter is learning what you yourself are/were doing, such as making conditions and terms on who should communicate to who, such as expecting people to do what you expect them to do. What you have told us about your daughter’s unwillingness to call/talk to her father unless he calls first is just the beginning of becoming controlling person, and she’s learning from a pro.
So, your daughter’s feeling rejected by her father’s unwillingness to call? Why would/should she feel that way? Was it because she learned that she would be justified that if things didn’t go the way she wants them to go, she should make conditions and expect things to go her way (i.e. - dad makes the first move)? Well, Dad did make the first move! He spent your daughter’s first 5 years taking care of her the best way he knew how, but was rewarded with criticism and insults…to the point where the child’s best interests was trumped by the unbearable constraints and criticisms levied by you to the point that he gave up trying to take care of her because of your overbearance. He figured that as long as he kept up the support payments and the occasional holiday calls, that he can still slide by without your criticisms. Dad was looking for relief from you without getting into any legal trouble…although I don’t think that was the best to handle you and your daughter, I really couldn’t blame him.
And now you realize that your daughter is older and is in a real critical stage in her life on whether to accept him or reject him on a permanent basis…you feel that it’s time to change your tune, but dad is very reluctant to dance with you again. You thoroughly burned that bridge 5 years ago. And on top of that, he’s taking care of someone who probably (YMMV) needs him more than your daughter does right now…someone that actually cares about him regardless of his faults…can you or your daughter say that? His mind is elsewhere right now and I don’t really blame him. Therefore…the ball is in your (you & daughter’s) court. You should keep making more attempts to get him to reconnect with your daughter. For all I know (or you for that matter), that you may be banging up against a 5 foot thick concrete wall or a leaning, weather-beaten wood fence. You yourself was that 5 foot thick concrete wall that he was banging on early on…now it’s your turn.
You can start by coming clean with your daughter. She wouldn’t feel rejected if someone (look in mirror) stepped up and told her what dad HAS done for her and what dad is doing for her, and what other issues dad is facing. Once you become an understanding person, she’ll become and understanding person. She should learn that from somebody…right?
As for counseling…you take out what you put in it. I understand that good counselors could be hard to come by…but just because they are with the county health department, doesn’t make all of them bad counselors. Shop around. Interview them…ask them if they themselves have sought out counseling themselves for their own private issues (the answer should be “yes”). Counselors are advocates for you and should help you discover your strengths and weaknesses and how to help yourself and your mental well-being…but they can only be effective if you are actively and accurately describing your own feelings on issues that are of major importance to you, but not other peoples feelings on the matter. That’s why I think each person in this triangle needs some level of counseling.
You do want your daughter and her father to reconnect, right? Then create the environment so that it can have the best chance to happen naturally. That starts with you, because you can only control you. You change yourself so you can make the environment as suitable as possible for your daughter and her dad can reconnect. That means changing your whole attitude towards the dad to the point where your daughter notices it. You graciously accept taking your daughter to dad’s house. You thank the dad for helping financially in raising your daughter…with the daughter there to see and hear it. You show concern to the dad and the issues he faces and empathize…where your daughter and can see and hear it. Your daughter needs to see and hear it coming from you…so she can learn. It’s gonna be real awkward at first, but with sincerity and practice, will hopefully one day help repair a burned out bridge.
Yeah, it will take quite a bit of your time and effort…the damage was really that bad.
Well, yes, I don’t like to hear people badmouthing my child, I think that is to be expected.
No, it’s not–I didn’t mean only you (I could have been more clear about that, although I did say “comments” in plural). Other people have said she was being selfish and that’s just so far from the truth. I mean, sure she can be selfish at times, but about this situation, she has not done anything wrong. She hasn’t really even had an opportunity to do anything wrong.
OR, it has nothing at all to do with that (and neither does my reluctance to call people, which is more of an anxiety thing).
Seriously, you would expect a 10-year-old to KEEP trying to FORCE her dad into a relationship with her when he doesn’t reciprocate? I hope not, because that would be nuts.
Are you seriously asking that question? WTF?
Except, as I’ve said more than once, he knows perfectly well that he can see her all he wants without having ANY contact with me.
Again, no. I changed my tune years ago.
Just to clear this up since people keep saying it: no. He ignored our daughter for years before he even MET his wife, let alone the manifestation of her medical problems, which is recent (I’m sure it’s likely that she had symptoms for some time before her diagnosis, but she is still in the early stages of the disease and she can take care of herself and all; when he told me about her being diagnosed with MS his point was that the medical bills are causing financial strain, not that she needs around-the-clock care).
Seriously, where do you even get this stuff? Do you know the first thing about his wife or how she feels about him or his faults? Seriously, this is just getting bizarre.
Good thing she already knows those things (and really, you think a child being ignored by their parent won’t feel rejected to some extent if someone just EXPLAINS it correctly to them that they shouldn’t?). You don’t think I try to explain it to my daughter the best I can, so she doesn’t assume he just doesn’t care about her? I do what I can to make sure she knows that there are other factors involved and that it’s not that he’s just apathetic to her, etc., but at the same time I’m not going to excuse his behavior, because it’s not excusable and she needs to know that she does deserve better. (And yes, I readily admit my faults to her too.)
I think almost everyone in the world could probably benefit from some type of counseling, but yeah, the health department is more of a “beggars can’t be choosers” type situation, and being all selective isn’t really an option. I already tried taking what I can get from them, and found that it wasn’t really worth it.
I read post after post after post of equivocation, justification, explanation and projection from Blackberry
An SMS was sent to Dad asking for more contact, and then he gets slammed for replying by SMS. (ya know - you ever hear the phrase, “What’s good for the goos is good for the gander”?)
Blackberry says that daughter is trying to “force” a relationship on dad before even one call is made to him from her.
NO contact is needed with Blackberry for visitation, when in reality the visit needs to be co-ordinated - so through Blackberry mum only? Is that really all that realistic?
The more people offer advice, the more Blackberry is saying “but I’m special” and coming up with a reason why it won’t work, or implementing the advice in a way that’s designed to fail (see the above mentioned SMS)
I also see this thing of “but you do whatever is neccessary for the kids” which is a very Pollyanna Fantasy World thing borne of fairytale movies. Dad is only human, he has only so much psychic energy to deal with a woman that was criticising him for dressing daughter wrongly (and god knows what else), he can only bear with so much, this is the real world, not a fairytale where daddy can 40 miles each way on hot coals to see his daughter.
I will happily stipulate that most likely dad’s being an absent father. And that his daughter is feeling rejected for completely legit reasons. And that Blackberry has acted reasonably.
Because it doesn’t matter.
Mom: do what you have to to facilitate contact. Do your best to make it happen. You aren’t doing it for you or for dad. You are doing it for your girl. The rest doesn’t matter.
Yep. Regardless of what has happened in the past, and who is to blame (hint: you are both most likely at fault) you can only go forward.
What exactly would you like to see happen? What can YOU do to enable this? Forget about what he should do, he has yet had a chance to react to your change of heart. Starting tomorrow, what can you do differently to ensure your daughter has a really good chance of forming a strong and loving bond with her dad, to prevent her from some of the pain you have obviously gone though in your own past.
Above all as a mum your role should be to do whatever it takes within your control to help your daughter grow up strong, confident and secure. Even if this means swallowing a little pride and being the first to reach out the olive branch. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty awesome lesson for her to learn as well.
The nature of visitation as compared to shared parenting is that with visitation a parent-child bond often either does not develop, or withers. As ye reap, so shall ye sow.
I’m not badmouthing your child at all, but I am badmouthing the path that YOU are leading her down. I actually feel very sorry for her. Again, poor projecting on your part.
I also made “comments” in just one post. Maybe a general statement addressing the “General Comments that other posters have made” before you start in on my comments would have been the way to go. True, every child can be selfish at times and I have no problem with your child, what I do have a problem with is how you interact with your child w.r.t. her father over the years and what she picks up from it.
Kids are always anxious about things they don’t want to do, especially with other people. This is where a parent steps in and helps ease their tension by explaining how to cope and build social skills so they won’t become introverted.
Yeah, that would be nuts, but that’s not what I was saying. What I was saying was that you are the link to improve the possibility of a meaningful relationship between your daughter and her father. You don’t want to force her to have the relationship, you want to CREATE the need of a relationship between her and her dad. You seemed to have skipped or overall ignored many of the suggestions that other posters and myself have offered. But hey, whatever you want, I guess.
You claimed that you are smart. I thought you knew what an introspective question was…my bad.
Again, 10 years of previous history says otherwise. He’s going by experience. Just because you cooled off in the last 5 years, doesn’t mean the first 5 are forgiven and forgotten. What real steps have you taken to address this elephant in the room? Do you think what you’ve done to fix this is good enough?
Yeah, you changed…but not totally for the better. That’s where counseling comes in.
Still in denial I see…your actions were that bad enough to drive him away for years. You claim to have changed, but it’s hard to say whether the change was good enough and practised long enough to make him feel comfortable and trusting of you and your motives. I believe he still doesn’t trust you. You claim that he doesn’t have to contact you at all to see the daughter. But to him, he probably believes he still has to deal with you on many levels that he’s still uncomfortable with. Even though it was not under the same roof, the first 5 years you described was pretty much an abusive relationship and I think he hasn’t healed enough to be around you or your daughter because he doesn’t believe in your changes or your motives. I wouldn’t be surprised if he waited until your daughter moved out before he reached out to her, but then again, it would probably be too late for that happen. That’s a tough situation to be in, and I feel really sorry her and the dad. And yup, this is all IMHO.
Let’s see…she must have married him despite of the issues you have/had with him. They’re not divorced, so generally speaking, he loves her enough to stay with her and vice-versa. After that, it’s pretty much speculation on my part. But there is enough to know that he is with his wife and not with you or your daughter. Therefore I can reasonably assume that he would rather be with his wife who is ill and not deal with someone who verbally abused him years ago.
Best thing you’ve posted thus far. Don’t give up there. She needs to know that you are doing your best to repair the damage you’ve done because that was the catalyst for him slacking off, and that you’re trying to fix it and it may take YEARS to get to some level of something meaningful. Don’t force things, just work at creating that environment that the dad may warm up to.
I guess it depends on how much you want it. I would try again, but obviously I’m not you. It’s helped me repair my verbally abusive relationship with my wife, so there are people out there who care enough to help. If you seriously want to see a meaningful relationship happen, then seriously seek help. A message board can only be marginally helpful and therapeutic…but that’s as far as it goes.
You must have misread something there, because that didn’t happen. Someone did suggest that I should have called him instead of texting him.
You should most likely either reread or not respond, because you’re getting it all wrong. She’s made numerous calls to him over the years.
Yes, it really is. The few times he has done it, it’s worked like a charm. My mom even offered to take her for one night every weekend and he could just pick her up and drop her off there anytime that worked for him during that window.
And no one expects him to do that. He could manage phone calls more than a couple times a year though, I just bet. The extremely rare occasions when he does call, I just have her answer, or call him back, so again, it’s nothing to do with me. He also had her email address before and never used it (kinda confusing thing through the Wii though, which is why I just gave him her regular email–hopefully he’ll use it, but I’m trying not to hold my breath, and didn’t tell her that I gave it to him so she won’t have to be disappointed if he doesn’t).
I agree with both you above, and I’m really trying to do that.
Perhaps.
“Why would a kid feel rejected if their parent ignored them for 5 years?” is a less thought-provoking question than you seem to think.
Whether or not that is the case isn’t really relevant since he doesn’t have to deal with me. (That’s assuming he was a more rational-minded person than he is, so making allowances for that, MAYBE it’s more of an excuse for him than it would be for the average person…I’m honestly not sure.)
Okay, THAT is untrue to the point of being completely absurd.
He DOES seem to have a problem with separating dealing with me and dealing with our daughter, but his inability to get over our relationship that was over a decade ago and my inability to be as patient with him as I should does not abuse make.
Okay, but every time he’s communicated with our daughter for the last few years, it has been evident that I have no interest in fighting with him or trying to control the situation. I mean, I drove him to work several times when I picked up our daughter (admittedly because I wanted him to watch her for the night, but it all worked out well for all of us), I let him borrow my car to take her to his family thing, I loaned him money, invited him and his wife to her birthday party, etc. We have fought VERY little during the last few years. The times we HAVE talked have been pretty drama-free. I know he still has some resentment towards me, and that some of it is deserved, but he DOES know that things have changed since the early years.
Well, I don’t know if that is the case or not, but neither do you. They don’t get along very well, according to my mom and my daughter, but they haven’t seen all that much of their interactions, so who knows. No one here, certainly. I’m sure that we do all know that there are many reasons people stay married.
You’re actually dead wrong on that one. Whatever relationship/marriage he’s been in, he’s admitted that he’d rather be with me. That’s one big thing that I feel so guilty about, because if I WAS with him, I know he’d be taking care of our daughter. Sure he SHOULD be taking care of her anyway, but he’s not, and he would be then.
But, man, it would just NEVER EVER EVER work out. What I was really wrong about was being with him when I was 16-17, because I should have had the sense to not let it get to this point. Not that I ever for a second regret having my daughter, but I should have realized even then that it’s not fair to either one of you to stay with someone out of a misplaced sense of obligation (before I even got pregnant).
I’m not giving up.
I actually tried therapy twice, once at the health department and once at a “community clinic”, whatever that means (something kind of like a health department but not quite). I’ve also tried like 3 private therapists (before all this), and none of them were helpful either. So like I said, I just think the proportion of good ones to less-good ones is pretty low. If I was in a position to be all picky, great, but I’m not. (Maybe I need to exaggerate how dysfunctional I am at the intake appointment–if you’re bad enough you get the real psychiatrists and not the interns…but I didn’t hold back!)
Nothing with him
I texted him (it works best that way) again yesterday and asked him if he would like to make plans or talk to our daughter, told him I don’t want to fight with him and just want to help, etc., and so far he hasn’t responded. I’m debating if I should text him AGAIN and tell him that if at some point he does want to talk to her, not to feel weird about calling out of the blue, because we won’t make it an issue…or if I should just leave it alone.
What about calling him, letting him know daughter is in the next room and would love to tell him her new joke, class project, sing a song (whatever) and handing the phone to daughter- “daddy wants to say hi”.
I wasn’t planning to post here, though I’ve been following this thread pretty regularly since it started. I did want to say to the OP, though, in addition to his wife having MS, your ex having epilepsy may have a LOT to do with why he hasn’t visited you. You might not be aware, but many states have a requirement that you can’t drive (whether you have a car or not) for at least six months, often a year, after a seizure. So if you have uncontrolled epilepsy, driving is just out of the question, no matter what access you have to a vehicle. If your doctor finds you have been driving, he or she is within his/her rights to report you to the authorities and recommend they temporarily suspend or revoke your license.
So, it’s entirely possible that, in addition to dealing with his wife’s illness, your ex hasn’t been legally permitted to drive.
That said, I wouldn’t just give up on fostering a relationship with your daughter and your dad. Just keep plugging away or have your daughter call him every so often. Maybe if you can, set a weekly time for the two to have a conversation if you can get him to return your or your daughter’s calls.
Coincidentally, I’m actually seeing a guy now who has epilepsy and isn’t permitted to drive (he said until he has gone 6 months without having a seizure), so I’m learning more about that.
I THINK my daughter’s father’s epilepsy is under control now. Before, the medication he was taking for it was making it very difficult for him to function (and I can totally understand that and it THAT was what made him stop being involved, I could see it, but it was long before that), but as far as I know, it’s better now.
Anyway, he has been driving all along. Maybe he shouldn’t be, I really don’t know (and since I don’t know, I’m glad he’s not driving my daughter), but he does. And whatever physical toll his condition is taking on him, he could at least call (and he has had the idea to do that before, and got her a cell phone when she was 7, but she was too young for it and never really used it so he quickly canceled it…I suggested he could put her back on his plan now and she WOULD use it, but he said he can’t afford it).
Ok, So you made him back off from his daughter and now you want to make it right. Why not just apologize and from now on stay out the father daughter relationship?
You can’t really blame him for backing off. Everyone has their breaking point. If I had to deal with you to see my kid I would have probably given up too.
I know this sounds harsh but reality is harsh. If you break something beyond repair you can’t always glue it back together. I hope this is not the case but your daughter and her father may be too damaged at this point.
I believe I definitely contributed to the situation being what it is, but at no point was it all my fault and there’s nothing he could have realistically been expected to do about it. He should have tried harder/differently (like dealing with my mom, for one option, there is NO reason he couldn’t have kept doing that, he and my mom have no conflict at all) and I should have been more cooperative and not made an issue over petty things. So yes, I can blame him, as well as myself.
And even if I had illegally left the country with her from him for the last 5 years, I don’t agree that he would be justified in just giving up once she was back. Being a parent is HARD. It’s hard for me to be a single parent who does all of the childcare. And I too have other things going on in my life that make things complicated. But I don’t just say fuck it, this is too hard so I give up.
Anyway, I texted him yesterday morning with this:
I’m just going to make sure a couple things are clear, then I’ll leave this alone. I know you’ve been going through some stuff and I understand if you can’t do that much right now. But a phone call or email is way better than nothing. Just do what you can and that will be really good for T. She needs you, but if you don’t talk to her now, you still can whenever you’re ready. The door is always open. I know you love her, so please make sure she knows it too.
Does that sound okay? I already told him in the other message that I know I’ve made things difficult for him at time, but I don’t want to do that anymore. I think I have to let him make the next move now, but I wanted to make sure he didn’t feel too sheepish to talk to after all this time, in case that was the problem. I just don’t understand WHY he wouldn’t at very least email her and say hi.
