Reply to How did you deal with your DS or DD during parental alienation?

Forum Index » Parenting -- Special Concerns

Reply to "How did you deal with your DS or DD during parental alienation?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ex is manipulating DD to stay with her instead of me (we have been doing 50/50).  DD is experiencing some emotional issues that are being exacerbated by her mom.

My question is what did you do with the child in the middle.  She is 14 and while certainly not an independent decisionmaker, she is capable of making decisions and thinking about consequences.  I am torn between letting her realize the consequences of her actions (i.e., if you want to basically cut me out of your life and only see me for brief visits, I will keep loving you, but your mom can provide everything like rides to activities, funding for activities, gifts, etc.) versus simply taking it (i.e., I will keep loving you and even though you don't want to live with me I will keep doing these things).

Letting her stay with her mom while continuing to support her with rides and funding seems almost like a reward for this behavior.  Obviously she is not 100% to blame because she is under her mother's sway...but she has to realize her actions have consequences...right?

I'm lost.  Besides being heartbroken. [/quote]

My parents divorced when I was 12.

My dad was like you in that he felt that paying for things was linked to spending time with him. He made it very clear that if I wanted him to help pay for things like sports and clothes, I had to spend time with him. He did absolutely nothing to make me WANT to spend time with him.

The appropriate solution to your problem is to build a stronger relationship with your daughter. If she wants to spend the majority of her time with her mom, figure out why that is, and try to address the causes, rather than making your relationship with her entirely transactional.[/quote]

So, you think its ok as a child to treat a parent poorly and refuse to see them but yet pay for things like sports and clothing which are extras on top of child support.  Sometimes its not as simple as building a stronger relationship.  Mom is clear to child that she does not want contact with other parent.  Child is with Mom, so does't have a choice.  Mom can pay for sports and clothing out of her income and child support if child doesn't want to spend time with Dad and she supports it.  Ever consider how your Dad felt when you were only using him for money?[/quote]

I have a great relationship with my dad as an adult, thanks for your fake concern.

I think that if you are so heartbroken about the way that your daughter is treating you, then you need to figure out what her actual problem is. You've said a lot about what your ex wants and how she is using your daughter as a pawn to hurt you. Maybe your daughter is upset because her divorced parents are using her to hurt each other. Maybe she'd appreciate you if you simply provided the stuff that parents provide.

I guess my point is that if your daughter doesn't want to split 50/50 anymore, you should have a conversation with her about that. What does she need? What is the problem? My parents did 50/50 and it was pretty stressful going between houses. I wanted to be in one place. I also didn't want 100% of my time with my dad to be on the weekend because I had stuff I wanted to do with my friends on the weekend as well. We compromised on dinners with dad several nights a week, but I always slept at my mom's house. I had a room at dad's and was welcome there, but when, at age 15, I told my parents that the switching back and forth was too stressful, what I really wanted was for them to understand my perspective in the whole thing and work with me to figure out something that worked.

From what you've said about your situation, it sounds like one thing you can count on is that your ex will NOT do that. Maybe consider being the parent who doesn't try to put your kid in the middle.[/quote]

You sound very selfish.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics