It doesn't seem to end. I just found out today that my daughter is harming herself.
My XH left in 2007, divorced in 2009 and remarried a year later...to a former friend of mine. Before his engagement, our children did the one night a week and every other weekend at his house. Once he got engaged, they never spent another night with him. They were furious that he married who he married. There was a period of time that his wife wasn't speaking to my kids because she was hurt that they didn't accept her with open arms. They didn't attend his wedding.
After my youngest D17 spoke to her father about the non speaking issue, things got a little better. They still aren't a priority in his life, but at least he sees them a couple of times a month. He lives less than five minutes from us.
Lately, my D17 has really been voicing her feelings to me about her father's absence in her life. Even when she does see him, he is texting and generally not engaged with her. He has step children and my kids always see the family vacation pictures with those kids. They are now invited to these vacations but they don't go because they say they are ignored.
I am devastated. I don't know what to do. She told me that she won't see a counselor and won't take meds. When XH first got engaged, the kids refused to speak to him. In an attempt to fix this, I forced them to see a counselor. They didn't say a word and still bring it up to me occasionally as the bad thing I made them do.
I don't know if I should tell him or not. I have always notified him of anything medical and school related and the like, but he has a tendency to tell his family and friends everything and they make comments to the kids. This is just too important for some insensitive relative to make an inappropriate comment. We generally don't speak - his wife doesn't want him speaking to me.
I have thought about going to the same counselor that I forced the kids to go to and see if he will give me some advice.
Throughout the separation and divorce I tried to keep things as normal as possible for the kids. I tried not to cry and never talked about anything in front of them, and didn't utter a negative comment about their dad. Today my daughter, who has always been so stoic, told me that she didn't like to show her emotions and she was just like me that way. I thought I was protecting them....but instead, I was setting a bad example.
I don't even know where to post this...I always posted in the MLC boards before but it has been years.
