Well - I don't know if these are words of wisdom. And of course, my situation was a little different because of the whole moving in directly with the girlfriend business.
I do my best to say positive things about him to the girls. I tell them he's a hard worker who does a difficult job (which is true), acknowledge that he his smart and funny, reinforce how much he loves them and talk up the time he spends with them.
However, when D7 asks a direct question about the divorce - I answer it honestly (and she asks a lot of them). We have had conversations that it's wrong to have a girlfriend when you are married. When she repeated some stuff that STBX said about why we were divorcing that was wildly off base - I corrected it. I didn't say "Daddy's lying!", but instead "that isn't what happened", and then I called her Dad on it. He has said things (and she has repeated) like "Daddy still likes Mommy, but Mommy doesn't like him anymore because she found out he did something bad". And I say - "you know sweetie, that's not right. Daddy doesn't know what I think or feel, because he's not in my head and I haven't told him". It's a fine line - all the advice is not to badmouth the other parent - but some of the things he did were so out of line and so visible to her that there is no explaining them away. So I don't try. I never say Daddy is a bad guy, but when asked, I will say that he did some bad things. I try to make sure that I don't dwell on the bad things. Whenever a conversation like this has happened, I try to double up on the positive things that I say about him.
One other thing - when she says she hates that we don't live together or that the divorce makes her sad - I never try to make the situation sound any better or minimize it, but instead I try to acknowledge and validate her feelings. I believe the phrase I have used is - "you're right honey - it does stink. I'm really sorry this happened".
