It was MLC. Now I am calling moving forward.

[HaWho]

Wolf, if it were me, I would definitely fight for custody of my daughter. It’s really in her best interest not to be in that environment 100% of the time. She may eventually see that. Also, just from a financial standpoint if your wife gets full custody, isn’t there a good chance you will be paying support for 3 years? Definitely look at that, because there is a business side to it all. I know court fees are expensive but so is child support.

As for your situation with your daughter, I had something very similar happen with my older son. I think it happens very frequently that one parent tries to poison the child against the other parent. And I think this can happen to even the strongest of relationships. But, she is 13 so if she’s being taught to turn against you, eventually she’ll turn against her mother too because she’s a moody teen. What she needs to be taught is not to turn on people and not to manipulate parents against each other. And she probably will figure this out if there’s an adult in her life who does not tolerate that.

In my situation my ex became buddies with my older son. It got so bad that when my son refused to clean his room he threatened to call his dad to come pick him up so he could get out of it. I texted my ex and told him the situation and asked him not to get involved so that son would have to learn to clean his room. My ex picked up my son. And in that moment I was completely defanged. I turned off my son’s cell phone service to punish him for not cleaning his room. That only bonded the two of them closer together. My ex told me son would not come back until I turned the phone back on. And then I had shot myself in the foot because now I had no way of communicating with my son. So I turned on the phone and asked him to come back. I lost a lot of power in that situation. I made a lot of mistakes.

Several weeks later, I again ask s to clean his room. He again refuses and goes to his dad’s to get out of it. This time I just realize he’s getting to be a real brat and if I give a 15-year-old no rules he will be ruling my house. So I let him go. I gave him space and did not contact him nor ex. Several days later ex texted me saying that the only way son will come back was if I would apologize! Apologize for asking s to clean his room! Can you imagine? It was so sad to see how manipulative the two of them were. I did not answer ask. And I did not contact son. As painful as it was I just decided to leave them to themselves, it was just too unhealthy.

Several days later I received another text from ex telling me that son will never come home unless I apologize to him. Of course there’s nothing to apologize for, he has to do his chores. But I don’t even discuss it with ex because the two of them are buddies and there was no coparenting going on anymore. I was fully prepared that he would live there for the duration. And I just had to let it go because if hewere living here with no rules it would be a nightmare. It broke my heart. And I cried nonstop during that period.

About five days later I come home from work and there is my older son sitting on the couch. I say hello and act as if. I don’t address the situation at all. That night he comes to me before bed and he starts crying and he says he wants a better relationship with me. At this point I tell him how manipulative it is that he goes to his dad’s to get out of doing his chores. Our relationship got a lot better after that. I told him that I raised him better than that. And that he knew better. And a while later, he did tell me he knew what his dad was doing was not right. Now I did not know it at the time, but my ex had moved in his affair partner and I am pretty sure he was buddying up with the kid to make himself feel better about it all.

Be consistent, check - in, but be firm about boundaries. They will remember who was the adult in the situation. It may take time, but trust me, when they grow up a bit they start to see what’s really going on.