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Out of the blue DD16 came to me and said she thinks she has decided to cut her dad out of her life (she hasn't seen him since March and hasn't talked to him since June). When I asked why she is thinking that way she said because she does not feel like she can pretend to be civil to him and doesn't think she could not simply be a bitch. She does not trust what may fly out of her mouth and she simply doesn't want to have to worry about what she might say. We then had the usual convo about me supporting whatever decision she makes because she is old enough to decide (17 next month) and that no matter what I would always be there for her (to which she kindly reminded me that I will die eventually... ). She then said she has been thinking of ways to fuck with her dad (this is just how her mind works). She suggested that she could call him (after D is final, of course) and say, "daddy I want to live with you..." In her sweetest voice. Then when he gets worked up about the idea she would say, "are you out of your mind? Why would I want to live with someone with no morals or personal integrity!"

Yes, I did shut her down from that and told her to just let it go (can't tell her to have respect for her father as she has told me repeatedly she has lost all respect for him). So sad that he has NO idea what his kids really think about him and his behavior. He could not have done more damage if he tried, and DD16 used to be daddy's little girl that he doted on and spoiled. He will not get to see her blossom into adulthood as the beautiful young woman she is. She is also thinking about becoming a lawyer because she wants to be a prosecutor so she can lock up "dirt bag criminals that have no morals or personal ethics."

I hope all the years of pu$$y on the side was worth the price of growing old alone with no family, no home, no money, basically living week to week with no bright future to look forward to.

[This message edited by Phoenix1 at 1:09 AM, September 9th (Monday)]

Does she have a place (besides you) to vent her anger? Therapy-some physical way to release those feelings?

Being angry for a long time has long term effects on our health relationships and personality.

My kids needed that release, and it has helped them.

One of my DDs wanted to call him at 18 and announce she was moving in with her boyfriend to see what he would say. It was how he delivered the news he was moving In with OW. She wanted to throw his morality back in his face. 10 years later-she's still pissed at him- for new stuff.

It really sucks to see how their behavior affects the kids.

I feel for your DD, it's his loss.

Hugs

K

And they tend to think that if the kids are "grown" it's not that bad. It is

Does she have a place (besides you) to vent her anger? Therapy-some physical way to release those feelings?

I have offered counseling several times, but she adamantly refuses. She is very active in sports at least so she gets to vent her anger in very physical ways on a regular basis. She is still focused enough to do the sports, take AP classes, a college class, and work part-time so she has a lot of distractions to keep her from dwelling on it too much. At least she knows she can (and is comfortable with) talk to me and give voice to her thoughts so we can talk them through.

And you are right, it is absolutely his loss. Mr. "Family comes first above all else" did what he knew would destroy it, so he is simply getting his prize for succeeding...a bleak, lonely future.

I don't focus on what he is losing out on, however sad. Rather, I take joy in having a close bond with all my kids (oldest daughter and I went to a great wine tasting event on Saturday and spent the evening together). The common theme from all of them is, "I don't know how you put up with it for so long, but I understand why you did" (i.e., to protect the kids from having their world turned upside down). Their understanding helps me a great deal, and that is why I feel so terribly bad for those that are going through this with young children.

Ah well, he made his giant bed of steaming shit, and now he gets to lay in it, currently alone until the next flavor of the month joins him...

[This message edited by Phoenix1 at 12:47 PM, September 9th (Monday)]

They never do. My daughter is devastated. Doesn't want to go to his house, doesn't want to call him dad and is back in therapy to try to work some of this all out. X yelled at her Saturday, took her phone and said it's all her fault cuz all she does is lay around texting her boyfriend. When in reality, she was texting ME! her boyfriend was in a class all day Saturday.

Clueless...

doesn't want to call him dad

DD16 stopped referring to him as "dad" a few months ago. Now she only refers to him as her sperm donor...

And I have caught a few instances on forms where she has been putting her older sister down as an alternate emergency contact (with me primary, of course). She wants nothing to do with him at all, and the POS thinks it is her teenage attitude that is responsible for her behavior towards him... idiot

Wow Phoenix1, I could have written this post almost word for word, my 15 yr old daughter will only call her dad when she wants some money, other than that nothing.

Its so sad that no matter the age, they are the most innocent in this mess the WH has caused

Wanderers have a way of convincing themselves that they do not create wreckage around them. It's just what they do. How? Who can know? It's as though they think they can unplug a spouse and plug in the OP and everything else remains the same.

My kids (21, 19, 16 now) all have things to deal with that I can scarcely help with other than to be there, listen and be the best parent I can be. I do not 'run down' their mother. They can see who and what she's become (it is not pretty).

I've staked everything on the belief that one strong committed parent will get them through to healthy, happy productive lives.

Having sown the storm, wanderers will reap only the whirlwind, by their own hands.

Phoenix: Your daughter is going forward in positive ways with her activities, but she does need a place to vent. Perhaps she might be open to going to group discussions with teens of D parents? She sounds like me when I was a teen filling up my life, but inwardly in pain from parents' D and father never really seeing me, or being "Uncle Dad" occasionally seeing me to take me out to dinner.

When I got to be an adult, my father tried to become more involved with me and we were able to have some kind of a relationship.

So, perhaps, you may suggest to your DD, that maybe she shouldn't slam the door shut right now, but keep it slightly ajar.

Another thing that helped me once was when my mother and I started talking about all the things we wish we could do (but never would) and were laughing about all kinds of devious things. We ended up laughing a lot, and in the end we felt better about ourselves that we wouldn't ever stoop that low, we were above it, and also in a way felt empowered.

One thing you have to focus on is that you are giving your daughter support and she knows it. It is a great gift and she will always remember it and draw from that strength the rest of her life.

When I got to be an adult, my father tried to become more involved with me and we were able to have some kind of a relationship.

I am sure the current nonexistent relationship I have with my own father is something my DD is also looking at. My father was a mean drunk and abusive in many ways when I was growing up and, being the youngest, I was left to deal with it after my siblings left home and I also became the buffer between him and my mother. It was not pretty, and I left home as soon as I could. I had a very close relationship with my mother until she passed five years ago, but never anything with my father. Just the typical civil talk on the phone for less than five minutes before he put my mother on. Now we only communicate a few times a year via email or FB, usually around some holiday or other significant event. Right after my mother passed I guess he really started realizing how bad things were because he made a comment to one of my siblings about me to the effect of, "I really screwed things up with her, didn't I?" Yep. He did. And I am not interested in starting a relationship after almost 50 years, and he knows it.

The point to this is that my DD is well aware that my father was a flaming asshole to me, I cut him out of my life 99%, had a terrific relationship with my mother who was my rock until she passed, and have come out the other side just fine as a result. She knows I didn't harbor any anger toward my father, just total indifference. So I think because it had no real impact on me by cutting my father loose, she probably feels the same way. I certainly can't tell her she is making a mistake because that would also mean my own choice was a mistake, and it wasn't. I would do it all over again given a choice. My dad is still a flaming asshole that I want nothing to do with.

As so many have said, it is just utterly amazing how these WSs can go through life with blinders on without a care in the world (except how to appease their own selfish needs) while the path behind them is strewn with destruction at a level that would make a movie producer envious.

I'm sorry for you and your child's pain at the hands of that man.

Our daughter is much younger and just starting to voice her issues with her father. She doesn't know his whole story but did tell me that she has no trust for him and when they go on visits, she sleeps in front of doorways so that he can't abandon her at night again.

I didn't have the heart to tell her the flaws in her plan because I know the feeling that causes her to do it, I think it's after-effects from waking up to find him gone.

It seems to elevate my own feelings when in the face of my child's pain, do any of you have that, to?

I simply cannot fathom abandoning children...it took any last respect I had for the man (Perv) when he allowed himself to do that.

I second the ideas about anger issues, too and hope there is a way to work on them for your kid(s).

Some friends DD and I have are in the same situation and one of the kids is the same age as yours, Phoenix. He makes terrible fun of the father and is in his own legal trouble that just keeps going without end. It's hard to know if he would've been prone to it if his family stayed nuclear, but I tend to think the loss of the father and what the father did probably don't help?

I simply cannot fathom abandoning children

I am with you on that Ashland. POS didn't run out in the middle of the night, like your PERV. Rather, after I caught him at OW's house and confronted him he simply never came back home (except to sneak back that night when DD and I were attending a sports meeting for her to gather some personal possessions). DD saw him that morning before going to school thinking it was just another typical day then poof, he disappeared from her life (that was March). Though she knows he technically abandoned her (contrary to his delusional denials to me), she has mentioned to me on several occasions that to her nothing has really changed, except the noticeable reduction of tension in the house. That is because POS had been working out of the area prior to becoming unemployed and he would be gone for months on end. It was DD and I most of the time anyway. We had our routines and everything worked well. It was whenever POS was home for short visits (or permanently upon unemployment) that the tension became palpable, and she did everything possible to either leave the house or stay holed up in her bedroom. He thought it was due to her teen attitude, but I knew the truth that she was avoiding him (for many reasons). So she is angry that he actually abandoned her for real, but at the same time she was glad to see him leave and is much more relaxed these days.

But back to the issue about abandonment, I do not understand how these selfish fucktwits can walk away from their children either. That is the ultimate in selfishness in my book.

If you heard my XH talk about abandoning any one , he will adamently tell you be DID NOT ABANDON HIS KIDS, he abandoned me. Only problem while he was abandoning me the kids were with me.

I got so tired of hearing the kids will adjust, it's better this way-the parents are happier the kids will be happy.

My kids saw thru it eventually-thank God. But XH is still in denial about his relationship status with his not abandoned kids.

Hugs ,k

This post and response makes me feel like we are kindred spirits. It's kind of tripping me out !

Phoenix1: Thank you for sharing you perspective regarding your relationship with your father. It gives me hope that my kids will turn out ok regardless of their relationship with their father.

Merlin: Thank you for this >>> "I've staked everything on the belief that one strong committed parent will get them through to healthy, happy productive lives." I am going to adopt this belief.

Kajem: Your XH and my stbx must have read the same "How to abandon your wife and kids but be in denial about the damage it does to the kids" book! I got the same speech! As he was telling me this, I couldn't do anything but stare in disbelief. If it wasn't so painful at the time, I would be cracking up!

The topic of this post "WH has no idea of extent of damage to kids" is absolutely true. This is just another injustice we have to accept. Let's just all continue to parent the best way we know how and not dwell on our WS's lack of insight, empathy, intelligence, and integrity.

Yes, this is Perv to a T! He used those exact words via text after it happened the 4th time that DD went home and he was gone again. He even would look up the word in the dictionary and try to find ways to minimalize it...and yes, it's "ME" he's abandoning, not her...apparently he also asked his L about trying to take her away from me and have her live with he and Fatty B, but there was too much red tape, or too much actual work or something so it finally has gone away-so far.

It's a really hard thing and something of a fine line with patience, because sometimes I also get tired of hearing that it's better after the fires go out and the WS is truly gone. What it is for me, is an easier way to think and feel the absence and the quiet.

We have our routines too and I notice a huge change in DD's attitude when he is coming around to visit her-she gets clingy to him and whiny and is very, very rude to me and I have to sort out how to react to the hurt it brings me. She very clearly still seeks his approval, but she doesn't know the real ways he's hurt us-I thought with her age being just 10 she was too young for all of the reality to hit her at once, though he feels that he wants her to know about Fatty B-I think it's the guilt he has?

I remember when my father fell off the bright white horse for me, for he was my KISA like DD's father (Perv) is for her. It was when my mother walked out on him and he completely fell apart in my lap...our roles were completely reversed and I had no idea whatsoever how to clean up the mess with him that my mother left in her wake. To see him so broken, who normally was a very strong person physically and mentally, talented in many ways, professionally employed, and to this day 20 years later people tell me he's handsome...to see a parent broken in such a way is devastating.

This time of life haunts me now as I see DD suffer and miss her father.

Often I ask myself, should she know the whole thing? Does she know more than I think? It's all through her school, divorced families, that is and one of the little BFF's is a similar situation.

I keep coming back to the idea that if she doesn't know it already, she will in enough time and I am wanting for her to go through each step and handle it as slowly as I can help her do. Does that make any sense?

The sense of KISA for my dad and me is coming back and has been for a few years and now, it is an ironic twist that he is helping me through this mess that Perv made. He told me he loved Perv like a son and Perv grew up with only his mother at the age our DD is now...the counselors had a ball with that...sorry, I'll hang up now.

This was a really good thread, thank you for it. Sometimes with the LSS "local support system" we have these things are too hard for people to talk about or they are too opinionated, do you KWIM?

ETA that the counselors I went to believe that Perv blocks out ideas like the theme of this thread, because he couldn't handle himself thinking that he was to blame for another person's hurt-there's that word, blame...it would be too real and he needs to populate his new universe with people who will help him hold up his canoe and pedal him down the Denial River. Were he to admit he hurt DD, he would have to admit he did a wrong!

One of his annoyances with me that continues is my refusal to accept or admit the existence of OW...I know she is there (somewhere) but I'm not going to cross that line with him-it's my own sort of denial to not accept that part of things he's done so I give you credit for confronting him and going there...amazing.

I am not mentally strong enough to face Fatty B, but when she outed him to me she was ready to cat claw me and it was rather eye opening.

So many common things because Perv blames DD's attitudes on puberty and nothing about what he's done to her life. Amazing.

[This message edited by Ashland13 at 6:59 PM, September 10th (Tuesday)]

Kudos to all my fellow BS raising the kids and taking care of all their needs while WH licks his wounds and tries to play victim. I have seven children, 4 sons, 31, 29, 25, 21, and 3 daughters 27, 16 and 13. (Also have 7 grandkids.) Each one is well adjusted and doing ok. BH has accused me of ruining his relationship with his kids - (NPD's never take accountability). My kids have seen his bad example for themselves for years. My 2nd son defended me to his Dad and confronted him about his cheating. BS called him every name in the book and threatened to file civil charges against him for interfering in our marriage. (Should I file charges against OW for interference?!) That particular son said he doesn't know how he could ever have a relationship with his Dad again. 3 of my other children have caught their Dad enjoying his porn- of course he tried to twist it and blame it all on his sons. My 13 year old daughter told me she has seen her Dad in the middle of the night (when she gets up for a drink etc.) looking at porn. She told me she has been seeing this for about 7 years! Only recently told me. There is so much repair work that needs to be done for kids who are victims of parents bad choices. I want my kids to have a relationship with their Dad. They have lost all trust and respect for him - something he earned himself! I didn't ruin his relationship with his kids. You reap what you sow!! BS is living in another state and sends the some of them "goodnight, love you" texts a couple of nights a week. He has NO idea of their day to day struggles.

Me: almost 50

BS: almost 50

married 32 years

D-days 3-4-12, 8-19-12

Divorcing

Correction to my previous post - my husband is WS, not BS. (he is just full of BS)

he needs to populate his new universe with people who will help him hold up his canoe and pedal him down the Denial River

Or, as I always tell POS, Denial is a river in Egypt...

Because my DDs initiate no communication with him, he does the same to them. Way to set a good example Fuckface! And he only communicates with DS because (I believe) he truly believes DS is "okay" with everything. Does he really think it is just a "guy thing" that DS will support? Clueless doesn't begin to describe it, and that will change as soon as DS uses is dad to get what he wants from him first (has to play the nicey-nicey game so POS won't get nasty and try to claim theft about items so DS is waiting for something in writing that "gifts" these items to him formally). Yet POS is still in his world of self-created oblivion about it all. How he thinks his kids (any of them) might ever be okay with the serial cheating and the one man campaign to increase the world's population outside the boundary's of his marriage boggles the mind.

Yes, Surviving1963, they ruined their relationships with their kids, and the severity of their actions didn't require any assistance from their BS. No parental alienation required for this as the truth speaks for itself, and it speaks volumes. There must be a NPD/WH form of deafness that enables them to so easily tune out their own behavior when the rest of the "normal" world can hear it so well. I know POS suffers from it!

And though I would like the kids to have a good relationship with their father, the reality is that I am not going to lie or cover up his behavior for that to happen, and that is precisely what it would have taken. They are entitled (and old enough) to decide for themselves. He created the path of destruction where the kids are concerned, only makes it worse with each stupid, juvenile action he takes, and the consequences are the relationships he so very much wishes he still had... Too bad, dickhead!

Amazing WH will always go to the son/daughter who will be the most accepting, and avoid the one who might call them on the carpet about their lying and cheating.

My adult kids know about their Dad's bad choices. Not sure how much to say to the 16 and 13 year old girls. Don't want to get in any legal trouble for talking to minors. However, I am not in the business of "protecting" WH and his OW. And - the 13 year old is the one who came to me about the porn she has repeatedly seen her Dad viewing. I'm just not sure when the time and place to tell them about OW.... one thing is for sure - he will ALWAYS remain in denial. Amazing!!! I think you could show a NPD a video of them in action and they would say "Nope, that wasn't me!" Pretty sure I've heard it all...although I never cease to be amazed at the lies I am fed! Why do they lie about stuff that doesn't even matter? The kids always know more than you think they do.