I have an ex husband of 15 years. I've been remarried for 11 years. Meanwhile my ex has been remarried 3 times. He was married once before me. My daughter who is 17 has had 3 stepmothers. My ex is verbally and mentally abusive and is now bullying my daughter through texting and cell phone calls. He no longer calls me because he knows he can't bully me anymore. He tells my daughter I blow her child support money and that she needs to come visit him more often. She doesn't go see him because when she does, he yells at her for never coming to see him and he turns her into a babysitter for his kids from a previous marriage. He spends absolutely no one on one time with her. He never has. He's always got a ball team to coach or a ballgame to play himself. By the way, her child support money goes into a savings account soley for her. My daughter has had to go to counseling because of her dad in which he would have to part of. It was all my fault and her boyfriend's fault because she was in counseling. the counselor has told me to stay out of my daughter and her dad's fights from now on. It just adds fuel to the fire. This is very hard for me to do. I want to rip his head off!!!! What can I do? Sometimes my daughter just doesn't answer her phone but then she feels guilty. I know it's something she's just gonna have to work on for herself but this is hard. BTW, my cell phone co. doesn't block numbers and my daughter doesn't want a new cell phone number. Her dad would just find out anyway. How? who knows. He doesn't pay the bill. What do I do?
Your daughter is no longer a child, and she has to choose her own path when it comes to her father. Just be there for her, listen to her, support her, love her, and let her do what she feels is the right thing. When you think of your Ex, he is just that, someone you no longer love and would be perfectly happy never thinking about again, but to your daughter this is her father, and no matter how lousy he is at that job, she still loves him.
It sounds like u have a very smart daughter who already has her dad figured out. She will soon be 18 & she hopefully won't have to deal with him after that. It's none of his concern what u spend ur child support on.
Who Is ur cell service thru? If u really want to block his calls/texts, I know AT&T provides that service for about $5 month.
Have her tell him that he needs to stop treating her like this or she will change her phone number. Because it is becoming to be too stressful.
Then see what he has to say.
Have her do this on speaker phone so that you can hear how he treats her.
Do not listen to who told you to stay out of it.
Just because our children become a certain age it doesn't mean that
we stop being mommys. They still need our help and advice.
Just because he is dad, doesn't give him the right to do or say something that is hurtful to her.
Good luck.
Please help your daughter to not be surrounded by so much stress and anger. Tell her she shouldn't feel guilty about not speaking to anyone (including family) on the phone when they aren't going to be pleasant. Stay as positive around her as possible and calm. It can not be stressed enough that a loving, calm environment is so very important for a child of any age.
I have a very similiar situation, my oldest is going away to college in the fall, his father has not only not cooperated in any way with the process, he's actually making it even more complicated and dragging his feet (not filling out forms on time, or correctly, disagreeing with him about every little thing, etc). He has a has a long history of treating his three kids like barbie dolls, or more exactly drinkin' buddies. They do NOT want to go to his house, they ignore his phone calls, they do not answer his emails....he thinks I'VE turned them against them, when it's his own behavior they do not want to deal with. I understand how difficult it is for you to not strangle him in his sleep! Legally my kids are all old enough to make up their own minds about whether or not to go to their father's, or even comunicate with him on any level, but this make me unconfortable, it's bad parenting on my part to wash my hands of it. I want them to be generous forgiving people but it makes me sick litterally to watch them be stomped on by their own father...Anyway, we try to keep a sense of humor about him, we talk about things long and often....we have a wonderful relaxed pleasant household, I largely take the position of pity for him, he's missing all the good stuff being mad at me....he's got three happy healthy well-adjusted kids who are outstanding students and generally all around cool people...sucks to be him for not enjoying them.....incidentally, he's a bipolar verbally abusive drunk (but only to me, not the kids or anyone else who knows him0 I'm embarassed I stayed as long as I did, I left him almost 4 years ago, in his mind I left him for someone else, he does not believe he has any 'problems', he will be mad at me for the rest of his life.......but he chose Coors over his wife and family and house........i hope you and your daughter can be above it all and be closer to eachother for it!
