i have a 15 year old girl and her dad is badmouthing me to her and wants her to live with him what to do d?

Question

he is supposedly a preacher now but has had problems with drugs in the past and he has never been around for her. he hasn't ever helped with anything she needs and has hardly ever called and now she is 15 and i let him have her for a week as agreed but he will not return her to me and tells me not to call and also tells my family not to call. she has been a real sweet girl till now and she text my sister which is her favorite person in the world and told her to leave her alone is he causing this change in her personality and is it something worse that could be going on. she has always been so easy to get along with until these last 2 weeks when she has been with him. she is supposed to be back friday if he does not bring her back then parental kidnapping charges will be filed and i will get my daughter back but then what do i do about getting her back to herself, maybe a counselor or something. she talks to me like she hates me and i have been the one there for her

i need to add that we have been divorced for 10 years now and we both are remarried

Answer 1

While you are deciding on whether or not you need to press charges you should be working on finding a good family counselor for all of you or just you and her. She needs to know he is doing what he's doing out of anger and not because he cares for her. A parent who turns the child against the other has some serious issues. He needs to be told that.

Answer 2

Sounds like he has brainwashed her and made you the villain. You have to be careful what you say to a child when you split up. If you told her her dad was bad all this time and she is with him now and finds out he is not, then she is probably furious with you for lying to her.

Yes you cared for her and he was a real jerk but this is where you have to be careful, because from a child's point of view she has always felt the absense of a father, and probably needed one at times. I am watching my cousin go through similar things and she has nothing but hate for her husband and in many ways I feel sorry for him because ok he has had problems and isn't a great father, but she has made it so difficult for him that it's probably just easier for him to stay away than to meet up with his kids and feel like they are really not his kids, because to him, they are brainwashed against him.

So it's a very, very delicate situation when parents split up and how they communicate (if they do) and most importantly what they say to thier children about thier problematic and absentee spouse.

This is the danger I tell my cousin about too...that maybe someday when her kids are grown they will want to meet daddy and he will tell them how impossible their mother made it for them, and then the kids could hate her....I'm so sorry for what you and others like you go through...it cannot be easy...that is why sometimes, it's easier for people to stay together and raise their children, than to split up and ruin their lives.

I think as adults and caring parents, you make sacrifices for those you love when you can and when a situation is bearable. I'm not saying that is or was what you should have done because he could have been a terrible and abusive person and you should not stay with someone like that.

I would not have let her go with him. You had custody. You should have had him come to your home and visit her there under your supervision if you had any suspicion that he would try to pull something like this...or at least met with him first after all this time. Try to use this knowledge when you talk to your daughter again and make her understand.

Good luck hon.

Answer 3

I have 2 daughters, one 29 and the other 34 years old. I went through the experience of wondering what had happened to them.

After they each hit the early teens, it was like having strangers in my house. They were rebelious and impossible to get along with.

I guess what I am saying is at your daughters age this pulling away from you is something she would do any way. It seems to go hand in hand with the terbulent teens. If her dad is like my X he may use every thing he can to turn her away from you, but in the long run it won't work. Kids are smart and resourceful. She will see things for what they are as she gets older, meanwhile, you have to hang in there. It will get better.

My X and I divorced after only 12 years of marriage and when the children were with me they'd tell me some of the things he'd said about me. It was not easy, but I kept my thoughts and feelings to myself. I never badmouthed him to them and did not defend myself to them.

When they were angry with him and started saying bad things about him I would stop them and get them refocused on the problem at hand rather than what a bad person they thought he was at the time.

As I look back on it I am glad I handled it the way I did because my children respect me for it. Their dad died a few months ago and I don't have to live with the regret of trying to drive a wedge between him and the kids to make them prefer me to him.

I don't know if this will make sense to you. I hope it helps.

Answer 4

You need to get her back. When you do let her know that what he is saying is not true. Don't bad mouth him because you will being doing the same thing to him. He has issues. You need to see him in person without her around. Let him know that it is not right what he is doing. He should not be bringing your daughter into the middle of things. She is only 15 yrs old, he needs to let her act like a 15 yr old. She is not his emotional punching bag for what ever he is feeling like. She should not be treated like an adult and told personal things about adults. You need to make that clear to him. He needs to be a man and stand up for himself and tell you the problems he is having to your face not hers.

Answer 5

The same thing happened to me. I sent my daughters off to visit their dad for the summer (i'm in the US and he is in England). I got a phone call from him saying that he was going to court to get custody of my 13 year old daughter because she didn't want to come back. I know that on previous visits he was spoiling them, taking them on trips and generally doing things he never would have done when we were married. Now, my daughter doesn't contact me at all. I email her, write letters, send gifts and get no response from her at all. She is supposed to visit me twice a year but he won't send her. He has turned her against me and there isn't a thing I can do about it.
I called her school and asked them to send me reports and I have seen her go from a straight A student to D's and F's. I've heard she hangs out with 18 year old guys , smokes weed and has tried all kinds of drugs. I also heard that she started cutting herself shortly after moving back with her Dad. She is now just 15 years old, she is very bitter towards her older sister who lives here with me and I get the impression that she is angry because life with Dad isn't as much fun as she thought it would be.
I hope you get your daughter back and are able to keep her safe. Guys like those are controlling pigs and feel that their kids are their possessions. They don't care about the mental anguish they are causing.

Answer 6

Sounds like he's feeding her a bunch of crap, brain washing and since he hasnt been in her life much, and she is obviously craving for her daddy , so she's doing whatever to make him happy so he wont leave her again.. i hope that he doesnt live out of state or u will have a fight on ur hands to get her back unless u have it in writing when she is due to come back, if he's out of state and doesnt bring her back u will have to go to court in the state he lives in to get her back.. try not to blame ur daughter she is young and nieve and obviously emotionally confused, and not acting like herself.. if he has a bad history with drug use, u may want to get her tested for drugs when she gets back, just a thought but that too could explain her eratic behavior if he's gotten her messed up in that.. U may want to take him back to court and get supervised visitations for your daughter since he is mentally abusing her to turn her against u ..

Answer 7

Try to get on good terms with him even if you have to lie. Tell him you miss his opinion or make something up. Then talk to him once a week or more, manipulate him, make him think you like him or even miss him, believe me he will be much more manageable that way. Don't say anything that could pose a threat to your daughters living environment he could use that against you.

Answer 8

You need to get her back as soon as possible, these are not good signs, he could be making her type those texts or he could be doing it himself, and she may not even know about them. I'd get my daughter back.