I need feeback please. I will try and make this as short as possible. I married my first husband in 97, we divorced in 2000, to that union, a daughter was born. She will be 14 this year. After the divorce, her dad was in and out of her life, never a constant figure and when they did spend time together, he was more "her buddy" than a dad. He left for the service in 04 and was stationed overseas, which added more stress to their somewhat father/daughter relationship. He has seen her 3 times since 04 and never remembers birthdays, christmas, valentines day... etc... no phone call, no card.... nothing. About 7 months ago he sent her an email telling her he loved her, misses her, cares for her... etc. She emailed him back asking very valid questions like "if you love me, then why did you leave" or "you say you love me, but you dont acknowledge me by sending cards or calling me" So then she will get another email back saying that i am influencing her to ask those questions and i am coaching her what to say, which is totally untrue. I think in his mind he still see's her as a 5 year old because he missed that part of her life. So here is where i step in. I sent him an email trying to explain the best i could about how she is feeling. She is hurt, confused, angry, unsure...... and that we need to allow her time to try and deal with this the best she can. Well 7 months has passed and i have tried talking to her about contacting him and try talking to him that way she can totally tell him how she feels. I said, i know you are hurt honey and you are sad and mad, and you have every right to be, but the fact is he is your dad, forever. And so we will talk about that for a few days and then she said that she feels like i am pushing him on her and that she doesnt know how i feel, which is true, i dont. So i try to explain to her that i dont want to force her into doing something she doesnt want to do, but also that part of my job as her mom is to try and guide her the best way i know how. I said, i dont want you walking around with these ugly feelings on your shoulders, because it isnt healthy. that is where i left it....... well, a month has gone by and i wonder, should i email him or call him and tell him that since he is the dad, he is the one that needs to make contact? he needs to make the initiative to try and make this work? He is supposed to be coming back to the US in two years and if they have someone of a communcation relationship maybe it wouldnt be so awkward the day he comes back and wants to see her....... i dont know what to do!
Wow! So many wonderful opinions, thoughts, suggestions, advice..... THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! I took last night to think about the whole situation again, and i think at this time, i will just let things be the way they are..... it is what it is.... you are right, i cant force him to be a dad, and honestly, i think it is pretty sad that a parent would have to encourage their child to contact another parent. my daughter does have to accept the fact that he chose a career overseas and he has to understand he chose a career that would keep him from seeing his daugther.... so boo hiss for him. i knew this would happen, i know 7 years later he would come back crying and blame me. pretty sad that after all this time, he still has animosity towards me.... i let that part of my life go 8 years ago.... thanks again everyone for your wonderful advice!
No, I say let him be the first to call. You can't make anyone want to see their child. It is totally up to him, sad to say.
I'm going to give you the best advice I know how but let me give you some background.
I was 14 once, a long time ago. My dad was in and out of my life. My dad suffers from mental illness but that doesn't make my feelings any less painful. When I was a teen I would try to have a relationship with my dad but he only wanted relationship on his terms. I could only see him when he wanted to be seen. He would intrude in my life expecting me to pay him kudos and honoring him as my father which I just didn't want to hurt his feelings so I would just enjoy the time together. When he wasn't on his medication which was more often than not, he could become very violent and dangerous.
There is a direct connection between self esteem and dads for girls. There was loads of things I wanted to know and should have been taught about men from my dad. I was taught by my dad that I wasn't worth it. I didn't count and I didn't matter. I was preyed on by a predator of the family and sexually abused. I was a good girl but also very permiscuous too. When I got into my first serious relationship in college, I ended up dating a guy that was very abusive but I stayed for 4 years because I was trying to make him love me and trying to make it work. When I finally came to my senses and got out of that relationship, I met my second college sweetheart and fell in love. He was so loving to me. I just couldn't accept it.
Since I couldn't receive his love, I broke up with him and we went our separate ways. It was the most devastating thing to happen in my life. I spent several years in a deep depression and had to seek professional help to come out of it along with fostering my relationship with God through the love of Christ.
Long story short, I'm now married to my second college sweetheart but we were apart for almost 20 years.
Your daughter needs professional counseling as well as some male mentor to come alongside her and tell her she is beautiful and smart and fun and worthy. She will need to talk to someone other than you to help her sort out her feelings and emotions.
You need to accept that you can't control anyone other than yourself. You are doing the right thing by allowing your daughter to develop her own relationship with her father but by the same token this can be a slippery slope. Your daughter needs balance. There needs to be at least one safe man for her to learn from in her life.
Focus on your daughter's need and that will probably not be so much attached to her father but to a trained professional that can help her sort through growing up fatherless with a living father.
My father is still alive and we do talk often but he is sometimes overwhelming to me with his emotional need for his "family" on his terms only still but being an adult really helps me deal with him. When I just can't handle the sucking me dry, I just take a break from him. I hope this helps give your some insight into your daughters world.
Let it be. I agree with Faith. My dad was out of my life and decided he wanted to come back in when I was old enough to not want anything from him. Let her make that decision, you don't need to be in the middle. He is the father and if he really wants a relationship then he needs to be the one who works for it. Not you and not her. Good luck to her.
You are right, you should encourage him to initiate the communication with your daughter and at most, arrange a meeting (no expectations) and just let your daughter express herself "beat up on him if you will" and let it out. Encourage him to just listen and NOT say anything about how much he loves her etc because he will only drive her further away. He can however, say he understands and will work on building back her trust and a relationship. That takes time and does not happen overnight. Don't force your daughter to contact him though, but as the adult parent you can encourage her father on the other end without her involvement.
You can encourage him to contact her, but you can't make him do it. One try is about all you get before you are meddling in their relationship. At 14, she gets to have a say in whether or not she has a relationship with her father. She asked him valid questions, he can answer or not. She can reach out or not. It's hard, I know, but mostly you need to stay out of it except for supporting your daughter and being there if she wants to talk.
On his 14th birthday, my stepson was dropped at the curb outside an airport and he came to live with us. His mother did not talk with him for an entire year. It was, in her mind, his fault that his stepfather beat him (repeatedly) and caused us to step in and take legal action. We spent energy, time, and money trying to get her to talk with him and see him. We finally realized how futile that was. We concentrated on getting him regular counseling instead. One year later she called him. Over the years they have worked through their relationship and we've stayed out of it.
no, i would not encourage him as he is the one, after all of these years, decided to step up and be a father. He knows that your daughter needs time. Let your daughter decide what the next step will be. You have shielded your daughter from harm’s way, now she is old enough, and will decide if she wants a relationship with him. You have to remember feelings are hurt, she is confused, and he has no excuses as to why he was not in her life for all these years. Plus an explanation will not cover all her questions. She has his contact information, as does your ex, support HER decisions and leave it at that...
I have been through this before with my father, popping in and out of my life for 26 years, I never forgave him, but I gave him a chance to get to know his grandchildren, he passed away 2 years later. That was 13 years ago.
Both of my children have gone through this too…when my children were old enough, I gave both my children their father’s phone number. They never called him (I never, ever said a spiteful thing about him or his family to my children.) Now that they are both adults, they know their father has not been seen or heard from in 15 years. He sent no child support, and when they learned he married and had other children they were beyond hurt. They can contact him through his “my space” site, but they both see differently. One would like to contact their father to “show off” so to speak of how well they both turned out. But decided against-thought he would ask him for money as he does not have a pot to piss in. The other will not ask for answers, he wants to kick his a@@...
In my opinion, I don't think you should call him or email him. He knows he needs to reach out, just like he knew he was supposed to call on her birthday, and he knew he was supposed to send a Christmas card, and he knew he should be talking to her more frequently. But he certainly doesn't seem to have a history of doing any of these things that a loving dad would do. I think it would be wrong to encourage your daughter to open her heart to her father, it sounds like he would just break it AGAIN. It makes me sad. But she is almost 14, right? You can't fix this for her. I think she would maybe benefit from talking to a therapist or counselor who can help her work out her feelings...sometimes an objective ear is better than a mom. Good luck.
I know you have received many replies to this but I just wanted to add a few things. First I can relate to your daughter's side of things. My biological father didn't understand that the title didn't entitle him to pick and choose when he could show up and still be accepted with open arms by me. She sounds like she is dealing with it very healthy if she is so young and understanding that mear words can't fix things and isn't blaming herself or thinking that there is something wrong with her. I think you can be very proud of yourself for raising a strong child. My mother struggled with many of the issues that you are and I didn't know it until I was an adult. I just want you to know that it doesn't matter what you try to do, you can't help him change and you have done a great job and made the right choices because you made decisions out of love for her. I agree that you shouldn't contact him and you should try to put him out of your mind. Believe me she can have a great and successful life without him - really it's his loss because you are lucky enough to know how great she is. I think when you talk to him next you need to make it clear that he can't blame you for his mistakes. This brings me to my second point. My ex husband did the same thing - made choices in his life that separated him from our children. When he tried to put guilt on me I set him straight with what he put the kids through and that I was simply the one here picking up the pieces and taking care of them EVERY day. I pointed out that they were great kids and listed many things that he didn't know about them because of his absence in their lives. I think I just needed to get it out there but I didn't blame him or anything. It was kind of like when you run into someone you haven't seen in a long time and you tell them of your kids accomplishments and in a way as a parent they are your accomplishments. It helped me to make peace with it and so far he has been more active in their lives. That could be because his life was in the toilet or it could be because he realized he was missing out and put his priorities in order. I don't know and I don't expect it to last but you have to each day as it comes and live it to the fullest, happiest you can. Good Luck!
you let it be. she's old enough to know whats really going on and old enough to contact him or not. shes also old enough to know that actions speak louder than words. she isn't going to worry about it right now, so you don't need to either. step back from it and leave it up to her if and when she wants to contact him. good luck.
leave it be-just go on about your life-raise her-love her-keep things positive-you cant force something that isnt there.he has his own life-your daughter is coming into the roughest part of her life=-dont add to it-if she want to deal with daddy-she knows your there to help her-meanwhile-let sleeping dogs lay still.theres more to life than a missing parent.
If you think that you can talk to him without making the situation worse, than yes, by all means call him and let him know his daughter NEEDS him and WANTS him to WANT her back!!! All she wants is a Dad that shows her some love...it doesn't have to be anything big either but phone calls and yes, even a card on her special days would be wonderful!
I absolutely agree that if he starts putting in the effort now with some phone calls it would be easier on both of them when he comes home and they get to visit face to face.
~Try to be nice and just be honest...tell him that you are not putting anything in her head...that she is trying to reach out to him and he should acknowledge that and help his daughter out...he is the Dad and the adult, all the responsibility of making contact should not be left to her alone, he needs to step up. Teenage girls go through so much mentally and physically, it absolutely makes sense that she is wanting her daddy right now! Try to get him to understand that she NEEDS him in her life!
Well...he's had a lot of years to establish some kind--any kind of relationship with her. I would hope--but really doubt--that things will change at this stage of the game.
I do think that you could talk to him and tell him that if he's not going to walk the walk, he should refrain from talking the talk to spare her feelings.
She got a raw deal and I'm sure she knows this by now.
