Q: Hi, Scott!
I am in need of some advice before I go crazy. It is about my 15-year-old daughter, who has been living with her dad for the last two years.
First I will give you some history: I have a daughter from a previous marriage. When she was 18 months old, we split up.
During our approximately three-year relationship he did drugs, drank, hardly kept a job and always used my money. He was unfaithful and seemed to do and say anything he could to hurt my feelings.
After our daughter was born, he never helped out with her at all. If I went anywhere, I had to take her with me. She was never a baby or child who was much trouble, he just didn’t want to deal with her.
We moved to another state to live with his family when she was two months old. I did not work the first eight months, so I didn’t know anybody.
I had no social life. He did, though.
I finally had all I could take and we split up when she was 18 months old.
When he left, he told me he wouldn’t fight for custody but he did want the new VCR. Those were his exact words!
For the first 13-1/2 years we were split up, he had very little to do with her. He never called just to talk to her or see how she was doing.
He rarely saw her. (He only lives 45 miles away.) When he did, he rarely spent any time with her.
He would make plans to see her or tell her he was going to do something with her, and then back out. Even the four times she was in the hospital, he didn’t visit, call or send a card, gift or even a little note on a scrap piece of paper.
So, for the last several years I have had to sugar-coat her dad so as not to hurt her feelings.
There is so much more I could tell you, but I am sure you have a pretty good idea what he is like.
I remarried when my daughter was three. My husband took her in and treated like his own. He didn’t have any kids. Over the years they have had good times and bad times, just as she and I have had, especially when she started adolescence.
We have always tried to be strict and raise her in a healthy and safe place. She has had rules and responsibilities.
We have always tried to know where she was, who she was with, and have her home at a certain time, etc.
A few years ago, she started asking if she could go live with her dad or her grandpa (his dad who she has always been close with). She said she just wanted to see what it is like.
I wouldn’t let her go. I know his family and how they were raised, and I didn’t want her to be raised like them.
Finally, when she was 13 she started saying that my husband was being abusive to her. I don’t believe he was. She told her grandpa, who told her dad, and he filed for custody. And she did go to live with him.
During this time, her dad told her how I had cheated on him, that I didn’t really want her. That the only reason that I did want her was for the money (I only got $200/month) and lots of other b.s.
He even kept her from seeing me or talking to me for four months last year, because he was mad at me about something.
Last year right after Christmas, all out of the blue I got served papers saying that I was unstable and unfit and needed supervised and scheduled visits.
Anybody who knows me can tell you that I am far from being any of those things.
Last March we went to court and he got custody of her. She told the judge that my husband was abusive and that she was scared of him.
I don’t believe she is scared of him, either. I never got any sense that she was. I think her dad and grandpa put a lot of that into her head.
I also think that she decided to stay because her dad told her he would buy her a car, put a phone and bathroom in her room and let her have a boyfriend. So far the only one of those promises he has kept is letting her have a boyfriend.
I didn’t fight it because she was of age to decide where she wants to live and even though I knew she would not be raised in a good environment, I had no proof to show the court.
Since she has lived with her dad he has allowed her to smoke, saying that he doesn’t care as long she doesn’t steal from him! He has allowed her to have alcohol.
He is allowing her now to have a boyfriend who is 20 years old. She doesn’t have to come home from school and doesn’t have to be home until 9:30 p.m., not even for supper.
She just eats wherever she lands. At Thanksgiving she went four hours away across state lines for four days with this boyfriend, and again at Christmas. She has not been living with her dad, but now is living with her grandpa who is only a block away from her dad.
She still doesn’t see or hear from him for weeks at a time. He gets over $500/month child support from me, and doesn’t spend any of it on her.
Every time I see her I have to go and buy her stuff she needs. I knew things would be this way, but I feel there was nothing I could have done about it since I had no visible proof to show the courts.
He and his sister and brother grew up this way. They all got into drugs at an early and their parents knew it. They even got high together.
This is how I knew she would be raised the same way and why I was so worried. When she would visit her dad she was around booze parties and her dad and uncle and their buddies who had a band. She wouldn’t get any sleep because they were jamming and drinking all night.
I know from experience that it wil do no good to talk with my ex or his dad about what is going on. It seems as thought they have learned from their own lives and are letting their kids make the same mistakes they made.
My daughter has two cousins who are 17 and pregnant, that she hangs out with. I want to bring her back home but I am really worried what I will have to face if I try and succeed.
I do not trust my ex or his family and don’t know what they will do. (They have nothing to use against me or my husband, we don’t drink or do drugs. We are not perfect but are good responsible people.)
I am also worried what I will have to deal with from my daughter after having two years of total freedom. I know she will be pissed. Really pissed!
But I feel I just can’t let all this go on anymore. She is not living the life of a 15-year-old. She has no rules or limits and no family structure, which is so important to me.
I know the answer should be clear as to what to do but I have so much going on in my head about all this that I cant even clear and organize my thoughts enough to make a decision.
All my friends say I should try to get her back, but I am scared. I have talked to my lawyer and he agrees with me that she is not in a good environment, that she was never in abusive or unsafe place when she lived with us, and that she is not scared of my husband. She hasn’t seen him since she left.
The judge made it so that he cannot be around her or contact her in anyway. He was always more of a dad to her than her own dad.
I don’t feel the judge had enough evidence to decide that she suffered any emotional distress from my husband. He didn’t consult her counselors or anyone else. He just talked to her for about 15 minutes.
Thank for your time. I am sorry this took up so much of your time and space.
(o:
Scott: Well, I almost died of old age reading your story, but don’t worry about me, worry about your poor daughter.
I don’t know what’s really going on with her, but it doesn’t sound good, and you have some very serious questions to ask yourself.
For instance, do you really think she was lying about your husband abusing her? I only ask because I’ve heard one too many times of girls telling their mothers the same thing and the naïve mother says “Oh, he’s so nice and would never do that,” all the while the abuse continues.
This is very dangerous because it teaches a young innocent girl that telling a trusted adult of being abused is worthless.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like your daughter went to a better place when she moved in with her father.
The smoking and drinking and absence of structure will only continue to steer her in the wrong direction, and then it’ll only be a matter of time until she ends up just like her pregnant cousins.
So should you give up? Absolutely not!
You’re her mother and you’ve got to do everything you can to help for her, including mediation, court-ordered counseling, and any other legal course of action to get her on the right path whether she likes it or not.
Remember, she’s only 15, and since you’re the one who’s got her best interest in mind, get her the help she needs now to sort through all of this drama and determine what’s really going on and what’s best for her.
Don’t give up!