My ex-husband is somewhat bad mouthing me to my 12 year old daughter.
We have been divorced for about 8 years now. My son is 10 and my daughter is 12.
I moved about an hour away shortly after our divorce (closer to my job) and we share custody 50/50...always have.
My ex wanted the kids to go to school where he lives and that wasn't worth fighting in our divorce.
Now that my daughter is 12, they (my ex and his fiancee) have told her that she can decide what she wants to do about custody. I have them all but one weekend out of the month and will have them more in the summer. My children have friends at both homes. I do as much as I can for them to get them to activities that they do by their school and also attend those activities when I don't have them. There are times that I am unable to get them to a birthday party or something else with a friend but try my best as much as I can. When my daughter is going to be with me and finds out from her dad or his fiancee that she is going to miss something, she starts telling me that "she's done with the whole fifty fifty thing" and that "she's old enough to decide". I do things for her when she is with me...get her together with friends, etc. She recently made the comment that "I'm bribing her". And also tells me that "I'm the one that moved". I know these are not her words and that I'm getting bad mouthed in an indirect way but both her father and his fiancee. I tell her that this is an adult conversation and that I'm not going to discuss it with her. But she keeps on. I refuse to bad mouth her father and his fiancee. And I refuse to defend myself when she says these things. My fiance says that she knows what she's saying to me even though her father and his fiancee are behind it. And she knows that she's hurting me by saying those things. When she comes to my house, she does complain about her father and his fiancee sometimes. His fiancee signs her up for activities she does not want to do but she tells me she can't say no or say how she feels to them. She can only express how she feels about everything to me. I know they are just hurting her and I'm hoping that eventually she will see that but I feel like it's just never going to happen and I'm always going to be the bad guy in her eyes. I know I need to be humble about it because I refuse to be like them. How do I get past this? It makes me cry everytime I have to deal with it.
“Now that my daughter is 12, they (my ex and his fiancee) have told her that she can decide what she wants to do about custody…”
What????? She’s 12 for goodness sake! No wonder the poor kid’s conflicted and confused! Isn’t there a court order/parenting order in place that says how custody is to occur?