Co-Parenting After Divorce!!

As long as your daughter is not is any physical danger, you learn to say things like "I'm sorry you were uncomfortable, and I can tell that you're upset, but that is something you need to talk to your dad about." This is the worst part of being divorced-you no longer have unilateral control over your child's life. The other parent gets to make their own house rules, and do what they want in their house, and you do not have the right to get involved unless your child is in danger. Unless you guys have a morality clause in your custody agreement, there really IS nothing you can do about this.

That being said, you might want to talk to your daughter about what your morals are regarding dating/sex, so that dad's morals aren't the only ones she understands clearly.

I completely agree with Mommaof4 - your daughter needs to tell her dad how she feels. If you do it, he's going to think you are pushing YOUR agenda, not hers.

You having screaming matches and not getting along with your ex is going to be WAY more destructive to your daughter than her meeting dad's various girlfriends. You cannot control what he does, and you need to stop trying. Unless he is being seriously neglectful or abusive, you need to stop trying to control him, and try your best to get along, which is the healthiest thing you can do for your daughter.

Tell her to tell her dad when she hears them having s**, and to tell him that she would rather not hear it. She's old enough to tell him that, you don't have to. Your daughter really needs to become comfortable expressing her feelings to her father.

okay - why are you afraid to say SEX?? it's a natural part of life...SEX. your daughter is aware of it. Don't shy away from it or make it bad. Let her come to you.

What does your custody agreement state?
Can you make stipulations about other people being around/involved when the custodial parent??

Stop having screaming matches with him.
Tell him how HIS DAUGHTER is feeling - NOT YOU. HIS DAUGHTER.

"John. I support you having Denise as a girlfriend. However, YOUR DAUGHTER is not comfortable around her. Jane does NOT feel like she is getting your attention when she is with you."

I can't say it enough - STOP HAVING SCREAMING matches with him. IT's not conducive to co-parenting. You MUST control yourself. You can't control him and his words, but YOU CAN control yours.

You are right that he should not be introducing his daughter to one girlfriend after another. He should also be having quality time with just his daughter and not with a 3rd party. He's being immature.

That said, you can't win with an immature person by having screaming matches. It just takes you down to his level, and it builds all kinds of tension that your daughter will pick up on even if she is not heaving the yelling. Moreover, he is going to dig in his heels and say, "Oh yeah? I can have anyone I want over to my house. So there!"

You need to be able to say the word "sex". You need to have a conversation with your daughter about what she heard. How does she know it was sex? (Meaning, what does she already know about it? What has she heard on the bus or the playground or on TV?) What scared her about it? Did she walk in on them? Hear moaning? Think there was a physical fight going on? You absolutely have to be conversant on her level.

The more she can talk about it, the more she will be able to say something, anything, to her father. She can start with asking him if they can have special father/daughter time. She can ask why Giselle is there every weekend. She can ask how long this girlfriend is going to last since the others didn't. She can ask what the noise was in the room and say it makes her afraid (assuming that is her word and not yours). Be very careful because it absolutely cannot be your words in her mouth, or it will a) be wrong and b) backfire with your ex.

I don't think there is much you can do about him having girlfriends over, unless it's written in your divorce or visitation agreement that neither parent can do that.

I do think your daughter can say she wants dad/kid time, or she can retreat into her room if the girlfriend is over there. But if the girlfriend is doing fun things with her and they ave having family dinners, you have to back off. You CAN (and should) have conversations about your own values and how you wouldn't bring a man into th house unless you were very serious, that you value yourself too much, etc., but be careful to stop way short of saying Dad shouldn't be doing this.

You have to encourage her to speak up for herself, not just about this. Girls especially need to speak up for their feelings, dignity and discomfort whenever they are faced with a controlling man. In time, she will have little respect for men who can't keep their pants on, and she will learn the difference between love and sex. You have to help her with that without crossing the line to badmouth or denigrate her father. If you need help from a family counselor, get it. Your physician or the pediatrician can refer you and help your daughter deal with confusing experiences.

My daughter and her ex are doing more parallel parenting than co-parenting and are doing it successfully. Their 11 yo son does talk about things that bother him at his Dad's house that make him unhappy and uncomfortable. My daughter tells his Dad how what he does hurts his son. She leaves the decision for how he'll handle it with his son to him.

As others have said, parents cannot control what the other parent does. When one tries to change the other this inevitably causes fights. If one wants the other parent to understand and change they have to let go of anger and talk with the other parent in a way that doesn't challenge them or make them feel controlled. A good way to learn how to do this read about Non-violent Communication. This is a way of talking that allows both people to feel respected. Only then can you have any influence with the other person. I doubt this will change your husband with his girlfriends. I suggest that over time the two of you could become less adversarial. This will benefit your daughter As well as you. Surely you don't want to live your life angry and unable to help your daughter deal withe what is. You cannot change your ex. You can help your daughter live in a more peaceful environment.

Your daughter is your main concern. I expect that your attitude and screaming at her father is part of why she's uncomfortable and scared. You are telling her your way is the only way to act. You have become in between your daughter and her father. It's very important that she sees her father as a good person. She is a part of him and if he's bad so is she.

You don't have to praise him but you need to accept him as he is. Focus on teaching her your values to balance against his values. You talk with her without talking about her dad.

My daughter's ex teases their son. Their son is on the autism spectra so there is plenty to tease him about. My daughter and I acknowledge his hurt without blaming his dad. We do say we wish he wouldn't tease and then help him learn ways to deal with it. My grandson sees a counselor regularly so he has an impartial person to discuss his feelings about what happens to him. It seems to be helping.

What is more important for your daughter than having your ex to agree with you is to have her see that you and her dad get along. With every negative word from you and with every fight you are influencing her in a negative way. You are putting her in the middle between you and your ex. This leaves her in a position to please one of you and not the other. Seems like she's chosen you which puts a negative strain on her. She loves both of you and wants to please both of you. I suggest this is one reason she is not comfortable at her dad's house.

I suggest you back off until you're able to talk calmly and respectful with your ex. Then work towards a compromise. You can't convince him to not include his girlfriend but perhaps he'd agree to have your child without her some of the time. Perhaps he could understand how your daughter feels when you talk about your daughter and not you.

I urge you to get counseling for both you and your daughter. What is happening now is upsetting your daughter and a negative influence on how she views herself.

I so understand your situation as i am divorced from my first husband since 2000 and he did the EXACT SAME THING! Unfortunately if he is not physically putting the child in danger, there is not a damn thing you can do about who he brings around your child. As long as she is not like a serial killer or a child molester..... I know sounds weird, but that is what my lawyer told me. I tried to go back and get supervised visits and totally made a fool of myself. Why? Because i was sickened at how my ex was acting and the decisions he was making around our child and i was desperate! All I could do was try and explain to my daughter how to just have a good time at daddy's and maybe before the visit starts ask him to take her to do fun things so that he wasn't able to just focus on the girlfriend (which ever one he had at the time). Unfortunately for him, he chose his girlfriends over our daughter and made SEVERAL BAD DECISIONS and now she is almost 18 years old and wants nothing to do with him because of the way he treated her. He made her feel unloved, unwanted and always chose everything else over her therefore making her feel like she wasn't important. And he did it all to himself. Now he acts like he is the victim and blames me for everything! Blames me for our daughter not wanting anything to do with him and even went as low as blaming our daughter for his bad choices. This guy is a real tool and a real D bag! All you can do is be there for your daughter and in the long run she will decide what kind of relationship she wants with her dad. Just always be there for her and always encourage a relationship with her dad. As long as she is not getting hurt..... we cannot control what our ex spouses do with their lives after the marriage is dissolved. Trust me, i am a perfect example of making a fool out of myself trying to tell him what to do. I just wanted our daugther to have a good life. if she was going to be a product of divorce i just wanted her to not to be in the middle.... sadly kids are. Good luck!

ugh indeed. what a miserable situation. i'm glad he's your ex.
but you're not helping matters by screaming and trying to control him. he does have a right to girlfriends, and unfortunately you can't force him to focus on your child and not on them.
so help your daughter by dialing the drama all the way back. help her come up with coping techniques such as having a music box or ipod to play if she hears 'scary noises' coming from the bedroom. but the main thing to do is to stop confronting him aggressively. you won't make him change his ways by getting up in his grill. if you stand down and refocus on your daughter instead of him, hopefully once his feathers un-ruffle you'll be able to have calm, useful conversations with him. if you enlist his help as a parent instead of accusing him as a schmuck you'll be in a far better position to work out an easier time all round for your child.
and she's the most important thing here, right?
khairete
S.

You know already that screaming matches are very negative examples for your child (even if she doesn't witness them, she is well aware of the tension between you). She has come to you to help her, and you can't do that if you can't find a way to deal coolly with this extremely self-centered and immature man. I say self-centered because a mature adult would realize that introducing a child to girlfriend after girlfriend as "THE one" will make his child grow up uncertain of what commitment means.

But you cannot control that, you can only control your reactions to it. And right now you're not doing that.

Please read Diane B's response below. I agree with her. Your daughter needs special one on one time with her dad (preferably time he does not spend telling her how wonderful the latest girlfriend is), but you will not convince him to do that if you and he are screaming over his girlfriends and his sex life. Because he's so immature you need to be the one here to take the high road. I really, really encourage you to see a counselor to help you figure out how to deal with him, even script out how to talk with him so that your reactions are less emotional and your words can work better on what sounds like a very self-centered man. If your daughter is not in any counseling, consider it for her as well, so she learns that she is valuable and valued; girls who see dad bounce from woman to woman and who never get any special attention from dad can grow up believing they are not particularly valuable or interesting to dad (and to other men).

One BIG red flag in your post: You say he claims his daughter is "making things up and not telling the whole truth." Is this about the claim she overheard them having sex? Whatever it's about, it's very telling that he would throw his own child under the bus here and put the blame onto her. That is extremely immature behavior on his part; it's an adult saying, "She tattled on me! And she's a liar!" about his own child. But YOU cannot rise to that bait.

That's why counseling could really help here, so you can back off from your own emotions when dealing with him and get some advice on how to help your child navigate many more years of being treated this way by her father.

I will tell you what nipped this in the bud with my dad, me and my sister.. Family counseling. My mother tried in vain to speak with our father, but he accused her of being jealous.

So finally, when my sister and I started really dreading our visits with him, my mother was able to convince him we needed family counseling.

My father being told by a professional that his behaviors were not appropriate around his daughters, pissed him off so bad, we never went back.. But it helped my mother in court to get him to not always have women around everytime we were with him.

Something's also sunk in. Mainly that we wanted and needed to spend time alone with him, since our visits were few and not for very long. Even once he married, he was reminded, we needed alone time with him every once in a while.

I highly encourage him and daughter to go to family counseling, so that dad and daughter can learn how to communicate freely with each other, and dad can hear from a professional things he needs to consider.

Does he want his daughter to grow up to be like these "girlfriends"? Sleeping with different men while their children are in the next bedroom? Because I promise, he is setting an example of what has his attention and it is not his daughter. He has the rest of the week for these shenanigans.

I agree with ℜ❀$eღud❧ completely.

What goes on at his house is of no concern to you unless it's abusive, etc.

These things need to be addressed at Dad's house. Your daughter needs to talk to him. If she comes to you, you suggest "I can't do anything here - you need to talk to your father". If she finds that hard, then that's something they will need to work out. You can't do that for them.

Good luck :)

I thought he moved out of state?
Honestly, as gross as it is for a child to hear her parents having sex I'm pretty sure it's not considered abusive, and certainly not illegal.
And you should refer to your child as "our" daughter, not "my" daughter because whether you like it or not that's the truth.

You don't. You tell him your daughter can hear them having sex and they need to quiet down. Then you keep out of their lives. He can have 10 women spending the night every night and it's his business.

Life stinks but he's an adult and has the right to do what he wants in his house. You can't make any rules for what he does at any time, even when she's there. It's his home.

You having screaming matches isn't helping. You do know that, right? Deep down? Because he's dragging you down to his level if you do.

So you step back. You empower your DD to speak to her father. I honestly bet you that my DD has heard us having sex. If your DD is afraid, what is she afraid of? Have you spoken to her in generic terms about sex? So that she knows not one is (hopefully) being hurt? Has she ever spoken to her father about her feelings?

Unfortunately you can't prevent him from bringing home a GF, even if he should. It would have been nice if my sks didn't have to deal with their mother's crazies. But we couldn't do anything about it other than be the stable and try to show another way. If you "forbid" him, then he knows he's gotten to you every time a GF is over. So now it's become a power play. Instead, focus on your DD and being a good example for her and not on trying to get your ex to do the "right thing".

You should also look up "parallel parenting", where you parent in spite of whatever the other party does.

I would not be thrilled with that either, but it is not up to you what he does or who he introduces her to during his time with her, unless they are an actual danger to her or abusive, which it does not sound like is the case. Rather then encourage her try reassuring her to not be scared and to try to get to know daddy's friend so she will feel more comfortable.

As for the sex, kids will sometimes hear their parents have sex (I know my kids have heard me), if it scared her then you need to have a talk with her and let her know it is a normal loving thing two adults do and not something to be scared about.

I thought patents divorcing these days had a parenting plan in place?

Totally gross on your ex part to subject his daughters to the flavor of the month. I'd suggest having a calm conversation asking him questions about what he wants to instill in his daughter and how subjecting her to this is helping with that.

As a child of divorce who was subjected to this by my mother it made me sick to my stomach as a kid. Not good memories at all