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11 Yr Old Angry over Divorce


n9688m

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My 11 yr old daughter has responded with anger to my STBXW moving out and shared custody. Her anger is largely focused on me but also on her sibling and others. She basically is primed to pick a fight over the slightest provocations. Reassuring her the divorce is not her fault and that both parents love her does not seem to be effective. To make things harder, my STBXW appears to be having difficulty removing herself from input/control on days I am with the kids so she frequently makes "suggestions" to the kids about what we could do with our time - that in turn makes me look bad if I do not follow the "suggestions" but if I do follow them then it's hard for me to take the initiative and be a parent in my own right. My STBXW has also told the kids false reasons why we are getting divorced which make it appear to be my fault; the truth is that she had an affair and was walkaway wife.

 

Advice on how to address this with my daughter?

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(((hugs))) rainbows.org may be a good place to start ~ "RAINBOWS is a support group curriculum for children who have suffered significant loss in their lives, either through death, divorce..."

 

You may also want to consider child and family counseling. (Some employer group health plans cover counseling, so they may be able to provide a list of counselors in your area.)

 

Wishing you and your kids all the best.

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you obviously can't expect your wife to tell the kids she cheated on you. Just try to keep the kids out of your disagreements and hope that a little more time will fix this if not go see an expert for advice

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After 20 years, my Ex still tells everyone that I falsely accused her of infidelity, and kicked her out of the house. In reality, I simply told her I had tangible evidence of her activities, and she needed to make up her mind whether she wanted to stay with the family that loved her, or spend her time with her "friends". Two weeks later, she left of her own volition, and I closed the door on our relationship.

 

My point is, don't expect your Ex to do anything to make your life easy - ever. Be open and honest with your kids, and don't discuss or argue over what their mother tells them except to politely disagree with her. In time they'll hopefully figure out the truth for themselves.

 

Some suggestions that might help curtail your Ex's meddling in your time with the kids:

* Take some time at the end of each visit to make plans with your kids about your activities for the *next* visit. Give them something to look forward to *before* mom puts in her 2cents worth.

 

*Of course, you can't spend every weekend at Disneyland, but definitely allow them some say, and act on their input as much as you can. Part of the anger your 11 yo feels probably comes from feeling "out of control" because she can't do anything about what has happened. Allowing her some degree of control in her own activities with you might help to assuage that somewhat.

 

* Listen to your kids when they talk about their anger, and try to teach them how to manage it. Here's the gist of it...

Everything that creates anger in our lives falls into one of three general categories:

1> Things we can eliminate from our lives, like a bad Golfer drops his club membership, and tries another activity.

2> Things we CAN'T eliminate, but we can modify to make them easier to handle, like re-scheduling a due date for a monthly bill to a more convenient time.

3> Things we CAN'T do anything about at all, and just have to accept as part of life, like taxes, but these things will be easier to deal with after going through steps 1 and 2.

 

I hope you find this helpful, and in any case I wish you patience and good luck.

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you obviously can't expect your wife to tell the kids she cheated on you.

 

Why not?

 

And barring that, surely I can hope she would refrain from telling the kids that I caused the divorce.

 

 

Just try to keep the kids out of your disagreements and hope that a little more time will fix this if not go see an expert for advice

 

The problem seems to be that she is bringing the kids into the disagreements intentionally - perhaps to bolster her custody argument [we only have a temporary shared custody agreement now].

 

BTW - yes, we are attending family counseling now with the kids. Just seeking additional advice/theories/observations here.

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My point is, don't expect your Ex to do anything to make your life easy - ever.

 

That seems to be the case. I guess what puzzles me is that she caused (and wanted) the divorce - not me. It may be that the affair is a red herring and she simply married me long ago for non-romantic reasons. Whatever the case, fundamentally the situation is of her doing, not mine. I'm frustrated by the ongoing projection of her anger onto me - but apparently that may stay forever because she just can't accept or acknowledge what she has done?

 

Some suggestions that might help curtail your Ex's meddling in your time with the kids:

 

That is helpful - thanks.

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One last suggestion, if I may,...

Don't feed your Ex's anger. Don't let her push her anger problems onto you, because you already have enough problems of your own. She made her bed, let her lay in it by herself.

My Ex used to try to goad me into arguments all the time, and I simply refused to participate in them. If she started screaming at me on the phone, I simply hung-up on her until she adopted a more civil tone. If she tried to start an argument in person, I let *her* be the one to make all the noise until she realized she was arguing with herself.

Sometimes, you just have to remind her of the way things are in a calm voice. When my Ex complained that something I did was "Unfair" to her, I simply told her "Fair walked out the door 6 months ago.", and "Sorry, but you don't get to tell me what to do, think, or feel anymore."

Just keep your head about you, and *hopefully* she will realize the futility of her efforts to manipulate her desired response from you, and give up after awhile.

With any luck, you will be seen as the *rational* parent, which will work in your favor over the long, rocky road ahead of you.

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Thank. That is helpful. I feel like I am stuck in the twilight zone sometimes in terms of being "reasonable." She keeps telling me I am "uncivil" but generally that means I won't accept her attorney's aggressive, run-down-the-clock strategy where she wants to negotiate on some last-minute deadline rather than weeks in advance when I ask.

 

The biggest issue of all is that she insists on "negotiating" the divorce via attorneys but will not agree to mediation. She says it's "uncivil" and "unreasonable" for me to "demand" a mediator. But I tried sitting down with her attorney and he just plays silly games like running out of a meeting after only 5 minutes. I fail to see how in any universe it can be considered uncivil to request a mediator to be part of divorce negotiations.

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This is all strictly my opinion. I'm not trying to be an alarmist, I just *really* hope things work out for you and your kids.

 

It's not uncivil to ask for a mediator, it's cost effective and avoids unnecessary court time, which is exactly what her lawyer does NOT want!

Unfortunately, Divorce has become a very lucrative industry for Lawyers and ancillary agencies, like support collection services, all with the Blessing of the state and federal governments.

From this point forward, you can be fairly certain that *everything* your Ex says or does comes straight from her lawyer - possibly even the arguments and meddling over the shared custody. Some lawyers have even been known to coach the children to do and say things to put the father in a bad light, and unfortunately the courts always tend to favor the woman from the start.

The reason for this is simple, the more the Lawyer can squeeze out of the Ex Husband for the Ex Wife, and the longer he/she can drag it out, the bigger his/her share of the spoils will be. The fact that her lawyer is already playing "Head Games" with you tells me that you really need to get some professional legal services of your own, if you haven't already done so. In any event, I highly recommend that you at least contact a reputable Father's Rights organization for more information.

I'm not down on *all* lawyers, I just have nothing nice to say about the ones that profit off of the misery and suffering of others.

 

I was *incredibly* lucky. The lawyer that I got my advice from was actually a Patent Attorney who "retired" from family law because it sickened him so to practice it. He told me "Take your time. You have nothing to gain by pushing for a divorce, and nothing to lose by waiting.", and he was right.

It took 3 long years of putting up with her crap, but eventually my Ex left the kids with me, giving me "Full Defacto" custody in the eyes of the state who garnished her wages for support payments to me. Within 2 years, she was pregnant to someone else, so I got a no-fault "Mail Order" divorce that cost me $85, and I never even had to set foot in a courtroom.

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