Need Advice.... Please.
I have been divorced for 7 years, and my ex has not been able to let go. We unfortunately don't have a good
Relationship, and hardly have any contact as he ignores calls and sms's from me. The problems started right after our divorce..
He would bad mouth me, and call me terrible names in front of my daughters. He would try and convince them that I am a bad mother and that everything they have or get in life is thanks to him. I don't do or buy them anything in life, and the maintenance he pays, I spend on myself and my now partner. He use to use my oldest as a middle man (tell your mother this, tell your mother that) he would try and make them believe that I was a terrible mother, my girls was not allowed to mention my partners name in his house or they would get shouted at. (This is my partner who raises them and takes care of their daily needs, takes them to school, doctors, sits next to their hospital bed).

My oldest daughter has serious symptoms of emotional abuse, (confirmed by a psychiatrist she has been seeing) and has decided that she does not want to see him anymore.. That would be great if he wasn't still seeing my youngest (9). He has decided that if my oldest wants to be a brat then he doesn't care about her, and has written her off. But he still gets to her through her sister. He spoils the youngest one rotten, send her home with expensive gifts such as Blackberry phones etc... And all this to rub into my oldest daughters wounds, that this is what you are missing out on.. My 14 year old daughter landed in hospital and was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome... caused by stress. She is now on chronic medication. She has also started cutting herself whenever she gets upset by him.. She feels hurt, rejected by her own father, lonely, and thinks it’s all her fault.... It breaks my heart..

We are also starting to battle with my youngest. She has become a very emotional child; she has no respect for me, my partner or her sister. Her attitude is that her father is god and we are nothing in her life.. He is using the same emotional abuse on her...

I have sat back and watched for long enough. I can’t watch my 14 year old hurt herself or cry herself to sleep, because of him anymore.
I can’t sit and watch how he turns my 9 year old against us all, when all we ever do for her is love her and care for her...

Do I have any grounds to stand on to go sue for full custody with supervised visitation rights?

I am a 21 y/o male. I went through the exact same thing, with my step father. Suffered years of emotional abuse from him and the symptons are still standing. My advice (2 cents) is to make sure your eldest and indeed both your children don't suffer emotionally anymore or even less. If it carries on for many years it will have severe consequences and also your children are in those critical stages, if they're unhappy now it will have a severe effect on them during their lives.

After going what I've gone through I can't see why any father would act they way your husband/my step father did.

First I'm going to read you the riot act here a little. These are his kids as well, and your expectation that he would "let go" is unrealistic and displays that you are also partially to blame here for expecting (and quite probably pushing) him to go away. How would you feel if the situation was reversed and he had custody and you got the impression that he wanted you to "let go" and go away. I'm sure you would fight like hell.

I'm in no way saying this is all your fault, but you are entirely probably (maybe not deliberately) part of the problem, and you need to evaluate your role in this too.



His use of your eldest as a middle-man is totally unacceptable, however again I suspect that this is half the story. It seems like communication between the two of you broke down before this. Perhaps it was you, perhaps it was him, perhaps it was a joint effort. Whatever the cause you do need tell your daughter that she doesn't have to carry messages.



Something stinks here, your oldest daughter shouldn't be experiencing this severe a stress reaction if she's only in contact with your husband once a week or so. Reading your post you make statements like, "He has decided that if my oldest wants to be a brat then he doesn't care about her, and has written her off", yet you claim to have no contact with him (you claim he doesn't answer calls or SMSes and only used to communicate through the older child, who is now out of the picture). It seems to me like you aren't being entirely truthful here, or are making unfounded assumptions. Which is it? I suspect you're simply assuming the worst of your ex, but that sort of attitude would explain your daughter's extreme reaction.



This is quite possibly the most disturbing sentence in your entire post, and after seeing this I really need to go no further. YOU are clearly the problem. Get YOUR ass into counselling as soon as possible and realise 3 important things:
1. Yes, your husband may be responsible for some of the damage, but your attitude is doing as much or more damage.
2. You can't control you ex-husband's action, you can control your own.
3. You're still painting yourself as the victim in all this and with that come VERY big problems for you, your daughters and everyone around you. STOP IT! You're a survivor.

Now go to counselling yourself.

Done.