I have been divorced 2 years and live 150 miles from my kids. I get them every other week and try to be as involved in their lives. This weekend I was planning to go visit them instedad of them coming up to see me and getting a hotel room for us so I could see their sporting events. I do this about every 2 months instead of having the kids come to my place. When I do this I normally pick them up Saturday morning instead of Friday night.

This time, however, my oldest daughter 10, asked why I didn't come down Friday and stay with them at their house (our old house)becasue she misses me not being there. My ex told my daughter she would leave and spend the night somewhere. I told my daughter that I didn't think that would be a good idea, that it would be awkward. She then got mad. Out of the blue she then ask if the reason I didn't spend the night was because my girl friend would get mad at me.

I try and be honest with my kids and told her I didn't think it is appropriate for me to sleep at their house and that I thought it might upset my girlfriend. I told my duaghter that if it was important for her to see me Friday night I would look into getting a cheaper hotel and stay Friday and Saturday. She didn't want any part of this.

I am confused and would like some help here. Somehow, I thought I was doing something positive for my kids by going to see their sporting events. I also told my kids they could invited friends to sleep at the hotel so I could meet their friends. Somehow I wonder if my ex has used this to make me a bad guy. I want my kids to be happy and I want them to see the things I do as positive things. Any suggestion as to how I can accomplish this and help my kids?

First off, I believe this is your daughters way of crying out for more attention. 3 days out of 14 is hard for her and then shorten it to 2 and she snapped.

As to why she brought up the GF I would bet that she only did that because that was the only obstacle that she can see as to why she doesn’t see you more. I totally agree that staying in the X’s house would be awkward to say the least.

IMHO she’s crying out to you, what is your answer??????

A female's view.
I think your X was being very gracious in allowing you to stay in HER home so that you could have more time with your children.
To me, it shows that she is concerned about her D's needs and is willing to step out to allow her D more time with her father.
I would not allow my X in my home. EVER, but certainly not overnight.
I suggest you take the gesture for what it is - in the best interest of your child.
Your X may understand the money situation, and offered this to allow you to save money while spending more time with your D. Or maybe you could spend the hotel cost on taking your D out somewhere nice, or saving up for a great vacation with D.

You will need to think about why your D thinks the GF is a problem. Your children's time is short, take advantage of any time you can with them.

Thanks for the great advice. Newly, thank you for the woman's point of view. Part of me does believe she was doing exactly that however my ex has a borderline type personality so it is difficult for me to tell when she feels I am the enemy or the friend. I did make progress though as you will see when you read on.

I had one of those special moments last night talking to my oldest daughter. I called her to discuss the situation and she was a little distant at first. I started with small talk to see how her day went. After about two minutes she just started rambling about all of her day to day activities. I actively listened and she went on and on for about 15 minutes. Just sharing the small things that make her happy. I told her I wanted her to show me some of these things which seemed to energize her. During this time I took a couple of opportunities to share that they are important to me and that I am really excited to see them. I asked how she was feeling about me not staying at their house and she that it was OK. Not much else said other than she was going to go to the schools funtime that Friday night.

While all this is good stuff the special moment came later that night when I was sitting at the computer and I got a call from her. It was my oldest duaghter and she said that she wanted to tell me something. She said that the reason she got so upset the night before was that she is afraid that she won't get to see me anymore because of my girlfriend. Just a note that I have been dating my girlfriend for over a year and there has been some discussion about marriage. We talked and I think she understands that her fear is just that and I will never stop being a part of their lives. It was a very good night with lots of progress. Now if I can just get youngest to open up. She refuses to talk to me on the phone and seems to have some built up anger. She also has a difficult time expressing herself which complicates matters. Any suggestions here?

Yes, I do have a suggestion. Please encourage your daughters to talk to someone about their feelings regarding the divorce, whether an individual counselor or the school counselor.
I always recommend a program called Rainbows for children.
www.rainbows.org.

Thank you for the advice, I will take a look at the information. My ex and I have both talked to the kids teacher's and have had the school counsellors talk to the kids on several occasions. Honestly, I don't know how helpful to the kids it has been. I talked with my ex and we both feel that counselling will help. I have asked my ex to take the girls to someone local in their town and I would help pay and make arrangements to come down as need to go to sessions or whatever. Unfortunately, she never follows through on these items and I will be surprised if she does in this case. More than likely I will have to take them to a counsellor when they come visit me. This is somewhat frustrating for me because I am concerned it would give them another reason not want to visit. My plans are to give my ex a couple of weeks to see if she follows through. In the mean time I have started looking for a good counsellor here that has weekend appointments.

I didn't get to finish my earlier post. I am suggesting counseling for the girls, not so much to help them understand your divorce, but to improve their chances of an emotionally healthy life in their future.
I want to model good behavior for my children, and believe the counseling I've received has helped with that. And that's shy I'm recommending it for your children.

I do know that in certain areas, Rainbows does have high-school aged classes. Rainbows classes are typically free.

Totally agree that modelling good behavior is the best thing that we can do for our kids in addition to coaching them how to express themselves in contructive ways. I can say for myself that counselling helped me understand how my behavior influenced my life. In addition it helped me realize what I could and couldn't influence. Most of all it made me realize that my behavior has a significant impact on my children. I can say that my ex and I did not discuss our issues, we screamed at one another. I can look at my children and see how this has negatively impacted them.

Recognition is good, now how are you going to use that to help your D's?

We agreed to joint communication counseling for the benefit of our D's. X has refused to go. And he's also refused to respond to times to visit the children's counselor which was also included in the D settlement. Even though these are on legal documents.

I want to provide my girls the chance for an emotionally healthy life, and give them the ability to make good and independent decisions. I can only hope to do the best for them.

Despite the marital problems, the children are the best reminder and result of the marriages.
I thank God for my D's.

I think you are on track and if your ex doesn't want to attend, it is his loss. My ex was the same way about marriage counselling. She is a problem avoider, but NOT a conflict avoider. She is also extremely passive agressive. Anytime I would bring up an issue, she would find a way to turn it around on me and then slam dunk me. I'll give you an example, we were in marriage counselling and she agreed that she wasn't going to spend anymore on her credit cards. Two weeks later I find that she had gotten a new card and was charging away. When I brought it up she immediate got irrate at me, cussing and yelling that I was controlling, that if I hadn't pissed her off the other night she wouldn't have done it, etc. This is what my kids learned. By the way my ex prolonged the divorce process as well because she knew I couldn't get a house until the divorce was finalized and she tried to use that to get additional things that she had said she didn't want.

So this is what my kids have learned. It is unfortunate but I can at least now show them by example how to resolve problems using active listening, encouraging solution solving and being respectful of teh other person. I encourage tehm to discuss their feelings so that they don't keep it bottled up. It is a start.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> try and be honest with my kids and told her I didn't think it is appropriate for me to sleep at their house and that I thought it might upset my girlfriend.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If your girlfriend is really so jealous that she would be upset if you stayed overnight in your children's home when their mother was not even there, I think that is a HUGE red flag.

Your daughter has good reason to worry about a girlfriend taking you away from them. It is far more common for that to happen than for it not to. It doesn't usually happen overnight, but as time goes on, new girlfriends or wives, even those who are not OW's, very commonly intrude into the relationship between a father and his children, gradually discouraging him from spending time with his kids.

I have trouble understanding why you live 150 miles away from your children, since you were apparently the one who moved. No job, and certainly no woman, is worth moving away from your children for.

Nellie,

I will give you some back ground here. First I moved to another town when I was married in order to support my family. My ex has a spending problem and we had two options, file bankruptcy or for me to quit my job, cash in my 401K and find a higher paying job. At the time my ex was going to school and would not consider quitting school to get a job and help with the finances. So we talked about it and we agreed I would quit, cash in the 401K and I found a job in another town where I could live with relatives and make enough to keep the family afloat. All this was done with the agreement that the family would move after she finished school. Well school finished, she didn't want to move and she didn't want to be married. I have consirable financial upside for staying at my current company at least for 2 more years. I am not saying that all the decisions I have made were right, but I do feel that I made decisions with what I felt at the time was best for my family. I had weak boundaries and allowed my ex to push her responsibilities on me.

As far as the comment about my girl friend, she is not jealous. She feels as I do, it would be very confusing for my girls. I am very aware of women who want to come between a father and his kids. My girlfriend is supportive of the time a spend with my kids and she feels it is important that I have time alone with them. This is one of the things that attracts me to her.