I was surprised to get your call, I must say. More surprised to hear your voice crack on the other end of the line, like you might be near tears. It was a pretty good performance, really. You actually had me believing for a short moment that you might truly care about the relationship between your daughter and her daddy. You sounded almost genuine when you said you were broken hearted over the fact that they weren’t speaking. Was there anything I could do? Did I have any ideas?
Yeah, I had a lot of ideas, but I didn’t share them on the phone. I will share them now. First let’s take a little walk down memory lane.
Do you remember when she was ten and I first came into her life? I do. I remember how hard we all worked to get along with each other for her sake. I remember us having several conversations about how difficult things had been for her. I remember committing to making things better. I remember you saying that her relationship with her dad was really important to you and things just hadn’t been working toward that end for the past several years, mostly because her stepmom for the five years prior treated her like a second-class citizen. You were so glad that I was there now, that she and I got along, that her Dad’s and my relationship was healthy. It seemed like we were off to a good start.
I remember that her “visitation” schedule was every other weekend… four days a month. We tried hard to put our whole lives on pause for those four days, knowing that was all we got. At first you seemed like you wanted to be flexible, but every time her Dad asked to be involved a little more, you put your foot down. Soon we moved into slumber parties, school events, cheerleading and every other thing you could think of to interrupt those four days he had with her. You scheduled all of that without his input, most often without even letting him know these things were happening, then had your daughter call and act put out if he didn’t absolutely agree that whatever you had planned was more important than her time with him. You called when you had family in town, friends in town, plane tickets to fly off to somewhere, something else to do, something you had paid for. After awhile he got frustrated. You told your daughter you would “step in for her and call” so her Dad wouldn’t “yell” at her.
Things got more interesting when she became a teenager. By that point you not only made the plans, but also made arrangements to come and pick her up from our house. You didn’t tell him this in advance, give him the opportunity to take her to whatever event she had going, or give him an opportunity to participate. You just showed up and acted surprised that she hadn’t talked to him about it. Nice catch-22 you put him in, there. What was he to do? The plans were made. He could either cave and give up his time with her or keep her there, frustrated and angry. Good choices, both of them, don’t you think? Even on the weekends that you didn’t schedule things for her, you dictated what time she needed to be home–no later than 8:00, she has school, needs to be in bed early enough. You acted almost like she was visiting a friend’s house, not like she was with her Dad. Excellent strategy on your part. You got what you wanted… every time.
Then came the really fun years, the hormonal years, the “not afraid to spill it all” years. Those were my favorite by far. We just really never knew what would happen. Sometimes six weeks would go by without us seeing her at all because she was so busy, she was so overwhelmed at our house, too many kids, too many rules. It was tough for the poor little thing. When she was with us, she spewed all of the lies you had been feeding her since she was little. What a rotten Dad he was, didn’t pay you enough child support to keep her outfitted in the way to which she had become accustomed, he spent her whole childhood at the bars instead of doing things with her, he was abusive to you, he was worthless, worthless, worthless. She didn’t want to spend Father’s Day with him, she would rather spend it with her grandpa, because he’s really the one who raised her. I didn’t see him cry about it often, but I could see his face fall, the pain in his eyes. Good job again. You really know how to tear a guy down without even giving the tongue-lashing yourself. What an amazing gardener you are… planted those seeds when she was little and nurtered them right along, didn’t you?
After that things went downhill for her, and you. Suddenly she wasn’t doing so well in school and we would get your frantic phone calls. You would ask him, “Can you please talk to her?” He would try. He would talk to you at length about setting boundaries for her, about being on the same page, doing the same thing at both homes. You would agree and thank him so much for taking the time to talk with her. Then you would flush everything he had to say down the toilet. Back to the same old thing at your house. Ours was the only place she had any consequences. In four days a month, when your house was Disneyland, he couldn’t really make it stick, could he? But good job for you, again. What an intelligent way to really make him the bad guy in her eyes. He thought he was doing something good. You even patted him on the back for it while you were pounding that wedge in between them with your hammer.
Last summer she went a little crazy, didn’t she? Threatened suicide, started cutting herself, tried to run off with her stellar boyfriend. You called in the big guns. I remember that day like it was yesterday. You called him, in tears, and told him that she had run away. We dropped everything to come. Why? Because she’s his daughter and no matter how ugly things had gotten, he still loves her. We came. You fell apart. You told him you couldn’t handle it, couldn’t handle her. You needed a break. Could she come and live with us for awhile? Of course he agreed. Thinking back on it now, I’m sure you had it planned. You probably turned around and smiled through your crocodile tears as he was agreeing to take her off of your hands.
To our house she came. To counseling you all went. She made everyone’s life a living hell. She tried to teach the rest of the kids in our home all of the bad things she could think of. She called your mother, the Queen of Interloping, every time things weren’t going her way, which was often. Grandma tried to come to her rescue more than once. She made it more difficult for everyone. Then… poof… after six of the hardest weeks we’ve ever been through… suddenly you were ready to have her back again. And back she went. It was like she’d never even been here. Months went by without a phone call from her. Worse, months went by without a phone call from you. You never called to catch him up on what she was doing, how she was doing, whether she was still in counseling, still dating the bad seed, nothing. No word. Although he called many a time to find out how things were, you never bothered to call him back. The one time you did, you told him about how busy you all were–too busy to let a father know how his own daughter is doing, too busy to involve him in it now that you had your six-week vacation.
He called at Christmas and had a two-minute curt conversation with her. His birthday came and went with no call from her. He called on her birthday and got voicemail. We all left her a birthday message. Still nothing. That’s been two months ago now.
Then you called me.
I was shocked.
I was surprised to hear your voice, to hear you act like you were concerned. More than that, I was surprised that you took time out of your busy life to even open the door to conversation. Before we get it opened up too wide, though, let me tell you that I don’t buy it. I don’t think you called because you’re so concerned about their relationship. If you were, you would have called him or, better yet, you would have had her call him, instead of taking the coward’s way out and calling me. I know she’s seventeen, but you’re still her mother and you can make that demand of her. I think you called me because you were looking for a sympathetic ear and you wanted to assuage your own guilt over the situation.
You called the wrong person. I’ve watched you systematically destroy her relationship with him for seven years now, and I know all about the things you planted in her brain before that time. You’ve done everything you could to exclude him from her life — music recitals, school plays, cheerleading competitions, homework, reports cards, whatever else you scheduled for her that he didn’t know about and therefore could not attend. It would not surprise me to hear that you told her he was too busy to come to those things.
I’ve listened to the lies you told her from day one, regurgitated to her father with a venom only you could have shown her. I’ve watched you turn him into the bad guy in her eyes. You begged him to step in and then let him take the fall while you continued right on being the Disneyland mom.
Great job! A+! Gold star for you.
You did an excellent job. You nurtured this falling out from the time you and he split. It’s been almost 17 years now that you’ve been doing this number on her, and on him. You’re a great manipulator. You got exactly what you wanted, exactly what you were aiming for. You’re the “better” one in her eyes, ok? You’ve succeeded. They have no relationship to speak of and you don’t have to bother yourself with making sure her “visitation” still happens. Isn’t that just the perfect scenario for you? You can just keep treating him like the ATM you always wanted him to be and you don’t have to share anything with him, least of all the love of your daughter, who is also, by the way, his daughter. Did you forget?
Remember that I’ve seen what you’ve done. If you feel guilty about where things are at, see a counselor yourself. Keep telling yourself you did the right thing, if that’s what helps you sleep at night. I think you’ve done an abominable thing to both of them. I think you deserve to carry around that guilt, for a long time. Thankfully, I’m not your judge, jury and executioner, because I’m not feeling very merciful today.
So don’t call me and act like you’re so concerned.
And please, don’t call me looking for sympathy… I’m fresh out.
Lots of these, too. Evidently it’s that time of year.
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