I Talked Bad To My Daughter About Her Father

The first time I talked bad about my daughter’s father, she was 10 years old. She had just spent six weeks with him during the summer and hadn’t worn her retainer once the whole time. Her teeth were going crooked in the front, one overlapping the other.

I called the orthodontist and she said I was going to have to make her wear it for short periods multiple times a day until, hopefully, her teeth shifted back. It would be painful for her, and I was aggravated that I was once again put in the position of fixing his mistake.

I was explaining the process to her and how bad it was that she had gone that long without wearing her retainer and she replied, “Dada said it’s not a big deal.” I had gotten the same response from him. In fact, not only had he not made sure she wore it, he didn’t even send it with her, and was vague and dismissive about sending it at all.

I realized that if it was anyone else I would talk to her and point out what it means to take responsibility for your actions, about the importance of honesty and accountability. I took a breath, making the decision then, for the first time, to stop covering for him: “It is a big deal. Dada made a mistake and instead of taking responsibility for it he is trying to brush it off by saying it’s not a big deal.”

This was a turning point, the beginning of many difficult conversations with her about her father’s behavior. I second guessed myself and anguished over each one, but what I always came back to was this: I didn’t want her to grow into a young woman not understanding that this kind of treatment is not ok. In this case, he was neglectful, and his actions were causing her pain.

And, I didn’t want her to grow up thinking she had to keep her mouth shut about a man’s behavior and tolerate mistreatment so he won’t get mad at her. That is what I had been modeling her whole life.

Shortly after this, my ex and I became embroiled in our first of three court battles. This was during the first year of the pandemic and I had temporarily moved out of state to live with my boyfriend until I could get my massage therapy business up and running again; I had chronic health issues, and so did most of my clients. Her visit was coming to an end, but the Pandemic wasn’t.

I asked him if we could extend our arrangement for the school year, with her alternating two months with me, two months with him, while she attended the online school we had already agreed on. His answer was no, and if you don’t come back I’ll see you in court.

I begged him to talk to me, to try and work something out for our daughter’s sake. I told him if she saw us working together she would be ok, regardless of an unorthodox parenting schedule. I had always told her that even though her dad and I weren’t together as a couple, we were together as her parents and always would be. But, this stopped being true. He hasn’t physically spoken to me since.

As her visit was coming to an end and I didn’t know what would happen next, I told her I hoped her dad and I could agree on a plan soon so she knew what to expect.

“Dada said it’s up to the court.” she said.

I felt a clench of anger inside. And sadness. I didn’t know how to come back from this. Our marriage had been difficult. He had cycles of rage that I contorted myself to try and stop, but, of course, couldn’t. In the aftermath he would say contritely, “I’m a good dad, a terrible husband.” And, at the time, I believed he was a good dad. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

I said to her, “No, that’s not true. Dada could agree, but he won’t.”

“So, you’re telling me my Dad is a big fat liar?”

“No,” I said slowly, “just that what he said isn’t true.”

Instead of saying, this is what I think is best for you, he put it on the court system. But, he couldn’t really claim that he was driven by what was best for her. Because if he was, he would have talked to me and tried to come up with a solution, like I asked him to over and over.

But, that wasn’t what was driving him. For the first time, with my boyfriend, I had someone in my corner. For the first time, I wasn’t accommodating and appeasing, and he was pissed. Anything less than, I’ll come back now, even though I have no income, even though we will struggle and suffer, wasn’t acceptable. That’s why there was no room for conversation.

We brought her back to her father in August, and I had already planned a trip for September to see her over Labor Day weekend, which was also my birthday weekend. In the first months of the pandemic, when we were all in lockdown, her father and I had verbally agreed to switch from 3/4/3 parenting time, to week on/week off. So, I told her I would see her for that whole week and we would spend my birthday together.

A week later, I heard through our attorneys that my ex was holding me to the 3/4/3 parenting time written in the original separation agreement. Instead of a week, I could only see her for three days. And we wouldn’t be together for my birthday like I had promised her.

My attorney, a kind, soft-spoken man, who turned out to be the exact wrong person to defend my case, told me that the court would say I should lie to my daughter. I should tell her that my boyfriend has to work and that’s why our visit has to be cut short. My ex told my daughter a different lie: that the court said she can only see me for three days instead of the full week we planned.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He cut our visit short out of spite, then lied to her about it, and I am supposed to lie to her to cover up for his bad behavior. But, as I came to learn, this is what is expected.

I didn’t lie to my daughter, though. I again corrected the lie he would tell her again and again over the next three years: that it was the courts doing, he has no say, and neither does she.

What we say about our ex spouses matters. I don’t take this lightly, and I realize there are plenty of people who would say I’m in the wrong. In most cases, a blanket statement saying, “don’t ever talk bad about the other parent.” is what is best for the children. In most cases, a couple's problems are adult problems, the behaviors are within the realm of normal, and really have nothing to do with the children, or the ability of the adults to be good parents.

The problem is when one of the parents is abusive or toxic. Then, this mantra of “don’t talk bad about the other parent” becomes a means of control, it becomes a weapon. I had the constant threat of legal consequences held over me if I talked to my daughter about anything her father said or did.

In what other circumstance would we, as attentive, active, caring parents, sit mutely while our children are being lied to, being manipulated, being mistreated? Even worse, when would we conceivably excuse the behavior of the other person, cover it up, lie about it?

This essentially gives the toxic parent a blank check. They know our hands are tied. They know that if we are caught “talking bad” about them, it is treated as even worse than the original bad behavior enacted by themselves. They can get away with it because we are forbidden to speak of it to our children. Meanwhile, our kids are learning that mistreatment is ok, that no one can keep them safe, that no one can be believed.

It is common for a toxic parent to tell the children, either implicitly or explicitly, to keep secrets. I came to learn that for my daughter this directive was usually followed by: I’ll get in trouble or She’ll freak out or She’ll use it against me. And she would lie to me, then feel terrible and wracked with guilt.

So, now we have a situation where the toxic parent is lying, the child is lying to protect them and keep the peace, and the other parent is expected to lie to protect the image of the toxic parent.

If we aren’t talking to our kids about what is happening, it’s unlikely they will bring it up. After the start of our first court battle in the summer of 2020, my ex-husband took our daughter out of online school and put her into in-person school behind my back. He told her that I was the one that decided to switch her to in-person school.

When I told her that this wasn’t true, she became very upset and confused. When I explained to her that this meant she wouldn’t be able to come see me, she started crying and didn’t want to talk about it.

A week later I received a video from my attorney with the warning: “It’s bad.” In it, my daughter has her back to the camera and is doing her hard “cry talking” that was very familiar to me. Her father was holding her, looking smugly at the camera, as she said things like, “Mama says I won’t be able to see her.” And “Can’t you just talk to her?”

He doesn’t respond to any of this until she says, “I don’t want to talk about it but she’s making me talk about it.” Then he pats her back and tells her it’s not right of me to make her talk about it. She pulls back and looks at him, saying clearly, “She’s not mean!!”

I didn’t say anything to my daughter about the video for a long time. I was outraged and sick to my stomach that he would videotape her private emotional expression without her knowledge to be used against me somehow in court. I felt like it would be too much for her to bear.

Two years later, though, she was crying, telling me that her dad was asking her questions and videotaping her, and recording her talking to his mother. I said, yeah, he’s done this before. She says, yeah I know, a bunch of times. I made him delete them.

All that time, she already knew, but had no one to talk to about it. She just had to carry it.

As I agonized over each word I spoke to my daughter about her father’s behavior, his escalating drinking and drug use, his manipulation and his anger, this is what I kept coming back to: I wanted her to know she deserved honesty, kindness and respect. I wanted her to know that I would always tell her the truth.

What I reminded myself over and over was that I felt like I was talking bad about her father because what he was doing WAS bad. Of course it sounded bad. It was.

When he bought her an iPhone when she was 11 and they both clearly knew I didn’t want her to have a phone, and he told her to lie to me about it, I said, “That was wrong of him to put you in that position.”

When she got a second degree burn on her leg at his house and he told her not to tell me, but she already had, I told her she didn’t do anything wrong, that it wasn’t right of him to tell her to keep that a secret.

When she told me he had backed her up against her dresser and screamed in her face, then she tried to downplay it, I said, “No one has a right to do that to you, not even a parent.”

So, yes, I talked bad to my daughter about her father, and I would do it again.