My younger daughter said to me on Wednesday night, “I was with dad from 5:15 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.”  She said that was the longest amount of time she had been with him and that it was awkward.  He picked her up at our home and then they picked up my other daughter at her work and went to the mall to look into my older daughter’s phone issues and to have dinner.  Three hours with their dad that involved about 1 hour of driving time to various places seemed so out of the ordinary to her that it was note worthy for her to mention it.

I asked her if she looked for the shoes and pants that she wanted for back to school when they were at the mall.  She said that she would not shop with her dad.  He has tried to buy her things in the past.  Once when they were in Vancouver she said he kept offering to buy this and that but she said, “No” to everything. When they were in Ontario this summer she had forgot her sunglasses and he offered to buy her a $40 pair because he felt she needed them and he told her that they looked good on her.  She wanted them as well but she refuses to let her dad think he can buy her things and some how that will make up for everything he took from her.  She would also never tell him what she really needs.

Janice, it was pointed out to me, is quite happy on the other hand for Dave to buy her everything. The only thing my daughter said that she has ever seen her buy in 5 plus years is an Imax movie ticket because she has a pass.  It is like my daughter feels as dirty as his whore if he spends money on her.  She does not want to be that person. She is the Taurus of the family and is very bull-headed and strong in her convictions. She is insightful and I am very proud of her for making a stand and putting up a boundary that she considers important to how she feels about herself and her relationship with her father.  Although when I reflect, I think that her saying “No” to him is her way of rejecting him. She is rejecting him the way he has done to her and continues to do to her on various levels.

On Saturday, she and I were about to go for a hike with our dog.  My older daughter came up and said, “Dad is picking us up at noon for lunch.”  My younger daughter was annoyed, “Why didn’t he text me to tell me?”  My older daughter remarked that he texted her and probably assumed that she would just tell her.  She looked at me and asked if she should still go on the hike or just stay at home and get ready.  I told her it wasn’t even 10:00 a.m. so we had time to go for a short hike. I got her back by 11:00 a.m. only for her to be told by her sister that their dad didn’t know she would be going for lunch too and he didn’t think he would be able to get her back in time to work at 4:00 p.m.  Now my younger daughter was even more annoyed.  She said to me, “Good thing I didn’t decide to not go on the hike.”  I felt so badly for her that I said that I would take her for lunch.  We left before her dad arrived.

That night she told me that she arranged to work during the school year on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Wednesday is the only night she doesn’t dance during the week and is the night that she usually has dinner with her dad. She told me, “I probably won’t be seeing dad at all next year.”  I suggested that maybe her dad would pick her up earlier after school on a night that she starts dance a little later so she can have a bite to eat with him and I reminded her that he would probably still try to pick her up every other Friday for dinner and maybe a lunch every other Saturday or Sunday.

The other thing she told me that seemed to bother her was that when she was in Ontario with Dave and his parents over the summer her nanny, Dave’s mom, said to her, “Your mom will always be my daughter-in-law but your dad is my son”, and then she hugged him.  I even cringed when she told me that happened because his mom told me as well that I would always be their daughter-in-law. She just skipped the part about putting her cheating son on a pedestal.  Regardless, they were just empty words.  There is zero relationship.  Twenty three years of fakeness because if there was any love or care for me and my children I would hear from them. To my daughter, she just heard her grandmother say that I am less than when I am the most important person in her life. Does she hear her grandmother say that she would choose her son over her, too?  What does that teach my child about love; who is worthy of her love and why (full blood relation, number of years known) when my daughter has experienced love and what must feel like hate and knows the truth about which parent has always been there for her and which parent rejected her.