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My Ex-Husband Has Turned My Children Against Me—What Should I Do?

difficult teenager

Dear Newsweek,

I have an ongoing dilemma with my oldest child. I did not raise my kids. Believe me, if I knew when I left my abusive husband that he would get custody of my kids I would have let him go ahead and kill me. It’s hard to say that. But this man told me I would never see our children if I left.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where he had money and I didn’t. I ended up homeless for 6 years living in and out of shelters. I was supposed to have visitations every other weekend. Well, that didn’t happen. Long story short my oldest child was always manipulating the situation during the divorce, despite only being 10 years old. She was very disrespectful, and always seems to get her way. Anytime I have tried to reach out to this child of mine, I get ridiculed and talk down to. Once, I was referred to as just an egg donor. This child and her best friend have constantly trolled me on Facebook, and I’ve had to block my own child on social media.

I haven’t, however, blocked my other two children on Facebook, in hopes that they’ll reach out someday. I wish I could have a positive mother and daughter relationship with my eldest but I don’t believe it will ever happen. She has picked up her dad’s narcissistic ways and I really believe she has bipolar tendencies.

Difficult teenager. Stock Image. A woman has asked for help managing the behavior of her teenage daughter who lives with her ex-husband.
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I work in behavioral health by the way, so I can see the patterns in her behavior. She thinks she can walk all over everybody. The most recent incident happened when she found out I was friends with somebody in a bar, and she grabbed his phone and would not give it back. She found my phone number on his phone and called and started calling me names like fat a*s.

I am constantly being accused of things I haven’t done and insulted by my daughter with the same insults my ex-husband used to use. Meanwhile, this child goes around telling people that there are warrants out for my arrest and that I wanted to leave her siblings out in the woods so the coyotes would eat them.

She will go to every length to stalk me on Facebook, and I believe she’s called my work a couple of times. At this point, I’m not sure what to do.

I have been told by several people that if they know me, she will not have anything to do with them. I have tried to reach out to my other children so many times, but she intervenes each time.

All I ever wanted was to have a family, and my life…

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