Sorry this is so long, but I’m looking for some advice/ Input on what direction to go. I’m at a loss on what to do anymore.
My daughter is 15. Her father and I have been split up since she was 6 months old. We have had a lot of issues when it comes to getting along because he is always out for whatever benefits him the most regardless of how much it hurts our daughter or anyone really. He was living out of state and our daughter would spend a majority of the summer with him, always coming home for a week around her birthday in the middle of the summer. Every summer for some reason or another, she didn’t want to go back to his house. She always told me how bad him and his wife treated her compared to her other siblings that her father and his wife have together. She would be in tears begging me not to go back and he never really fought the issue when she chose not to.
Last summer her father moved back home and there was an incident where once again, she was in tears begging me to stay and not go with her dad. Telling me she was scared of him and even telling me about incidents that happened while they lived in Michigan that she was afraid to tell me about because she knew I would freak out. He ended up calling the cops, and she made a report about everything that had happened, which were more things that I was just hearing about for the first time. She didn’t go back with him for quite a while and kept telling me she was worried about her brother and sister and that’s the only reason she kept going for a while. I had been doing things on my end with my attorney and after she talked to her dad on the phone, all of a sudden she wanted to go back and acted as if nothing had ever happened.
Fast forward to now, her father has moved 2 blocks from us. We adjusted our parenting plan giving him more time than he had before and he never asked for more time with her other then when they needed a babysitter. He currently has her 3 weekends a month during school and during the summer, he has her and she comes with me every other weekend. She is always coming home telling me about how bad her step mom treats her and how her dad yells at her all the time and has even put a hole in her bedroom wall. She has now called me telling me how her dad has started calling her a slut and her brother is just laughing at all of it saying it’s funny and she deserves it. Anyone who knows my daughter, knows she is nothing like how he’s making her feel like she is.
I have always told her that I will fight for her to not have to go, but she always tells me it’s fine. She wants to be able to see her siblings, which I understand. But I worry about her when she’s there non stop. She has mentioned on numerous occasions that she wished he wasn’t her dad and wished someone else could adopt her. And he has even mentioned signing over his rights at one point because he’s tired of paying child support (which he really hasn’t paid in 2 years now) I’m at a complete loss now and my heart breaks every time she calls me in tears. I keep telling her she can go home, but she’s so scared of her dad that she’s afraid to leave and him do something to her.