Victim, Perpetrator, Family Counselor?

I have a 23 year old daughter. I wish I could say that she is a daddy’s girl but that would be an outright fabrication on my part. It cannot be said that I don’t love my daughter but at the same time it also cannot be said that I like her much as a person. You see, she was very much a factor in the destruction of my relationship with my two sons. She was 15 and 16 during the time of the separation and divorce of her mother and me and a very willing accomplice in my ex’s war that was waged on my sons’ father and grandparent’s relationships.

My daughter was vulgar and disrespectful towards and about me in regards to my sons and her influence went a long way towards their eventual decision to have no contact with me. I have no doubt that a lot of it was at the urging of her mother and friends/family but I cannot believe that she wasn’t old enough to know what she was doing.

There were the profanity laced phone calls to me in the presence of her brothers, parroting her mothers lies and false accusations about me and the ‘real’ reasons the divorce was happening. For several months I was receiving prank phone calls at all hours of the night where either there was several seconds of silence on the line when I answered or foul language before the hang up. The caller would use the *67 option so that a number did not appear in caller id. After this had been happening for a while I finally called the police and asked if there was something that could be done, and there was. The police began the process to trace the calls. One night after I received another call I immediately called my ex and told her that I had contacted the police about the calls I was getting and I just wanted to let her know ‘just in case’ there was anything she knew about them. It was not 10 minutes later that she called me back to say that she was sorry but she did not know the kids were doing that… yeah right. And asked if I was still going to the police with it. Of course I wasn’t going to press charges against my own children, but after that incident the calls stopped. I later found out that my ex had walked back to my daughter’s room and found her and my oldest son in the room planning their next call.

In more recent years I have received emails and letters from her either demanding money to help with school bills or help buying a car. None of which I complied with. Despite the manner in which she asked I still feel guilty for not helping her. Part of the reasons I did not help were her attitude towards me and the way she asked. But not a small consideration in it was also paying as much as I was and still am to her mother took away from my ability to provide anything above and beyond that.

All of this brings us to her college graduation in the next couple weeks. I am proud of her for this accomplishment because I know she has done it all on her own without the help of wealthy parents or trust funds like some have. She has worked her way through school and was able to acquire student loans to fill the gap. What is her degree in you ask? Family Counselling of all things. She will endeavor to counsel families going through many problems including divorce. I find that not a small bit ironic. I wonder how she will feel about her graduation gift from me.. several books on Parental Alienation and Hostile Aggressive Parenting. My sincere wish is that she read them and learn how to recognize and help repair the damage that these vile diseases cause. But I also hope she sees them as a history book on what was done to and by her not so many years ago.