That sounds like a super toxic situation. Maybe you can try and limit their contact with him?

Thank you for replying. I agree it is toxic. My daughter only sees him for less than five minutes at a time unless it's a birthday or holiday. I'm torn about limiting contact for my son though, because he's really close to his daddy. I could cut him down to one night a week, which is what our divorce agreement says, but if I want to do less than that I would have to go through the court, and I don't think I have enough for them to let me take his visitation away. Right now he's spending two nights a week with his dad, so I could take one night a week away. The thing is, he asks for his dad every day, and is super excited when he gets to go see him. I just don't know if it's the best thing to limit his contact when they have such a great relationship.

That's awful, sorry you're dealing with that. I wish I had answers for you. All I can think of is making sure he has lots of male role models who respect women, obvs. through your SO but also maybe through Big Brothers, musicians, etc. I'm sure you've thought of that though.

Yeah, there's a lot of good men around. SO, his grandpa, friends. I worry about it though, because he looks up to his dad more than anyone. And it's obviously affecting him. His dad also says a lot of negative things about me and SO, and I know it's very confusing to him.

Today, he was back to his sweet loving self. Cuddled with my SO all morning while I slept in, was sweet and happy and playful. It makes me so sad that next weekend it will be the same regression all over again.

my step children go through this issue when they use to go to their mothers house. ( they do not go there anymore because the home is unsafe for them).

She would call j racial slurs infront of them and talk bad about me. We ultimatly in the end decided to stop visitation because everytime they would come home there would be the same regression.

I am glad he loves his dad and thats good that they have a great relationship but I do think this could harm your daughters self esteem or charactor.( not because of your son but because of the way bd is combative with her).

could you maybe meet him somewhere to drop off your son so your daughter never has to be in the same room with him even for a minute?

I know my solution is not an option for you but i am here if you ever need someone to vent to. I totally understand what you are going through.

I'm so sorry you're dealing with that. How terrible for your daughter.

In addition to what the other mamas have advised (limiting contact, etc.), you should keep records of all this: date/time/event/etc. That way if it ever does ever get to the point of court, again, you will have a good deal of evidence stacked up on your side.

I'd say steer away from trying to limit visitations. The rules were different for me at my parents respective houses and I'm sure there was some spill over of how I acted when returning to my moms or going to my dads but as I got older their consistency is what really mattered. Spereate homes are hard for everyone involved but the best thing I can suggest is consistency. When your son is at your house emphasize your rules because even out in the real world people dont always have morally acceptable practices. Schools may not have all the rules you want, other parents may not, etc. The only thing you can do and the only thing, I say, that you're responsible is what is acceptable in your home and helping him grow up to be empathetic to others even though people he knows might not know that same strength of a characteristic.

I again stress that limiting visitation is not something I would support in this instance. I'm not in the midst of it but by the sounds of it it doesn't seem like an extreme case like physical abuse might warrant. We can't protect our kids from all outside contact and the world has some pretty nasty people. That's why our responsibility is raising children who can be strong and stand up for themselves and give them a sense of empowerment. We wont always be there but they will ALWAYS need tools from us and that's step 1 as parents, I think.

It's not a matter of different rules. That would be okay. It's a matter of him being an abusive person, disrespecting and abusing women and girls in front of my son, and telling him things that confuse him and leave him head-tripped. I have no problem with different rules and different ways of discipline. I have a problem with him modeling abusive behavior.

There is literature that shows that children who witness abuse suffer similar effects of children who are themselves abused. I agree that it's an extreme mischaracterization to downplay promoting violence against women as simply having different rules or to reduce the role of a noncustodial parent as simply one of those outside influences we just can't shelter our kids from forever.

Though I have no children of my own yet, nor have I experienced a situation similar to yours MamaButterfly, I'm in agreement that your son's father is a toxic role model and is condoning behavior that is not acceptable whatsoever.
When I was a pre-teen, my younger (but stronger & bigger) brother abused me, hit me, punched me, - beat me up while my parents were away working. He became comfortable calling me "bitch" and made lewd comments regularly in regards to my maturing figure. My parents never batted an eye to his abusive behavior. I personally felt violated and unsafe in my parents house. Thank you for taking this situation seriously.

Another visitation with daddy this weekend after a mostly great week in which he hit another child once on the playground during a wrestling match that got too rough. Guess what he did as soon as he got home? Hit his sister!

I must say that I do advocate taking visitation away. children who witness abuse run the risk of becoming abusers themselves because abuse is a taught behavior ( for the most part. there are several cases where this doesn't apply.) It is very hard for the father to disrespect women and then expect the mother to be able to counteract the behaviors.

I can't take visitation away. I can cut it down to one night a week instead of two though. I think I'm going to do that. Next week he's only going one night. I'm legally obligated to let his father have him 24 hours per week.

My son told me a few days ago that he felt bad about how BD treats his sister, but that he can't stand up for her even though he wants to because "It's my daddy! You're supposed to listen to your daddy! And I don't want daddy to get mad and yell at me."

This was prompted because he's been hearing her talking a lot about her feelings about how he's been treating her and how she remembers him treating her in the past.

We're having a meeting in a couple days with BD, my fiance, and my daughter so that she can talk to him with our support. She has some things she really wants to say to him about how he makes her feel, and she needs us present to confront him. My son will not be present. I hope it goes well, but I do think she needs to confront him, especially since she won't stop talking about it. I hope it is a healing and empowering experience for her.

Good for her (and you)! I hope it goes well.

Keep us updated with how that works out for her MamaButterfly!

yes please.....let us know how it goes mama!

I'll let you all know how it goes, but it might be a while. The discussion is tomorrow, and then we're heading to San Francisco for spring break. So I'll be back next week.

So we had the meeting last monday, and it pretty much went as expected. My daughter got to say everything she needed to say, and there was definitely a finality set that needed to be set. She took control and explained exactly what kind of relationship she wanted to have with him, and exactly what she requested to be put in place to protect her. This included no contact with him without myself or my fiancee present.

This resulted in the expected from him. He got defensive. He accused her of lying and me of fabricating. He denied things to the point that she was crying in frustration that these things she was talking about had in fact happened. It got a little heated between he and I, but simmered back down, thanks to the calm presence of my fiancee. He basically dumped her. He said if she was going to put up all these protections against him, he wasn't going to be her dad anymore. That was the most painful part for her, and she didn't understand. But by the end of the discussion, she felt empowered and wanted to talk about it all day. It seems like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

My son is with him tonight for visitation. He seemed to be on his best behavior when he picked him up today, and I'm hoping some of the messages have gotten through to him. I hope he comes back happy and refreshed from a visit with daddy, and not confused and upset from daddy talking to him about things he's way too young to handle.

Good for her (and you guys!), that must have been really hard, but she sounds like a really strong kid.

so my son has been mostly good since he came back, but when I took him out today he wouldn't stop acting up. I was having a really hard time with him, and then he started telling me I'm mean over and over and when does he get to go to daddys. I don't know if it has to do with anything I've talked about here, but it does make me sad. I feel like I'm the one that does everything for him, but he likes daddy better. He wanted me to buy him a toy, and since he wasn't behaving I said no way, and he was screaming, "daddy always buys me toys, and you never do!" I feel like he doesn't appreciate anything I do for him, which I know is normal for six year olds, but I just took him on a really fun trip, we spent way too much money, and I bought him tons of stuff. And then today I took him out to lunch and bought him sandals. But I never do anything and daddy always does everything. Right. I'm spending my tax return spoiling the kids before the baby comes, but nothing's never enough for him. Daddys always better.

That sucks, sorry you have to deal with that. In the long run, he will know all this, and he will be grateful. But that doesn't stop it from being shitty in the now. For the record I think you're an amazing mama dealing really well with a shitty situation.