Abby Connolly
When you’re a parent, and you split from your spouse because of very nasty reasons, it can be hard to stop yourself from bad-mouthing them in front of your kid. After all, you don’t want to ruin your kid’s relationship with their other parent.
But sometimes, whether you bad mouth your ex or not, your kid starts feeling the same way about them as you do.
One man is unsure what to do after his daughter started connecting more with his sister than she does her mother, his ex-wife, following their divorce.
He and his ex-wife are in their early 30s and have a 14-year-old daughter. They divorced last year after he found out his ex was having an affair, and now they share custody of their daughter. The divorce strongly affected his family, and it took a toll on everyone’s mental health.
“In spite of the pain I was feeling, I never bad-mouthed my ex-wife to my daughter because she was her mother,” he said.
“However, my daughter knew everything that happened, and she told me many times how conflicted she was feeling, given that her mom was her role model.”
Recently, he’s re-entered the dating scene, and he has his 30-year-old sister stay at his house and hang out with his daughter whenever he goes on evening dates. This was a great setup as his daughter has grown closer to his sister over time.
His daughter recently approached him and told him she was still having a hard time with the divorce and couldn’t figure out how she felt about her mom.
“I suggested to my daughter that she could start considering my sister as a role model rather than her mother because she has seen firsthand how nice and kind my sister is,” he recalled.
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