u/queenlunchmeat

So my daughter (13) has never really had a close relationship with her bio dad. He wasn't there when she was born because he was in jail/rehab for weed (not judging him for smoking and it's legal where I am now but if you know you have a kid on the way don't be an idiot ya know?) so he isn't on her birth certificate and never pursued paternity or visitation/custody and I never did either because I would rather be the only name on her birth certificate and not share custody than receive child support from him but I have my own reasons for that. Despite all of this I never stopped him from seeing her when he asked. For the first 9 years of her life he was spotty and inconsistent at best. Would pop up when he had a gf he wanted to introduce her to, I would say no to the girlfriend being involved until they were together longer, he would visit once or twice cause "it wasn't just about the gf I wanna see my daughter", I'd tell him to either step up and at least be consistent instead of popping up once every few months, he'd say I was "making things difficult" then disappear for awhile again. And awhile being quite a long time, when she was 4 I got married to my partner, we bought a house, and I had a whole baby without him even knowing until later so definitely huge gaps in contact and never any meaningful parenting. Visits were always with me there/at my house/at a public place.

Fast forward to her being 9 and him having a long term relationship with a woman who really encouraged him (and did a lot of reminding him) to pay child support and spend time with his bio kids. So he reached out to me and him and her hung out with Rowan a few times with me and then started taking her out to do something every other weekend. Like dinner, and activity, family dinner etc. And he unofficially paid me child support. A year later they broke up and he moved back in with his mom and sister. He wanted to keep up visits but their house wasn't super kid friendly so he started coming here. We all got along, did dinner, visits, birthday parties, holidays with him included, whatever for about 2yrs. And let's just say he got VERY comfortable being apart of the family. And that is when a lot of problems started.

He started saying things to her and to me in front of her, that we're....passive aggressive? Sexist? Body shaming? And honestly just dismissive of her in general? I don't know what to call it so I'll give some examples: He forgot about her recital and didn't show up. Blamed me for not reminding him (not my job) and when that didn't work he was texting her and blaming her for not reminding him because "if she really cared about him being there and wanted him there she would have reminded him", also said she "needs to help him learn to be a parent because he's still new to this", then told her she was childish because she didn't want to talk about these things over text and she couldn't just avoid him. He has said she needed to stay in girl scouts not dance because it taught more valuable skills, overall was very unsupportive of dance and to me has said things about it being sexual (it's never been inappropriate in any way) and he didn't like how some of the girls "looked at him like they had a crush or something", has commented on her body telling her she should work out in addition to dance so she doesn't become "pear-shapped", and 100 other things like to look up "toxic feminism" because she might have learned that from me (???). It was just a LOT and REPEATEDLY, even after I had talked to him multiple times about it and how it made her feel.

Now she doesn't want any contact with him. It's been about six months and he is mad and constantly blowing up my phone because I won't make her or force her to visit him. He thinks she should be punished or her phone taken away since she won't even look at his texts and has him blocked. And he keeps blaming me and my husband because I let her call him "dad" instead of his name and apparently this means I've "put him in her bio dads rightful place". We've been together 12 yrs and married for 9! Like?! He earned that title, I never forced it on anyone but apparently not stopping it was wrong? He is now threatening court (not the first time and he's never done anything before) and saying I can't keep him from his daughter. But I'm not keeping her from him as in she wants to see him and I'm saying no, I'm just not going to make her see him especially when he acts like that and makes her upset constantly. Why would I put her back in a position to be treated like that??

Sorry that was long but I felt like context was needed for why she doesn't want to see him and that it was brought up with him several times. TLDR: Daughter 13 doesn't want a relationship with her bio dad anymore because of his repeated comments and behavior towards her. I won't force her into it and he is threatening court because of it. But there is no current custody order or even paternity established and i don't feel like I'm in the wrong for not forcing her. Sometimes I wish he'd just go away again so my husband and I can raise her without this drama like we did for YEARS before I stupidly let him back in cause I never wanted to lie to her/hide anything.

Okay, this is long and messy but I need outside opinions because I feel like I have been going insane trying to navigate this for years.

My daughter is 12. Her biological father is not on her birth certificate (he was in jail for smoking weed at the time, stupid I know but that was the law then), there has never been a custody order because he never persued one and I am fine being the sole parent, and he was never consistently involved as an equal parent while she was growing up. He would come in and out of her life (usually when he had a girlfriend he wanted to impress), contribute sometimes financially, visit, do holidays sometimes, but he was never carrying the day to day parenting load, school stuff, doctors, extracurriculars, or actual raising of her in the way a full time parent does. My husband has been in her life since she was very little and is the person she sees as “dad.”

More recently, like the past...3 years he was around more but still not a "parent" more like a "fun dad" or "cool uncle"? I tried really hard to help grow their relationship. I included him in holidays, birthdays, dance recitals, dinners, outings, she would sleepover his mom's house where he lives, visits at my house, whatever. He always had this thing though where he "needed my help to learn how to parent" so I was pressured to be around for like 90% of his time with her. Irritating in itself but I thought I was doing the right thing letting her grow a better relationship with her bio dad.

The problem now is that over time my daughter started pulling away from him more and more because interactions with him became so overwhelming for her. Not because of one giant abusive event or anything dramatic, but because of repeated patterns over YEARS. Everything with him becomes a lesson, correction, emotionally heavy conversation, guilt trip, debate about her opinion, or “teaching moment.” He is extremely intense, defensive, emotionally reactive, and constantly explains why "what he meant" matter more than the impact he had on someone. If you tell him something hurt you, he almost immediately pivots into why he said it, what he meant, how he feels, why someone else also shares blame, or why he reacted that way. It's exhausting.

He also has some very weird views around women that became a major turning point for me. One of the biggest fights we had happened after he repeatedly implied that our daughter and the girls at her dance studio looked “sexual” or where dancing "too sexually" or looked at him like they had crushes on him, said our daughter wanting a career in dance would lead to her becoming a stripper. She is 12! And nothing in their dances was even remotely sexual, it was a Christmas recital. He talked about “toxic femininity,” “girl privilege,” and weird men vs women stuff right in front of her, telling her to soul search and do some research on "toxic femininity" and to ask me about it cause "she certainly didn't learn it from him". Implying our daughter was toxic and it was my fault? I even had to look up toxic femininity cause I never even heard of it! After that conversation our daughter does not want to see him again. I will not and have never forced her to see him when she didn't want to.

She doesn't see him as “dad” even though he desperately wants that role. She is too old for him to just show up now and demand that role and think she'll just say "Okay!" and jump on board with it. From his perspective he IS her father and everyone around her has unfairly influenced her against him. From her perspective, he feels emotionally overwhelming, guilt inducing, corrective, and exhausting to be around. She is literally in therapy over all of this because she feels anxious, emotionally responsible for his feelings, and like she cannot openly express herself around him without reactions, defensiveness, or emotional weight being put back on her. For example he missed a recital last winter that she invited him to and blamed her for not reminding him and if she really loved him and wanted him there she would have. When she pushed back on that he called her an immature child who sounds too much like her mother.

I have spent MONTHS trying to explain her feelings to him, supervise visits, smooth things over afterward, encourage reconnection, restart contact after daughter asked for a break, and try to help him understand why this keeps happening. But every conversation turns into him asking for more access, saying he cannot show change without more time together, saying daughter needs to “try harder,” saying outside influences affected her perspective, or asking me to “push” her more toward him. He apologizes, but almost every apology turns into explanations, shared blame, or reasons why other people also caused the situation too.

Now he says I am alienating him, keeping him from his daughter, not acknowledging his feelings enough, and preventing him from being the father he wants to be. Meanwhile I feel emotionally exhausted because I genuinely HAVE tried for years to help maintain this relationship and now feel like I’m being blamed because she no longer wants the relationship he imagined she would have with him.

I don’t think he is evil. I think he probably genuinely loves her. But I also think his love comes with so much emotional intensity, pressure, defensiveness, guilt, and his need for constant reassurance that it stopped feeling emotionally safe or loving for daughter a long time ago.

And now I honestly don’t know what the right thing is anymore. That was longer than I thought but I really need some advice or just people to talk to about it all.