Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest.
Alexander Pope

Please pass this on to Dad:

I had a son who was turned by his mother and so at age 14 I released him from any obligation to weekend/holiday visits and never made any attempt to contact him again. Nothing, no calls, no cards, no presents. Nothing, zero, nada. Although it hurt I believe I saved myself years of repeated rejections in trade for the single huge one. About a decade later he re-established contact and over time expressed how he learned who the true evil one was.

By responding to her requests for stuff, such as Christmas presents, you're teaching her that you're a sucker who can be made a fool of at will. I know its hard but frankly you'd be doing her a favor by dropping all contact and ignoring her grubbing for things.

Somewhere in her 20's she will realize one of two things: She'll realize she made a fool of you and exhibited her basic greed by asking for and receiving all this stuff almost all of which will have been forgotten. Only the foolishness of it will remain. Or:

She will have a newly found respect for the person who realized he was being disrespected and used who therefore stood up to his own children in order to teach them that to take advantage of people will result in the loss of that persons respect and friendship.

As a parent you really owe it to your daughter(s) to make this change.

You can't overcome her mothers alienation with stuff or time - in fact delivering either one only further empowers both the mother and the daughter to build the walls even higher.

Sounds like my damn SD14 who just bailed on DH yet AGAIN. And then we get a letter from BM's attorney saying they're going to force him into mediation to change the parenting time and child support. FML

My skids are also PASed against their father, who has done nothing wrong but not be with their psychotic, cheating biowhore of a mother. Since my SD had her baby when she was 16, there is another innocent involved. My DH got to see his only grandchild when he was 3 months old. Now he is 3 and a half YEARS old.

It is a horrible, horrible thing these so called "mothers" do to their children in their need to hurt the children's father.

Well if you figure this out-let me know. I have the same issue with dh. He does this not only with ss14 but also with my inlaws. And then always winds up down and sad when they prove that they are only using him.

I cant even say my ss14 has been PASed. Oh, a little I'm sure by bm and my guess is by mil now, but I dont think its been a huge excessive campaign-ss is just generally an asshole and doesnt seem to care for anyone unless they are a means to an end. He hadnt spoke to dh in months, and finally resurfaced 2 weeks ago-which my guess is just the prep for the holiday season. And what does my dh do? Immediately begins talking about getting ss14 something for xmas. I posted about it and quite a few people seemed to think I was some sort of monster for wanting dh to NOT get ss an expensive electronic device. Started talking about being a part of ss's life again. Of course there has been no further communication. I am guessing we'll hear from him in another week or so as the xmas season really gears up. Oh, by the way, ss does the same thing each time he calls. "Oh, I really would like to start visiting you again, dad. I really wish I was closer with the other kids (my kids), dad." But yet, here it's been 2 weeks again and he's not spoken again to dh, he sees my dd15 every single day, numerous times a day (they have lockers right next to each other at school) yet he never does anything but give her dirty looks, ignore her, or hurl insults at her. He sees my ds13 a few times a week in passing, my dd10 daily going to the bus-never a friendly wave or "hi, how are you"-just ignored or he says something rude or obnoxious. Sigh.

My inlaws have stolen from him and us, lied to him a thousand times over, called him names, and essentially disowned him from the family (which is no loss trust me), but we mistakenly got a check in the mail for one of them a few weeks ago and he immediately calls them up to notify them and ask what his dad would like done with the check. Dh wanted to do the "right" thing. Well, he was depressed and didnt sleep for like 3 days because his father would not even call him back despite repeated messages that he had his check, but finally had dh's brother call him back and tell him to leave it in our mailbox and he'd pick it up when dh wasnt home.

Overall my dh is doing so much better now that he has no contact with all of the above, but he just cant seem to give up on the idea of the "close" family he dreams about with all of them-so instead he keeps getting himself hurt.

I think I may copy Orange County's post and send it to him. To me it takes a brave man to make that sort of stand. It is the weaker ones that give in and cater to the dysfunction. Glad it worked out well for you OC. I'm sure it was painful at the time