So a long story made short…

Married to a narcissist for 20 years, the last five were hell but I stuck it out for the kids and waited until our eldest (daughter) turned 18.

My ex has always made it clear that our son was number one and over the years I’ve comforted our daughter and actively taken on both parental roles and been there for her always. The bitterness between them stems from my ex always being jealous of the time and support I’ve always given our daughter, when she was around 15 she realised how her mother was and began off loading onto me more and more to the point she knew her parents were going to divorce as she was old enough to see the relationship breaking down and was an advocate of it happening prior to the split, saying she could do without her mother and that I’d also be better off.

Since the split we’ve put the children first until the house is sold, 10 months of a rota 2,2,3 to rotate the weekends however since the split the ex has turned into the stereotypical party girl and is now becoming more of just the ‘friend’ to my daughter, dropped parental responsibility, basically when I’m not there she lays my daughter run riot, lads stopping over, groups stopping over. I found drugs in her bedroom one day I come home and I had to handle it and speak with my daughter about it ( it wasn’t hers it was someone that stayed over). Now it seems she is building this relationship with her mother that i can see will only end in upset and my daughter feeling let down.

I’ve tried my hardest to keep my daughter straight but she’s slowly pulling away to me more like her mother and it’s getting to the point I’m matching the walls she’s putting up to protect myself, I feel so disappointed in her right now and it’s hard not to show it as I would always encourage a relationship between them but not at the cost of ours. I always seem to be bad cop.

My son has also had to endure this behaviour and feels very unsettled when I’m not there.

Our house is due to be sold and my daughter always said that she wanted to stay with me however now she’s leaning to her mother, is this because she can get away with what she wants with her mother and I’m more the parent? Which I can guess is right but it also feels very personal.

Do I just put my walls up and let my daughter make her own mistakes? It’s not really the type of person I am but she seems to be playing us both off for what she can get.