Hi! It's been a while.

Hi Madi,

I'm writing because I want to document for myself where things are right now for me, to help me clear my head a bit, and I'm sharing it with you in case you find it interesting or useful in any way. Also, thank you for all that you do in helping people like me better understand that they're not alone and that the world is filled with many complicated and distinct father-daughter relationships.

I'm 37; my daughter is almost 13. After spending ~6 years visiting her where she lives, first for just one day a month and then slowly increasing over the years up to ~1 week per month (but her mom wouldn't allow her to sleep over every, so just during the days), I moved to be closer to her when she was 10. I was hoping that having my own apartment where my daughter could have her own bedroom would make it so that she'd be allowed to sleep over if she wanted; it did not. As I recall it, her mom and I eventually got into an arguement about my daughter staying over for the night at my place where her mom kept claiming that our daughter didn't want to sleep over. Eventually, she said something along the lines of "Even if she did, I'm her mom and I get to make that decision."

Among other issues with the situation at that time, this disagreement ultimately prompted me to push put more formal structure in place around our interactions. This had many tradeoffs, but I think the real breakdown in healthy parenting and effective communication started happening a couple years prior to that incident. I'm going to break my thoughts here because this is getting way to into details for myself... jumping to the present moment, while I am able to have time with my daughter, she basically doesn't want to have a relationship with me. She would rather if she could just operate in her mom's world, pretend that I basically don't exist, and she already basically thinks of her mom's new family with her half sister and stepdad as her one and only real family. Even though I believe that deep down I still matter to her, I know that she doesn't see it that way herself, which can be very difficult at times (for either/both of us).

Anyway, I'm just doing my best here, and I guess now that I've written all this, I would also like to ask if there's anything you might be able to suggest to me that I'm missing. Specifically, do you know of any support groups for parents who are working though this type of challeng in the moment? If not, maybe I should try to start one and let you know how it goes.

My sincere thanks, best regards and well wishes for your project's good fortune,

Grant