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Father's and Daughter's

When I see father's and daughters interact with each other in a loving manner it is super touching but I also feel like crying. I only realized today when watching a friends video why that might be. We only lived with the AP for part of our child's first year of life. During that time he treated us almost like we were invisible when we were at home unless he was raging at me. Tender moments of dad holding and playing with his daughter never happened unless there was an audience. I stayed in a horribly abusive relationship that still haunts me over a decade later because I believed she needed the opportunity to have a relationship with him. But he was not giving her his time and not connecting and I never fully connected with that as well I have today. Our relationship ended and I still hoped for years that he would give her that deep love. I encouraged him many times to engage her one on one. To learn who she is and what makes her heart sing. Who she wants to become. But she has only ever come to me with great sadness about her frustrations with her father. Knowing I cannot be responsible for her relationship with her father I have tried to give her the tools to enable her to reach out to him and create a connection. Then a few years ago I realized that that effort was draining my own energy reserves. That energy is better spent on my life in my relationships that I wish to maintain. I am not responsible for his relationship with her and I would no longer expend any precious energy on it. My paradigm shift now looking back seems to have been followed by a ramping up of the alienation she experienced with our child seemed to start coming to me with greater frequency about alienation acts of dad and stepmother. I worked hard to no say anything negative about her other home and allow her to express any frustrations she needed to about it with acceptance and love. I began encouraging her to talk more openly to the professionals, counselors, and teachers, she had connections with. My focus became providing my daughter with the best possible foundation for her path to adulthood. I felt powerless to stop the alienation because AP always replies our daughter was lying. Her emotions were so intense I knew she was not lying but felt unable to stop that freight train.
Now with her completely alienated, I am so worried that this is an attempt by her to create that father-daughter connection by cutting me out and worried what damage it will do to her when she is unable to achieve it. I hope she realizes while she may have cut me violently out of her life. I am still here loving her and I am here for her when she needs me regardless of what she might be hearing from the alienating people surrounding her. My love for her is unconditional and the alienation is not her fault. Alienation is abuse. My hope is we that both survive this abuse with as few battle scars as possible.

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