So, the title pretty much sums things up. I am at a loss for how to have this conversation with my daughter. She is only 5, but I've found out that when she goes to her mother's, she has been telling her that she is going to take me to court and she'll be going to live with her. This is absolutely not going to happen, but I feel like it's messing with my daughter's head.For some quick background, my ex relapsed hard into her Xanax and opiate addiction after my daughter was born. She started doing drugs again while she was pregnant, but it spiraled out of control after my daughter was born. When I left with my daughter, she was being prescribed 60 2mg Xanax and 150 10mg Oxycodones a month, and would usually run out of both in a little over a week and then spend the next couple weeks violently withdrawaling.If you're unfamiliar with Xanax, it is a powerful disassociative drug, that essentially causes blackouts and memory loss when abused. Benzodiazepines like Xanax have a synergistic effect with Opiates, making the effects of both drugs stronger. I've known a lot of addicts in my life, but I've never seen anyone do drugs like my ex did. I was working nights at the time, and would often come home to find the baby crying and my ex unconscious. A few times I came home and found her in bed passed out with the baby and a lit cigarette in her hand.Eventually, things came to a head when my ex nearly killed our daughter 3 times in the span of 3 days. On the first day, she came home from her mother's house and dropped the baby down a flight of stairs (she was in her carseat and unharmed, thankfully). The second, she was driving my parents' car high out of her mind and rear ended a truck at a red light with my daughter in the backseat. On the third day, my project that night was cancelled for the first time in the four years I was on it so I came home early. When I got home, I opened the door and was greeted by thick smoke. I ran downstairs as fast as I could, and found the big black trash bag where we kept used diapers, wipes, trash, etc. on fire less than 10 feet away from where my daughter was sleeping in her swing. My ex was taking a shower, and didn't come out until 20 minutes later after I had put the fire out - which was caused by her throwing away a lit cigarette.This caused a fight, and in the fight she threw a glass at my head, punched me in the face a couple times, and scratched me up pretty good. She was extremely physically abusive when she was on drugs, so this was relatively normal. But then she threatened to take the baby and disappear with her family in Pennsylvania, and told me I'd never see her again. That was the last straw, so I called the police. They wouldn't take her out of the house despite the assault and said my parents would need to evict her (we were living with my folks temporarily as I could not bring a baby to where I lived prior), but they told me to go to the courthouse and file for emergency custody. So the next morning at 10:30am while my ex was still dead to the world for all intents and purposes, that's exactly what I did. I stayed in a hotel for a few days with my 7 month year old daughter until the courts approved the emergency custody filing.Long story short, my ex did not show up for court for 3 of the 4 hearings we had, including the final one to decide custody. The judge gave me full legal and physical custody, and was not going to give her visitation, but I insisted she be allowed supervised visitation every other weekend at my daughter's grandmother's house. My ex had another daughter that she lost custody of who she had the same arrangement for, and I didn't think it would be right to keep my daughter from ever seeing her mother, sister, and grandparents.Cut to 5 years later. My ex has not been following the court order - for example, I know that she was taking my daughter to her boyfriend's house instead of her mother's before I put a stop to that. At one point, after I had major knee surgery, she had her boyfriend texting me making threats. I then found out my ex was arrested 3 times in 2017 and ultimately wound up in jail for 2 months. But I still let my daughter go up there, because she enjoys it and again, I don't think it's right to keep her from her mom's side of the family, regardless of how vile that woman is.Largely I ignore my ex's nonsense, but over the past year she's been aggressively talking badly about me and my parents to my daughter. She also has been telling her that I'm the reason she can't spend more time with her, and told her that she's going to go back to court and then she'll be coming to live with her. She tells my daughter "secrets" that of course she tells her cousins, which then get back to me. Obviously, I'm furious about the whole situation.My daughter has asked me a few times why me and her mother aren't together, and she's at an age now where she knows things aren't normal. I used to be able to deflect the questions better, but a couple weeks ago when she asked me why and I told her we'd talk about it more when she's older, she got really upset. She started crying and screaming "TELL ME" in my face, and it took everything I had to keep from breaking down.I don't know how to handle this situation. Obviously I don't want to tell her in detail what happened, or bad mouth my ex to her. But I also know that if we don't have a talk about this, it's only going to get worse and her mother will continue to paint me and my parents as the bad guys that are keeping them apart. I'm at a loss because I have no idea how to have this conversation, and how to explain why things are the way they are without telling my daughter that her mother chose drugs over her.I'm hoping maybe someone here has had a similar experience and can provide me some educated guidance, or someone might know how I can go about finding a professional counselor or something that might be able to help me out here. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2GWlwnb
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