I don't know who I'm more worried about, my partner or his 13 year old daughter. His 13 yr old has always preferred her own company and would happily remove herself from the living room when things got too noisy. We would find her sitting, quite happily, in her room reading. But, for the past few months she spends almost all of her time in her room, she mumbles replies, or snarls them, and she has lost weight. She has told her father that she doesn't want to spend time with him anymore. They used to have a lovely relationship and shared a lot of humour, hugs and quality time. I have been told, by well meaning friends (and their children), that her mother is quite derogatory about the father (my partner) and the things that he does for his daughter, for example a gift is described as 'just trying to win points'. There is very little that we can do to change that. She has been to Headspace once but does not have to keep appointments if she doesn't want to (her mother insists that it is her choice to make).
In the meantime, my partner has struggled to get a night's sleep in the past few months (he might get one nights sleep in five), he starts to feel sick the day before he picks up his children, he gets tension headaches and he is struggling to run his own business.
I try to be a good listener because everything that I say is usually wrong. If I challenge my partners thinking (I have read about CBT and ACT and try to exercise it in my life) he tells me that he 'doesn't want to talk about it'. He has seen his GP and has had 2 of his other children referred to psychologists (who believe that the children are affected by their mother who harbours and expresses a lot of anger about their father).
It feels like there is no answer. How do you help a 13 year old who won't talk? How do you help her change her thinking when she is only spending 40% of her time with you? How do I help my partner who is obviously suffering from anxiety over it? I can't remove the cause.
