Yes, thank you, that is what I have been doing, though sometimes my frustration gets dumped on my daughter because I want her fo fight for what she is missing. But like most of us, she does not know what she is missing so is unmotivated to make her own fuss.

It can be very frustrating. We all want our kids to have the best, or at the very least good, in all aspects of their life. We each have limited control. My kids are all adults, although very new to it, and we have excellent relationships. Maintaining that is important as it will allow you to have ongoing impact in their lives.
Always be magnanimous and forgiving and do not let your frustrations translate to your daughter. Don't make her choose between parents in any way. She will thank you for that one day.

She has a loving and supportive mother but one who is only focused on what she does and does not want to do and wants her daughter all to herself, even if she's sleeping or praying for hours or going to church several times a week.
And I said this above, sometimes my frustration gets dumped on my daughter because I want her fo fight for what she is missing. But like most of us, she does not know what she is missing so is unmotivated to make her own fuss.

Actually, the reality is the my ex uses our daughter as a weapon against me, always has. When we were married things as simple as wanting to take her to the zoo when her mother didn't want to go were denied. That might sound weird but as I would get our daughter ready to go, her mother would literally get the way of it and state flat out that our daughter was not going. Our daughter has always been her source of control over me,

LOL - Can't say the thought has not crossed my mind, but maybe something a little less extreme.

I fought to stay out of court and caved just enough to get equal time, not wanting to take my daughter from her mother but hoping her mother would eventually step up and be a responsible parent putting our Childs needs first. I got half way there. Spending thousands in court and months or years fighter just did not make sense having been through that as a kid.

@ThomasLevi Agree with your perspective, my fight was for shared care, my ex would not play nice, lied, forged documents, and in the end the court was sick of it, made me sole carer of the kids and she needed my permission to see them. Kids were happy, I never denied her permission but it made her stop taking them from me as she could have been jailed for it.

@Rugglesby When my wife left she tried for full custody but quickly learned that being a full time parent was more work than she was up for. Even though I never wanted kids I was completely up for being a full time parents so even though I was initially given very brief visitation, he mother quickly went against the courts directions to let me have more time. This got her into trouble which was good for me because it made it much easier to get her to drop the lawyers and the charges that made up and that could have made my life very difficult. Sometimes a shit lawyer is a good thing.

Well stated

The situation was the same while we were married, part of the reason everything fell apart. I could not focus on work knowing that my daughter almost never got to go outside and never was able to have friends over or go to friends unless I was home, I have taken an extended time off of work to undo some of what I see as damage done, making up for lost time and making sure my daughter has a rich and full social life with many friends that she can see outside of school, something she never got with her mother.
I actually wrote another post on forgiveness, it was my ability to forgive that we were able to have a quick and relatively painless divorce. Now it's just the frustration of seeing her mother continue the same isolating behavior, albeit only half the time now. And knowing when I go back to work it will be up to my daughter to fight for her ability to have friends outside of school.

I just try to keep balance, to make sure the mother knows that she is causing our daughter to miss out without making it a fight. If her mother had her more of the time it would be a bigger deal because at least she doesn't miss out when she is with me.

you know you better

When our daughter was young she was powerless and ignorant of what she could have. Now that she is older and knows how much opportunity she has it is better, but she still is unwilling or unable to stand up to her mother to tell her what she wants. Being the better parent doesn't help when my daughter is missing out because of her mother.

@ThomasLevi it's a fine line we have to walk. But all we can do is out best and hope Italy works out in the end

@SimonMorgan1 Italy always works out. Let me guess, Siri? LOL

@ThomasLevi lmao I actually corrected that from another mistake , not Siri but EE's new phone the hawk , got a sale pitch about it and as I'm not really bothered about phones they all seem the same to me , wish I hadn't now it's not good at all

I disagree partly, I need to be an advocate for my daughter. Leaving something to someone who you see is doing a bad job it's no good to sit idly by and say "well that's their business". If it's ONLY their kid then yes. But when It's my child it is definitely my business. There are many aspects that I do say "that's her business" like her attempt at religious indoctrination and the fact that even at 9 she still has our daughter sleep with her, which she did since she was born throughout our marriage much to my objection. I focus on encouraging good parenting by encouraging her mother to take part in outside activities and letting her play with friends rather than isolating her.

@ThomasLevi Hey now, I was replying to your initial post. Which had nothing to do with religion or where your daughter sleeps. Those points you brought up in your reply, I do NOT agree with. No religion, in my opinion should be forced on a child, and they should always have their own bed. I side with you completely there. Please understand, with incomplete info, I can only lend applicable opinion and experience.

Also, I have not read all of your responses to the other posts, I will do so and try to gather more info on your situation to give more complete advice.

@Corwin Sorry if I came off more aggressive than intended, I was just giving you more information. I did say only partly on my disagreement

I wrote this above. There are many aspects that I do say "that's her business" like her attempt at religious indoctrination and the fact that even at 9 she still has our daughter sleep with her, which she did since she was born throughout our marriage much to my objection. I focus on encouraging good parenting by encouraging her mother to take part in outside activities and letting her play with friends rather than isolating her. She has full freedom with me but is still not old enough or self empowered enough to stand up to her mother and I think not yet cognizant of what she is actually missing out on.

And that would be frustrating enough but I don't need her to be interested, It is the fact that she keeps our daughter from being able to do anything that she wants that makes me crazy. It's one thing to not be interested in taking a child somewhere she want's to go, it's another to prevent her from going all together when there are other ways for her to take part.

@ThomasLevi I get it. It's extraordinarily frustrating. I have a nephew going through the same thing. Even after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers, custody is still shared, and he's had to take what he could get., and he still has to put up with his daughter's mother's shenanigans. It's not right, it's not fair, but it is what is. Here's the thing, when they are old enough, they WILL start asking questions. I didn't learn about A LOT of what went on between my parents until I was an adult. I had to rely on my aunt to tell me some of the bullshit that went on during my parents' marriage, and subsequent divorce. Your daughter is going to come to you at some point with her questions. All you can do is wait for that, and in the interim, do your best to make her time with you as productive and nurturing as possible. The only thing you have the ability to control are your own actions.

@KKGator I was just pointing out above that I posted here just to vent, it's soothing to know it's not just me. And all in all I was very fortunate, my ex got a really crappy lawyer and my ex quickly saw that she had made some major mistakes in trusting that lawyer so that I was able to talk her into dropping the lawyers all together. But she still uses our daughter to exert power over me while, in my opinion, failing to be a good parent. I know these things are out of control but it's my daughter who misses out.