I (33M) have a daughter (15F). Let’s call her Jenny. Yes, I became a father when I was 18. When my baby was 1 year old her mother confessed that she has recently cheated on me with someone I was even not familiar with so we broke up. As I was a student back then and so was my ex-girlfriend, my mother (Jenny’s grandma) decided to step in and take care of our daugther. So Jenny moved to my mother’s house as I couldn’t afford my own house or an apartment and had to continue studying in a university which was in another city. Jenny’s mother didn’t mind that. Fastforward 3 years, my ex dies in an accident. After 5 more years I got married, me and my wife rented a house and decided that it’s time for us to reunite with my daugther.
This is when I receive a phone call from a guy who was familiar with Jenny’s mother. He claims that he was “a close friend” of my ex, that he was also familiar with my daughter and asked my permission to see my daughter from time to time, buy her presents for her birthdays etc because she “reminds him of his friend that passed away”. This actually looked kind of weird to me. A stranger wishes to spend time with my child, ugh…so I just refused without even diving into any investigation. He never called again and I just forgot this incident for good.
So now my daughter is 15 and a year ago my wife spotted a man chatting with Jenny on the street. When she came closer the man rapidly walked away. My wife asked Jenny about the man and Jenny told her that it’s just a friend who visited her sometimes when she lived with her grandma. When I confronted my mother she admitted that there was some guy coming to her house with the parents of my ex when they came to visit the grave of Jenny’s mother once or twice a year. He was introduced as “a family friend” so she didn’t even consider it necessary to tell me (yeah, that’s my mom).
Here I should mention that our relationship with Jenny was really nice. I’m not an ideal parent but I did my best to make her feel loved and cared of as she is an essential part of the family. They do really get along with my wife, sometimes Jenny calls her “mom”, sometimes not but anyway the atmosphere inside my family is really warm. Jenny loves to hug with both of us, we play board games, everything is pretty fine.
We had a talk together and I told Jenny that she should not continue that communication as this man is not related to our family and we don’t know his true intentions. She seemed to agree and promised not to talk to that man again. We changed her mobile phone number so he couldn’t reach her anymore.
2 months after I asked Jenny if he tried to contact her again and she said he didn’t.
Half a year after that I have spotted a strange message popped up on her phone which said something like “are we meeting today? Don’t let Helen know about it!” (Helen is my wife).
I insisted on inspecting Jenny’s phone and voila! Tons of messages and even photos with that guy. He calls her “my sweet” and “honey”, he also confesses that he was a lover of her mom and has feelings (damn, what feelings exactly?) towards my daughter but beside of that there’s no evidence that there was something between him and Jenny other than casual chatting and occational brief encounters (but who knows!?). He even somehow managed to have secret meetings with Jenny when she lived with my mother as well as meeting Jenny secretly when she moved to our house. I discovered that my daughter used any opportunity to meet him and did this so many times and hid it so skillfully that both me and my wife have never suspected anything.
I don’t remember Jenny lying to me before and I had no reasons not to trust my child when she asked my permission to go to the trade center with her friends, to the school club etc.
I filed a police report but I don’t think that any evidence that he did anything punishable by laws of my country can be collected. Chatting with someone’s child is not a crime here unless you send them d-pics.
Jenny says they were just casually hanging around like friends do, nothing sexual or even romantic but I’m not sure I believe her as she kept lying to me about them stopped their communication. My warm connection with my daughter is gone. I cannot trust her anymore when she says she’s going to meet her school friends so I have banned all her activities beside those where I or my wife are involved so we can keep an eye on her.
So at this point I don’t know how I can keep this man off my daugher as it’s clear that she’s seeking to meet him disregarding my ban and our talks about it being dangerous. I have arranged a meeting of Jenny with a psychologist but I’m not sure it’s gonna work. I feel that something is broken between me and my daughter now and I don’t know how to repair that. Any advice appreciated.
P.S. I foresee a question if I am sure that I am the father of Jenny and not that guy is. Jenny is a carbon copy of me, and not only our faces look alike but we even have same allergies. Also after confessing about cheating my ex assured me she has never cheated before and I’m the only one who can be Jenny’s father.
TL;DR: my teenage daughter keeps meeting with the older guy her mother has cheated on me with even though I banned her from doing this. Our relationship is suffering.