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Hi..
I am new to this and being a single parent I was looking for people in a similar boat and know how and I am feeling being and a similar situation maybe.
So the story...
I fell pregnant at university... been with her father only a few months when I fell pregnant, I was head over heels in love with this guy. Anyways 9 months later my little lady came alone, and our relationship was on the rocks. He didnt want my daughter and we discussed adoption being to young and wanting lots of other things from life, I decided that I was old enough to have sex and come this far I was damn well old enough to bring up my daughter, knowing my family would help and love her more then anyone else could possibly, so I gave my ex the decision to either, stay and be a father or leave now and not be a part of our lives anymore. He decided he couldnt give me up and wouldnt go back to university and so choose to stick around.
During our time at uni we learnt bits and pieces about each other, he told me his parents had seperated and that he lived with his mum and her new husband, he didnt get on with his mother and that she didnt care about him, and got on better with his grandparents that lived near his mother. As time went on after the birth of my daughter things started to stop adding up. Like his mothers new husband having the same last name as her ex husband and not taking my daughter to meet her great grandparents as they had all of a sudden moved aboard. I later found out these were all lies, his grandparents were dead, his mother and father had been together for 30 odd years etc.... I couldnt understand.... and thought any person that could lie to my daughter was not worth staying with.
So I left my ex and decided to bring my daughter up alone, I promised him I would let him see his daughter when ever he wanted all he had to do was call or text. It was months before i had heard from him, eventually i called him, asked him what was going on... excuses after excuse this was always the same, i would have to make the effort to go see him with my daughter and even then there was never any real effort to get to know her, or attempt to entertain her. I rarely recieved money off him and so went CSA and started getting £5 a week off him but still nothing about wanting to see his daughter. He later moved in with a new girl and was smoking lots of weed stopped paying CSA and never hearing a word from him.He spilt with her and went back to his mothers. She arranged for him to giver her money which she send to me. 2 months later he found another girl and moved in with her. She was pregnant, meant to be another mans.... but not to sure and again stopped getting a penny. The gf child has come a long and so I got back onto the CSA and again receiving £5 a week. She is soon to be 3 and since she was 6 months old I can count on one hand how many times he has seen her.
I still take my daughter to visit his mum occasionally, and every now and then he would show up playing the proud father, saying he would see her etc... Well L got too big for her cot and so needed a single bed, I had saved a little money but not enough for the bedding and mattress and so asked him for help with paying it.... he said he would and give me the money when i got it.... as you can imagine i waited months for it i called and got him and his gf laughing down the phone at me and was told if i needed money for a bed i should get a community care grant, and that i should stop annoying him, so i told him while my daughter was under my consent he wouldn't be seeing her.
so this is my predicament.....
I said i wouldnt let him see her well she is under my consent, or until she decides she wants to see him. He turned up at his mothers house on one of our visits the other week with no phone call in 8 months, I told him he was taking the p*ss and asked him to leave the house in pure anger. He got up went upstairs got a few bits and spoke to his mum and left, no fighting to see his daughter...
Do you think i am doing right by my daughter?? Am i being too harsh?? am i making my daughter loose out?? any advice you may have would be grateful..
I am sorry if i have waffled, but felt that the whole story is important to understand the whole reason behind my harsheness. Thank you for your time and responses
Hi loozee_88
Welcome to One Space.
It sounds as if you have treid very hard to be open to your daughter seeing her father but you also have to think of how disruptive it may be for your daughter if he is not consistent in his contact. Good idea to keep some contact with her grandma, and maybe this is a way that you can keep the options open for your daughter's dad. However, you are entitled to some notice, and this is something you can discuss with grandma, I don't suppose she is entirely happy about his drug usage or his jumping in and out of relationships.
As far as your daughter is concerned you do need to keep negative things about her dad away from her while she is so small and this is another thing you can mention to grandma. You are entitled to financial support, however, and so keep using the servies of the CSA. It is so sad that she is missing out on her father's love but as sparkling lime says, you cannot force him to engage.
If he asks for contact maybe you can arrange a visit through a "contact centre". That way it would be in a neutral place with other people around to keep an eye on things and he is less likely to argue with you in a public place.
Please do some research into personality disorders, I'm not a Dr but from personal experience I would say your dd's dad sounds like he has a personality disorder. Look it up on Wikipedia. It is grim reading but will give you insight and you might just recognise some of the 'traits' as being those your ex has. It might help you to understand him better, it won't excuse his behaviour but it will help you to make sense of it.
sparkling lime says "It is your daughter's right though to have a relationship with both parents, and not the other way around - however difficult this may be."
But your dd can only have a relationship with her dad if he wants to spend time with her and is not going to let her come to any harm (which he might if he is high on drugs). Sadly if he can't be bothered with regular contact and is taking drugs and is therefore unable to think straight *it is not your fault* and you are very sensible in not allowing unsupervised contact with dd's dad. Do consider the option of supervised access in a contact centre if the situation arises.
Best of luck
Thanks for that, english rose, some really good suggestions there. I think the point about the "daughter's right" is that parents, as such, do not have any rights (often we hear separated parents, especially those without majority care, protesting about their "rights") and you are correct, there may be safety concerns.
Sadly, my reply must have been too long for One Space to deal with this time of night! Just sitting down to get my back to work again while shifting some last minute bits and pieces.
I'm glad your daughter is seeing her grandmother. There isn't much you can do to make her father choose to see more of her or to be responsible towards her.
It is your daughter's right though to have a relationship with both parents, and not the other way around - however difficult this may be.
Over the years I have found that anger towards the father of my lot is wasted energy, that can be better spent on having fun instead.
I'm always positive about him though...
Please keep posting. This is such a good place for seeking opinions, for laughter and for support.