To never be able to forgive this despite the context?

This. With bells on.

He was 40, not 14. He knew better than to threaten a restraining order against his pregnant girlfriend (via a mate, no less), then to force a paternity test.

You don’t owe him pant washing, dinner cooking, or mental load carrying. It’s not you who is “letting DD down,” OP.

Who’s to say he won’t have another wobble? Co-mingling lives and raising kids is hard, and he’s proven that he doesn’t have the resilience to cope. He will do it again, when life gets tough.

I'm sorry I am commenting for a third time but i can't even believe the nerve of him!

After what he did, if he was a decent man, he would focus on being a good dad and respect you enough to just being platonic coparents. Not cause you all this stress and upset and doubt because he's thinking about himself and what HE wants now.

Its always about him. He abandoned you because he felt like it, which devastated you. now he's popped up again and feels like getting back together so hes making you feel stressed and doubt yourself. Its all about what he wants and who cares how you feel? He has shown he puts himself first and can't be relied upon. You would never be safe or secure with this man.

Having boundaries and respecting yourself too much to fall for his manipulation and get back together is the greatest example to set for your daughter.

As we get older the chances of us having serious illnesses increase. The true measure of a person is how they respond in the tough times. If you become ill this man will more than likely leave you. If DD becomes a bratty teen, more than likely he will pull back from her. IME dads are good dads during the easy years. That’s ages 3-12.

I would not trust this man at all. By all means co parent with him but do not get back with him

This is also gross and manipulative. Trying to win you over with money and gifts after literally doing the worst thing possible when you were pregnant. I dont even know this man and I am FURIOUS with him!

So did he just ghost you when you were weeks away from giving birth, no explanation, no communication? Then got his friend to threaten you with legal action for trying to get in touch?! What a complete dickhead.

He can still have a great relationship with your daughter, but he's shown you what he can do. Can you imagine treating anyone like that?
It's even worse that he said he'd see your daughter then not turn up. At least she was six months then and wouldn't have known. I wouldn't able to trust him after that. I'd constantly be waiting for him to do his disappearing act again.
Honestly, fuck the flowers, you deserve someone you and your daughter can rely on, and its not him!
And child support, so what if he pays more than the minimum? If you had to pay maintenance to him I bet you'd pay more than the minimum, purely because you love your daughter and want to provide for her.
Does he mention the maintenance to you?

He absolutely betrayed you and humiliated you at the most vulnerable time in your life.

Do not feel bad about not taking him back and do not even consider getting back together!

You will never be able to trust him again. He had his chance and he blew it.

Children do NOT need their parents to be together in order to be happy. Your daughter already has two parents who love her very much, that is enough. She hasn't ever known you two being together so its not like she misses it.

If you get back together and then split (which i expect you would as he would probably fuck you over again or because you couldn't truly forgive his previous huge betrayal) then it would be far more upsetting for your dsughter than if you just stay seperated and co-parenting.

I thought there was going to be some mitigating context to why he ghosted his pregnant partner (ie. he had been in a terrible accident which left him paralysed/ in inability to text/ speak etc)...but there is none. He abandoned you at your most vulnerable.

You would be doing yourself & your DD a disservice to get back with this man, as he has already shown you who he is.

If this had been a moment of panic and overwhelm at the idea of being a father, i could have maybe have given him a second chance. Sustained over the 3rd trimester until after her first birthday- no way! He has shown you what sort of person he is!

Absolutely not! Friends and family thar supported you at the time will tell you that. His parents must have been mortified at his behavior. Do they see their gd?

As your dd gets older and asks why you aren't married to daddy etc and isn't he amazing and you say well er, we just aren't suited. Which is a mild way of saying it.

Make sure uiu spend weekends and hols with your dd just you two, not him tagging along. And tell him to stop using your dd as a go between. She should not be involved in putting pressure on you.

My guess is he met someone else. Started cheating. Disappeared and denied your existence to her. Restraining order helped with this. Didn’t want you to realise he was a lying cheat. It didn’t work out. He came crawling back.

I may be creating a story of course. But it’s the first thing I thought.

Remain independent and remember there are a lot of men out there. This one is a known dud.

I should also add - what he did to her was also not ok. She was just young enough not to know about it at the time.

Personally if it was me in your position, I’d always have my guard up and be wary of him and the potential hurt he could cause DD if he behaved like that again!

You’re definitely not letting your DD down. You say he’s a fantastic dad now to DD - you’re not stopping that. You’re allowing that relationship to grow and doing your part to make sure she has that.
But you’re also teaching her that it’s good to have standards for yourself and not allow yourself to be treated like that. What he did to you was not ok. One day she’ll be grown up and she’ll know what went on and how the relationship ended - and she’ll see that you put her first and set healthy boundaries to allow him to be in her life but not be in a position to hurt you like that again.

Personally I think that’s far better for her long term than having you two back together with you always being unsure of the relationship - which I think you would be. Can you honestly say you’d trust 100% that he’d never do it again if life got tough?

Nope. I lost all respect for my exH when he did something similarly brutal to me. Plus the idea of him doing it again was terrifying. He does a nice line in love-bombing also.

Oh yes, love bombing is a huge part of the abuse cycle. OP, you must be strong enough to resist it. It's not the real him. The real him is the one who threatened you with a restraining order when you were heavily pregnant and who made you prove paternity.

One hundred percent.

Thing is, it's easy to do stuff like that when he's unthreatened by any sort of commitment. My exH is lovely as long as you're not married to him. Totally different person in marriage. Look up covert narcissist and avoidant attachment. It may or may not fit him, but this push-pull is very typical of those two conditions.

I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

THIS.

OP, there are no words for what he did to you, it was so bad. No way would I put my well-being in his flaky hands again. My exH did something similarly brutal to me, and I know he regrets it, and there have been times of deep sadness for me since, on and off, when I think what could have been. However, what scares me the most is giving him more years and then him doing something similar, this time when I'm much older. If this man can't even handle having a kid, how would he react in another life crisis, like if you got cancer? Bottom line is, you simply cannot put your mental, emotional, and physical health in his hands. He blew it.

Your only job here is to facilitate his relationship with DD. That's it.

Stay single or find yourself someone whose mental state is steady, calm, and reliable, not reactive and flight or flight in response to life.

Do you love him? Or do you just fantasise about a family for your daughter?
people can change.
what is your intuition telling you?

As someone who's ex left them for another woman while I was pregnant, you never forget the immense pain. He has tried it on with me since (even though he's married now) but I'll never forgive or forget the trauma.

It's been my personal experience that you can't force yourself to forgive someone. It happens eventually, or it doesn't.
I've always been suspicious of people who immediately after their spouse or child has been murdered, they announce that they've forgiven the killer.

He probably went off with someone else then realised the grass wasn’t greener and came crawling back.

I would remind him of what he did every time he says he wants and loves you. He didn’t just do one mistake did he? And he continued his appalling behaviour over a period of time. Just say No.

So now he love bombs you to keep you attached. Probably to stop you moving on with another man and to control you now that he realises his daughter would have another man in her life.

How could you see a future with this man? How could u plan another pregnancy or even relax into family life without thinking he might turm again.

What he did was unforgiveable and he blew his chance with you

As @WhereYouLeftIt said.
"Sorry I meant to add that he genuinely is a great dad to dd now...
Really? A genuinely good dad? Until he's not. I would be waiting on tenterhooks for him to not "deal with emotions well" again. Children go through phases; one minute they're a daddy's girl, next minute they're clinging to mummy like a limpet. How would he deal with something like that? Well? Or would he run away again and refuse to communicate, like he did last time? Only this time, the target for his cruelty would be your daughter."

This is it in a nutshell.

I thought he was a struggling early 20s boy, not a comfortably off man in his 40s.
Panicking at the thought of having a child is one thing, Fourty FGS.
But abandoning you.
The restraining order
and most of all the DNA test. was disgusting.
He knew the child was his, but he coldly went through that strung out performance which essentially was calling YOU a liar and a cheat and was incredibly cruel.. he did that hoping to deter you from ever getting in contact again and never having any responsibility again. You did not deserve such vile treatment.
The leopard doesn't change its spots. Its so obvious that he's enchanted by a cute toddler he sees occasionally on Sundays. He's NOT a father, he just loves playing the happy daddy role. He's not the one looking after her when she's ill or worrying about her or doing all the 101 things you're doing for her every day.
But he would never do that full time. and the odd bunch of flowers and playing at temporary families for amusement will never make up for how he treated you when you needed him. There is not once jot of decency in the way he behaved towards you.

You are seeing him through a rosy glow, generated by his suddenly playing the kind and caring good guy. He is not. His real character will emerge again at the first hurdle. Don't let him pull the wool over your eyes a second time or it won't just be you that ends up getting hurt by this cruel man, it will be your DD too.

Absolutely no way would I step back into a relationship with him. He cannot be trusted. People usually want what they can’t have, once you take him back will he switch again? I wouldn’t risk it.

"DD adores him and they have a lovely bond now and even though I’ve resisted reuniting with him he will often get upset after seeing her and tell me he misses us and loves us. I’ve asked him not to say these things as it makes me feel confused and I want to move on with life after all the trauma. But part of me does believe he is sorry and he doesn’t deal with emotions well."

I'm going to take this bit by bit.

"DD adores him and they have a lovely bond now"
Don't for one minute think that your DD's adoration means anything for you - children's adoration of the adults in their lives is instinctive, automatic. You only have to read of the trauma of abused children who still adore their abusers. So please, give no weight to your daughter's feelings in this matter, just because she 'adores' him doesn't mean your have to.

"I’ve resisted reuniting with him"
Good, you absolutely should resist. Personally I'd struggle not to spit in his face every time I saw him. Have you considered separating yourself from his contact time? Insisting it happens at a supervised contact centre?

"he will often get upset after seeing her and tell me he misses us and loves us. I’ve asked him not to say these things as it makes me feel confused and I want to move on with life after all the trauma."
He has no right to say these things to you. No. Right. At. All! It is heaping new cruelty onto the cruelty he has already inflicted upon you. He did what he did. There is no way back from it. Again, I'd consider changing his contact to happening at a Child Contact Centre. If you're not there at his contact, he can't upset you. This would protect you.

"But part of me does believe he is sorry and he doesn’t deal with emotions well."
It doesn't matter if he is sorry. It doesn't matter that he doesn't deal well with emotions. All that matters is that he did what he did, and he did it for 18 months or so. Repeated cruelty, time and again.

"Sorry I meant to add that he genuinely is a great dad to dd now. And he is decent towards me, pays substantially more than cms states, buys flowers for dd to give to me and things like that."
Really? A genuinely good dad? Until he's not. I would be waiting on tenterhooks for him to not "deal with emotions well" again. Children go through phases; one minute they're a daddy's girl, next minute they're clinging to mummy like a limpet. How would he deal with something like that? Well? Or would he run away again and refuse to communicate, like he did last time? Only this time, the target for his cruelty would be your daughter.

This man treated you with abominable cruelty. Do not allow his entreaties, his flowers, your daughter's reactions, do not allow any of this to blur your memories of his cruelty. Those memories are your shield against this poor excuse of a man. Hold them tight.