I am bloody fuming. I have a 4 yo dd with my exh. She is due to have contact with him this weekend and I am driving her to meet him after her ballet class. (I say ballet, I mean a herd of pink 2, 3 and 4 yo elephants goose stepping and thudding around a church hall but that's another story). I have spent all of yesterday washing and ironing her best clothes to pack. I text him this morning asking if there was anything specific he wanted. The reason for this is a long running dispute. He seems to think I deliberately put in horrible clothes for contact. This is not true, I put in what is clean. I consider all her clothes fine or she wouldn't be wearing them. He complained that I had put a red school sweatshirt in and it was manky. It was pristine and pressed. It was a cold weekend and I thought she could slob about the house in it. He also complained that she didn't have a dress and they went out for dinner. Unfortunately I am not a mind reader and I did not know he wanted a dress. Had he mentioned it I would have packed one. Anyway, I digress. If you are still with me have a 
and a 
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Getting back to the text. He replied he just wanted underwear,pjs and a coat. The implication being I can't pack for shit and he is going to buy her clothes when she gets there. Which he will then keep. Fair enough if he saw her regularly but on average he announces he will have her every 6 to 8 weeks. Last summer I bought her a load of summer clothes for him to take her on holiday. I gave them to him in May and got them back in October when they were (a) useless and (b) didn't fit any more. I do not have the money to replace clothes. I have no income and am reliant on my DP. I don't see why DP should have to subsidise exh. Exh pays no maintenance by the way.
He was in the army when I left him. I had to give up my career in order to care for our dd because I could not afford to live where we were and pay rent, nursery fees and eat. I had to move in with my mum and then I couldn;t get a job where I was. He then decided if I wasn't working, why should he and promptly got himself out of the army within three months. (Special circumstances but that again is another story). Since then he has paid nothing towards her up keep but he has paid for shoes.
I then asked him for her clarks boots back that he had kept (forgotten to pack) last contact. He told me he had binned them as they were wrecked. They weren't!!! They were in very good nick as I cleaned them regularly and planned to sell them on to go towards a new pair. I think that is what has pissed me off most.
If you are still reading, you are a hero/heroine.
My exh is a controlling emotionally abusive bully. I know this and yet I cannot determine if I am being reasonable when I deal with him. Ever. Seriously I cannot think straight. This morning was very mild really in the grand scheme of things. I am worried that I am rolling over too much. My parents can't understand why I have agreed to contact after what happened in our marriage (quite severe controlling and isolating behaviour and in the death throes of the relationship some quite serious DV). I have agreed because I do not believe him to be a risk directly to our DD and she adores him. I am now wondering if I have been a classic victim and minimised everything. Having read this through I can see that I have written a couple of paragraphs on clothes and a sentence on the domestic violence. Classic miniminsing behaviour.
To add to my concerns regarding my exh he was arrested last year for assaulting his girlfriend. That would have been an end to contact except that she accused him of punching her in the face but had no injuries and there were witnesses who said that in fact she was jabbing at him. On speaking to the exh he explained that he had been defending dd from his girlfriend who lost the plot at her for putting on her make up. Her own dd had done it too and my dd was just copying. She has since apologised and at the time she was highly hormonal as she was pregnant and at a week when she generally loses babies and lo she did unfortunately lose her child about a week later. I accepted her apology and given that DD expressed no fear or concern about her and was keen to talk to her on webcam I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Since then there have been no other problems with her.
I was going to name change for this but decided not to and just take it on the chin. Help me out here, I genuinely want to know if I am being reasonable.