Hi. Long time lurker but first time poster, posting in AIBU for traffic and also impartial opinions.
Don't want to out myself so not going to give every little detail, nor do I want to drip feed though so this may be a long post as there's lots of back story.
I have 13 year old twins, both girls, I left their dad when they were 3 as he was controlling and emotionally and financially abusive to me, when he became physically abusive I decided enough was enough and left - I had to be the one to leave as he refused to leave the family home and I felt mine and my daughters' safety was paramount.
Anyway that was all over 10 years ago, fast forward to this year and the recent situation has been this; no contact order was made when we divorced as basically he wasn't ever really bothered about seeing the girls (phrases like "I'm not babysitting your kids" were used frequently). The general arrangement was for him to have them every other weekend, but this was governed by him and over the years he frequently let us down if he had something better to do. Since we split up and during this eow contact he has introduced the girls to upwards of 20 women; I couldn't care less who he has a relationship with but I do care that he prioritised (and still does) these relationships over his daughters. They constantly felt sidelined by these women, most of whom they never met more than once or twice.
This summer things came to a massive head when they spent a weekend with him and when they got home one of my daughters casually mentioned "Urgh guess what, I saw a picture of Daddy's willy on his phone, it was horrible". It transpired that she'd seen it as a picture text message with an accompanying text about what he wanted the recipient to do to him. He purposefully lets the girls use his phone so I was livid that he'd let them use it with this sort of content readily viewable to them.
I confronted him and was met with total denial, he said the girls must have googled it and that's how they found the image... they were due to go on holiday with him (this country) the following week which I felt uneasy about so I contacted NSPCC for advice and they referred it to Child Services. Cue an investigation where things came out about them feeling uncomfortable when at his house as "daddy walks around naked or just in his pants"... and about comments he'd made about how their bodies were growing/changing... the conclusion of the matter was that I was right to have flagged my concerns but that the SW felt that he had just been careless with his phone and needed to be told that certain behaviour wasn't appropriate, but she felt they would be safe to continue having contact with him.
One of the girls has been adamant ever since that she doesn't want to see him, whereas one of them does. He hasn't seen them since this episode in the summer because in his rage towards me for 'reporting him' he decided to reduce the maintenance payments massively. This has left me very short, even from the first month, I work all the hours I can to provide for them but we struggle every month. When he did it I said you can't expect to not contribute a fair amount to your children's living expenses and still see them. His answer was basically ok then I won't see them.
The issue now is that he's started texting the one who does want to see him, which is really upsetting her as she feels torn between us. She wants to see him even though I've tried to talk to her about how it's been his choice to not see her for 5 months, his choice to reduce maintenance payments so that I struggle financially, his choice to have that content on his phone which they saw which started the whole SS investigation in the summer...
Should I let her see him? It means her going to his house by herself which I feel makes her very vulnerable. His emotional abuse has transferred from me to them in that he makes them feel guilty about things ("poor daddy is on his own", "mummy left daddy", "I'm so lonely and miserable") and this is aside from the other inappropriate behaviour that I don't feel was accidental. But as it stands she thinks it's me stopping her from seeing him and that I'm the bad guy, when all I've ever done is love them and look after them as best I can. It makes me so angry that he can show so little regard for them and swan in and out of their lives as he feels like it. But is my view unreasonable?