To say he'll have to go through a contact centre?

[woooden]

Ex made my pregnancy absolutely hell. I thought he'd at least be a good dad but he cancels half an hour before he's due to see her. Refuses to buy anything for her, just takes pictures of her when he does come round to put on social media. He's also incredibly disrespectful of me. I kept a record of how often and when he saw her and when he was late, she's now 7 weeks old and he's been hours late or cancelled every. Single. Time. Hes saying I'm being cruel saying he'll have to now go through a contact centre but I can't deal with it anymore. It's so unfair to our daughter and when she's older she'll notice. I also can't deal with his blatant disrespect of me (calls me the C word plus countless other derogatory names)

So AIBU?

YANBU you've given him chance after chance and he's being an idiot. You aren't preventing him seeing his DC he'll just have to do it with other people supervising and where you and your DC aren't exposed to abuse.

I think you're doing the right thing. I'm sorry he's behaving like this

Did he want a baby?

maybe he struggles with a new born and will be better when shes older - there isnt much to do with a 7 week old and I doubt she will know.

You may make it harder for him if you hassle him everytime, threatening contact centres.

Poor mans struggling with a new born he sees periodically. He sounds like an abusive prick, so I think you're being entirely reasonable and protecting yourself insisting on a contact centre.

LifeBeginsAtGin

Did he want a baby?

maybe he struggles with a new born and will be better when shes older - there isnt much to do with a 7 week old and I doubt she will know.

You may make it harder for him if you hassle him everytime, threatening contact centres.
these dads can fuck off I don’t suppose the op is finding it hard with a newborn on her own

My ex was like this op do it

It won’t improve and it will be more piss taking

Yes and no. It is hard with babies. Do you have any kind of relationship with his parents or siblings? It might be worth investigating if they would help out with contact so he is no longer in your space and you remove all direct contact with him. It also allows her to build a relationship with her dad’s family.

A contact centre usually costs and in my opinion, should be reserved for situations where there has been genuine concern about parenting ability or where the safety of one or other of the parents is compromised (although his name calling is unacceptable).

It is worth doing everything you can to facilitate contact, even if it is unreliable and sporadic. As she grows older, let her know her dad warts and all and come to her own conclusions. This is, in my opinion at least, preferable to her growing up making him into something he is not.

Make a claim to CMS for maintenance and let them deal with it.

Hope you’re OK. The early days are hard enough without this going on.

They all think they can fuck their child off when young and demanding and try and make a comeback when their 10 and don’t need much looking after

Sounds like my ex. DD was 8 weeks old when I stopped facilitating contact. And by facilitating I mean waiting around all day for him to show up, listening to him whine about being tired or not having money for bus fare, dealing with him refusing to buy even a pack of nappies, often turned up half cut or hungover and barely took an interest. I decided I wasn’t going to chase him any more and would wait till he called me to see DD. He never did. She’s 2.5 now. CMS have not been able to get a penny due to frequent job hopping.

@LifeBeginsAtGin

Yes I purposely went out of my way to find an arse hole to have a baby with. I dreamed of having to be a single mother when I was a child. We used to play single mums instead of mummies and daddies when I was at school.

Behind the facade of being a nice guy who was just traumatised from the death of his son He spent a year talking me into having a baby so he could be a father again so no I didn’t expect him to have zero interest in her, no.

Yes I purposely went out of my way to find an arse hole to have a baby with. I dreamed of having to be a single mother when I was a child. We used to play single mums instead of mummies and daddies when I was at school. hmm

Brilliant comeback OP. What a dickhead. You are absolutely right to draw a line now and let him decide if he has any interest beyond turning up late for a with-baby-selfie for social media. Complete fuckwad.

Namechange fail OP?

Carry on keeping a record, save all abusive messages. Think of it as compiling evidence should you ever need any kind of contact order or police involvement. It may be worth looking into a restraining order, he is abusive and you don't have to put up with this behaviour.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst has always struck me as good advice.

Go through CMS. Don't offer him further contact - let him ask and only agree if it's convenient for you. If it comes to it I would let him take you to court for access (spoiler alert - he won't).

Do you mean me? No I’m not OP. Just fuming with the flippant comments insinuating that women are stupid made by PP.

Ah yes I meant you @NukaColaGirl . Totally agree. It's as if MN has been invaded by a shit ton of MRA fuckwits....

I don’t think my local contact centre would accept you. They tend to deal with violence/inadequate parenting. You may be setting yourself up for more hassle. Who wants to go to a contact centre once a fortnight only to find he’s failed to show up/missed the slot. Less inconvenient if you’re at home (if that’s where you’ve arranged it so far). Does he have any sensible relatives who could assist? You might be better focusing on the grandparents. 7 weeks is very early days though so don’t feel pushed in to anything.

What’s his excuse for lateness/cancellations? I think I’d say I wanted his proposal for the week every Sunday night and whatever is agreed is all you’ll allow.

What a bellend.

@bastardkitty totally agree. It’s not always obvious that men are Tossers and if it is, we should all just go get abortions. I’ve seen these sorts of comments a lot. As if women are somehow responsible for feckless men.

Could you make sure you go out 30mins after the arranged time, so he gets the message you aren't hanging around for him

lifebegins I reported your horrible post.

OP - 💐💐💐

Definitely contact centre if you can. Sounds like he’s just using her to manipulate you, but the novelty of that will soon wear off. Hopefully you’ll be completely shot of this fool within a couple of years.

Contact centres cost around £80 per hour which he’d have to pay if a court ordered it but it wouldn’t happen anyway just because of tardiness.
Contact centres and their staff are there to facilitate contact between parents and children where the court has deemed the child’s safety is at risk if contact is unsupervised

@lifebegins - are you male?
If not you're pretty horrible. Leave OP alone.

Ignore the twatty poster
As I always say
You can’t cure stupid

Contact centre is absolutely the way forward OP. XH was a flight risk which is why DS1 and he used the contact centre. Then it went back there until he understood that pick ups and drop offs were not his cue to continue the abuse which ended our marriage.

Hopefully he’ll just fuck off and leave you to it, tbh.

did he want a baby?

Who gives a shit if he wanted one? He made one!

Let him take you to court the stupid fucker.