To stop facilitating contact with DD and her father

[JasperSIn]

DD is 4. For the first two years of her life he was in regular contact, saw her a number of times a week, phoned everyday, regular dad, not brilliant not not awful.

He got a new partner when she was 2 and contact steadily declined. He was busy or working, constantly chopping and changing dates.

This year he has seen her 6 times. No overnight and 4 of those occasions were for around an hr, took her to the park and brought her home. One full day near her birthday and one full day when he had a family occasion.

He doesn’t want a regular schedule and won’t agree to one. Prefers to adhoc it as and when he has time. But he asks at very short notice and expects whatever plans we have to be dropped so he can have her for an hour. He doesn’t see a problem with texting today for example and asking to have her on Tuesday 12-2 (he knows she is in nursery all day Tuesday.

There’s no point in taking him to court, you can’t force someone to see their kid anymore than they want to.

Regarding phone contact. He bought DD an iPad when she was 3. His idea was that he would FaceTime and message her on that. Half the time it isn’t charged and the other half she misses the call and then I get a shitty message asking why she hasn’t answered. I don’t want a 4 year old having to take an iPad everywhere in case her dad decides to call her out of the blue.

He refuses to FaceTime my phone as she has an iPad. He won’t stick to regular times, I suggested he call at 6pm and I would make sure she had the iPad on. He stuck to it for two days and then didn’t call again for a week.

Up until two weeks ago I would regularly ask DD if she wanted to call her dad. If she said yes (about 50% of the time) I would let her call him. Two weeks ago I decided to stop asking her and just wait to see if she asked to call him. She hasn’t mentioned it once. This morning I got a shitty message from him asking why DD hasn’t called him in two weeks.

I want to text back and ask why he expects her to call him! She’s 4 ffs. And I also want to tell him I need two weeks notice if he’s going to ask to see her so we can arrange it. I don’t know if that’s unreasonable though!

He thinks if he throws enough stuff at her she will still be the same 2 year old who was devoted to him. iPads, whatever she wants when they are together, her birthday he turned up and left £200 worth of random toys he’d picked up in Smyths on the doorstep. Clearly no idea what she was into so just grabbed anything that looked suitable!

I message him to say she's growing up, starting school now and needs reliable contact from him. She'll be starting clubs etc so you will need x amount of notice to guarantee available contact, he's welcome to message to see if she's free but you won't be changing prior arrangements.
As always, her iPad will be on between 6-7 on x days should you wish to call.
(And I wouldn't be in the room if she's capable of answering it)
He's a waste and I wouldn't be helping him, he needs to grow up and make her a priority.

I would be saying to him that he needs to stick to certain times and days and if he doesn’t he won’t see her. If he took you to court that’s what they would expect anyway.
I’d also arrange a regular time for a phone call that he has to stick to and works for your daughter

The problem being he won’t stick to a regular call time. He’ll do it for two days and then nothing for a week and then I’ll get a message saying why isn’t DD picking up and why haven’t I charged her iPad!! If I reply and say call my phone or we’re out it just goes unanswered.

I think he calls when his girlfriend isn’t around hence the random times and days

Be very careful
Mothersuniteuk is full of sad stories of mothers who had this set up and then like a switch being pressed dad asked for more and more contact until in really severe cases the children were awarded to him if it went to court

Please start keeping a log now
Yes it’s a faff and it’s time consuming but keep a record

Courts hate dads being phased out of their children’s lives... real or imagined

My friend has this set up

He only bloody won residency last year and they were practically snatched out of their mothers arms at 4 and 6 and she wasn’t allowed to see them for 3 months

I could go on but you get my drift

Please show you are making regular attempts to keep her in contact with her dad

I would never believe this would happen and they twist and turn everything to suit themselves and actually get believed

Because the children don’t want to live with him they kick off every time they have to go. Back. She’s told she’s emotionally abusive

No, they want their loving mother and not their half arsed father

As long as you're chilled it won't matter whether he calls, you've told him you'll be available, if he can't be arsed that's up to him.
Work out a text message that covers it, copy it and then send it as a reply to any text from him.
Ie the iPad will be charged on x days ....

Oh and keep everything to text or email so you have proof

Like I will get her to ring you Friday at 6pm and you can read her a bedtime story

In texts be the better person
Keep it what’s best for the child
Never get into s slanging match
On text or email

Oh and if he can’t be reached that day
Start next text

Hi, as you missed your call to Lucy
How about Monday at 6 for bedtime story

You’ve got to be the bigger person and grey rock him

My suggestion would be to write down her schedule such as nursery days and times etc and say. You do not mess with this this and this. If you want to call her ipad you do so between say 6 and 7 when we will keep it near by. If not that's your choice but it is not the responsibility of a 4 year old to contact you as your the parent so call her. If you wish to see her you can see her on this or this day each week but it will be from am to pm as I am not changing my day so you can take her to the park like acting like a babysitter. His a parent so either he steps up or steps aside. I hope his contributing towards her upbringing else I suggest you contact cms.

That situation is exactly what I had in mind, dowser. If the OP stops facilitating contact there’s nothing to stop him suddenly deciding he’s dad of the year who’s being prevented from having contact with his child.

OP, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t stick to it. If you make sure that the iPad is charged and nearby at the agreed times, then you can just shut down any complaints with a simple ‘we agreed you’d call at x.’ You might have to repeat it a few times but don’t enter into a discussion about it.

Very true radars
Avoid court and cafcass at all cost
Cost my friend £15k for a barrister and she still lost residency

She’s been turned inside out. Pysychologist assessments and so forth
She never stopped the children from seeing him
The fact that he hits them so they don’t want to go there appears to be beside the point

I’ve only written a fraction here but believe me.. it’s been nerve wracking and horrendous and the two children are very emotionally damaged
Naturally

So keep it friendly. Grit your teeth

The more reasonable you appear the worse he looks for messing you both about

I’d let him instigate the contact personally.

Get this all the time with XH ‘I want to take the kids out for dinner tonight’ (this is the extent of his parenting).
Me: no, i’ve got dinner in/started cooking/they aren’t here. Give me some notice next time.

Next time: “I want to take the kids for dinner tonight” ...

It’s a massive ball ache, he also won’t commit ‘because of work’ so never has them.

Just do the bare minimum to cover yourself for when he accuses you of stopping him seeing your child.

OP @Dowser has some very very good advice please read and re read!

Doesn't sound like he cares or in s bothered. If it is not convenient say so! Hopefully it will fizzle out! Your dad deserves better than this!

This was me 14 years ago.

With the benefit of hindsight I wish that I had simply let him fade out of dds life.

Instead I facilitated, I bent over backwards, put myself out of pocket, scrambled around fixing his fuck ups...

As you say it's not possible to legally enforce contact and actually while that frustrated me at the time I now think that's as it should be because a child shouldn't be subjected to contact with a parent who's been forced into it.

Decide when would suit you and dd best on a regular basis, be that Saturday's or eow or whatever, include holidays and special occasions, write to him informing him dd will be available for him to have contact on X days at X times. That you expect a response within say 10 working days as to whether he accepts this offer. That if you get no response you will assume that means he isn't interested in contact. That contact will NOT be happening on an ad hoc basis any more as its detrimental to the child's wellbeing. Send it registered delivery and do nothing more until/if you hear from him.

If you hear nothing in response to that but he tries to continue the ad hoc crap just put your foot down and refuse.

If he takes you to mediation/court they will make clear to him that ad hoc is not acceptable and that regular planned contact is best for the child.

But I think that highly unlikely, I think it more likely he will fade right of her life which I can assure you is better than a half hearted uncommitted relationship with him.

This is not just based on my own experience but many others. Committed, loving nrps great.

Absent nrps not great but more consistent/clearer message.

Uncommitted half hearted nrps who only bother when it suits them are definitely the worst of the 3.

As I say I wish I'd let ex phase out of dds life when she was younger, I've now got an 18 year old with issues relating to boys/men (she doesn't trust them) and insecure in relationships with boys/men.

I could strangle him for how he's messed her about over the years. From forgetting she exists to tryjng to play perfect daddy and slating me.

Other children/parents I know with nrps to deal with the ones with committed, consistent and reliable nrps have it best, the ones with completely absent nrps have adjusted well, accept its a sadness but otherwise ok. The messed up ones are the ones with nrps that piss about dipping in and out of the kids lives.