Hello everyone,
I was hoping that someone could give me some non-biased and non-judgemental advice on my poor attempt at co-parenting with my ex.
My Daughter is one in just under a month and we are still struggling with being amicable, and I will hold my hands up to my part in it all. My daughter lives with me through the week and should be staying with her dad on weekends. Initially we had agreed Saturday overnight and Sunday until the evening, however for the first couple of weeks he requested to have her on the Friday too, which was fine for me except he didn't keep to the arrangements he should have to collect her so it ended up with me having to drop her off. It should be clear that his excuse was he had no money to get the bus (and neither of us drive) however, when I dropped her off he was armed with beer's. He has remained inconsistent in picking her up/dropping off(sometimes morning, sometimes evening but with short notice) and so I have now denied him Fridays and explained he can collect her Saturday morning and return her the following evening at a reasonable time. First of all I wonder if this is fair of me?
My second problem is that I know he drinks while looking after her and he is very irresponsible when he is intoxicated and so I do not feel comfortable leaving him with her, not that he has ever hurt her but it concerns me that he struggles to wake up with her sober, let alone after a few beers, he can be quite snappy after a few drinks and when I have asked him to not drink the one night a week he has his child I get called an abundance of profanity. While with him her routines are completely thrown out of the window, she is always returned to me with a sore bottom and on one occasion when I collected her the house, my little ones clothes and her belongings all smelt of weed, meaning they have been smoking it with my daughter in the home. When I brought this up with her father he 'assured' me that they sat in a different room in the house (which in my opinion means nothing, it's still in the same home and yet again, it's one night) and that I am ridiculous and need to get over myself. He doesn't wash his hands after he smokes, he will have a cigarette and then kiss her on the lips or put her dummy in his mouth and again, I'm too much, I have been called every name you can think of because of this, a Nazi being one. Am I unfair in saying this to him?
I guess I am finding it hard letting her go there because of all of the above, but his family are very troublesome, and I have received several threats from his sister whom he lives with via himself and so I am slightly scared to do anything about it. If I was to go to a mediator and bring this up, do you think they would get the police involved? I want it to stay between me and him, not to effect his family. He has threatened me many times that he is going to come here and take my daughter and I am scared which is why I haven't done anything yet. During lockdown I opened my home to him so he could see his daughter and he would drink (he has damaged my property too), harass me constantly and then just lay about on the sofa, if I wasn't there she wouldn't have been fed, interacted with, bathed or given regular drinks. It all just concerns me that he will have her even 2 days of the week like this. My trouble is I do not believe he would harm her or do wrong by her intentionally but at the same time I don't feel he is doing right by her in his actions. Before I seek legal advice I was hoping to get advice on my situation.
Thanks for reading