Co-Parent gone AWOL

[AngelDelightUK]

I haven’t hidden at all in my previous posts that my 9 month old DD’s Dad is my gay best friend. We have all been getting along brilliantly, until just before Christmas when he got told to move out by the mutual friend he’d been living with. He didn’t actually tell me this though until he’d been living in a hotel for nearly a week.

He went back to his home town, which is about 85 miles away, for Christmas, and has just dropped the bombshell he isn’t coming back. His work has totally dried up because of Covid, and he’s staying with family which I think has done him the world of good.

He hasn’t seen DD since he travelled down on Christmas Eve, because I was expecting him to be coming back soon. I was even helping him to find a new flat to rent, but this has now put a spanner in the works. I suspect that he’s got back with his ex who he did miss dreadfully but that’s another story.

Anyway, he’s now asking how we are going to sort him seeing DD, and is asking for me to drive to a service station to drop her to him, and he will do the same when he returns her. His home town is on the same motorway stretch I live on, but door to door is about 1hr 30-2hrs. He’s suggesting somewhere which is half way.

Now I’m not happy about driving DD to a service station an hour way in the middle of a pandemic. For one, I don’t overly see it as an essential journey, I do not wish to be pulled over by the police asking what I’m doing in a service station, and I don’t particularly like the idea of DD being transported between two major cities. That said, we were co-parenting, he is a good dad to her, and I’m sure he misses her loads.

AIBU to tell him to get his arse back up here, so he can spend as much time as he likes with DD, or should I drive her to another county for her to be picked up, which would lead to her driving through/too another two counties

I think it sounds perfectly reasonable to continue the arrangement you've always had of 3 days/4 days. That seems to work for you and you both want to be fully engaged co-parents. In the short term, I think the arrangement of driving half way each is fine. It's perfectly allowed and is essential travel. You can't indefinitely be living in a hotel for 3 days a week and really it's only a what 45 minute drive each way for you? I commute longer than there and back to get to my office several times a week, so it's not a difficult drive once a week.

But long term, I don't think living so far apart is a reasonable life plan for him. You made an agreement to co-parent based on you both living reasonably close to each other. What will happen with childcare and school one day? If you are working and your dd is in nursery, will he be driving 2 hours to drop her off at nursery? Being so far from each other means their relationship will be really compromised when she is in school. It will mean only weekends and realistically only every other as you'll need weekend time with her too. Once things settle down a bit, he needs to talk with you about his long term plans because he's an adult with currently no housing (and no job?). He can be flexible, even if it means he has a longer drive to visit family or to work, to live close to his dd.

So he hasn’t seen her in over a month and now wants her on his own? And wants her to do the full journey when he will only do half? My answer would be no. He moved away and he now has to make the effort not you. It’s neither your nor your daughters fault either way. I would offer him to come and stay for a few days every other week if you otherwise get on fine.

9 months is typically an age where babies start to experience separation anxiety and get very distressed when their primary cater is out of sight.
Even if he hadn’t moved away, you might have run into problems with your arrangement.
Dh saw our dc, every morning, evening and all day on weekends and still had problems settling them at that stage. Your dd’s dad has now been out of contact with her for a month. It could be very distressing for her.

His change of circumstances are unfortunate but buggering off on his dd is not on. He’s a parent and that’s not something you get to pick and choose. He clearly views you as the default parent whether you see yourself in that role or not.

Whatever arrangement you reach going forward needs to be in the best interests of the baby.

You can’t have a baby with your gay best friend and then expect him not to want some kind of life outside of that relationship.

Yes the arrangement should continue but it needs to be in the baby's best interests. I'm sorry the guy is having a tough time but he made a commitment to his child and to the OP. Not only has he moved a couple of hours away, he did it without even talking to the OP about it.

The shared care arrangement only works when both parents live close to one another. He has moved away so that is no longer going to work.

I'm not being nasty, I'm thinking of what is best for the baby. Being carted back and forth isn't - dad should be the one travelling.

I think your title is unfair-as far as i can see he hasn’t gone AWOL which implies no contact- he has been in touch regularly by FaceTime and is trying to sort out his living arrangements.
He’s your friend which is a huge plus and one that most separated parents don’t have. Could he visit you a couple of times a month plus maybe one week a month of sole charge in his home town-you could meet halfway for that? As a single parent you are allowed to bubble with him afaik.
Good luck-its definitely worth trying to be as flexible as you can, you chose him to co parent with for a reason so try and remember that and concentrate on staying friends.

She’s a baby with 2 parents who love her and are perfectly capable of taking care of her. There are many mothers who posts on here about how crap their partners are at being a parent, would you think its OK though as long as they lived together?
There are many different types of family. Mum, dad and 2.2 kids isn’t the norm anymore!

You think I don't understand that Soontobe60? My daughter is a single parent who has to facilitate child contact for her two children with an abusive ex. I fully understand that not every family consists of children and their two parents living in idyllic harmony. I just aware that the vast majority of child experts would not advocate a very small infant being absent for long periods from it's primary care giver for days at a time.

It sounds like the op went into this arrangement with the child being passed from one parent to the other from the start and it might suit the parents, but is it best for the baby?

Of course the father should get contact and there's no issue with it being 50/50 when the child is a bit older, but at 9 months old and at a distance? I would struggle with that idea as being good for this child. The op asked for opinions. That's mine.