Shouldn’t have to stay in contact?

[SpinningFloppa]

DCs father isn’t involved hasn’t seen them since jan 2021 no contact at all with them since then, however he does message me occasionally asking how they are (posted about him before)

At first I use to respond as I was keeping line of communication open thinking maybe he would ask to see them at some point but he didn’t, as time went on it became clear he has no intention of seeing them so I decided to not respond anymore to his messages as it felt like he was just fishing for information but with no intentions to see them. The messages would always go the same way it was almost as if he was copying and pasting the message every couple of months. He continues to message occasionally think every 3 months kind of thing but it has surprised me how many people I’ve told this to who think I should still remain in contact with him?! Despite the fact he has no intention of seeing our children and doesn’t want to, so why am I maintaining contact with him? If we didn’t have kids I wouldn’t speak to him so as he isn’t seeing them I don’t see why people think I should still continue to speak to him, he was abusive to me so I find his messages triggering and his name flashing up on my phone is unsettling, I feel unable to move on as he is still there in the back ground and not even seeing our children. I’ve seen people suggest to women who have abusive exes to go through a third party so they don’t have to speak to them, or use apps so they don’t have their number; or even to block them and unblock them when they have the kids so why do so many people I speak to seem to think I should remain in contact with him when he isn’t even seeing them so no need 😕 The reasons I’ve had is that I should keep the lines of communication open? And I need to prove to my children that I did everything I could and never stopped contact, why is this up to me to prove? Why is the onus on me to prove I never stopped contact? Aibu to think I shouldn’t need to keep in contact with him to “prove” anything? My kids are older now and fully aware he just doesn’t bother.

How old are they? It will be easier when they have their own phones and he can contact them himself. I'm not suggesting that they should get phones earlier than you would normally to facilitate though - all of mine got them at the end of year 6.

They don’t want to have contact with him, they hate him and it’s his own doing I never bad mouth him to them but they aren’t interested in contact with him also I don’t trust him having unrestricted contact with him due to past behaviour if they wanted his number when they was old enough then so be it but they are still too young to make their own contact with him.

When I say they are old enough to know what he is like I mean it in the sense that they are not babies/toddlers the last time he was meant to see them was on one of their birthdays when he told them he was coming and just didn’t show up, I text him twice and he didn’t respond, they know that happened as he told them he was coming, also the following year he sent a birthday present for only one of them and not the others one whose birthday was just 12 days later so they see stuff like that and don’t want contact with him, they are very angry at him, he also has (had?) mh issues and has made some very strange and concerning comments about them so personally don’t trust him having direct unsupervised contact with them for that reason and the fact he was abusive to me and given his long period of absence they are not old enough to deal with that themselves and still need protecting from that (they are 11, 10 and 8) of course if they was older and emotionally mature enough to deal with his rejection and was asking for his number that would be different