Hello. 4 years ago, coming out of covid, my relationship with a man I dated for 4 years broke down. He was going bankrupt; he became erratic, was verbally demeaning and occasionally physically violent. It was painful to see, but not hard in that it was clear what I had to do: run!; keep myself and my children safe; let him deal with his own mess. He had never lived with us, so practically speaking, it wasn’t difficult to keep clear of his chaos.
He has one child from a previous relationship. She is the same age as one of my children, and while we dated, the two of them got on. After the break up, my kids and I tried to keep up contact with his child, including having her here for weekends alone. We couldn’t maintain this, for many reasons. The distance involved in the travel was one. The difficult emotional context was another. Worst of all, it became clear that her father had kept her in the dark about everything: his financial situation and even about our break up. This put me and my children in a really tricky spot. It wasn’t our place to enlighten her, and we felt wretched going along with the false reality her father had given her. Contact with his child, confused and exhausted my own children, and after a few months, we withdrew as kindly as we could - basically by making polite excuses for why we couldn’t see her each time she asked. I am sure this was hard for her, but from the range of bad options I had, it felt like the best thing to do.
Recently, this man wrote me a long email - a totally melodramatic account of how his daughter has been permanently scarred by…..me and my children! By our not keeping up contact with her well enough. She is (in fact) still in contact with my daughter by occasional text, but (apparently) this feels very one-sided. He concluded, my daughter should (in effect) be guilt-tripped and coerced into initiating more contact herself. Amazingly, he makes this demand in the same letter he admits to me that, 12 months ago, he lost custody of his now teenage daughter (which he previously had by court order). She now lives with her mother full time. He actually admitted that this was because of his outbursts of temper around her. And yet, stepping over that gigantic news, he “requested” my daughter and I take his daughter out for pizza (!) to reassure her that she’s not to blame for our shoddy behaviour in not being “there for her more” since 2021.
The email is frankly mad. There’s obviously no way I am doing what he asks. I don’t even know if any of the dramatic details he sets out are true - or merely his (dark) fantasy. I have no regular contact with this man. The request comes out the blue.
I replied to say the email wasn’t helpful, and that I wouldn’t be reading anything else he sent me. I’ve now blocked his email address. However, I do feel extremely sorry for his child. I am sure her visits to us (which she was clearly very keen to keep up, back in the day) were something of a calm retreat in her far too chaotic life. Sometimes, she texts me, and I do respond, but I keep it light and short and maintain a clear boundary: I am not willing to get into things with her and I don’t want to create false expectations that we might all start hanging out again soon.
AIBU, not encouraging or facilitating any increased contact with her?