First-time Single Mum

[littleprawn2024]

I found out in February 2024 that I was pregnant with my first baby. My partner at the time (baby’s dad) was leaving the army in March/April.
Since leaving the army he hasn’t worked, he got a job for Amazon 4 days before the baby was due and then walked out of that job and into another in November, he walked out of that job just before Christmas.
After leaving the army he received a lump sum payment, he bought a car (which we needed) but has blown the rest - this was supposed to be a deposit for a house.
He has poor credit so any prospect of buying a house/renting would have fallen on me so I was hesitant about moving out as it was a big responsibility financially for me - especially when he hadn’t shown financially stability in the past (he was always lending money off people and told me he had a past gambling addiction).

I’m currently living with parents and they are foster carers. Due to this the BD needed to have a DBS check in order to stay over for long periods of time - the plan was for him to stay at mine when baby was born while we got our own place sorted.
When he was 18 he went AWOL from the army so he had a criminal conviction - he told me about this when we first started seeing each other. What he didn’t tell me is he also had a criminal conviction for burglary & theft - this flagged on his DBS check.
I found out in November that he’d not told the SW, my parents, or me, about this conviction and as a result my parents and the SW said he couldn’t stay in the house.
In January (baby was 3 months old) he began avoiding my calls/messages and kept cancelling on seeing the baby. In one week this happened 4 times. It rolled into February/March and I had enough.
There was one week where he cancelled on the Wednesday and lied to me - he messaged me at 2pm (we arranged to meet at 10am) saying he was called at 8am that morning and was on a shift with Amazon - his mum confirmed he was in bed at home - so I told him to meet us on the Thursday at 10am Thursday came around and he didn’t message until 1pm, no apology or excuse, he just demanded I meet him on Saturday at 1pm instead and when I said no he started kicking off and blamed me for him not seeing the baby, even though he could have seen him that day…
In the end I told him that he could see the baby once a week and if he could be consistent then we would look at more contact.
On top of all of this he’s lied to me about so many things. From the start of our relationship he’s lied to me about many different things, he told me he had a medical negligence claim ongoing (a large amount of money) but I’ve since found out that it was rejected before we got together.
He got fired from his job in December but told me in January/February that he was off work due to illness/the machines broke down and they were giving him days off. Anyway, I found out in March that he’d been fired, he told me that he was going back to work for Amazon - he told me for weeks that this was the case and then when I asked why he’d not gone back to work yet he told me they didn’t need him.
He lied to me about his criminal convictions, about where his money had gone, lied about silly things when we were together about having a car at the start of our relationship and then selling it to his brother-in-law…his sister confirmed that wasn’t the case. When I questioned that he told me that he had told that many people the lie he believed it himself.

Due to not seeing the baby for 3 months we agreed that when he does see the baby (for now) I will have to be there as he is a stranger to baby at this point. He has started showing up once a week and is now demanding to see baby more. I’m not comfortable with that yet and I don’t trust him to have baby alone due to everything that’s happened.

I just feel the first 6 months with my baby has been ruined by all of this. My mental health has been really low and I am putting myself back together now. He burned through all of our savings so I’m still living with parents trying to raise a baby on my own. Am I being unreasonable for wanting to limit the time he spends with baby after all of the lies he’s told?

Any advice/feedback would be helpful! ☺️

Unfortunately your baby's dad sounds like a complete waster. If he doesn't stick to a regular schedule to spend time with his child and behave in a reliable manner then you are not unreasonable to limit contact. It doesn't seem likely that he will be paying you any maintenance either. I would let him take you to court if he is unhappy with the contact offered - it's unlikely that he'll bother.

On top of this he’s tried to emotionally manipulate me by saying his family are all upset because they haven’t been able to “bond” with the baby - and yet I can count on one hand how many times they’ve messaged to see how the baby is…

My worry is that baby might not know what disappointment feels like now but in a few years they will. BD doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not me he’s letting down it’s the baby.

It sounds to me like he is struggling with his transition out of the army into civilian life, firstly from before baby arrived. What role did he have in the army? What support did he get when he left? Could he be suffering PTSD or something from of mental health challenges perhaps from his army experience, masked by his behaviour - the unreliability, blowing his cash, inability to hold down a civvy job, going AWOL in terms of responding to your calls/messages and cancelling seeing baby etc etc?

I'm not trying to give him excuses here. I have many friends in the army and equally many who have left and tried to leave - your post rings familiarity in ex-army PTSD to me, and if that is the case, he needs to help himself recover first before he has the capacity to emotionally support anyone else.

Does it sound like this could be a possibility?

And no, you're not being unreasonable to limit contact given the circumstances you've outlined. You absolutely need to put baby and yourself first. Congratulations on your baby!

I do agree he struggled to transition into civvy life and I gave him the benefit of the doubt at every opportunity. I helped him as much as I could with looking for a job but I could only do so much - he once missed an interview for the same company twice because he was sleeping.

I was pregnant and working full time while all of this was going on - he would often stay in bed all day and then game all night and we only really saw each other at the weekend and when I stayed at his he would sit and game all weekend.

His behaviour didn’t start after leaving the army either, he was in the army when we were together and consistently lied to me about things then, he would often spend all of his money and then borrow it from others - sometimes from me, he always gave me a tale as to why he had none.

When we first got together he went abroad for 3 months and said he saved over £6,000. He told me that when he got home he would take me away for a weekend to make up for 3 months worth of dates and he was insistent he would pay. When it came to the night before he told me a debt management company had emptied his bank account without warning and when I suggested we cancel the weekend away he said no as he didn’t want to let me down and then asked me to pay for everything and he would pay me back, as it was a new relationship I felt like I couldn’t say no. I never saw a penny of that money back and he never explained where that £6,000 truly went…

I understand soldiers experience all kinds of mental health problems on leaving the army and I had so much time and understanding for that. I also have deep rooted trauma but that doesn’t mean I can stop being a parent - had I give in to my mental health in January my baby wouldn’t have either parent to lean on today.

Mental health problems and PTSD can start before leaving the army as well though, and I'm wondering if there's more to it underneath the ex-army side.

I'm sorry to hear of your historic trauma also. Have you got support for yourself? From your parents? Foster parents are a special kind of people but you'll already know that 🥰 Parenting is hard at the best of times, let alone solo and where there is historic trauma even more so. I'm glad you were able to find the strength to work through your own challenges in January.

I would concentrate on yourself and your baby now. And focus on giving your little one all the love and stability you can. Let BD make his choices, let him seek help if and when he's ready but don't pressure. And if BD asks/demands to see baby or have baby alone, you'll need to have a firm and fair truly open and honest conversation with him about what it will look like for him spending time with baby while he's sorting himself out.

Yes I’ve had support for myself and my parents are amazing. They’ve been so supportive of both me and baby and tried to offer BD support as well but he wasn’t very receptive of that.

I’ve put absolutely no pressure on the BD, he basically avoided me for 3 months and now my main focus is me and baby, he needs to sort himself out and I’m leaving him to it. I feel I’ve given him chance after chance after chance to show up for both baby and me and now it’s up to him to show up for his baby.

I will always be firm but fair and I’ve told him if he’s ever unhappy with our arrangements he can look at mediation to see what else they would offer - speaking from experience with foster parents, I can’t see a court/mediator suggesting more contact at this point given everything that’s happened and all of the supporting evidence I have.

I’m doing enough by being there for the baby and can’t do anymore than that! ☺️