Controlling baby dad.. AIBU?

[JustMePlus3]

my daughters dad and I split before we was aware I was pregnant with her due to his drug use, 7 years later when he was more stable he came back into her life, we started contact gradually, with periods where he would disappear again for a long time due to starting up new relationships etc,
however she’s 11 now and there relationship is consistent but he’s now very over bearing, my daughter only wants to go every other weekend, he wants her every weekend,

we went along with every weekend for a while to avoid confrontation as he becomes very aggressive when you disagree with him but my daughter doesn’t feel she came express herself to him as he just puts her down and belittles her whenever she tries to tell him how she feels,

every weekend also left me with no time to spend with her myself or for other family to see her as he lives in a different county. Occasionally when I had things planned with my other children I’d ask for her to stay with me for the weekend and it was just met with ‘that’s not fair on me argument’ with no regards to our daughters feelings. He seems to care about how he feels much more than his daughter, baring in mind he has another daughter who is 13 who picks and choose when she comes without any issues but he says this is different as my daughter is his ‘favourite’

it’s at the point my daughters crying and upset every time he’s forcing her to go and comes home upset because she has no life outside of school and her dads, iv let him know il no longer be bowing down and putting up with his abusiveness and told him it’s every other weekend from now on and that’s the end of it,
with that he’s now trying to financially blackmail me saying basically if we don’t do what he wants he’s not paying maintenance and he’s self employed so if I go through cms he’s just not going to declare what he works, now money doesn’t bother me but him trying to control us does,
iv spoken to my daughter and asked her if it comes down to it and we need to get a court order is she ok knowing she may not see him for a while and she’s said she’d prefer that as she’s scared that he’s going to have ago at her when she goes because of all this, as he has done in the past when we’ve tried to mediate with him,

I have said to him that he’s more than welcome to see her in the week after school, and if he changed his shifts around she’d be more than happy to stay a night or two in the week instead but she just doesn’t want all her spare time to be spent with him and not being allowed to socialise with her friends or see any of her other family but it isn’t good enough for him and I’m now just getting abusive messages off him and I’m just sick of it at this point,

I feel like the only way to sort this is to go to court if he’s just gonna see it as his way or the highway and I think a judge is going to be the only voice of reason and way to get him to understand he can’t take up every minute of her free time, aibu? I don’t want her not to see him but I don’t want her being controlled for the rest of her childhood and to miss out on childhood experiences because he wants her all to himself,
they is many more things but this post is already long enough so il leave it at that

Please advocate for your daughter, he has been an absent farther and now controlling and aggressive. She needs protecting from him and if he doesn’t want to pay maintenance then I’d also involve HMRC on tax avoidance as he shouldn’t be able to decide what money he makes on the books. This again shows the type of man he is and how your young daughter needs protecting.

Just stop. Every post makes him sound worse. Ask yourself why you would want your 11 year old child to have anything to do with him.

You need to grow much more of a backbone here. Block him on DD's phone definitely, and probably also on yours.

If he turns up at your house and kicks off then definitely don't answer the door. Call the police instead as it is threatening behaviour and harassment.

@Topseyt123i have kept the screen shots yes, & when your in the mist of it you don’t realise how bad it is, until you start adding everything together, iv been organising all the screenshots into an album today and have let my daughter know I am trying to build a case up in case he decides to take me to court, I haven’t spoken to her properly as I think that’s better done in person but she agrees that if he wants to see her it needs to be done correctly and legally and knows his behaviour is unacceptable and the only way to make him understand that is by getting someone higher up to put it to him that this is not how you parent, she’s very mature for his age and has always understood he was a little bit ‘off’ but obviously when he was first seeing her everything was sugar coated, now he feels he’s wormed his way in and got his feet under the table the real him is out in full force and it’s been hard to retract away from it but i know what we need to do now.

Please stop your daughter being abused. You know that he is not a good person. I have no idea why you let him back into her life at all. What a can of worms. Be the parent and protect your child from him. You can do it!!

My suggestion

Talk to your daughter, tell her you want what she wants and there are no ‘wrong answers’. Ask her what time she wants to spend with her father.

Download a co-parenting app (a PP has suggested one) and tell him this is his only line of communication; both you and your daughter enforce that rule, no more texts or phone calls. Document everything but the app will help with that as he won’t be able to delete or change anything on there.

Definitely keep evidence of any previous monetary or other threats but remember the Family Court will not take his CMS payments into account. They may, however, take financial threats into account. CMS would have to decide if he is telling the truth about his income.

If he doesn’t like what times you and your daughter offer (or don’t offer) then let him take you to Court. CAFCASS and the Court will listen to her and you as well as him and you can offer the information on the app to them.

God, this is awful. It's a safeguarding issue and should be reported to the authorities immediately, potentially for grooming facilitated by her own father! No child should be chatting to a strange man in their 30s on the phone.

My lovely, you absolutely must go to court over this. You seem to already know it. Don't be gaslit! The person who needs protecting is your daughter, I'd cut all contact if it were me and let the courts hash it out.

Counselling sounds like a good idea for her, as echoed by others, she's probably hurt and confused by his appalling behaviour. You really do need to stop it getting any worse.

Unfortunately OP because you have tiptoed around him and his nasty personality, you are modelling to your DD that that is how women should cope with men - give in to what they want and put their own needs and wants aside to avoid his aggression and unreasonableness. You need to take a strong, bold stand against him if your DD's needs conflict with want he wants. Depending on what she wants, can you decide and inform him that DD can either visit every other weekend or can go 2 nights per fortnight so she has some social life and can spend time at home at weekends and that is reasonable (a good word to use if it ever comes to anything to do with a court), or not go at all - given the issues that would be my choice for DD as he is not parenting her well or at all. Keep careful records of all such communications - you will need them to show that you are reasonable. And let it go to court if need be - be proactive and show him that you won't be pushed around any more, and you are taking charge. Be strong and stand up to him. Tell him, don't ask, and if DD doesn't want to go, don't make her.🌸

I wrote the above before seeing what you wrote about the man on the phone, and likely grooming. It is clear your DD's father is not an adequate parent and puts her at risk. As I said before, take the initiative and deny visits. Do it all in writing, explaining your reasons (as reasonableness is important), and keep copies of all communications. You now have a good reason to deny future visits - you could offer supervised access away from his home if your DD wants it, but I'd just shut him down, having written to explain why - stressing his lack of adequate care. Take charge.

After reading your latest update I would be stopping contact. I think everything added together when you see it in black and white like this makes it more... real.
If your daughter wants contact you could offer supervised visits. I think if he accepted that he would ruin it in the first contact by the way he treats you, but you may like to offer it to be reasonable. I did it with my ex, supervised contact had to stop because of his treatment of me and no one else would support.
As PP says, inform him in writing and explain your reasons. Let him take you to court. You've done everything you can, wjth the very best of intentions for your daughter, which says a lot about you as a mother. Now is time to teach her what to do when people disrespect and abuse you. You are doing the right thing.

Stop contact now - he’s abusive to you both and she needs your protection.

If he asks why tell him he doesn’t provide a safe environment for her.

Let him go to court if he disagrees - he has a lousy story to tell and your DD has had enough.

Thank you everyone I appreciate it, time to take back control

Your child is not psychologically safe when he is with her. You must stop contact now.

Block him on everything (you and your DC) except for one email address- a separate one just for him to contact you /DC.

Your priority is safeguarding your DC, any issues or threats from him call the police or talk to the MASH team at your local council.

Talk him to court - you probably have enough evidence.

Make yourself safe in your home. Be aware he could turn up at school talk to school and tell them she should only be released to you, Gps (or whoever you trust)

How does he advertise his business, if he has adverts, social media - this will provide some evidence that he works. If there is no evidence then it is a tax issue.

If your DD decides to talk to someone at school or a teacher they may well call the safeguarding team anyway - so please do whatever is needed to support your DD.

Take care x

Personally, I think you need to stop all contact - it's harming your DD - document everything and take this to court. Including the fact she doesn't shower when she's there, is with unrelated men, doesn't want to go and has nowhere proper to sleep.

As suggested, stop all contact.
Tell him to take you to court for contact, that you are ready to defend your daughter.

Leave it to him to go to court.

Until such time as a judge tells you otherwise, stop contact.

He is abusing you both.

she hasn’t a bed at her dads, there is a man living there you don’t know anything about and as for letting a 30 year old man, he met in a pub on holiday, have his daughter’s phone number to message her is a safeguarding issue. I would be getting social services involved.
Your daughter is 11, old enough to have her own opinion, his manipulation, coercion towards her and yourself is unacceptable.
I think she knows, if she misses one weekend, when she sees him next he will somehow punish her.
I would message him after having a discussion with your daughter, saying she does not want to come over and after finding messages on D’s phone from a 30 year old unknown Egyptian man, that he had met in a pub whilst on holiday that you feel she is unsafe in his care. I would tell him you will be involving social services. Give him an email address for him to contact you on, then block his number on yours and D’s phone.
If he comes over, don’t answer door, you can go upstairs and open window to tell him to email you, if he causes a nuisance, call the police (this will be logged if they have to come out and ask him to leave).

Your daughter doesn’t want to go, she is coerced by him to go, she has no voice there, not allowed to disagree and makes her feel responsible for his emotions eg not being lonely.

@SpryCatshes expressed this in the past that she knows if she’s missed a weekend he’s gonna rant at her for it the next time she’s there, but I didn’t quite realise the extent of how he was speaking to her until I found the video on her phone last week, he always made out he never dared tell her off ect so didn’t think he’d of ever belittled her in the way he did, more fool him because he’s lost out on a lovely little girl who deserves far better from someone who’s suppose to love and care about her 👎

You’re absolutely right to stand up and advocate for your daughter. I haven’t read all the updates but i just wanted to add something in case it hasn’t been said yet. This dynamic and behaviour with her dad is teaching her to submit to abusive men. This is becoming an example of how she should respond to men in the future. Help teach her that she can trust her own mind and feelings, and if she is not comfortable with something or someone, then she doesn’t have to do it, no matter how much someone tries to bully her into it.
She’s old enough to decide if she wants to spend time with him or not. Being her dad doesn’t give him automatic rights to her time.
He isn’t respecting either yours or your daughters boundaries and she needs to see you set an example of standing firm with boundaries.
Losing child maintenance is a small price to pay for important lessons that will help guide her to set healthy boundaries for herself in future relationships x

@CC222thank you, your absolutely right

It is good that you are going to stop contact immediately. This needs to include him contacting her by phone - he is abusing her. Whilst she is 11 years old and can voice her opinions, it is your job to keep her safe and that means not seeing her Dad. Your job now is to inform yourself about abuse, I very much recommend the Freedom programme and reading Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft. He makes a pdf freely available on the internet. The courts won't necessarily protect her, but they can add long as you understand abuse yourself. It sounds like you have experienced abusive relationships, but with the right understanding you can break the cycle.

I disagree with previous posters about finding out and trying to implement the contact that your daughter wants. I would say that you have made the parental decision to stop contact and that it will be reintroduced by a court order in a way that they deam safe. I would be requesting supervised contact initially. Also call Women's Aid. They can help you even though it's your daughter that is experiencing the abuse.

il message him to say leave her alone and stop bothering her she’s entitled to a weekend off but then the messages start going ‘if you come this weekend il take you to the fair, il buy you some trainers, we can go to the cinema’ ect, so he’ll manipulate her into going, but when she comes back she’s still sad because it’s another weekend she’s not got to see family, spend time with friends or just relax in her own space

Do you message back that he needs to stop buying your DD’s time.

She can buy her own trainers when she needs them, she can go to the cinema and the fair with friends her own age,

I would say when your dd says she needs a break it is code for she doesn’t want to see him again

Something seems very very off with regards to the “chance” meeting in a bar with a 30 year old man and this much older man contacting your dd and he didn’t see anything wrong with it. For a father who “wants” his dd to concentrate on him alone, for him to not see any problem with this 30year staying in contact with your dd is very very strange and I would keep her away from him for the forseeable future

Your dd is crying out for you to protect her.
Take your DD’s phone. Get her another one. Log her out of every bit of SM and tell her to go on a digital detox for a few weeks
I would also give her an alarm and any type of safety device she is able to take everywhere with her and AirTag everything including your dd sew it into her school skirt/blazer/shirt etc

Keep her phone and monitor everything. When your ex or anyone inappropriate contacts her and also keep her passport safe

jesus stand up for your child tell him he is not having her as she doesnt want to go. do everything via text not on phone so you have a record if he threatens you dont engage. if he turns up dont open the door, make the police aware if he get abusive. you can get a non molestation order. she is 11 and knows her own mind do not force her to goto him you dont know what he is doing to the poor child x