No Dad or an abusive one?

[HereAgain2025]

Please can I have opinions on whether it’s better for children to have no father in their lives or one who is “low level” abusive?

(by “low level” abusive I mean, critical comments, shaming children, speaking to them like they’re an inconvenience, irritated by their presence, some physical abuse such as grabbing pushing - enough to leave marks on the children but not severe enough for prosecution. Social services have describe the abuse as “low level”)

For anyone who had to endure this growing up; do you wish your mum would have cut contact or would you have preferred to have maintained a relationship with your father?

YABU - contact should always be maintained
YANBU - It’s better to have no contact

Definitely no dad. I get so frustrated with people who push the idea that a child should be forced to have a relationship with an abusive parent. Some parents are just awful.

This kind of abuse, whilst being considered 'low level' eats away at a child's self confidence and sense of self-worth. Because it's considered 'low level' there's little that can be done about it.

Better no father than an abusive one.

So how do I protect the children from this? “Dad” doesn’t see a problem with his behaviour, likely down to how his father was and isn’t changing. He no longer lives with us and it’s been recommended by social services that his contact with the children is supervised. But Dad and his family are now pushing for unsupervised contact saying that social services only made a recommendation, not a mandatory requirement.

“it’s been recommended by social services that his contact with the children is supervised”
So tell him that for as long as it’s a recommendation, you’ll be going along with whatever SS advises. As to how to protect them, if he’s seeing them in a supervised setting, is there not some oversight? What do your DC feel about all this? If they’re happier seeing their DF in a supervised setting, then I wouldn’t dream of trying to change things.

This 👆

@sesquipedalian that’s what I’m going with at the moment. However I’ve had to reduce the amount of time for each visit as he’s only able to be “nice daddy” for a short amount of time before he starts getting frustrated with the children.

I’m of the opinion that short positive visits are better than longer visits where he upsets the children.

He thinks that he should be allowed to have them for a full day without supervision.

He just doesn’t get it. He did an anger management course a few years ago and encountered men there who were doing the course as a prerequisite to being allowed to see their children and commented on how awful it was. He can’t see that he has now become one of those people. He’s begrudgingly done a parenting course after months of refusing, but his behaviour hasn’t changed.

i want to protect the children. I’m worried that when the children are adults they will question why they didn’t have more contact with their dad and will think I made the wrong decision.

i want to protect the children. I’m worried that when the children are adults they will question why they didn’t have more contact with their dad and will think I made the wrong decision.

You are right to want to protect your children. This man is not going to suddenly turn into Dad of the Year. A contact centre is the best place for them to meet - and don't allow him to remove them from the centre for any reason.

As adults your children are more likely to ask why you allowed them to spend whole days with a man who abused them and now they're having to spend time and money on therapy to recover from the effects of the abuse.

How old are your children?

Supervised contact is the only contact I’d be willing for him to have, and happily (for want of a better word!!) this is recommended by social services so he can’t really argue the toss with you over it. It’s his own behaviour that’s led to that.

i had an abusive father, my parents split when I was 10/11 and I haven’t seen him since I was 13 or so. I’m now 31 and never once have I regretted cutting contact. My mum wasn’t perfect but she supported whatever we chose (I’m one of quite a few!) and none of us see our father now. I was the first to stop.

I'd go to court for supervised contact only as recommended

I had a Father who was emotionally abusive and used to lose his temper and smash things. He did terrible damage to my self esteem and confidence. Even now, years later, I very easily feel rejected or not good enough. I think they would be better without their father having access, or at the very least, continue with him having short supervised sessions so that he cannot damage them further.

@MyAcornWood

They’re 6,5 and 3.

The final incident which caused social services to get involved was that dad was rough with the 3 (then 2) year old. And hurt her hand causing a significant amount of swelling and bruising. The older children witnessed this and the 6 year old can remember what happened. We have a recording of the audio from the incident. And nursery made a safeguarding note. However when the 2 year old was asked what happened a few days later she gave a different story so they police said they weren’t able to charge him.

He’s only been allowed supervised contact since then and as far as I’m concerned it will remain that way.

Who supervises his contact, forget what his family want, what do the older children want, the 6yo remembers daddy hurting their sibling.

This is the worst advice. Court will (eventually) give him all the access he wants.

This is what worries me

I supervise. Sometimes they want to see him and sometimes they don’t.

Well better for them to be questioning why you didn’t allow more contact with him than suffering with mental health problems caused by his abuse that could have been prevented. In my experience it takes a hell of a lot for social services to say a parent shouldn’t have unsupervised access. I think you should just stick to their recommendation and refer him back to social services every time he brings it up.

No need for you to go to Court. Keep supervising short periods of time together and if he doesn't like it, he can pay to start the Court process.
If Social services have recommended supervised then that's what the Court will go with.

Mine was like this, plus some hitting. Parents never divorced. He's dead now and I don't miss him.