AIBU to stop my ex-boyfriend of 2 months having access to our unborn baby?

[Gillybean73]

I was dating a guy who lives about a 3 and a half hour drive away from me for about 2 months or so and was careless about contraception because I thought he'd had a vasectomy. He's 42 and he's already got a 13 year old daughter to his ex-wife who he walked out on when the child was just 3 (the kid behaves appallingly by the way) and he made it clear he didn't want more children. I recently had an operation on my cervix which meant I couldn't have sex for 3 weeks and he was an absolute dick about it, you'd think it was 3 years which made me realise he was very selfish and not the man I thought he was (amongst other things that I discovered about him). Anyway, I found out that I was pregnant and when I told him, he ended our relationship in the same sentence and said he wanted me to have an abortion. (Our relationship would have ended anyway even if he hadn't reacted this way) I dug my heels in (as at 36 feel the old clock ticking and may not have another opportunity) and he is not amused although he says he wants to be involved with the child. I can't see how I can make this work because I have no respect for him and don't even like him anymore and if he comes to see the baby, because he lives so far away, it will all have to be at my house and I really don't want to have to spend any time with him at all. He has deep-rooted emotional problems which makes it impossible for him to open up emotionally and have normal relationships which I put down to an abusive father and a strange relationship with his mother and he was even pleased at one point a few months ago when he thought he had a terminal illness as it would be a way out for him. His daughter is off the rails IMO, she calls her mum a f*king whore and bitch to her face, she calls her Dad a f*king douche bag, prick etc and they let her away with it with little or no consequences. I cant help but feel it's in my childs best interests to keep him/her as far away from this bad influence as possible and I also personally don't want to see him either. My opinion is that if the child grows up and then wants to have a relationship with their Dad then I would try and be supportive of that when they are old enough to make the decision for themselves or am I being unreasonable? Help!!!!

I think if he wants to see the baby when it is born you should let him. If you don't want to spend time with him is there a friend or relative who would sit with him at your house or take the baby to meet him somewhere else? Other than that say right I have to go into the kitchen now to do some dishes/upstairs to do some cleaning. That way he can see the baby but you don't have to speak to him only let him in and out. If you restrict access and your child finds out later they are probably going to hate you for it.

Tell him you want to do it all properly - proper organised access, CSA payments etc. If he runs for the hill because of that then that's his problem not yours.

noticed in your OP you talk about access - the current term is contact, which i think is better. It's about the child's contact with their parent, not the parent's access to their child.

Of course it's both really; but in these matters the child's interests are paramount and usually, excepting abuse, it is in the child's interests to have contact with both parents. One of the building blocks of self esteem is identity; and we need to have a strong sense of that as a child in order to use that building block. Our sense of identity comes very strongly from both parents. Having a gaping hole on one side is not of course going to kill the child but as a mum if you can, you want to fill the gaps for your child to make their life as complete as possible.

Of course if he won't be there from his own choice, well that's still a problem in some ways for the child, but at least you know you did all you could.

OP I think you are missing the point. It is not your decision to make as to whether or not contact takes place, it is the father's decision as well.
He has not been abusive towards you, there is no reason at all for you to withold contact other than your personal feelings about him.

You now need to learn to be a co-parent, if he chooses not to take up contact in the future then you cannot force him to, however, you cannot stop him if he does want to play a part.
A court would not stop him either, so all of these posts exhorting you to "line up a good solicitor" etc are not particularly useful.
Why start a fight where there doesn't need to be one?

You both had sex, you both failed to protect yourselves, you are now both parents.

this guy sounds like he's not going to keep in contact, anyhow, especially if you go for maintenance.

What makes you think that Expat? In the op it states that he has said he wishes to play a part, also he is already paying maintenence for his dd and has her with him for part of each week. Doesn't sound like a guy who shirks his responsibilities to me.

he lives far away, he didn't want another child, wanted her to terminate.

he was married to the mother of his other child.

whereas this relationship was already on the rocks.

TBH, Gilly, I don't know why you bothered to tell him at all if you were going to end the relationship anyway and felt the way you do about him.

I'd have just kept schtum and left him off the birth certificate.

Since you haven't, though, I agree with nappyaddict.

You don't have to want to be in a relationship with the mother of your (completely unexpected) child to be reliable as a father.

He didn't plan this pregnancy, neither of them used contraception and yes, the relationship was not stable which is why they weren't married and will not be in the future.

yeah, i'm well aware of all that, idrankthetea. are you his sister or his best mate?

my hunch is that he's going to walk.

just a hunch, but there nonetheless.

a guy who lies about having a vasectomy is at teh very least not the most honest of people.

I don't think he actually lied, but then my hunch is as yours Expat.

Can you get by without financial help then shut him out completely.

This is an upleasant situation for you to be in. You have had a child with someone you do not like.

But you will have to have some sort of relationship with this man for the rest of your life because you have child together.

NEVER EVER lie about your child's parentage. This is very wrong. I cannot believe that it has been suggested.

This is about your child not you and not your ex.

I cannot stand the birth mother of my DS. She is a selfish, manipulative woman who has never done a thing for my son. She is not to be trusted on any level. But when I agreed to foster and then adopt my son I took on the responsiblity to make sure he kept some sort (however limited) of relationship with her.

For HIM. If I am totally negative about her, I am being negative about my DS, because SHE is is his birth mother.

I hope you sort this out. I do have sympathy with you. Me and my OH split up several times during our early years and it did seem much easier to block him out. I am glad I didnt though.

Have skimmed as on a mobile in a very noisy campsite.

To OP don't assume that the fact you ex pays support for his daughter, shares parenting and says he wants to get involved that he actually will.

My ex said and did all that. When ds was born he saw him once to register the birth, pays about one tenth of what he should be paying, hid his income and wants no part of ds's life. That is despite saying throughout that he would be there, be involved and 'do the right thing'.

According to some on this thread I suppose I should have hounded him to be invloved. Not sure why I should force someone who clearly has no interest in his son.

First of all congratulations on your pregnancy And sorry to hear you had some scares. That baby of yours is really resilient from what it seems!

but... I think you ABVU. I am shocked & amazed that so many people here have encouraged you to basically block the father of this child out of his/her life. As Chegirl says, very correctly, 'this is about your child not you and not your ex'. This is the child's father we're talking about. Like him or not, this is who he is: your child's father. Which means you'll have (hard as it may be) to find a way to be a co-parent with him. You have no right, in my opinion, as no parent does, to limit & sabotage the contact between your child & his/her father. As some others have said, that will only lead to the child feeling a gaping aching hole where part of his identity is missing. The baby is equally part of you and this man. That is the reality & as long as the guy wants & is willing to be a father to the child, you should, in my opinion, do your best to encourage this. Of course this should be done on your terms too, n a way that feels comfortable to you. Not at your home necessarily, not even with you present. There are ways to do these things. And hard as it is, I think you will find that you feel very proud of yourself in the future if you have done all you can to encourage a good, strong relationship between your child and the child's father.

By the way, I cannot believe someone suggested that you 'breastfeed as long as possible' because then the courts won't give him the right to have the child overnight. That is one of the most manipulative things I've ever heard, I'm sorry. As is the idea that you should not tell this guy that he's the father- he's the father, he has a right to know about his child!!!

As far as where his mind was at the time of conception, well it was not anywhere between his ears. This is a man who does his thinking with another part of his anatomy entirely.
I wouldn't be confrontational about the issue of access. Just don't keep in touch and see for yourself how interested he is in seeing the baby. Pick up the phone if he calls. Of course the question of financial support may interfere with your desire not to let him have access -- he may have some idea of a quid pro quo. Might be worthwhile seeing a solicitor about your rights and if he has any. The chances are that he has already found someone else to behave irresponsibly with and get his sexual needs met, and having to travel all the way from Manchester to Scotland would interfere with his social life too much. You can deal with the Where's Dad question when it comes up, assuming he doesn't have anything to do with the DC. Who knows, there may be someone else there to sub for bio dad in the future, and it won't even be that big of an issue.

He didn't lie about the vasectomy, Expat. She 'assumed' he had had one because he didn't want anymore children.

Ok..I've been holding back but I will comment..OP you need to think of your child..not what you think..ultimately no matter how much of an arse this man is you laid down with him unprotected and made a child..and just because you don't like the man does'nt mean you can cut him off...she/he wont love or respect you for it..do what needs to be done..he will show his true colours one way or another..congrats and take care..be cool think of your baby

As a single non-parent male, you might wonder at my posting. First, good luck with having a child, as you put it body clock and all that.

Onto the situation with this 'man' (I might have been somewhat abusive but held back!) - I can see why you want as little to do with him as possible, and his existing daughter is clearly challenging (it might be that she is so, in part because her parents split).

Anyway, while she will be a half-sister to your child, I think you should certainly put away worries about her having an influence on your future child, because odds are that the man involved would seem unlikely to cope with both at once, and given the distance between you, it isn't that realistic for him to expect regular contact (even if he does push for it - given his attitude on finding you were pregnant, I'd think it unlikely he'd be wanting it to be honest).

The main difficulty I can see is that as the father of the child, he will have some financial tie / responsibility (I'm not sure about the CSA, and whether you would be forced into giving them information, or whether they have situations of "one night stands" where the man is a nameless character met one night in a club/pub - it surely happens)...

If you are in a position to support your child without his involvement (financial or in person), and he doesn't make is an issue, then all the better for you, though you do need to make it clear for your child that s/he can meet the "missing" father when they get older, assuming you and he stay in contact.

If he fails to maintain contact, then it would be clear he has no interest, and if that is the case then you can with all honesty explain that to your child when s/he is of an age to ask.

So to conclude - I doubt he will be rushing to spend time with your child, but if he is forced into being financially responsible, he may push for access out of spite.

Sorry for the PS, but have just re-read DillyDD's comment...

I don't feel you are being unreasonable in being concerned, but as DDD points out, this man does have a right to access, so in my view you are trying to cross too many bridges far too soon - you are worried about aspects which concern you (understandably) but may never actually happen.

Sure, he doesn't seem to have a great family background, but you are thinking about years away, I think, and you need to calm yourself and get to grips with having the baby, and come back to how things develop after that - don't, please, get stressed or too 'firm' in what access he can and cannot have before getting to the stage where he is asking for access!

Networkguy...I think I love you

VG post...pretty much sums up what I was trying to say, but better and in a more considered, less personally involved manner...it is pretty much exactly how it turned out with my child's father.

I did have to provide evidence to the CSA that he was abusive/likely to cause disturbance to me/my child if they contacted him for money - and they believed me, luckily, because he would have done, I'm almost certain, and used the financial relationship as a means to assert his nasty controlling agenda. (He'd previous form on this)

I manage fine without his contribution and he's no excuse to contact us with bullying intent, therefore doesn't bother. In fact I suspect he's still waiting for the letter to drop through the door asking for dosh - and if he did get in touch and start making trouble I'd have no hesitation in asking them to pursue him for back payments. He probably knows this, and in fact he ASKED me not to tell them who the father was, so that we could have instead a 'orivate' arrangement and having heard him whinging about his 'terrible' ex spending all 'his' money (private arrangement) on the wrong sort of things, constantly for 6 months, I wasn't about to become the next target.

private, that ought to say.

I'm sorry though, but this guy has given no signs that he's abusive or anything like that. In fact, he has a good enough relationship with his other daughter; he sees her regularly & has her over, & is ok with his financial contributions.

I think the OP should do much more than simply leave it to him to arrange (or not arrange) contact. It's surely in the best interest of the child to have regular contact with her/his dad & in my opinion the OP should do everything she can to encourage that & not just 'tolerate' the contact & half-hope that the guy disappears eventually. As I see it, it'll be a loss if he disappears & the OP should be taking (within reason) steps to avoid that possibility, rather than actually encouraging it / hoping for it.

That said, I agree completely that it's far too soon to worry & think in detail about all this. It'll all fold out naturally in its own time. Now it's time to have the baby, nurture it & take each step at a time. Good luck OP!!

tbh what i would do is not encourage him and not inform him about anything, he might get the hint and not bother .

say this cos this is what i had done with ds dad when we split up when i was 8 months pregnant, but no i encouraged him and 8 years later the whole thing is a mess!

have to say tho if he went to a solicitor he would get contact although if the baby is still a baby when he does this it would be pretty much be on ur terms!

main thing to remember is not to wind him up about contact as this seems to make men want something even more!

My perspective on this comes from my own experience of never having known my father. I have no idea what sort of relationship (if any) he had with my mother - all I know is that his name does not appear on my birth certificate and she refused to discuss him with her parents and siblings, apparently feeling very strongly that I was her baby and no-one else's. None of this has ever really bothered me - I've never missed someone I didn't know, and never even felt curious, tbh.

I would add one caveat, however, which is that it would be a good idea to write down some kind of explanation for your child's future benefit. My mother probably thought she would be around to tell me about him when I was old enough to understand, but she died when I was five, so this never happened.

In terms of practicalities, I would go with floatyjosmum and other posters who have suggested just leaving it open and not pushing it either way.

flighthatattendant - Sorry, we have rubbed each other up the wrong way! lol Blame it on my pregnancy hormones, I can be a little harsh! I didn't think your post was harsh at all - I thought you asked some genuine questions lol. I'm sorry if you've been stewing over it without a reply - I've had a busy weekend of weddings!

I have had a period of feeling extremely stressed and anxious. I had some really invaluable support from sefton women's and children's aid and the children's centre near to me. I think the worst was immediately after he left but tbh the relationship was so horrible that a lot of things were immediately easier too. I had the new pregnancy to give me hope which also helped.

There was a while, when he was directly trying to intimidate me when I was afraid to leave the house and crying all the time but ds was only very little then. I made friends with the woman who lived in the bottom flat of our building and she was also very supportive.

I think there is nothing wrong with being stressed and anxious around your children in a stressful situation but I always looked on it as a temporary reaction to a difficult situation that we were all going through and allowed us all to have the feelings we were having at the time. I think this is important. You need to make it clear to the DCs that feeling bad is nothing to be afraid of, can in fact be normal but that some bravery is also often necessary to make things better.

We were all stressed and anxious at the same and we all knew that it was normal to be stressed and anxious and that it wouldn't last forever so although I was stressed and upset, I wasn't unstable IYSWIM. And I think it's very important to allow the children the hurt, because they'll have it anyway, and to be in control of it and to help them through it. When a relationship breaks down the children, unfortunately, will be hurt whatever.

I found it much easier when solicitors and the courts were involved because it meant I was protected from XP. They all knew I was involved with SWACA and knew the history of our relationship. XP had been warned not to contact me by the police and knew if he did, even if it was just for something innocent or through a friend or relative, that he'd be arrested for harrassment.

I never wanted the children to not know who XP was, I made sure I showed them pictures of him and talked to them about nice things when he was not seeing them which helped me actively separate my feelings about him. You have to completely separate your horrible relationship and feelings about your X from the children's feelings. When I was feeling stressed about seeing him, DS (dd was too little) was feeling stressed about not seeing him. It was my job to explain to him why I felt bad (cos he could see I did) without upsetting him, and to help him with his feelings of desperately wanting to see his dad. DD, being small was afraid of him at the start so I also had to make sure she wasn't picking up signals from me.

Anyway, I'm sure your friends are not terrible mothers. What I was meaning is that being the parent with care is very difficult, you have to negotiate a very tricky line to get the best result for your children. That means separating how you feel about your X and all the horrible things they have done and focusing on what really is best for the children.

I would say that the best thing is that they are aware of your feelings and you are aware of theirs. It's not a good thing for your children to be afraid of their father, I have seen lots of mothers encourage this in their children and I understand that it is tempting but you can't do it.

My DCs have had times when they have been very apprehensive and upset about seeing their father. When this has happened I have talked to them about how I understand how they feel but I also know that they have to give their dad a chance, grown ups are not perfect and yes, he's let them down but they need to see him because they would be much more sad if they didn't see him ever again.

I think they understood that things were difficult because we were involved in a process of working things out. Now they see that he can be a bit of a PITA and inconsistent but it's set up in a way that means they don't expect more from him than they get. They get sad about it from time to time but they know there's nothing they can do to make him into a different person and we just talk about it and try to get something good from it.

I don't think they ever really blamed him for the difficulty either - they normally blame me! They've been hurt but they're not damaged. Not yet anyway! They're only little!

In answer to your question about how I would have felt about continued access when he was still abusing me: This was never an issue. He would not have got access when he was abusing me. I always insisted that it was absolutely vital he respected me if he was to see the children and this is not an unreasonable request to make. I enforced this message through my solicitor and the police. I was empowered to insist on this by SWACA and the courts supported me when I insisted on certain things because they didn't want to hold me in contempt and I had a very good solicitor (and XP repeatedly hung himself by forgetting what lie he'd told and when).

The advice I'd give people in the situation you describe is that they have to start taking control of the situation. The parent with care is the lynchpin. You have to be strong, set up support for yourself and have a careful plan. Yes, you're going to be stressed and terribly upset and afraid but these emotions are normal, normal for you and the children. Allow yourself to have the feelings but don't let them take over. Seek help from the appropriate organisations wherever you can and don't be afraid to assert that it is a very, very necessary starting point that the XP at least pays lip service to giving you respect as a person.

I agonised over insisting XP respected me before we went to court but decided I felt so strongly that I would be willing to be held in contempt rather than back down on this point if they disagreed - scary thought!

Much easier to be sitting here now than sitting back there at the start. He has done some bad things and had some difficulty but he's doing his best. The children are half his and although I have done all the work to make them lovely , this does allow me to see some good in him. He's not horrid to them, he's nice to them. He's not even horrid to me anymore. If anything he treats me like his mother, like he has to try and impress me or ask my permission for things. Oh how the tables have turned! How strong he made me when he was trying to make me weak!

for Maria2007 - Um, he might not be abusive or anything, but his (young) teen daughter doesn't seem to want to be seen (out in public) with him, and if she has such a foul mouth, without either parent able to curb it, then her future prospects (career wise) might be severely limited...

Have this time seen more of the posts (somehow did not see first 3 pages first time) and now see that OP has built up her own business (well done) and would not be dependent on him. From the sidelines, we can but hope that things turn on best for the child.

When it comes to contact with the father, maybe you and I need to 'agree to disagree'. I still feel that if he is not especially interested, then despite his biological link, it's not necessarily best to push him to stay in contact... If it works out that he isn't interested, she won't have done anything wrong, will not need to lie, and can just explain the circumstances to the child about why 'daddy' isn't around.

Heck, I was conceived only to stop my Mum learning to drive in the Territorial Army - I was the last of 5, and there's 9 years between myself and the youngest of my sisters (3 girls in 5 years, my half-brother was from her first marriage, she was widowed at 19 in 1939, and then again when my dad died in the mid-60s, when I was 6 or 7), and I didn't know until I was in my late 30s about how I came to be in this world - my mother perhaps mentioned it to explain that long gap - I was the only one left at home by then, supporting her financially, before I was head-hunted and moved (at which point she also moved - worked well in that we were not in each others' pockets but a 30 minute walk away).

Gillybean - hope things are going well with you. x