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!!!!

Sorry - sneakily looking at this whilst at work so have skimmed somewhat...
YANBU but as others have said, keep an open mind. You don?t really know this guy (although he?s not exactly sounding like catch of the year from what you?ve written) and he might surprise you. Like networkdad says ? you?re trying to cross too many bridges too soon. Take it easy and look after yourself. Enjoy being pregnant and enjoy your baby when he/she arrives. Congratulations btw and good luck

OtterInaSkoda.... Gulp! You 'promoted' me from NetworkGUY to NetworkDAD (and I bl**dy well hope that's not the case - I've certainly taken precautions not to start a baby!!)

Thesecondcoming, i'm glad of your post - it seems there are others who grew up without fathers and are not too upset about it - so I am encouraged.

Curiosity - thankyou for your apology - i must extend one too - I had forgotten about the thread so no worries about that.

Your long post is very very interesting and the way you have dealt with it all sounds strangely complete, confident, competent...there are elements I thoroughly approve of (not that it is my place to - or not to!) but one aspect does worry me slightly. It's the encouragement of them to 'give him a chance because they'll be far more upset if they never see him again' - I wonder what kind of message this gives them about taking responsibility for others' mistakes and poor behaviour? Surely they might feel it is then their fault if he never comes back?

Sorry to pick holes but it really stood out. I'm hoping that I've got that bit wrong somehow.

jumente - yeah, understand what you mean. That's a condensed version of the conversation really I always end up with huge posts so don't always articulate things brilliantly. The talk is more that I know you want to see him really but you're just, understandably, worried about how things will go so don't worry, be brave, get it over with, I'll make it as easy as I can and it'll get better quite quickly like it has done before. And don't start getting worked up and paranoid and thinking it will all be horrible, it will be both stressful and nice.

I'm confident my XP will not desert them now. Everything is rubbing along quite nicely, if he does we'll deal with it. They saw him today and had the worry about being let down so it was a short visit and I came too and then we had a long talk about things.

We had a preparatory talk before and they decided it would help them to not be sad about not seeing him for a while if DS could have his home phone number to call when he liked and they each had a picture of him in their bedrooms so we asked him for this. We're going to make DS an address book and get him practicing his writing putting all his friends and family's numbers in it and then we'll decorate them some picture frames for putting their pictures in.

They seemed a bit stressed and wired during the visit but had calmed down and gone back to normal by bed. We'll have another talk in the morning and see how things are then but they seem to be getting better and better at coping each time there's a gap. They have been drawing comparisons between XP and DH. Thinking about how XP always comes back at some point and DH always comes home from work.

I think it's different strokes for different folks. Ultimately children will be hurt by the breakdown of a relationship but if they have good support, whatever way the parent left behind chooses the kids will probably be OK. It's just my personal belief that I need to support my children to have their dad in their lives. If the absent parent applies for contact there's not much you can do though, you have to accept them and do damage limitation.

hope things sre ok