Coronavirus and shielding non resident parent AIBU

[AwkwardAsAllGetout]

I’d like some outside perspective on this as I genuinely don’t know if I am BU. I have a 7 year old dd and we live a good 4 hours away from her dad (I moved closer to my family when she was under a year old after he left us). He normally sees her for one weekend a month and has been pretty shitty at contact between these times tbh, but I’ve been impressed that he still makes the drive to come and see her. He’s now not seen her since February. Apparently his girlfriend (who he lives with) is shielding and neither can leave the house or have anyone around until August at the earliest. Is this true? I’m so confused by current guidelines that I can’t decide if he’s being really shit or if he genuinely has no choice. I don’t know the circumstances of why she’s shielding. It’s caused bad feeling for me as a few weeks into lockdown I really struggled with dds behaviour and I asked him to help, which is when he told me about the shielding. I have other dc at home and he does not. I’ve asked him today when he intends to see her and he said not until August. He was meant to call her yesterday but sent a message saying he’d forgotten as he was busy making his dinner. What would you do in this situation? At a very basic level, he’s saved a huge amount of money on petrol from not coming here and my costs have increased as I have dd home (eating ) all day. Would you ask for more maintenance to reflect this? The amount he pays takes into consideration the distance he drives and the frequency of his contact. Aside from costs, I fear their relationship is going to suffer from not seeing each other. I can’t understand it at all, nothing would keep me from seeing my child.

@OhFuckOffWithTheBubbleBollocks

"We've slept in separate bedrooms, eaten separately and not sat in the same room together"

That sounds incredibly difficult. How long you could live like that though? Or moving out and not seeing your DD or DH. How long could you do it for, if this situation lasts for a few years? I'm not being snarky. I just don't think I could do it myself, to be honest. In some ways I'm "lucky" in that I have to share a room with DH as I'm epileptic. Even so, I seriously would not have managed the last couple of months never sitting or sleeping with him. It's literally the only thing keeping me going.

My other fear would be that if we did live^ like that and it went on much longer, at some point we would have to crack and stop it, then I would feel regret for the time we did^ spend apart.

It's really hard isn't it.

It is hard but then to be honest I would rather that than catch it and be contemplating ITU or worse.

I'm assuming government didn't choose to shield me for shits and giggles.

Whilst he is technically correct i think it’a pretty shitty. For him to have taken the child out for the afternoon and not taken her to the house would be pretty low risk for the gf. It does sounds like he can’t be bothered if he won’t even keep to a video call schedule.

This is definitely a whole other thread in itself, but it really saddens me that the current situation has really highlighted the shitty behaviour of a lot of men (especially as parents) which is excused or accepted. It's really depressing.

Hooves (sorry to hijack the thread a bit) will you be relaxing your restrictions in line with the government advice ie you don't have to social distance within the house from 6th July?

Hooves (sorry to hijack the thread a bit) will you be relaxing your restrictions in line with the government advice ie you don't have to social distance within the house from 6th July?

Yes, I will. I think we will continue sleeping in separate beds as that seems to be a big risk factor for higher viral loads but we will eat together and spend time together during the day.