Hello, I'm new here and this is my first post, so please bare with me. It's a long one, so if you make it to my questions at the bottom, thank you. I'm really grateful that you took the time to help me and listen. I honestly just need a little bit of advice and don't really know anybody who has the same circumstances as me for me to ask so here I go. A little bit of background-
Myself and my ex separated 7 years ago due to him being incredibly abusive and cheated more times that I care to imagine. Anyway, we share a daughter who is 8 years old and is also autistic. For those 8 years he has only actually been around for the last 2/3 years because well quite frankly, he didn’t care unfortunately. She loves him dearly and I never stopped him from seeing her he just didn’t want to 🤷🏻♀️
Anyway, he has recently told me that himself and his new girlfriend are expecting a baby and I was so pleased for him, his girlfriend is so lovely and is the only reason my daughter actually likes going to her dads (if she knows the girlfriend won’t be there she pretends she’s poorly so she doesn’t have to go to see her dad by herself because I quote ‘he gets angry’ 😔) I don’t like sending her at all but he threatens me with not bringing her back and ‘I’m on the birth certificate’ card is thrown at me and I worry the whole time she’s with him because I know what his capable off but I don’t think he would hurt her, that I am 100% of but he is verbally abusive I know that 😣
He didn’t actually tell me himself, he sent my daughter to our door, bags in hand and with a envelope, my daughter gave me the envelope which had a scan photo in it and he drove off without saying anything- he told my daughter I’d be angry about it… like why would I be? I have a husband and another child and we haven’t been together for a long time at this point, why would I be angry? Bare in mind I am such a relaxed person and also very positive so don’t understand why he would tell my daughter I’d be angry about it 🤷🏻♀️ it’s lovely news, another to add to our crazy family dynamic, I just pray he does a better job this time with stepping up for that babies sake!
I then text him to say ‘congratulations 🥳 it’s lovely news, all the best’ and within minutes he sent me 2 voice notes saying that he will no longer be able to afford to pay child maintenance and will be stopping immediately and that he also won’t be able to afford petrol to come and collect our daughter for his visits (he moved 38 minutes away form us to be with his new girlfriend and also works very close to our area and only actually has my daughter 2 nights a month)
I text him back explaining that it is incredibly cruel to stop visiting our daughter for the sake of another child coming into the picture and that he also can’t just stop paying child maintenance because it goes through child maintenance themselves (we have a mutual agreement set out by them but don’t use the collect and pay method to avoid fees)
He proceeds to call me selfish, a money grabber and pathetic for not being happy for them… I am happy for them, I said it twice at this point and I’m also not a money grabber, he has only paid for her for the last 2 years before that I worked my arse off to afford everything she ever needed and now myself and my husband are in a good place financially so don’t need his money, the child maintenance just goes towards helping with food shops or school trips/kit when it’s needed and days out for the kids if we have things planned etc.
He starts to become verbally aggressive and it triggers some sort of PTSD for me from dealing with him before so I have to block him to stop the messages and I only contact him again a few days later about perhaps helping sponsoring my daughter for her school event to which he declined and I didn’t reply.
My heart hurts to think my daughter is being forgotten about so quickly, I mean baby isn’t even due for another 7 months and already he is acting this way 😔😣 I have always made excuses up for him to protect there relationship and so she doesn’t seem him in a bad light but even with the excuses and with her being autistic, she still knows what his like and understand to a extent so I think it may be time to start telling her the truth about why otherwise she may resent me for protecting him all this time and I don’t want that!! She has all she needs in my husband as he has raised her since she was 3 and she considers him her dad but her bio dad is still her dad and while we have been kind of expecting her dad to act this way when the time for a new baby came but I just hoped I was wrong but I’m not.
Anyway, although I am not concerned about the money aspect and I am more heartbroken that my daughter is virtually being thrown to the side and replaced I do know how he is, and he only seems concerned about the money side of things so I just want to be able to get my ducks in a row because if I know him as well as I think I do shits gonna hit the fan at some point, so I want to be prepared with facts.
This is what I need help with -
1 - when does the child maintenance money change? Is it immediately or when the new baby is born and registered?
2 - my how much is it going to change by? (I receive roughly £236 a month from him)
3 - am I better off setting up the collect and pay option to save hun causing issues with paying in the long run?
4 - he is trying to tell me that I need to spend every penny on my daughter for it to warrant him paying me anything, his wrong about that isn’t he? It goes towards food shops etc like I stated before nothing personal or fun for just myself it goes towards household and providing so that’s okay?
5 - he is claiming his circumstances have changed and he will be reporting it to child maintenance but I know full well it hasn’t because I’m close with his mum and she tells me his full of crap so do I need to let child maintenance know that he is being deceitful or keep out of it?
6 - should I now be honest with my daughter about why he doesn’t come to see her? I can’t keep telling her his ill or working every time he lets her down she knows I’m lying 😣
Thank you again if you made it this far ♥️