My Ex wants to stop my new partner from staying at my home when my daughter is here

[Twigbearmoose]

I am absolutely demented by my ex. He was abusive and I eventually split with him after he tried for the umpteenth time to physically throw me out of the house when he was drunk.
I have been in my own home now for 6 months and my daughter is with me every night except Wednesday/Friday and every other Saturday. I have been seeing someone new for a few months and they occasionally stay when my daughter is here.
New partner has not been introduced as anything but a friend to my DD 5, when he stays we do not share a bed and behave as friends.
My ex asked to meet him the last time he was here a d we did that. This sent the ex of on a drinking bender where he was calling, texting constantly. He called my father and told him my new partner was bathing my daughter! Absolute craziness.
I am at my wits end as I believe that ex's concern is not for my daughter. She is fine, she isn't confused and gets along well with my new partner.
I was going to see my new partner on the weekends my ex had my daughter but he said this was not acceptable and my new partner offered to come to me to take some of the stress off.
I would not introduce new partner to my daughter formally unless I was certain he would be a long term fixture. I didn't introduce informally until a couple of months ago. But I struggle to see any harm in mum having a friend stay in the spare room once a month or so.
I loved with my ex in his boxroom for a year and a half until I found a house that was close to her dad. As I wanted as little disruption to her as possible.
I just want to have a little bit of my own life as well.

He's controlling you. Why can't you go see your partner when your ex has your daughter? Why are you pandering to this?

Stop letting your ex control your life OP. He doesn't get a say in any of it. You parent DD as you see fit when you have her. Your social /dating life or what you get up to when DD is with your ex is none of his concern. He can have whatever opinions he wants. Pay them no heed.

@Snowflake2 I'm pretty sure that the ex is concerned because this new boyfriend stays over when the DD is with her mum, not when she's with the dad. Even if he's a controlling and abusive prick I think he is right to be concerned about a fairly random male sleeping in the same house as his 5 year old DD when she is there. The daughters safety and comfort should come first.

Your ex is acting in his own interests and not his daughter's. His concern is not genuine.

However, so are you. Your daughter is 5 and you allow a new boyfriend of less than a year to meet her and sleep in her home. You only see him every couple of weeks so you don't even really know him very well. And you don't sleep in the same room, so how would you know if he went wandering in the night?

Women with poor boundaries and no safeguarding ability are a dream for predators who will target relationships exactly like the one you're describing in order to access children. Whether you call him a boyfriend or a friend has no bearing whatsoever on the risks to your daughter.

Your abusive ex is right on this one

You have totally ignored everyone's main concern, which is that a man you haven't known for long is in the house with your five year old daughter at night. This is how abuse happens.

If you only see him once a fortnight, why don’t you choose one of the nights where you don’t have your daughter? I don’t think he needs to stay over.

not when your daughter is there.

When I was a child I was introduced to a succession of my Mum's 'friends' who would sooner or later disappear, never to be seen or spoken of again.

Labelling him as a friend doesn't make it any less unsettling or upsetting for your Daughter if it doesn't work out, and frankly at 5 it won't be long until she figures out that he's not just a friend, if she hasn't already.

You've moved too fast having him in the house and staying over and I agree with your ex.

Take your ex out of the equation. He was your abuser son his opinion is never going to matter. It isn't a case of people taking your ex's side, it's just too quick for your dd. From your point of view you've been separated from your ex for a couple of years, with separate rooms etc, but as far as your dd will be concerned you have moved straight out of one relationship into another. You need to let her have the security of just being the two of your for at least a year. The new partner should just be for you for the time being, reintroduce him after Christmas.

Why does this man stay at your house anyway? He's not in your bed. Why is he there?

I think Op is long gone. Her last post was defensive. But for what it's worth, even a broken clock is right twice a day and in this case your broken ex is correct. You are risking your child's safety by allowing a man you have only known a few months to have access to her through the night without your eyes on him or her. Come on OP... What were you thinking? Predators don't come with badges, they are kind, charming, good, patient men.

If he is genuine he would be prepared to wait for the sleepovers or to only have them when your daughter is at her dad's.

You have a lot of people her begging you to put your daughter before some random guy you've known for a few months.

Fwiw op I also had an abusive relationship.

I've now been seeing someone for 5 years, we knew each other as teens.

I introduced him to my adult dc after about a year, my younger dc met him after 2, and he has only started staying over at my house the last few months.

From about 2.5 years in we would have days out together, so I could see him interacting with my kids, my older dc and him had been meeting semi regularly as well (to golf and have lunch), after these days out with my younger dc he would go home again, not back to my house.

It's bloody hard being a single mum, it's even harder after you've been in an abusive relationship, but it's taught me to be very, very cautious, I don't trust words, I trust what I can see, and after only a few months and less than 20 meet ups you haven't seen a lot.

You're going very fast, and I get that urge to jump in feet first to have a settled and stable and happy family, unfortunately you can't speed that process up.

The way I've done things has certainly been frustrating at times, now I'm 5 years in and still happy I probably could have sped things up a bit, but I didn't know how things would pan out in the first few years. Admittedly they still might not, but I've made sure there's been a solid base, nothing has been decided on a whim, and he has still stuck around and proved himself reliable and loving, so there's a huge chance that this is going to turn into moving in together when my kids are all teenagers and he has been around as a loving a stable influence in their lives for the best part of a decade.

My kids are my absolute priority, that's not to say I don't deserve happiness, but they deserve a childhood free from abuse more, that's why I left their dad.

Just take it slowly, if you think he's around for the long term then there is absolutely no rush at all.

Please listen to all the posters telling you this is too soon.
There is no good reason on earth to have a man you've only known since November sleeping in a spare room when your 5 year old daughter is in the house.
Of course he might be lovely and trustworthy, and the risk of him being a paedophile is absolutely tiny BUT why why why would you take even the smallest risk? Just wait, have him over on any of the 3 nights your daughter isn't there.

Yeah, the ex may be a bastard, but this is true.

@Twigbearmoose

I'm her mum, she comes first so I obviously wouldn't put her in any danger

This sort of naivety is exactly why dc get abused by new partners.

What do you even mean OP? The whole point is that you have^^ put her in danger by inviting a virtual stranger into your home and allowing unfettered access to your dd.

I despair the stupidity of people. What exactly do you think 'putting in danger' looks like if not allowing some man you've met a dozen times to sleep unmonitored in the house with your young child?

Maybe part of the problem is that you heard all this from your abusive ex, so you automatically assumed it has to be wrong. But pretty much everybody on here (me including) is agreeing that your DD should not be spending time with your new BF, and he definitely shouldn't be sleeping over. I'm sure you want to put DD first, but when you've been in an abusive relationship your emotions and instincts can be all over the place. It can be hard to put the right boundaries in place and know that you're moving forwards in a safe way - and not just rushing headlong into another relationship that might not be right for your or your DD. That's why people are advising you to put the brakes on, keep a distance between your DD and the new man and definitely do not have him staying over. Assuming you posted on here for advice, why are you now not listening?

It’s not just they physical risk of bringing a man into the house

its an emotional one
your daughter is young. Her parents separated. She shouldn’t have to cope with it like or be ok with her mum bringing another man into life yet

I think that your ex is angry that you’re moving on and happy rather than being genuinely concerned about dd but you aren’t putting your dd first either. It’s not great parenting having your bf stay when dd is there. The fact that you only see him every 2 weeks makes things worse.

It’s none of your ex’s business when you see your bf- how does he know so much details about your life ?

Aren’t you worried about ex telling dd that your bf is your bf and not just a friend ? Having bf stay when dd is there increases the chances that she will mention his name and she may be the one who has un witness him kicking off.

The OP won’t be back. She thinks she knows better and seems like the type who won’t admit she has misjudged the situation and moved too fast.

The idiotic of lying to her child about who this person is so she can have him around, sleeping in separate rooms if true means he will have unfettered movement around the house and if not true then why lie on here? To try and manipulate responses to suit her. Neither are good.

OP won’t be back and won’t have listened to a word being said to her.

She’ll be back to tell us that, despite being with her boyfriend for a few months, she’s known him forever and ever and ever and her daughter has known him her whole entire life.

You could script these threads.

How does your ex know you're seeing someone?

Do you know if he's seeing anyone?

As long as there isn’t a twin pregnancy yet …

I was thinking this - it places dd at more risk of abuse. I would leave a camera in her room at night and let him know that you do this as a deterrent.

But you need to stop the ex being controlling. Put it in writing that he has no business commenting on your personal life or who stays with you. How does he know it's a bf? He shouldn't.

My ex has done this with a new gf he moved in with after a few months meeting her child and there's Nothing I can do about it so I haven't wasted my breath on it.

@Unexpectedlysinglemum CCTV in the child’s room so that there will be evidence of the abuse? Or he could just not be there. Problem solved.