Hi - I am hoping I am posting this in the correct place.
Apologies for the long post but I don't want to drip feed.
I am after any advice or experience anyone may have of reintroducing an absent parent who has mental health issues back into a child's life.
I left my now ExH 5 years ago when DS1 was 9 months old. DS1 is now 5. The circumstances around me leaving centred around me finding out about how my EXH has been lying to me from the moment I met him. About his job (he did not have one yet "went out to work" daily), finances (I found out we were 10's of thousands in debt, he was intercepting my mail, mortgage on my flat not paid and about to be repossessed, credit cards maxed out, I was due in court over things in my name I did not now about etc etc He also isolated me from everyone, had my phone, check messages, drove me everywhere etc.
Anyway I found out and left with DS1. Over the last 5 years I have moved on, created a new life with DS1, have re- married and had another child. EXH has continued to behave extremely erratically, swinging from being exceptionally lovely to unleashing horrific abuse at me and calling me everything under the sun. He has threatened to take DS1 on occasion, and we have had the police involved once due to escalation in his behaviour. Contact went from overnight to supervised (via mediation) due to safeguarding concerns and nothing for about the last year.
My now husband has PR and a residence order is in place. DS1 name has been changed. He calls DH "daddy" - something we did not encourage but have done nothing to discourage.
We had not heard anything from EXH in about a year and then has suddenly started paying child support after nothing for almost 18 months. Predictably he has got in touch wanting contact with DS1. Having reached out to his family it appears he literally woke up one day about 6 weeks ago and decided to get himself a job and there has been a complete 180 in his behaviour. Behaviour he has sustained for the last 10 + years. He has been referred for psych assessment and any treatment.
DH and I are both at a bit of loss to know how best to take this forward. We feel (we are going with our gut here) that the best option for DS1 is to normalise the situation, so he grows up understanding EXH may well dip in and out, break promises etc etc but there are reasons why.
I guess I am wondering if anyone has any experience of normalising the situation with an absent parent with mental health problems. How do we go re introducing ExH? How do we know if EXH is safe? How to we mitigate against any impact on DS1? How do we explain to DS1 what is going on with EXH and where he has been for the last year?
Any thoughts or advice would be really appreciated.