Should I continue to let him see our child?

[Annie421]

Can't go into too much detail as it would take far too long!

I was with my ex partner for 8 years, we met abroad and after 3 years I decided to move to his country, we always said that we wanted a baby, we had talked about it in great depth, decided on names etc, after I got pregnant (after 7 years of being together) he left me and said that he didn't want to be with me, soon after his family made him come back to me. All throughout my pregnacy he was horrendous to me, I suffered extreme emotional abuse and some physical, he really did make my life a living hell, he even used to have me followed whenever i left the house then he would report back telling me where i had been and who i had talked to, I came back to the UK for the birth of our baby, he refused to come because i wouldn't give him money, Since having our baby I decided that there was no way that I could live with him in his country again as the emotional abuse was just too much to stand, he came to the UK for a few weeks after the baby was born, I foolishly thought that he might be different here - he was even more abusive as he was way out of his depth and couldn't cope with the culture here, he also couldn't cope because I wasn't dependent on him. He returned back to his country and I have visited him since every few months for a few weeks at a time, nothing has changed, he is nice when we first arrive but he can't keep the niceness up and soon turns nasty, his family aren't that clean and our baby is filthy after being with them, she also ends up with nits after visiting them, the last time i went I had booked a ticket to stay with him for 4 weeks, after 5 days he smashed the house up and said that he was taking our baby off me, I managed to push him out of the front door which he tried to kick in, in the end one of the neighbours pulled him away, I left a few days after and came back to the UK.

The reasons for his abusive ways, i believe, is that he orginally thought that perhaps he could get money off me, i would buy a business for him ( this is what usually happens in his country, usually the men go with much older european women though) i think he was just a fake at the start and now his true colours are showing. He has not once given me any money to support our baby, even when I lived with him I had to work and he would regularly demand money from me ... not that i ever gave him any, he thought it was acceptable to sleep in bed all day and for me to work, pay the bills, buy the food etc.

So, the question is, should i continue to take our baby to his country? I don't want anything to do with him personally, everytime I phone him he tries to cause a problem between us and then says that I am keeping his baby from him, this isn't the case, I can't afford the air fare all of the time and it is a 6 hour flight which is hard to do alone with a baby, one minute he's telling me he loves our baby to death, the next he forgets her 1st birthday. I really don't want to go back to that hell hole but I do feel guilty not taking our baby to see him. In the back of my mind I know it's stupid, he beats his sisters and keeps them locked in the house, i know he would do the same to our daughter when she is older.

I may sound mental for getting into a relationship in the first place with this man but he acted like a saint for many years and completely trapped me.

Why do you feel guilty for not taking your baby to see him? Your child won't thank you when he/she is older for exposing them and yourself to abusive behaviour.

Do you think your child is going to be happy that their mum put themselves in a situation they could be physically and emotinally abused? Children, when they're older, tend to blame their mother for not keeping them safe in abusive situations.

You also have to consider that he may decide to stop you returning to the UK at some point by getting a court order in his country and blackmailing you for the money you think he married you for just to get your baby back...

If he wants to see his baby he can come to the UK. And you can arrange contact via a third party when/if he is here so you don't have to see your ex ever again.

I know you're right, it's just the constant texting and emailing off him, it's doing my head in, someone from my family will have to regulary go over to where he lives as I own property there that I am trying to sell so there is that constant tie to him, my property is in the same area as his parents house. He is now trying to emotionaly blackmail me, he'll ask for money and when i tell him i have none he tries to put me on a guilt trip about not taking our daughter to see him, he thinks i have a never ending pot of money.

Get yourself a separate phone. Let him text you on the one phone/number you already have and use the other for everything else.

Tell him to only contact you on matters regarding your dd and ignore anything else.

Switch the phone on once a day to check the messages and deal with anything then. If it's not related to your child he doesn't need to be texting you and you certainly don't need to respond at all.

Emails - get any from him redirected to a separate inbox. Read them once a day/week and ignore them till then. Anything related to your child is fine, but anything else ignore.

Don't let him twist something (like wanting money) into being about your dd. It is not, he is trying to guilt you into getting what he wants.

It's been said before many times, and I have taken this on board from other threads so I hope you will too.
'No' is a complete sentance - Practise saying it, it gets easier the more you do :)

Well I'm going to agree, it sounds mental that you were in a relationship for 7 years with this guy. And had a child with him. You reap what you sow.

You have to do what is best for your child. Regular 6 hour flights don't really look good. But you did makes child with this man, he is her dad. Playing the devils advocate, you have taken his child half way around the world to a country he can't gel withlet alone afford.

The best that could happen is he changes, maybe via his parents, and somewhere somehow your child gets to have a loving dad in another culture.

If you can Annie, try to think forward to a time when you don't have the property tie any more and you've blocked his emails and texts. These are all temporary binds that you don't have to put up with and can end. Then you can think clearly about what's best for you and your baby.

I agree with Gilly, if he wants to see the bubba, he can see her through a third party in the UK. You've done your bit now set yourself free to be a super smashing mum.

No. Tell him he will have to come to the UK if he wants to see her and pay for his own ticket because you can't afford it, what with paying for your child's needs entirely on your own. And do all the communication restricting stuff that Gillybean2 says.

MrGin "Well I'm going to agree, it sounds mental that you were in a relationship for 7 years with this guy. And had a child with him. You reap what you sow" - He wasn't like this before I got pregnant so i find your comments somewhat harsh. ... and yes I don't mind reaping what I sow, after all I have an amazing little girl.

And Mrgin, as for him not affording this culture, he wont work here, I suggested her works here but he wants me to work and support him here

Loobyloo1902 i would love to be abe to see into the future, my biggest worry is that my daughter will be 5, 6, 7, 8, etc when the property is finally sold, nothing is selling there at the moment due to the political climate. I just wish the property could be sold, i've even drastically reduced the price.

annie - your situation sounds remarkably similar to mine except that I stayed for too long and never bought property in his country (though could easily have done and was often seriously considering doing so). Several years on all his problems have now become my fault, including the fact that while living in my house in the UK, he was bumming around in bed all day and staying up at night chatting online.

The long period of time spent in the UK has allowed my (not D)H to gather ammunition to use against me, identify my weak spots and report me to the authorities as being a bad mother (even though I was obv doing everything as well as paying for everything). Apparently the latter is also something he grumbles about in the context of falsely claiming that I was controlling, not allowing him to participate even though nothing could be further from the truth.

I am absolutely exhausted, his malice is neverending. He uses Skype to wage a hate-campaign against me from abroad which is directly impacting upon our day-to-day-life. My parents were very well-meaning in encouraging me to overlook his faults and stick it out for the sake of the DCs.. I should really have followed my instincts and left him in his village abroad.

Agree with eighties

All you have to do - is precisely nothing. Perhaps it might be courteous of you to inform him of a change of address if you ever move.
You will be shot of the property eventually. I would change email address, tell your friends of your new number and chuck out that phone (or block his number). He can write if absolutely necessary. That will show if he wants to seriously keep in contact with his DD or if he just gets a kick out of hassling you.

I'd be afraid that if you too the baby to visit him (frankly bending over a whole lot further backwards than I would do) that he could kidnap the child and that you would not be able to get her back. That is a very real possibility. Either because he thinks that you might "buy" her back or just because his ego/male image in his country will not permit you to have "won".

Would you want your child brought up apart from you by his family in his country?

Change your phone number. If he really wants to he will find a way to make contact. If you are feeling very generous give him the contact details of your lawyer and tell him to communicate via that third party. That way you can't be accused of having cut off all contact with him.

Hi, thanks for everyones advice, petersham - yours sounds a lot like mine, everything that happens in the world is my fault, he literally blames me for everything, and if anything goes wrong in his life, ie, he lost his job as a driver because he couldn't get out of bed then it's my fault, he forgot his daughters 1st birthday because i didn't remind him.

I agree with you Athrawes, i have nightmares about him taking our baby, and i know he wouldn't do it because he wants her, he wouldn't have any money to pay for her and would expect his family to do so, he would take her to spite me, her life would be hell.

You guys really have helped me put things into perspective, thank you!

Good luck - if you don't define the boundries now it will be a lot harder several years down the line when your DC is more independent & no longer needs your physical care and attention as intensively as she does now. And he might even grow on her ... thankfully even my youngest has no emotional bond with DH whatsoever as he simply did not invest in their relationship as a father should.