I am desperately after some advice regarding contact for my 8 month old daughter.
Basically her father, my husband and I split when she was around 8 weeks old. When she was born it was literally like a button was pressed and he was this whole new person.
He became abusive towards me just a few short weeks after I had ended up in intensive care, requiring emergency surgery following the birth of our daughter. The police were called but I didn't give a statement as I hoped it was a one off. He'd never been previously abusive towards me. However, he'd often broken items in our home, punched walls, put his fists through doors etc. So he has always had an angry streak.
He moved out and I have tried to maintain contact with our daughter. However, he seemed completely uninterested only seeing her once a week when I was offering contact much more than that. However, he used our daughter as a way to contact me and become quite nasty through texts and phone calls. He would literally scream down the phone at me as I apparently betrayed him.
On some occasions during contact I have been very concerned at his lack of parenting skills:
-he was watching our daughter whilst I wanted to have a shower. However, as I was about to get in the shower, I heard the front door close quietly. I went downstairs to see if he'd taken our daughter for a walk but he'd left, leaving our daughter alone. He later said he was fed up of my remarks, so he left. But is that an excuse to leave a 10 week old baby unattended. It's lucky that I heard the door.
-he becomes quite angry and frustrated when changing nappies, to the point that I have to step in and help. DD constantly rolls around.
-He can't watch his daughter for five minutes as asked to whilst I was cooking. Instead our daughter nearly ends up on the floor having pushed herself out of the rocker chair. He was on his phone at the time, completely oblivious.
He is a very angry person, and when he sees red he acts without thinking. So I have very real concerns about him being around his daughter. He also has an older son (who I still see as friends with his mum) who has no contact with him due to concerns regarding his welfare. Apparently he'd cross roads, leaving his 7 year old at the other side etc. Falling asleep for the day leaving son to look after himself.
Oh I forgot that he's also threatening to abduct our daughter as I got the house and the car!
What do I do? I want my daughter to have a relationship with her dad, but I know that he uses her as a way to get to me. He's not interested in being a father. He's never going to contribute anything to her life, 'much like his seven year old son. Do I have grounds to stop contact? My health visitor is very heavily involved and I am doing the freedom project at present. She thinks that I should stop contact or at least arrange public contact, as it is my duty to protect my daughter.
He is still on the scene, promising to make changes and occasionally seeing my daughter. But it continues to not be about our child, more about us.
He is impossible to communicate with and causes me a lot of stress when I see his name appear on my phone. He had promised to complete an anger management course, but 'he missed' the appointment and hasn't bothered to reschedule.
I am currently having to see my health visitor, a family practitioner and an IDVA, due to being considered high risk. There is also a Marrack (?) that is due to go ahead the beginning of next month. So I have lots of professionals concerned about me and my daughter.
I just don't know what to do. He brings nothing to my daughters life. He brings constant stress to myself which I know is impacting how I care for my daughter. However it does massively concern me how this decision of mine could affect her in the future. I don't want her to resent me, but I can't let harm come to her either.
This man has also many cautions for assault and even knocked out his own sister 🙄
And advice would be greatly appreciated. I am so torn at what to do for my daughter.