No judgment please. If you don't have genuine advice, please do not comment.
I need to get my ex partner out of mine and my sons lives for good. He was abusive and controlling from pretty much the beginning of our relationship 18 months ago although I didn't realise it at the time. I have serious mental health problems and was vulnerable at the time because of side effects of new medication. Gradually the abuse got worse, he used to tell me what I could and couldn't wear, who I could be friends with etc. We never lived together but he would take advantage of the face that I was knocked out on medication and 'accidentally' fall asleep at my house every night after inviting himself round. This caused a rift between me and my family as they were sick of him staying over every night uninvited. He would also go down my phone, laptop, iPad and belongings every night whilst I slept. He used to push and pull me and disturb my sleep if he decided he wanted to have an argument. He would call and text constantly all day and get nasty if I didn't answer. He made me tell him where I was at all times and would follow me if he didnt believe me. He even broke into a friends house to see me once after an argument! I didn't want to have sex until I was married but he pressured me into doing it once we were engaged. I got pregnant almost straight away and he admitted to interfering with contraception. He said he did it because he thought I might leave him and this way 'the least I would ever be to him was the mother of his child'.
When I was pregnant the abuse got worse. He knew my family wouldn't be impressed that I was pregnant out of marriage and whilst still living at home and he thrived off of the arguments it caused. He knew I don't believe in abortion. I needed him when things were heated with my family and he decided at this point that he was now too busy to see me (even though he would insist on seeing me every day up until this point). He left me feeling iscolated in a house where no one was talking to me. Even when I tried to call or text to confide in him, he barely answered me and was very unsympathetic when he did. He told his family about the pregnancy without me being there and told me they didn't react well. Then he refused to be there when I asked him to come with me to tell my dad (who doesn't live with me) the news. I told him he would have to find us somewhere to live and he tried to force me to move into his brothers buy-to-let which is a smelly, dirty 1 bedroom lace in a rough area. Obviously I said no because the baby would be better off growing up in my family home than in this horrible flat. This was the first time I'd ever stood up to him and he didn't talk to me for about 3 weeks afterwards except when he called me threatening to commit suicide. A couple of weeks before he stopped talking to me, my doctor took me off of my medication because of my pregnancy and I lost my job because I had so much time off (due to the stress this was causing me) during my probationary period. It was my first job after graduating uni. I started having stomach pains a few days later and had to go for an emergency scan. My ex found out about the emergency scan and turned up at my house on the morning, insisting that he came with me. My sister let him in because she apparently didn't realise that I didn't want to see him. He refused to leave my house and when I tried to run to my car, he got in the passenger side and tried to stop me from getting out my holding onto my arm and pulling it back towards him. I was 10 weeks pregnant at this point. Luckily my mum came out and I got in her car and she took me to the hospital but he followed us there in his own car. I had to get security to make him leave. Luckily the baby was fine but I was put on bed rest and the midwives told me that I would miscarry if I had more stress and I was lucky to not have miscarried already.
I didn't speak to my ex again for a few weeks and blocked his number. In the meantime I had my 12 week scan and my family started being more supportive because they realised how alone I was. My ex contacted a mutual friend and turned on the crocodile tears saying how he didn't even have a scan picture so the friend sent him a screenshot from Facebook. The friend then felt guilty and told me what they did. Because if this, I contacted my ex to talk about the situation and asked him if he actually wanted to be involved. He said he did. For that reason I thought it best to keep him sweet so he didn't get nasty when it came to child contact.
It turned out that I'd bitten off more than I could chew. Keeping him sweet was nigh on impossible and he let slip on several occasions that he was building up a case against me to get the baby taken off of me once it was born if I 'caused him any trouble'. He also started gambling fraudulently, scamming people and using other people's bank details. He used to brag to me about how much money he was making and I managed to film it in secret a few times. He would completely disregard the midwives warning about stress and cause arguments with me whenever he felt like it. I no longer cared about him at all but he had made me feel like I had to keep in his good books or he would have my baby taken away, so I kept trying to reconcile after arguments. I quite often got stomach pains when he shouted at me and I told him this but he called me a liar and didn't care.
Things got even worse on his birthday when we went for a 4d scan. He 'accidentally' fell asleep in my house again the night before (first time since before I got pregnant) and had woken up accusing me of going through his phone (a bit like he used to do to me every night). I denied it and explained that I was heavily pregnant and needed my sleep so wouldn't have the energy to stay awake long enough to look through his phone. He didn't listen. He kept shouting at me, tried to pull me out of bed by my leg when I tried to go back to sleep, and then stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him. He kept calling and texting, harassing me to get me to 'admit what I'd done' and saying that we couldn't be civil unless I admitted it. I maintained that I hadn't done anything and wouldn't be talking about it any more.
Later that day he called me and decided he was still going to come to the 4d scan. I said I didn't mind him coming but we had to go separately because he drives like an idiot when he's angry. He insisted that we go together so eventually I agreed to go in my car with me driving so I could be safe so long as he didn't try to argue with me or discuss the phone thing anymore. He agreed to this. When he first got in the car he asked if he could just say 1 thing about the phone thing. I said no and he sat there in silence for the rest of the journey, he only spoke to criticise my driving. When we got there, he sat through the scan with a face like a slapped backside and only spoke when it was time to choose which photos to have printed. Straight afterwards he asked me to come outside and talk to him. I said no at first but he persuaded me and as soon as we got outside, he tried to start the argument about the phone again. He brought loads of other crazy accusations into it too and wouldn't stop no matter how many times I told him he was causing me stress. I ran back inside to get away from him and he started patrolling the doors so I couldn't get back out without him seeing me. After a while, I tried to run to my car but he stood in front of the car so I couldn't move. He talked me into letting him in the car to charge his phone. When he got in, he started telling me he was going to take me to court to get my baby taken away. When I said they were more likely to stop him from seeing the baby than me, he grabbed me by the throat so I couldn't breathe. When he let go he wouldn't get out of the car until he had enough charge in his phone even though I was in tears telling him to get out. Then he text me when I drove off saying I was a selfish c*nt for leaving him stranded on his birthday. That's the last time I saw him. I blocked him on everything and reported him to the police. I had to go to a&e that night with stomach pains again. After a few days, he started sending me emails saying sorry because he knew I couldn't block those. I didn't reply to any of them.
The police investigated him and arrested him but couldn't prove that he had done anything wrong so they let him go because it was one word against another. He wasn't allowed to contact me whilst he was on bail but as soon as the bail finished he started emailing me again saying that we had to be civil again by the time the baby comes. I ignored him and told my mum to tell him not to contact me because he caused me too much stress. He did what she said but kept texting her every few days for the last couple of months of my pregnancy to ask if the baby was born yet and to 'check I was ok'. The police told me I could get an injunction to stop him from contacting me but I thought that was a bad idea because it would make it difficult for him to have contact with the baby that I could easily supervise.
After I gave birth we didn't tell him my son was born until I was put of hospital because I didn't trust him not to turn up there. We told him once I was home and he came round the next day to see my son. I wasn't in the room, I just watched on the baby monitor. My mum supervised him the whole time. He fake cried when he first saw my son but stopped pretty quickly when he realised he wasn't getting any sympathy. He held by son for all of 2 minutes and then put him down. He spent the rest of the time he was at my house trying to make conversation with my family who all hate him.
He's been round 4 or 5 times since and it's always the same. My son is now 3 weeks old. Every time he comes round he brings drama with him. He's never just happy to see his son, all he's interested in is asking about me and seeing what he can get. He keeps asking about the birth certificate and saying he's going to get a copy of it. I'm worried he'll use this to apply for a passport and take my son out of the country. He isn't on the birth certificate but we've told him that the birth hasn't been registered yet and asked him to fill out a stat dec form so he can be put on the birth certificate without being present. Of course he doesn't trust that I'll let him be on the birth certificate though (which I won't). All he does during contact is hold my son when he's handed to him (he won't pick him up otherwise), almost give him whiplash when he tries to settle him by bouncing and rocking him from side to side too quickly, and then putting him down in his bouncer after 10 minutes and then spending the rest of the time seeing what information he can get out of my mum or watching tv. It's as if he comes just to wind me up more than to see my son. We told him no photos on social media as he has goodness knows who as a friend on there and he ignored us and put the photos up anyway. When my mum confronted him about it, he argued with her so we banned him from taking any more pictures. Then last time he came round he accused me of going to the police and saying that he had been touching his niece inappropriately. My mum asked him why he thought that and he said the police had been round his house investigating him for interfering with his niece. I went to the police to find out whether he had been accused of this because if so, I'd need to stop him seeing my son. The police told me no such allegation existed so he made the whole thing up! Also he kept demanding to know when I was registering the birth and where. Every time he finds out I am seeing mutual friends, he asks the friends if he can come and I have to tell them no. It's all literally getting too much, I can't see him now because I'm scared of him. I had a baby a few weeks ago and I'm still recovering.
I would literally do anything to get rid of him now because I can see all he will ever do is cause me and my son grief. I don't want a guy like him or a family as messed up as his (that's a whole other story) influencing my son growing up. I'll happily leave the country but I don't know where is best to go so I'm not ordered back. I could tell him he's not the father but I don't think he will believe me. I could move far away and go off the radar but will that make things worse in the long run? Is it best to do something now before he starts bringing applications to court? We've recently told him that he'll only be able to come round and see the baby once a week from now on because it causes too much upset to the family (particularly my son) when he's here, so we're expecting court papers fairly soon. What is best to do?
Please no bashing, I know he has rights etc. but all I care about is my son and he is better off without this person in his life, as am I.