Absent father wanting contact again? Would you allow it?

[PumpkinP]

Say your children’s father was absent for a period of time (it’s been about 3 years in this case and he has seen them 3 times in 3 years and the last time being a year ago) and then contacted you again asking for contact, saying they want to see their children, that they have changed and want a chance to be a dad. How would you expect them to prove themselves before you allowed it again? If you even would?

Ex has got in contact and I decided to hear him out and think about it but the last time I heard from him was a week ago now and I can’t help but think he should be contacting at least once a week to see how they are? But maybe I’m being unreasonable? What would you think/expect?

If he wants contact he goes through court and pays for it. And then he can explain why he would like to be in his children’s lives again after being a useless sack of breath for so long.

Has he been paying CMS?

I would demand that he first make regular contact via phone or video calls for a substantial amount of time, every 3 or 4 days or so, and if he can commit to that, perhaps the visits can resume. I would be very concerned about the impact of him disappearing again and the emotional impact that makes on the children. Tell him if he's really "changed" he should be willing to do what it takes to earn some trust. I wouldn't be holding out much hope for a happy ending though. Do your kids even want to see him?

How old are the children? 3 years is an enormous amount of time for a small child. Do they remember him?

It's a difficult one because going to court is expensive and he may get an access arrangement you don't want. It might be better to let him on your terms but you could drag it out and say he needs to build trust and call consistently every week for a couple of months. He will probably fail with this and lose interest but it's not great for the kids I know. I have a similar situation but he's not asked thank god.

No.
I would politely make it clear that he needs to go via the courts and contact centre to slowly resume contact gently. He's already let his children down, he needs to step up to ensure he doesn't do it again. And never give him another chance after that.
No dad is better than a flakey unreliable dad.

To answer some of the questions, no he didn’t pay maintenance in that time, he sent about 3 payments in 3 years, and only on Xmas and birthdays. Since speaking he’s sent some more money. I would rather not go through court as I don’t think that will work for me for example my sister told me that if I didn’t stick to the court order I could be arrested but if he didn’t nothing would happen (not that I would plan to not stick to it but I think that it would only benefit him) he’s said he would never take me to court anyway. So it’s best to not allow contact then?

So firstly i'd say payment for access isn't a thing that should be done.

He should have access, I don't think you can really stop contact unless he's a danger.

That said, he doesn't just get to walk back in after three years and get everything he wants.

Start slow, as slow as makes you comfortable and build up. If it's too slow he can go to court but going to court and saying I haven't seen my kids for 3 years and now my ex is only giving me limited access is going to sound stupid since courts would start slow too.

I'd say start with a talk with DC, see how they react. If they're excited then maybe you can go faster, if they don't remember him or don't seem to care go slower. Don't get their hopes up though, be careful with phrasing.

Contact centres are a good start, video calls, supervised visits in a park maybe or even potentially a letter first. I don't really understand the whole letter thing but it is the sort of step they start abusive parents on when regaining trust.

I started with supervised visits with my DD and I was there from birth. Contact centres were mentioned but weren't appropriate but it's genuinely the sort of thing the courts would go for so I think that's your best bet.

You might have to pay for contact centres since it's not through court (maybe you do if it's through court too) but I would suggest that he pays those fees too. I think that's fair.

I don’t want to tell them yet as last time when he saw them a year ago he saw them once then told me he doesn’t want to see them again, it really hurt them and messed dd up especially and it took her a long time to get over it. So I’ve been quite wary of telling them unless I know he is serious, which so far it doesn’t seem that way.

Honestly? I wouldn’t contact him at all. If he wants to see his children he needs to do the legwork himself. IE contacting a solicitor and going from there.

Your children are the priority here, not some guy that decides as and when he wants to be involved. You sound like you’ve got your head screwed on when it comes to his behaviour, so not telling them atm is the best course of action.

And don’t be worried about court, the most contact they’ll likely start with is letters and phone calls. And if he is consistent with that then it will work up to supervises contact in a contact centre. They won’t jump straight into a contact order whilst he has been absent for so long. He’s a stranger to your kids!

Ex walked away when dd was 2. Tried to worm back in at 7...
She contacted him at 21... He claimed he had been looking for her all those years. Mm think not twat face. My dm still lived in the same house and he had never gone asking about her..
Fizzled out within 2 years as he had no real interest. Text her at best every 5 months!
Unless your ex is committed enough to seek proper contact the legal way I would say he also has no interest op...
Oh and my dd sys she has absolutely no sense of loss /missed out not having a df around.

I should add that the youngest is 3 and he’s seen her 3 times. She doesn’t know who he is as she last seen him a year ago. He hasn’t even put his hands up and said you know what I haven’t been a good dad etc, he’s literally just come up with excuses and tried to blame me.

Let him take it to court. Doesn't sound like he'd bother though. Even if he did you can detail his lack of involvement and anything else. Better not to confuse them unless it escalates to court.

My ex decided he didn’t want to see the children for various reasons when they were 5 and 3. 4 years later I get an email from his asking if he can see them....
I didn’t feel it was my place to stand in the way of a possible relationship between him and the children. Fortunately, the children did have weekly contact with their Grandparents (his parents) so we were able to take things very slowly. To begin with the children visited their Dad every once a month for the day but slept at their Grandparents (their Dad lives 300 miles away and his parents have a second home not far from where he lives). They did this for a year before we spoke to the children and asked if they’d like to sleep at their Dads. They both said yes. Their Grandparents had an evening meal at their sons before leaving the boys overnight . They met for breakfast the following day. After a few months we changed contact to every 3 weeks and they just stayed with their Dad and his wife. This was 6 years ago and they still see their Dad regularly. The children decided to visit every 6 weeks due to weekend activities they don’t want to miss. He also had them half of all school holidays and takes them abroad once a year and on a couple of uk breaks too. It’s worked well and I’m glad I didn’t just go mad and tell him where to go (my first thought on reading the email). He’s not a great Dad - never been to a parents evening, school performance, hospital appointment, or watched them play sports, he doesn’t phone or keep in touch between contact but he does pay half of everything and sees them regularly. The children are happy and enjoy visiting (mainly because they get to choose activities for the whole time they are there so it’s all about having fun.

Ask for written contact , and calls before visitations.

Seeing how the flaky contact has already upset your children, I would :

• let him take the initiative of contacting you, never contact him (test his motivation)

• have him start by maintaining contact with you, say, weekly, for a month or two. See how consistent he is.

• if he is in fact consistent and motivated, I would then consider letters or emails and build up slowly from there.

Depending on how upsetting it is for the kids I might also start by introducing him as "John" or "uncle John" rather than "dad".

To clarify, when I say maintain contact with you I mean only you, not the kids (just yet).

No dad is better than a flakey unreliable dad.

This!

I’m coming at this from the perspective of having messed up by bending over backwards for a man who right after our split was obviously not interested in still being a father to our daughter

I tried all sorts to keep him in her life and learned far too late that this was pointless if he wasn’t interested

It’s utterly heartbreaking to watch a child repeatedly be rejected by their other parent and the damage it does.

I’m older now and frankly from witnessing other children of divorce/separation and getting to know other adults who were the “rankings” go like this:

1 ideal - parents co-parent well non resident parent sees children regularly and is genuinely interested and involved in their lives

2 not ideal but 2nd best - resident parents ex leaves and stays away, has no involvement with their children

3 at best disruptive at worst fucks the kids up for life - resident parents ex/non resident parent is erratic, unreliable, “Disney dad” when he does appear, usually at the most inconvenient time/to create max drama, disrupting the child/rens routines and takes no responsibility for when he doesn’t, doesn’t check in with resident parent

This is a regular type of thread on mn and I always advise as the quoted poster said far more succinctly than I - no parent is better than a flaky one!

yy graph. That's a good list. I've seen it in here and in real life.

We're number 2. No contact and regular child maintenance.
But I've watched the mess number 3's have caused to their families over the years. Non resident Disney parents are a nightmare for the resident parent and the kids in the long term. DS's best mate has a Disney dad 🙄.

Agree with @Graphista. I spent the first couple of years of DD's life pleading with her father (she was planned and we'd been together many years) to have an interest in her and maintain contact.

He saw her sporadically, which confused her - I regret that but she doesn't remember at all. When she was five I moved back to the UK. He's never paid maintenance but he contacted her out of the blue when she was 20 via email, asking if she'd like to meet up as he was coming back here. I told her that I would support whatever she wanted to do, and I meant it, but she said that it would be like meeting a distant relative she knew nothing about. He hasn't contacted her again.

Your ex has shown himself to be completely unreliable and people rarely change.

@Lobsterquadrille2 yes my dd was very much planned too and ex and I had been together and married for years.

He had a total character change when we split seemingly, so much so even his own family feel like he's a stranger to them

Well to prove he has changed I'd say you need to allow contact again. But slowly.

Visits with you present at first, visits for a couple of hours unsupervised then and so on.

By the way, payments of maintenance have nothing to do with contact.

@Graphista mine was exactly the same. I've always had a good relationship with his mother, which I've largely maintained because of DD, and she never hears from him either. In those circumstances I think you're protecting your child if you have given their other parent every opportunity to have contact, but they simply don't want it.

I read a lot about absent parents getting in touch after many years and then being branded as useless rubbish. However, what of the case whereby absent parent wants nothing to do with child and is forced to pay maintenance and then after a period of decades child decides to intrude into your life without contacting you and thinks they can just arrive in your life? Not every one has ulterior motives, or wish to drop in on child. The effect works BOTH ways. you know. There is a lot of toxic attitude toward absent parents suddenly showing up - whether that is good or bad is not my issue. What the point here is that if you do not wish to ever see child then they should NOT be allowed to drop in on you ever - especially without prior contact or attempt at it. Some absent parents have moved on and have other lives and just as jumping in on child's life is attacked here, the same can be said for children becoming older and setting off on their odyssey to "find themselves" by causing upset and grief to the absent parent who has lived their life without them in it. It's not ALL blokes wanting to please themselves - we have lives too.

FFS Ray, are you for real?? Your self-centredness is truly astounding. But I doubt any long lost kid would trouble you for long, it’d be a hi-fuckno-bye situation I’d bet.