Do I get in contact with his dad?

[MummaJ32]

My son is 3.5 years old and the first (and last!) time his father saw him was when my son was 3 months old. Not before, not after. We weren’t together during my pregnancy as he left when I was 5 weeks.

He’s never been in touch since with me, I haven’t with him either admittedly - but I have always kept his entire family involved and they’ve kept their involvement too but he hasn’t whatsoever.

So in reality, my son has no idea who he is given he was only 3 months old.

More recently I’ve been thinking about asking his family if he would be interested in seeing my son again but I would have to have it on my terms etc.

Could I please ask people’s opinions? I have asked family but I’d prefer impartial opinions
Thanks x

Hi OP. I'm not sure what you would hope to achieve from this. I don't wish to be harsh, but given that you're in touch with his family, if he wanted to be involved in the child's life, he would ask the question himself.

Even if he wanted to see the child and have a relationship with him, your child is too young to understand the situation. Unless the father was absolutely definitely going to build a real relationship with the child, as opposed to random occasional visits, any benefits to this arrangement would be to the father and not to your child.

I would gently suggest you leave it until such a point that either the child or the father asks otherwise.

I agree with the PP, he knows his son is involved with his family, it wouldn't be hard to get in touch if that's what he wanted. I think you will be disappointed if you pursue it.

I would leave it, my ex was absent for 3 years and he has recently got back in contact and I allowed contact but now feel it was a massive mistake, and that’s him asking for contact, your ex hasn’t, that says A LOT, why would you beg him to be a dad? Sounds like your little boy is better off without him!

Hi OP, I am in a similar position, my LO has just turned 1 and has never met his father, his father has never bothered with him, left when I was pregnant and to this day hasn't so much as sent a message to ask how his son is. His family is very much involved in my son's life and I know my ex tells a different story that he "tries" to be a dad - he doesn't.
But yet I have had an urge recently to bite the bullet and reach out as I feel guilty for my little boy that perhaps I haven't done enough to help build a relationship with his father? Will my son one day be angry at me for not doing enough? Am I partly to blame for not reaching out to my ex?
But then I realise - no. My ex is a 30 year old fully capable man who, if he wanted to be in my sons life he'd be in it. He'd message, post letters, be knocking at my door adamant to be in my precious son's life. We should have to convince these heartless pigs to be in our babies lives. And we can't, because what benefit does that bring for our children? Nothing, just sets them up for disappointment. So this is what I remind myself when I have a moment of weakness!

@PumpkinP yeah I agree he is better off! I guess I just always wanted to do the right thing but I can’t force him!

@HPLmummy I can’t express how much I could have written exactly what you wrote there. Always wondering if I could do more. My ex is also 32. Thanks for sharing your experience with me, resonates so much!

@HPLmummy I could have written your post, except I unfortunately have the addition of violence from my son’s father because I insisted on continuing the pregnancy even though he didn’t want me too. This definitely helps me on my weaker days, but ultimately a man heartless enough to ignore his child for years I’d unlikely to bring any good to their life thereafter if they do meet them.

My only additional suggestion is that you could let the family members know that you would be willing to let him see his son if he wanted to. There is a very small chance that pride or fear of your rejecting him is stopping him from asking to see his son, by letting his family know you wouldn’t prevent contact you could remove any doubt for yourself that he simply doesn’t want to be involved.

Dd asked me specifically to get in touch and ask him to meet her. So I did. This time he pretended he was on board with it, admitted he had been harsh before and strung us along for 5months saying he would meet her (my friend supervising so we didn't have to meet) then the last week before the meet he changed again and said that he needed me to drop maintenance if he was going to meet her then threw a huge strop when I said it wasn't pay per view. We haven't spoken since but some months later CSM wrote to me saying I needed to go to mediation if I wanted maintenance, he was paying £5pw, so I just jacked it in.
Now he literally has zero excuse for not seeing her and guess what, he still hasn't tried/sent a card on her birthday - she is 9 tomorrow. Dd is far better without someone like that in her life and neither of us need to be treated as an option. You do get past this, but every now and then the idea will re-surface. I'd also only contact family if you know they are not drama loving-we had that at the very start of our break up which sealed a lot of the problems.