WWYD in this situation?

[HOF3003]

What would you do in my situation?
I have a daughter who is 3.5 years old. I have raised her on my own, however her Father has been in her life for around the last 10 months. Without going into too much unnecessary detail, it was first supervised visits with myself in public locations so they could get to know eachother and for the last 6 months or so he has been having her himself for the day every other weekend. It hasn’t been without hiccups along the way but he has remained consistent and they have built a bond. I trust that my daughter is happy and safe when with him. His situation is that he has a girlfriend and they have their own house where my daughter goes when she’s with him. Now, we were never in a relationship so none of this is an issue for me and I’m happy for the GF to be involved in a way that’s respectful. However, it’s still early days.
Anyway. After working so hard to get to this place we’re at now, he has now told me that him and his girlfriend are giving up their house and moving into his girlfriends family home. So when he has my daughter that’s where she will be. It is currently only day time he has, no overnights.
The issue I’m feeling is that I do not know these people, or his girlfriend really. I met her a few times on drop off that’s it.
Its taken us a while to get to this consistent place we’re at now, and now to have my child be going to a random family’s house, who really isn’t anything to do with her, is putting my back up a little bit. I’m also concerned because she won’t have her own room/space that this is putting us backwards as we can’t move onto longer/overnight care for her. I’m upset that he hasn’t taken his daughter into consideration with this decision, although, also understanding with the current COL crisis that they have had to make this decision, but I’m a single parent with a part time income and managing to provide a stable home for my daughter on my own.
I guess what I need is to see how other people may deal with this situation so I can work through my options and approach the conversation. I am yet to respond fully to his message regarding this and didn’t want to make the wrong move because of my emotions.

I can completely understand why you're upset and how you could interpret this as him not putting your DD first especially as he's only been back in her life a short time. I'm conscious it's very easy to be objective and rational when it isn't your life/emotions and say oh you should do this/think this as though it's easy. But there's a couple of things that strike me from your post - first is you say you are happy for the GF to be involved so long as it's 'respectful' - what do you mean by this (is it about her usurping the role of mum or is it to do with being polite to you?) and have you had particular reason to think this GF is not or might not be respectful in future?

Second thing is while I can see your POV that you're working really hard to maintain your home for you and DD and why isn't ex doing the same, I can also see from his (likely) POV that this wouldn't be a decision taken lightly, it's really hard and somewhat humiliating to have to move back to a parents house or to rely on the help of others for housing as a grown adult, I can only guess they are doing this either out of desperation that they can no longer afford their own home, or possibly taking a long term view that by saving on rent for a period of time they can save for a deposit and a better long term future (and by extension, the same for your DD) - maybe they are thinking that this is the only way they can achieve stability and now is the time to do it. as opposed to in a few years when it would be much more disruptive if for instance your DD was already settled into a pattern of overnight stays and you were relying on that for childcare. Even if he's more feckless than that I wouldn't have thought he's deliberately doing it to spite you or sabotage his relationship with his DD, there's an old saying 'never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity' so he may just be going along unquestioningly with GF's plan and/or have not really thought through the implications on you and DD. And as far as he is concerned of course his GF's parents aren't randoms, presumably he does know and trust them so I wouldn't say that to him (though of course they are strangers to you).

It's a pity of course he hasn't talked all this through with you in a grown up way - how is your relationship with him now? Would you be able to have a calm, rational conversation where you explain your worries to him (keeping it to things which purely affect DD, being careful not to accuse him even indirectly of being a bad parent or implying you don't like his GF or think she's not a suitable person to be around DD as this will automatically get his back up) and get him to explain his reasons/plan around the move (not that you're entitled to know the full details of his and GF's finances of course but I think it would help you to know if e.g. this is a 6 month plan to save a deposit or a temporary measure because they've been evicted or one of them's lost their job or whatever and they do plan to have their own home again as soon as that's sorted). Also, do you think you could manage a short visit to the parents house, at a pre-arranged time, perhaps when dropping off or collecting DD, to drop in for a cup of tea and say hello to the parents, assure yourself the house is a safe place for DD and they are reasonable people? It will be awkward of course and everyone will have to mind their manners very carefully but this is the sort of thing that should be manageable in a civil co-parenting relationship so I think it's reasonable to ask, of course if things are incredibly tense between you or likely to descend into a big row that's not a good idea - if a visit is too much could you have a chat on the phone or something?

Good luck!