I really struggle to get my head around the fact that the father of my son sucks so badly at being a father.
The backstory: Our son was brought into the world via an emergency c-section, after getting himself thoroughly tangled up in his umbilical cord. It was traumatic to say the least, not helped by the fact I'd managed to shatter my ankle one week earlier and was upto my knee in plaster following major ankle surgery, he would pop in and see us on the ward when he could and when he wasn’t out “wetting the baby’s head”. We came home and that’s pretty much where he showed his real true colours as a father, after about 3 days of having a newborn, being in agony and now resigned to sleeping in the nursery with baby M as he was "disturbing" his sleep too much he stormed into baby’s room after I'd been failing miserably to breast feed that night and muttered "do you really think it was such a good idea having this baby?!" Those words hurt so much and I don't think I'd ever really felt so alone.
Struggling with the stairs, the baby, and the broken leg I set up camp downstairs on the sofa. He would pop his head around the door before setting for work and off he would go. About a month later he proposed, with a ring I quickly discovered had been taken out on a finance deal for the next 3 years, out of our joint account. "I thought it only right" he said and he pushed the box across the table, “considering the baby”. (I later found out in a heated row that he had never actually wanted to get married but it was the done thing). So 2 years passed, I took care of every aspect of our son’s life, feeding, dressing, bathing, reading, tucking in at night juggling a 40 hour working week and a degree level course around our son’s childcare while he would jump into the car and be on his way to work without a care. Yet he would still play the role of this doting father, his colleagues all thought of him as this incredibly loving father and family man.
The crunch came when he’d mentioned that friends had been asking about our plans for a second baby, I turned to him and asked him whether he was serious. “How dare I question his parenting, he’d been a fantastic father apparently”. So roll on another 2 years, we’ve split up..thank god. He’s now living with a 21 year old post-grad in the family home and I have the most incredible man in my life, a lovely home and a generally a fab life. However, nothing has changed with the ex, he see’s our son every-other Wednesday afternoon after school for an hour and 1 day on the weekend. He never rings or text’s to ask how son is in-between those days. He started a new school this week (he’s 4 years old) not a single text to ask how his first day went. (Which is unsurprising considering he didn’t contact him at all on his 3rd birthday).
I find it so unbearably sad for our son that this man has no concept of just being a Dad. I will also add, he has never paid a single days maintenance or offered to pay a single £1 towards his care. I know I’m well within my rights to go to the CSA, but I don’t feel I should need to force him to pay for his son. Are some parents just really this crap? It’s almost worse than him not being around at all, he’s just hanging onto this relationship with his son by a thread. How do you tell someone who honestly thinks they set a benchmark when it comes to being a Dad that actually they are really crap, in a way they might grasp! because I failed so far....