I dated my ex for over 4 and a half years, we have a daughter together who is coming up for 7. We’ve been split up for nearly 5 years and I’ve been in a relationship with my current partner for 4 years and we share two children together. Now I know what you are going to say, I moved on quickly and yes I was young when I had my first, I found out I was pregnant a week before my 19th birthday. However, my relationship with my ex was great until I found out I was pregnant. He couldn’t cut down his nights out, he would go out on a Thursday and not come back until Sunday night, he was on drugs every weekend, he was verbally abusive because I didn’t stand for his behaviour. Anywho it got worse after she arrived, he kicked in her cot in a fit of rage, threw her toys around the room, came home on ecstasy when the health visitor was around. It was just awful, I felt trapped but mentally I was checked out for about 2 years before I finally got the courage to pack my shit and leave. I moved in with my mum with my daughter and we agreed on him seeing our daughter when I was working evening. He would never take her, he always came up with an excuse and I was having to phone into work either late until I found childcare or call off completely. We agreed he would pay £20 a week to cover fuel costs as it was a 40 mile round trip for me when he did decide to see her and because I already had a huge wage cut due to having to change my hours I couldn’t genuinely afford it and he doesn’t drive. He never paid me a penny for over a year and a half until I contacted child maintenance and put a claim in against him. Amongst all this is when I met my current partner, when it started getting serious I told my ex about him and told him I was introducing our daughter to him and I was keeping him in the loop out of respect. (My partner met my daughter about after 9 months of dating).
He didn’t take this well at all, he started stalking me, abusing me, turning up to places he knew I was and shouting at me and I went to police to file a restraining order which ended up scaring him into behaving like a normal adult so I left it at that with no restraining order in place. Since our break up, he has had about 8 girlfriends and I have found out through my daughter that she’s met all of them. She now goes to his (he lives with his granny now) every second weekend but atleast once a month he will message and say he can’t take her. He’s done this so often she thinks he just doesn’t want her anymore and it breaks my heart. But he doesn’t realise I still have all our mutual friends on social media and usually when he says he can’t have her I see him a few hours later on someone’s story out in the pub.
Anyway back to the girlfriends, he’s never once told me he’s dating anyone, let alone tell me he’s found someone he’s going to be introducing our daughter too. Before Christmas he had a girlfriend who had a son, they’d been dating about 2 months and she was happy with his new girlfriend and I was happy she was happy. After Christmas she went to her dads and spent the weekend with him and her and then his next two weekends with our daughter he cancelled. When she finally saw her dad again she came home and said she was with another girl and her two kids, I was so confused and said what do you mean? And she said she thinks it’s her new stepmum and asked me if that’s what she was, I said I’m not sure because I’ve not been told. But yup another new girlfriend and turns out they’d been dating for 3 days and he introduced them all to her. Now what annoys me is this is really starting to confuse her, and what annoys me even more is the fact he’s not introducing her to them because he thinks they’re special, he’s introducing her because he wants to see his new girlfriend🤥
She was at his this weekend after not seeing him since middle of April because he’d cancelled all his weekends with her and she was so excited to get to see her dad but instead she stayed at his girlfriends house with her kids all weekend, she didn’t even have a bed to sleep in or a toothbrush to brush her teeth.
I’m really angry and if I say anything to him, I’m just looking for problems or I’m lying about what our daughter has said. I’d happily have her full time but I don’t want to stop her seeing her dad but I’m fed up of her constantly being let down. He doesn’t pay anything towards her school uniform, extra curriculum activities, he didn’t even come to her first ever day of school.
Should I just bite the bullet and go to courts? I don’t want to be the bad one though cause she won’t understand and she loves her dad but I just feel so bad for her. The longest she's gone without seeing her dad was in 2021 he didn't see her for 9 weeks because he was too busy to make time for her. It's just not fair on her and I know in her own time she'll realise this but I'm just unsure.