Co parenting with alcoholic ex

[MamaBear81]

Hi all, I’m looking for some advice. I have recently split with my ex due to his drinking. We have an 11 month old daughter. He has been drunk around our daughter numerous times. His behaviour while drunk is horrendous. He is very verbally abusive towards me, (I have several videos showing this) .. he has gone as far as threatening to throw me down the stairs although he has never actually been physically violent.. he’s careless and irresponsible, falls asleep on the sofa with the cooker left on while me and the baby are in bed, he’s got into drunken fights in public while the baby has been present. I have had to call the police on 4 occasions to have him removed from the house while intoxicated around his child. Even when we were still together I have never left the baby with him because I don’t trust him not to drink while she’s in his care. I even asked a friend to have her while I attended a funeral because he just can’t be trusted. He uses any opportunity he can to have a drink when I’m not around to watch him. He’s good as gold when he’s sober, the problem is he’s never sober for long. He admits he has issues with alcohol and he does attend meetings for ‘help’ .. which seems to be a 10 minute chat with a councillor once a month, it’s doing absolutely nothing to help his issues, as in the meantime he just drinks as usual. He lies about his drinking and tries to do it sneakily but it’s not difficult to tell, he doesn’t hide it very well. Anyway, after giving him multiple chances I have decided enough is enough and ended our relationship. I do not want our daughter to grow up in an environment where she sees her father being drunk throwing up all over himself and being abusive towards her mother. He’s very well known around around our local area for being a drunk. My question is about access to our daughter. There is no court order in place. If he asks to see her and I suspect he has been drinking, can I refuse? As I said earlier, I’ve never left her in his care even when we were together. Am I allowed to refuse to let him take her alone without another responsible person such as myself or his parents present? Even his parents have told me I’ve done the right thing by leaving him as he’s a liability. I don’t want to stop him seeing her, I just don’t want him around her while drunk.. but even when he’s sober, going on numerous past experiences with him, I don’t trust him to not drink as soon as I’m not around to watch him. So my question is if there is no court order in place, have I got the right to refuse him access if he asks to see her while drunk, and am I allowed to refuse to leave her in his sole care without another responsible adult present to ensure he isn’t drinking?

Yes - you refuse to allow him unsupervised access to your child. You have to keep her safe.

Log every incident with police and social services so there is a record of it - incase he does try to take the legal route to get access.

But I'm sure he won't bother or be able to, being a shit alcoholic parent and all.

Thank you for clarifying. I just didnt know if I had the right to stop it. When he was living here, I just used to lock him out when I knew he was on a bender. But then he’d show up here drunk in the early hours of the morning, shouting abuse and trying to kick the door through, and saying I’m preventing him from seeing his child as if I’m the one in the wrong. These are the occasions I’ve ended up calling the police, but all they do is remove him for breach of the peace and take him to his friends house to sober up. He comes back again when he’s sober, but then a few days later he’s back to drinking and it all starts again.. which is why I’ve had enough and put an end to the cycle by kicking him out. But next time he’s drunk I know he’ll turn up banging the door demanding to be let in to see his daughter again, he always does. I won’t stop him seeing her while he’s sober, I just don’t feel comfortable enough to leave him alone with her because as I said, more often than not if I’m not around to watch him he will use it as an opportunity to drink.

I think with behaviour like that you need to set a day and time when he can have visitation e.g. sat afternoon 2-4pm. You probably also need to do it in a neutral place - can you meet him at a park or cafe? If he is sober he gets a visit with his dd, but if not you can just leave again. Lay it all out in an email so you have a paper trail that you are offering access. You only have to make her available, if he doesn’t turn up you don’t need to do anything.

@Greydogs123 yes I’ve always told him I would never stop him seeing her sober, and when he IS sober he says understands my concerns.. but as soon as he’s drunk again it all changes, I’m the “b*h” that’s stopping him seeing his daughter etc.. when infact the only time I ever refuse is when I know he’s been drinking. He can’t control himself at all when he drinks, he turns into a completely different person and he knows this, he’s said it himself when he’s sober.. but that never stops him repeating the behaviour next time. He will blatantly lie and tell me he’s not drinking while holding a can of lager in his hand! Slurring his words, gets in such a state that he vomits all over himself right infront if her, it’s absolutely horrendous. Because there’s no court order in place I’m worried I have no right to stop him taking her out for the day (if he’s sober at the time of picking her up).. but the thing is, I know from so many past experiences that as soon as I’m not around to watch him, he takes the opportunity to drink.. and I can’t guarantee that he wouldn’t do the same while she’s in his sole care.

Your job, OP, it to protect your child at all costs. If anything happened to your DC while in his care, you would be asked why you had facilitated access. Please bear that in mind.

Alcoholism to that degree is a disease - and not your problem to fix. Please try and filter out the noise. None of this is your fault

His parents sound like they know he can't look after her. Would they agree to supervise his contact with her say twice a week for two hours - increasing the length of time once she's older? So you could drop her off at theirs and never have to see him. Then get an injunction or something to stop him coming near you?

I co-parent with an alcoholic. My children are older and they have mechanisms to contact me if they need to whilst in their dad's care. My ex manages to mostly stay sober these days but has fallen off the wagon a few times and notably once whilst in charge of the kids. I reported him to social services.
School reported him to social services too and provided both the kids and me with great support. Social services spoke to ex and myself and we satisfied that I am keeping the children safe and had a sensible plan to reintroduce contact with their dad at a speed and frequency that worked for us. Most importantly they told me that I was resident parent and was very much within my rights to refuse him access if I felt it was going to put my children in danger.
Your little girl is still tiny and can't help herself if anything happened to her dad whilst in his care. As suggested above:

• offer him regular contact at a fixed day/ time for a short period at a time in a public place
• if you trust his parents, see if they would supervise contact for a couple of hours
• record every incident where he turns up drunk, doesn't turn up at all or behave abusively towards you or your daughter
• you have police records to back you up which is helpful
• if you haven't already, self refer yourself to social services. They won't do much at this stage, but may signpost you to helpful resources. They will however keep a record which is helpful and also be able to advise you on your options re contact

It is your job to keep your dd safe. If you can show that you can do that whilst offering regular short and supervised contact with her dad then you are doing great. If he doesn't like that, it'll be up to him to prove that he can keep her safe. The police and social services records will show otherwise.
You've got this.

@Namele yes I do think a public place would be best. That way, if he’s drunk I can take the baby and leave. Where as if he comes to the house drunk, he refuses to leave and I end up having to call the police. I have numerous videos of him being abusive towards me in a drunken state. Photos of him passed out in the middle of the street and in the door step.. even a photo of him asleep covered in his own sick because on this particular occasion he was so out of his head that he wasn’t even aware he was vomiting and I had to lift his head to stop him choking. It’s awful. The pictures and videos were taken to try and show him when he’s sober exactly what he’s like when he’s drunk, because he claims to black out and never remember any of it. He downplays it and acts like I’m being dramatic. But he refuses point blank to look at any of the evidence. Sober you couldn’t wish to meet a nicer person.. but when drink takes over he turns into someone completely different. He’s aggressive, unpredictable, intimidating, selfish and careless. I can’t have my daughter growing up around that, and I don’t want to be around it either.

@titchy yes I trust his parents, I have no concerns over their willingness to make sure my daughter is safe. They have told me numerous times to leave him as he will never change. They don’t think he has any desire to. He just wants someone who will put up with his drinking and forgive him time after time, but I can’t be that person when there’s a baby in the middle of the chaos he creates. I don’t want to stop him having a relationship with our daughter but I don’t want her growing up scared of him.. which she will be when she’s old enough to actually take in the way he behaves while drunk. She is my priority as she should be. It’s a shame she doesn’t seem to be his. He just seems to think of himself being left on his own, not what’s best for her.

@rockingthekasbah yes you are 100% right, it is my job to protect her. And that’s what I try my best to do by not allowing him around her while drunk. He doesn’t see it that way though, he says I’m on a power trip and using our daughter as a weapon to hurt him, which could not be further from the truth. He has asked a few times to take her while he’s sober. But I’m afraid to let him do that because I just don’t trust that he will stay sober while she’s in his care. When we lived together, I only had to leave the house for an hour or so (taking the baby with me) and 8 times out of 10 I’d return home to find him drunk. He can’t even go to a job interview without taking the opportunity to get drunk on his way home while I’m not there to keep an eye on him. It’s ridiculous.

Please do everything you possibly can to safeguard your child from not just the physical risks, but the emotional risks too. Having a parent that lacks consistency due to addiction causes permanent changes the neuro-system and has a massive impact on a child's attachment style.
My children's father had just a few years of active addiction during their teenage years. Contact was limited and emotional support was in place to help them manage the situation, but it has still affected them both significantly.
Unless he can guarantee that he is free of any effects of alcohol use (drunk or hungover) don't allow any access.
Definitely seek support from social services if needed as the Family Courts are not always great in their decision making.
It may even be the motivation he needs to stop drinking. https://nacoa.org.uk/research-resources/research/

@AddictedtoStarmix social services are already aware of him, I’ve had to call the police 4 times to have him removed from inside the house and from outside when he’s been intoxicated and trying to kick the door through as I’ve refused to let him in. And obviously because there was a child present it was their duty to inform social services. They’ve been out to see me, they said having looked into him he has a history of this kind of behaviour in previous relationships, but they are satisfied that I am safe guarding my daughter and prioritising her needs with my willingness to call the police rather than accept his behaviour. I have tried to talk to him when he’s sober and explain that she simply cannot grow up hearing the way he talks to me, the threats, the way he behaves, seeing him fighting, passed out covered in his own vomit etc.. when he’s sober he completely agrees but I’m starting to think he just tells me what he thinks I want to hear, hoping it will help get his foot back in the door. If he genuinely had her best interests at heart, he wouldn’t be back to drinking again a few days later. I feel he is a very selfish man who thinks of himself, his own needs and what he wants before he thinks of his daughter and the affect his drinking is likely to have on her if I allowed him around her in those states.

I’m reading this like I wrote it because I’m in the same boat as you and I won’t let him have our son on his own drunk or sober and we split and I had to cut contact and now he saying he’s moving on for the future and that includes his son. He’s always told me that he’s always had a drinking problem and it never stops!! He stopped for 2 years then started again when I got with him which yes it sounds like I’ve made him drink again but he came to work drunk a couple of times before we go together but I had no idea at the time he had a problem with the drink!! He doesn’t even ask about our son when we still saw each other as I never stopped him seeing his son but I had to supervise him!!

Gosh do not let her be in his sole care

Contact via his parents only

Get a ring door bell to record all his drunken visits and keep the evidence