4 years ago I (45) had to stop my daughters (now aged 12 & 13) from having contact with their Dad (41) I was in a relationship with him for 10 years where he used coercive control over me, cheated on me countless times including during both pregnancies and eventually assaulted me in the street when he was drunk. He lies to and manipulates everyone in his life and I’ve even been advised by his ex best friends and members of his family to keep him as far away from the girls as possible.
After we split he continued to date multiple women who he paraded the girls in front of in an attempt to demonstrate what a good person he was. This included taking them to parks and arranging to meet women there and taking them to places where the women worked. He never introduced them officially as he knew the girls would tell me.
I moved on and started a relationship with my now Husband. It was only after I moved on that he finally stopped harassing me (this had been reported to the police and he’d been told to only contact me to discuss the children). A few months later I found out that every time he saw or spoke to the girls he was pumping them for information about what I was doing etc. By this time he was also involved in a “long term” relationship (I’ve used quotation marks because he basically will stay with whoever is willing to keep him) and said he wanted to introduce her to the girls. I said no because I felt it was too soon, he’d been with her a couple of months but I wasn’t confident it was going to last because of his cheating etc and said I wouldn’t allow it until they’d been together for 6 months. Before 6 months was up I’d stopped contact because he was trying to manipulate the girls and I had evidence that people who he’d had in his flat (friends of the new gf) were carrying knives and appeared to be taking drugs. I stopped him from having the girls initially but continued to allow phone calls but then I overheard him say things like “Daddy’s really sad today because Mummy won’t let you see me”. My oldest daughter is very sensitive and this was really upsetting for her.
Fast forward to now… the girls have flourished without his influence, they’ve become confident & mature and we’ve been really close. I’ve always been honest about why they didn’t see him and explained in an age appropriate way that he wasn’t a good person to be around and I was protecting them from his manipulation until they were old enough to see through his lies.
This past weekend I found out that they have been in contact with him for the last 4 months. He waited near their school and approached them when they were on the way home. He’s actually told them to lie to me about who they’re with and where they’re going and met up with them several times. He’s told them to change his name in their phones and mute chats so that I don’t find messages from him. He’s basically teaching them to use all the tactics he used when he was cheating.
I only found out about it all because my youngest daughter confessed the real reason why she’s started self harming. She’s been so stressed over keeping this huge secret that she started cutting her arms and legs.
I don’t know what to do… I feel like my whole world has fallen apart and I’ll never have the same relationship with my girls ever again because of this. I know they miss him but he damaged me so much (I have complex ptsd because of the relationship with him) and I just can’t let him do that to them