long sorry but complex!!!

[chloeb2002]

Ok so this seem a bit wierd talking about personal rubbish online but i could really do with some advice on a few things... I have a Dd now 15 months old, her dad is australian and although we are in the Uk for the next 3 years we will be going back to where 'we' lived before. ass you can gather he isnt in the uk. still in aus, having left his (our) house on his parents property to sleep on his sisters floor? his folks and i get on great and alwayshave done and when dd was discovered on her way.. on planned but a now plesant ooppp's they were great and her dad went into meltdown and our allready struggling relationship went with him! He has made some contact with his folks but still isnt as he puts it talking to them. he hasnt talked to me since dd was discovered on her way. beacause of work we will be moving back into his area. also because i want Dd to have a relationship with her gp's. but with all the water that seems to have passed, a court case because he denied she was his, dna said she was... not a cent of maintainance and me left with the large lawyers bill and dna test cost to boot, because he didnt face up to the second court date... he still wont aknowledge she exists. he is living with his only ally hence why he puts up with the floor, and her two kids? ironic, she introduced us but would side with her little bro if he bumped of the pope! So my first problem now there is some background knowledge is am i doing the right thing trying to get his aknowledgement of his daughter? sent a xmas card from us before xmas and a letter afterwards. I dont know if i should just give up and forgetit? dont know what to say to Dd especially when we move back? and his folks are visiting to go to the tatoo this year, so how do i explain that they are daddys mum and dad?? when although she has spent time with them last year she has never met him? How is it possible to move on ( not that i even want to now) to another relationship without resolving what happened in the last one? Ok so its easy to keep busy, but those odd quiet moments are killers. When we split he said he was going back to his ex who had cheated on him lots! he didnt or she wouldnt have him.. whichever? has since been out with a 19 year old and by the way hes now 31? not a relationship but dinner and by all accounts he pretty much ran for no reason? so where do i go from here? oh yeah and i forgot claims to have no money of course but has bought a new sports car??? not a midlife crisis at all i know but... help!!!

It sounds to me as though your ex thinks that if he says something enough times it will suddenly come true. He is trying to create some kind of bizarre fantasy world and is avoiding anyone who could 'burst the bubble' - ie you, dd, his parents etc. On the subject of maintenance/child support I would say "Go for it." Why shouldn't he help provide for his daughter? Maybe seeing those dollars leaving his bank account will be the pin that bursts his fantasy bubble. I don't know how the Aus system works but surely they would look at his actual income rather than just believing his story about having no money. As for the gp's, they sound lovely. Carry on with the contact and just refer to them as Grandma & Grandpa - or whatever their chosen title is. Dd won't yet understand that they are her dad's parents. If she asks when she is older, she will at least be able to find out more about him via the gp's. It sounds as though the break-up with your ex was at least partly due to his immaturity and failure to grow up. A mature person would find a place of their own to live BEFORE buying a sports car. The comment about going back to his ex may have been designed to hurt you. Or it may have been a part of his fantasy world - when he was with her he had no responsibilities, so if he went back to her he could pretend the situation hadn't changed.

I was going to say pretty much the same as Roscoe.

As you probably suspect, his fantasy world is easier to maintian while you and your dd are the other side of the world.

Go back when you want to, to build your own life. Keep very low expectations about contact with your ex partner - that's my advice. Then if there is some, you will be pleasantly surprised. His parents sound great and I am so glad you have such good support from them.

I really think you should get him to pay some maintenance - go for it big time. This must be easier to do once you are in Australia, but worth persuing now. And you say you and your ex partner own a house. Any chance him giving you his half as part of a maintenance agreement if he really is skint?

You know your ex partner. Is he more afraid of the financial or the emotional commitment? What is his denial of you and your dd based on? Would you settle for one without the other - maintenance but no contact or visa versa? Would he find it easier to give you maintenace if he knew you would make no emotional demands on him? is he afraid that by giving you maintenance he has to take up all other fatherly duties? I'd imagine this is something you have to discuss with a legal person. You could write a letter to him, but if you state in writing what you want and what you are prepared to forgo, this might be used against you - I don't know.

Also, how sure are you that he really is living with his sister, sleeping on her floor? this sounds like a temporary arrangement. If his sister is prepared to lie for him, as you say, he might be anywhere. Would his parents necessarily know the truth, and if they did, would they tell you? they might be unsure about his true wherebouts, not want to stir things or simply want to protect you.

I think if you return, you should steel yourself for some revelations abut his life. It does sound to me that he is not as poor and as desperate as he wants you to think, which has to be good news on the maintenance front at least.

You have made a life for yourself and your dd across the other side of the world to home - I admire you a lot. You sound like your return to Australia will be well thought out. You will have a job to go to and lovely inlaws waiting. So there are lots of positives. Hope the negatives are small in comparisom - keep posting on mumsnet if you want. There are some regular posters based in Australia, one of whom has lots of legal knowedge - bloss, where are you?

you need to get some legal advice on how you can screw him for any money he has. i think you can explain to children about grandparents and that daddy lives far away.

if he doesnt want to know his child - its his loss darlin' not yours or your daughters. i wouldnt go chasing him for the steam off my piss.

hope things get better soon

Thanks for that everyone... well as far as leagl stuff goes, as he refused his nae on her birth certificate leaving her 'stateless' ie no passport for longer than 12 months we went to couert. only grounds to go to court was maintainance, i think this has fueled his fires so to speak... feeling vindicated thati am some money hungry monster. problem with csa is that even tho they can now ask for an assesment of his income, he hasnt paid tax for 5 years now, is self employed for 3 of them and any aussies out there of course hasnt done a BAS return either. so as i understand it if he declares any income the ATO will be after him too. so figure he wont give one unless they force him, or they fix the highest possible amount on him either one as i understand it. Have a great lawyer down under which adds to the situation as he was a 'family friend' still freinds with his folks but the ex wont aknowledge him. so no chance of any negotiation. to explain i suppose quite how deep his head is in the sand we had to get a private detective to sit outside his sisters house, to wait for him to get home to serve the court summons on him. he replied he was going away and wouldnt attend would send someone to reprsent him etc but in the end turned up with his younger nice sister in tow! Unfortuately i do know for ceratin he is still living at his sisters. he has made himself quite at home you could say in her back room. mattress on the floor, built a wall to divide off an area for his sofa and tv.... his folks arent impressed as they own the house. I guess also you could say that all the friends i have there are either his friends or his sisters so very ceratin he is yet to change his routine. His sister is planning to move bush with her fella and kids so who knows what he will do then. I add they are both currently living there rent free and his sister is paying all the bills... single mother not allot of the folding stuff either! in exchange for him babysitting so she can go and visit her boyf. he has never been big on going out so thats no surprise. he has agood job, bricklaying but good money in Aus but as i said no proof of his income... also little living expenses so must have some stashed by now. Our house there is also owned by his folks. we were however paying rent!!! And his nice sister just got married and is there till end of feb when the house they bought is ready to move into. so dont know if he may go back or not.... however his folks are keen for me and Dd to have it untill we buy somewhere when we return for good, which isnt for a while, but back and forth in between and stay with other friends then! so i guess my head is still in a mess!!! dont know if im coming or going.... i think its mostly the hurt and feeling so inadequate. i know im lucky having one of those babies and now toddler that every one wants!! but sometimes that ,makes it worse. well feeling misrable and alone now....pants

If your relationship was already "struggling", why did you get pregnant?
If he never wanted a child before she was born, is it any surprise that he doesn't want to know her (or you) now?
Sorry if this is a harsh response, but I know men who have been in similar relationships and been told "I'm pregnant. I'm having the baby. Your opinions don't matter. You'll pay for the next 20 years."
You both agreed to have sex; you did not both agree to have a child. Contraception is pretty effective nowadays.

Only 98% effective, in general. Most the people I know are the result of unplanned pregnancy, actually.
Just my 2p....
I don't think ChloeB02's child will really think the absent daddy is significant until very much older (like 5-7yo). Just don't talk about him or try to involve her in thinking about him, in the meantime. For a long time, she'll only need to be told that she's visiting her grandparents, she won't be aware enough to wonder about the missing link to the Grandies, through Daddy, yet. How to explain it to her will get easier when she's older. Whether ChloeB02 pursues him for child support is up to her, but don't involve the DD in it. Everything else ChloeB02 talks about has to do with all the usual things about how to let go of failed relationships.

Blimey, zebra, how on earth do you know that???

How do I know what, that most people are results of unplanned pregnancies? Just poll any seemingly random set of 10 people you know... In my family the unplanned include me, DH, our children, all our siblings and almost all our parents -- we don't know for sure about DH's dad.

Maybe it's an American thing? Talking about it I mean. I have no idea who was planned and who wasn't among the people I know - except for my younger brother, because I was around at the time and my mother moaned about it, and one child of one friend, ditto. (I mean the friend moaned, not my mother, obviously!)

DH's family are English, I'm a Yank, so bit transcultural there. English MIL was despondent each time she found out she was pregnant (she hated her DH; MIL's English mother had a termination in the 1930s before MIL was born, so sure she didn't want any more). They come from the most conventional, "we would never be shop assistants" type English family, too.

OK, mentally sampling my friends I met in post-natal class after DS was born and excluding myself so all Brit parents: 3 unplanned, 1 semi-planned, and 4 planned babies. Small sample size, but overwhelmingly professional/middle class, and one would imagine unplanned pregnancies more common in more socially deprived social groups.

Oh, and before you think the cultural thing must be that my MIL chatters & chatters, she hardly talks about anything so personal, not sure how she ever volunteered it all! I once asked my mom if I was planned and she quickly said yes, but later confessed as an adult that of course I hadn't been... hard for parents to say such things if they think it might upset the child. As for my poor British friends seeming to divulge so much, they are victims to me having a good memory for their off-the-cuff remarks.

That got me thinking (and counting!) Zebra. On my side of the family there are 16 of us, two of whom were unplanned, afaik. One is dd2, (she may have been unplanned but wasn't unwanted) and the other is my niece's 4yo dd. On Dh's side there are 13 people, with two unplanned, again one being dd2 and the other is dh's niece's 7yo ds. To look at my family, it seems that contraception is less reliable today that it was 50yrs ago, lol!

For the record know it all stuart c.... i had depo shots every three months and still got pregnant so perhaps mem should atke a look at themselves. struggling perhaps was too strong a word... every relationships have ups and downs... i suggestnow every time you have a sexual partner/ wife you dont sleep with either till you have sorted out any disputes and disagreements.... as to un planned pregnancy it is statistical that 87% of pregnancies are unplanned and 48% of those are concived with contraception. so perhaps nefore being a smart arse you should get your facts straight????

chloeb - Is there some department in Aus where you can report ex-dp for tax evasion? Once his earnings become official, you can pursue him for maintenance. His parents sound so nice. They may be able to help you out more when you go back, eg babysitting. This will help take some of the strain off you. Do you have a local single parents group near where you are? Gingerbread are said to be good. You're doing really well, coping alone and so far from home.

"87% of pregnancies are unplanned and 48% of those are conceived with contraception" - do you really believe those figures?
They don't reflect what I've seen & heard throughout my life.
Perhaps things are different in Australia.

Neah, Suedonim -- we modern girls just go at it like rabbits! Poor Aussie men, though, If StuartC is to be believed, modernity seems to have passed their ladies by....

Please don't report me, MNet Police....

Thanks zebra.. perhaps stuart c needs dragging out of the stone age with his knuckles dragging on the floor??? as to follow on reports are from staff record of the UK NMC, so god help us if they dont know hey? standard questions on the ante natal booking in form's include were you on the pill when you concieved? and was this pregnancy planned? For my typical week, this week i did 12 booking ins and none of them were planned. 5 were on the pill and 3 used condoms so i for one go with the national stats!
As to the tax situation its a case of sit and wait. the csa know about it as they told me what i knew allready. To add however the main point isnt to do with money i guess but I dont agree with why paying for 'our' oooppps is my problem?
The Gp's are fab but i know this will sound daft but i dont know if i will ever feel safe leaving them with my DD? paranoid i guess but when i dont know whats driving her dads resentment i dont know what may happen if he found out that she was alone with his folks? I would also love to get involved with gingerbread but a serious lack of time. any decent lengths of time off we return to Aus. Part of the court decsion was that by leaving the country to retrain I had to not be seen to be depriving any potential access that her dad may at some point want? Also on secondment from an Aussie hospital so I like to get back to touch bases with folks there. I dont know i just hope that time may help? Some how i guess having read the constructive advice that i need to be able to think sod him??? which being rational i know, but i hope you understand what i mean when i say its easier to look through rose coloured glasses when things were so good?

"For the record know it all stuart c"
"being a smart arse"
"perhaps stuart c needs dragging out of the stone age with his knuckles dragging on the floor???"
Clearly you are determined to be offensive but you'll have to try harder to upset me. I'm male, so I don't expect much support on here. However, your offensiveness does help explain why your relationship was "struggling".
I guess I'm lucky - I've never got into a relationship with someone who needs to use such colourful expressions to explain a set of statistics.