hello , is it ok if i ask some advice? i am a single parent with an 11 month old daughter. her father and i were very, very in love, then when i fell pregnant, all hell broke loose. he has 3 daughters from when he was in his early 20s. he is mid 40s now. i am 37. two of his daughters were aggressive to me, one of them posted 2 separate death threats while i was 5 months pregnant, and sent a number of other threatening messages. i was blamed for ruining a family, even though my baby's father had split from their mother 5 years before i even met him. our baby wasn't planned, but neither was she unplanned. we talked about it and wondered about it, and were never careful with contraception. but it wasn't a trick, i always said i had no contraception and that we should be careful but i still got blamed for tricking him. i think i still am blamed. anyway, so many horrible things happened including me ending up in a & e twice while pregnant, with panic attacks. i still suffer from extreme anxiety and haven't been able to work for 2 years. i have been brought quite low really although make a lovely, stimulating calm life for my daughter. i am just a bit humiliated that i am on benefits but don't intend to be for much longer.
when my baby was born, they all descended on me, and kept trying to take the baby. i still received angry behaviour from the one daughter, and ambivalent behaviour from the others, and from the mother (of my ex-partner). they also always made barbed comments about my breastfeeding and bout how i was bringing the baby up (naturally, calmly and quietly!). i moved away - but not far enough - and since the baby was 3 months old, i haven't been able to allow him to take the baby. i am breastfeeding on demand so it is physically impossible anyway. but also i don't trust them all. he tries to be nice but doesn't officially support me at all. just leaves some money in my tin and buys flashy presents. he is very emotional about the baby, and kind to her and i don't doubt that he loves her; but love, unfortunately for him, is merely an abstraction, isn't it, without genuine support. we don't really speak on his weekly visits. we just pretend to be ok. i know he can't like me for keeping the baby from his family. but, not only for the behaviour they displayed during my pregnancy, i really really don't want my baby influenced by them. they are covered in tattoos, smoke, act aggressively, always seem to be in fights etc. awful, objectively, not just because i think so. everyone does. he didn't really bring them up, it turns out, the 'nanny', his mother, did. so that is where the problem lays. jealousy that my daughter would have a proper father. so he is not offering anything really. he doesn't want to set up home with us, he has never said 'let's try it again', or anything. but he expects to see her a lot. i have managed to get it down to a few hours a week. even this is too much for me. i shake on the hours running up to the visit. i want to scream at him all the time but just bite my tongue. the baby seems a bit confused as to who he is, and she definitely picks up on my anxiety. i would never shout in front of the baby; or at all. i now have no patience with him, no time for him. i cannot bear the thought of him taking the baby away even for an hour, to see his mum, who is now housebound. and ill. largely because the death-threat daughter now lives there. she's never been without me and would scream in confusion. but also because she herself - the grandmother - totally ignored me on the day of the birth, and took the baby from me. i just lay on the bed crying while they were all shouting around me.
my question is: i feel guilty enough keeping the baby from them (his younger daughter is actually ok, and rather confused as to why she doesn't get to see their half sister) even though they ignored and/or were hostile to me. but i can't let some of them see her as the others who i fear, will insist on seeing her too. they are all very tribal and very very insular. i am a private person who wants to maintain absolute calm for my daughter, in a very tough area, with very little money, but now i would like to ask him to leave us get on. i just can't focus properly when so anxious. i have written him a letter and edited it so many times. it is in my bag ready to post but i keep stalling. if i could just get on, i would feel better. but i fear my daughter will one day turn against me for this decision to cut her father out. i also fear a terrible response from his side. i have already changed a phone number i had for 20 years to get away from their texts. i think of myself as quite brave, but to be honest, they scare me. but to say that to him about his tribe of children, would kill him. he thinks they are elegant princesses. should i ask him to leave us get on and say the baby can visit him when she's of age? very very worried i am doing the wrong thing but i just feel so hurt still but also so completely certain they will only hinder my child. x thankyou x