Advice needed RE my daughter and ex partners relationship

[Emlewi]

Hi all,

I am very new to this and would appreciate any form of advice/help if possible.

I am mum to my 8 year old daughter. My ex (her father) separated when she was around 16 months old. Throughout the 16 months I was victim to emotional and physical abuse. At the start of the separation, we each had our daughter 50% of the time. There were a number of occasions my ex would pretend to have my daughter and it was actually his mum looking after her. This happened far too many times to remember.

At the age of 3 my daughter started to say she didn't want to see her dad. She would be quite distressed at going but i always made sure she was comfortable with him before leaving her, believe me, it broke my heart.

Things got a little better but then started to take a turn for the worse at the age of 5. Her dad started to say he couldn't have my daughter on various weekends. My daughter started to divulge that her dad and girlfriend would argue every night she was there, the gf would just cry all night while her dad would shout/swear at her. my daughter started to say she didn't want to go for as long as she had been, so my time with my daughter increased while her dads went down. He wasn't overly happy with this but accepted it was what she wanted.

Exactly a year ago my ex contacted me to advise me him and his girlfriend had separated and asked if i could have my daughter full time until he found somewhere to live. This went on for 3 weeks and he only seen our daughter once during this time when i arranged it for him.

I also asked him to start paying child maintenance, something he has never done. He didn't take this request well. He lied about his earnings and advised the CM people that my daughter stayed with him 4 nights a week. Complete lie. Her dad told me he didn't owe her a penny and asked why my partner cant pay towards my daughter. I was disgusted. He pays in now but very often misses payment date, I notify CM of every late payment.

After around 7 weeks out of the blue, they got back together and asked my daughter to stay at his house that weekend. My daughter refused to go because of the lack of contact from him. He started to become very nasty with me, sending me abusive text messages/abuse phone calls. This is something I have become very used to but also emotionally drained and tired of it. As a result of this, I don't have any direct contact with her dad, i communicate through his mum. I have suffered years of emotional abuse from him, my health cant take any more.

For the last year, i have been encouraging my child to see her father every couple of weeks for the whole day on a Saturday. My daughter refuses to stay over for the night. It has only ever been me thinking up various scenarios for him to see our daughter.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and what did they do?

He keeps threatening me with court action but I have never refused him time with our daughter. Would it be best to go through the courts to get a residency order? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

I would offer up contact that your dd is happy with - something every 2nd or 3rd Saturday for the day, like it or lump it. Or first Saturday of the month.

If he wants to take you to court he can, they aren't suddenly going to give him masses of contact or lots of overnight when your dd is 8 and is clear in her opinion and you are willing to work toward increased contact.

I don't wish to panic you but have you asked your daughter if her dad is doing something to hurt/frighten her? Have you had a chat about good touch/bad touch, what places are private, when it's okay not to keep secrets... etc.

I don't want to be alarmist but I was abused by my dad for years. I kept begging my mum not to let me be alone with him but he had threatened me not to say why

Hi all, thank you for the comments so far.

The 2 Saturday's out of the month during the day have been working but for some reason it seems a huge struggle for him to stick to without having a huge kick off. For eg. My daughter wanted to go swimming with her dad during her time lag Saturday. He told me (via his mum) that I had to provide all her swimming gear. Rightly or wrongly I refused, purely because her stuff always goes missing, meaning I have to buy new. I advised her dad that he needed to be able to provide equipment for her. He told me that because he doesn't see her that often that he doesn't need to provide?!

My daughters reasons for not wanting to go is because of the arguments between her dad and partner, he has quite a temper on him so she has more than likely witnessed something she shouldn't. Because of my past with him, I obviously have reservations of her staying but if she wanted to, I wouldn't stand in her way. My daughter also says she misses me too much. Also he lives out of our area, around 25 mins away so she is away from everything she is familiar too.

Your child is observing domestic abuse, this is considered to be child abuse. You need to ring the nspcc for advise.

I would not be allowing contact.

I agree with ringing NSPCC for advice, I would be reluctant to stop contact altogether at this point in time unless your dd disclosed anything explicit that is clearly her witnessing domestic violence recently.

It's a tough one but you do not want to give him ammunition that you are obstructive/playing games etc. as that could go against you. Hideous situation.

I agree with regards to the domestic abuse and thankfully, she hasn't had an overnight stay at her dads for a whole year. I have told him this is one of the reasons she doesn't want to stay over and he says it never happened and that it is all lies. He tries to convince her to stay when they meet twice a month. This makes her quite distressed and comes back upset. Last Saturday her dad started to ask questions about her relationship with my partner (we have been together for just over 3 years). She has an excellent relationship with my partner and he cares for her in any way he can. He was asking what my relationship was like with my partner, "do they like each other, get on well". I find it completely strange and very inappropriate that he is asking our daughter these types of questions. I'm just at the end of my tether with it all. Completely fed up! All I have done all year is try and help them but she just isn't interested in any more that we currently give him.

If it did end up going to court, would my daughter be forced to see her dad any more time than we currently do now? You what horror stories of children being forced to go when they don't want to. I have an appointment with citizens advice bureau on Thursday.

There is no way of knowing. I would ask the school if they can support her by providing a "counsellor" to talk to. It is very good to have a completely independent viewpoint on how she is feeling.

It would be lovely to have faith that you would an excellent cafcass officer who would see your dds distress and help minimise contact but there are no guarantees.

I've made contact with the schools councillor on Friday and she is going to meet with my daughter for a chat this Wednesday so I am hoping she can help in some way.

All I want is for my daughter to feel safe/comfortable and happy when spending time with her dad. I would never and have never stood in the way of their relationship, I have only ever encouraged it even with all the battles he presents to me.

Thank you to everyone that has replied and offered support.

Sounds like it's going to continue to be a long, slow slog as he doesn't seem to be interested in you dds welfare

Wishing you strength

I suspect if he was going to take you to court he'd have done it by now. It sounds like another threat to me, a way to try and exert stress and worry over you and to try and control you.