troublesome ex is threatening court action

[princessbea]

Hi girls, I am in need of a bit of advice. I have a 3 month old son who I am raising on my own. Me and his father split up around 7 months ago when I was 25 weeks pregnant. He suffers from Borderline personality disorder so is somewhat unstable. He tried very hard to force me to have an abortion, using emotional blackmail and he was quite verbally abusive. He said having the chilld would ruin his life, make him lose his job ect He even threatened suicide should I go through with the pregnancy and once threatened both mine and the babies life. Eventually I decided the only thing to do was to remove myself from the situation, I moved back home up north(he lives in London) to stay with my family and have my little one. I left things rather ambiguously with him and let him assume that I would not be keeping the baby so he would leave me alone.

I had my baby and we are doing very well, we have moved into our own little house together and I am finally settling into life as a new mummy. All was well until he found out about the baby earlier this week. He asked if the child was his, saying he hoped it was, he had made a huge mistake, had sorted himself out ect. I thought it would be ok to tell him as I wanted to give him the chance to know his son and my baby his father, even if it was on a strictly supervised basis. But as soon as I confirmed the baby was his he totally flipped out just as he had previously. He was horrible, saying the baby would be better off still born than with me, that I had hidden his child from him, a child he had apparently desperatly wanted and threatened to take me to court so he could try and take my baby away from me and raise him on his own. I know he will get nowhere with this, especially seeing as we were not married and he isnt on the birth certificate, but I am still scared :( I want to do everything I can to protect my baby and also myself but i'm not sure where to start. And am i right to keep him away? He has kind of got in my head a bit and a little bit of me feels horribly guilty for lying to him and hiding the birth, but I only did what I did to protect me and my baby and I told him the truth as soon as he asked. can anyone give me some advice? thankyou so much in advance

Get in touch with Women's Aid for the best advice on keeping this dickhead at a distance. Is there any record of his unpleasant behaviour? (did you ever have to call the police on him, do you have any letters/emails/texts that he sent you?)
He won't get custody of your child. The most he will get is contact, and if there is evidence of abuse that will be heavily supervised. Also, he has no right whatsover to direct contact with you and if he bothers you with emails, phone calls or turns up on your doorstep you can ignore him and/or involve the police when necessary.
He's a pathetic little prick, he doesn't have superpowers, and you can keep him at a distance until he gets bored and goes away.

I don't have good advice about custody issues etc... but please make sure to record any future phone calls, save any texts, emails etc... and make sure you stay calm, act as the "reasonable" adult in any communication. Good luck!