Does it get better?

[Littlemouse2]

This post is half rant and half looking for advice.

I have a baby (9 months) and her dad has been absolutely awful to me. He gaslighted me loads while I was pregnant and pretty much used the pregnancy against me because he knew I wouldn’t want to break up with him if I was having his child.

He went from being caring, considerate and expressing his feelings to treating me like complete shit. It made most of my pregnancy miserable. I didn’t feel like I could speak to anyone about it because he always made me feel guilty or like I was ‘beytraying’ him if I tried speaking to family or friends about how anxious and sad I was 24/7.

I found out I had an STI the day before my due date - I only found out because I had thrush and they took a swab to ‘be on the safe side’ needless to say I was heartbroken when the results came back. He denied it and said the test must be wrong. He was on multiple dating sites throughout my pregnancy - a couple I only found after giving birth. One wasn’t even a dating site, it was a sex site and he joined it when I was 6 months pregnant. I found that profile a week after giving birth - it showed his most recent login had been three days after the birth of our child (who he hadn’t bothered seeing). When he did eventually visit all he did the entire time was try and make me have sex with him, and wouldn’t take no for an answer

I also found out he’d been trying to get a friend/aquantance who he knew through me to meet up with him for sex.

He didn’t tell any of his family or friends I was pregnant, as soon as he knew I was keeping the baby he kept me as far removed from his life as possible.

As it is now.. he hasn’t bothered seeing our baby for well over a month. He hasn’t paid a penny towards her and he’s somehow wiggled out of paying maintenance despite working full time. He hasn’t asked how she is but he frequently messages me and every time I try and turn the topic on to her it’s like talking to a brick wall.

I’ve tried multiple times to tell him we only need to be in contact about our baby but it gets nowhere - he starts with nonsense like ‘I knew you never cared about me’ baring in mind I was completely loyal to him and he knows it. I feel so heartbroken for my baby to pretty much not have a dad. :(

To make it even worse he has a child from a previous relationship he see’s several times a week, who he takes for days out, who knows all his family and friends. I don’t understand how he could be so heartless.

Well done if you got this far and reading back I realise how pathetic it all sounds. In my defence I didn’t know a lot of it until after I gave birth.. despite being a cheating lying bastard, he showed a huge interest at the end of my pregnancy - constant messages etc - so I never expected he would be such an awful father.

I don’t know where to go from here.. I feel like I will never get over it all . And I feel trapped with having to be in communication with him because we have a child. I don’t have any close friends to confide in and I feel like everyone else is moving on with their lives while I’m stuck being miserable or feeling guilty. Should I cut contact?

You poor thing. It’s hard to know what to advise. I have known many women cut contact for the sake of their child when the man has been useless like this. It’s normally worked out well if the mum is grounded and has a supportive crew of friends and family and if the child knows they’re loved. It’s good to have a vague idea where he is/ what he’s doing so that when the child is older and possibly want to meet him they have that chance as long as they’re warned and not set up for too much crashing disappointment.
I was kept away from my alcoholic drug using Dad, I can see why but unfortunately for me I was left with an emotionally abusive personality disordered mother and my childhood was hideous.
You sound lovely though and you can do this. Hugs x

You’ve got to enforce the maintenance and cut any other contact unless it’s related to him building (slowly) a relationship with your DC.

Are the CMS involved? If not, get a claim in ASAP and push them on enforcement.

Yes. You should cut contact. You have told him contact should only be about seeing his child. Enforce that. If he contacts to bitch at you, put the phone down. Insist that all contact is by email and only about access times. Ignore everything else.
Stop thinking that if you are nice enough he will suddenly become superdad. He won't. By the sound of it he is only interested in hurting you, not building a relationship with his child. Bottom dollar he will vanish when you stop giving him the opportunity to hurt you.
You say you would be heartbroken for your child not to have her dad. You need to stop thinking like that. Having a waste of space, who doesn't step up, makes infrequent efforts to see her, resents pay maintenance and abuses her mum would be worse than none.
Diesengage. Make a claim through CMS immediately. They don't backdate! He can't wiggle out of payments once you make an official claim.

Get onto CMS and ensure he pays for his DD.
If he messages you and it's not about DD then ignore it entirely.
Only ever respond if it's about DD.
He's soon lose interest.
Ignore all is crap not caring.
You shouldn't care now.
He gave you an STI while you were pregnant.
That could have had serious implications for your poor DD.
Be grateful he doesn't want to see your DD as a role model like him in her life is something she can happily do without!!!

What hellsbells said.

Make sure he pays maintanance. Cut him off every time he tries to communicate about something other than dc. He'll get bored.

You can't force him to be a df. So stop contacting him would be my advice. You are wasting the precious early days with your baby, giving yourself heartache when you should be moving on. He has made his choice.

Thank you for the replies - yes the claim for maintence was through CMS, it was direct pay too so I have no clue how he’s gotten out of paying. Received one payment the first month it was set up, nothing since, just letters from CMS saying they hadn’t received payment so weren’t able to pass it on to me.

Called them up previously and they said his workplace hasn’t reported any income of his - really unhelpful person I spoke to. Phoned again today and spoke to someone better who explained that his workplace hadn’t updated anything (they have to inform CMS if his income changes / he moves jobs) but nothing. So they’re going to get in touch with the workplace to find out what’s going on and let me know in the next week or so.

Still feeling shitty about this all. Trying not to feel bitter because I know I have my baby to get my shit together for but a childish part of me just thinks ‘this isn’t what I signed up for’

Anyone know if they will backdate the months he’s missed? My claim went through late summer, payments started September and he hasn’t paid October, November or December

Yeap he'll havr to pay the missed payments. Probably not in a lump sum though. Keep ring CMS; nag them!