How to offer contact for DS to ex?

[Soconfusedandlost]

Ok long story so apologies in advance

I (33, DD2) met ex (43, DS25, DS23, DD18) in October 2017 and he said he had been split with his wife for 6 months. We dated November till New Years Day when he pushed for us to be a couple. In March I found out that I was pregnant. I was on the the pill, he had told me he had a vasectomy and we had already had sexual health checks.

The night I told him I was pregnant, he told me he had cheated with his ex wife ONS. I said to him to go back to her if that made him happy as we had always said that we were not serious, was just a bit of fun that was "exclusive". He swore blind he didnt want her and cried as he begged me to stay.

I wanted an abortion originally and he get saying how great a baby would be as his kids were grown up and his DD was pregnant at time. I then went on a family holiday that was booked before I met him. Whilst away, he alternated between saying how much he missed me and was counting the time till I was home, then saying he was struggling with the idea of the baby.

When I came home, we agreed to get an abortion and then he messaged saying that he wasn't ready for a relationship and then cut contact. I went to the clinic and found out I was further along than thought, 10 weeks instead of 4 weeks. This made it a medical procedure than just taking a pill.

I panicked and got advice from close family members and we decided to keep the baby. Told him and he said he didn;t want us to be together but would stand by the baby which we agreed. In between, I was told that he was back with his ex-wife. He kept denying this until she messaged me, saying I got pregnant to trap him (FYI a semi-alcoholic who works cash in hand to get around the system is not my idea of a commitment guy) and saying they never split up, I was just being used by him and he never loved me etc. She also said that she pitied my daughter and the baby to be for being my children as I was obviously a shit mother.

During the pregnancy, she kicked off and sent me abuse whenever I put anything on SM about the baby despite me not having a public profile or acknowledging them in any way so obviously someone was reporting back to her what I put on mine. All i put on there was the scans and when my daughter was sweet about the baby to be.

Towards the end of the pregnancy, he then began messaging me stating he wanted 50% contact and he wanted the baby to have his surname and he wants a DNA test.

I agreed to the DNA test but refused the surname as I dont think you can demand that if you want reassurance that its your baby. This went on the last 10 weeks of the pregnancy, having the same arguments over and over again despite me saying that we had polyhydramnia as the pregnancy was difficult. Throughout the pregnancy Id asked to meet to discuss and sort out arrangements but he had refused until I was ill and then he wanted to meet sp I refused. He was insisting on the 50% contact from birth inclding taking the baby while a couple of days old to meet his family etc.

My son was born following a week in hospital as we were at risk of cervical prolapse which can severely harm the baby. I let him know the baby was born and then 3 days later, he replied to ask when he could come and do the DNA test. He was demanding that his wife came despite the stress she put me through in the pregnancy so I refused. In the end, his daughter messaged me saying she wanted her daughter to know my son so could he do the test. I agreed so he came to the hospital (we had gone back in due to jaundice). He refused to even look at his son saying he didn't want to build a bond in case.

He then contacted me 2 weeks after to say that he wanted to register the baby, I said I had already done this. He then got angry and asked when he could pick the baby up. I said that i thought best he go through a solicitor as I didn't feel 50% was appropriate in the circumstances.

My son was then hospitalised for most of January due to low weight problems. He has special milk and we still meet a dietician and consultant regularly to try and help him. I made him aware both times and asked for family medical history but he ignored me until pressured and then said they had no problems. This is the entirety of the contact.

My son is now 8 months old and is the friendliest little man. He is a little small in size and developmentally behind the standard but everyone who meets him loves him cos he has the biggest grin for everyone. He just wants to be everyone's friend and even the cleaners in the hospital stop to chat to him because he is such a happy pleasant dude. My daughter is dotty over him and they are so sweet together. I feel like I should offer my ex a chance to have contact with him, mainly for my son to meet his brother and sister and his niece who is 3 months older than him.

My big questions are:
1 - Was i unreasonable?
2- Do I offer him contact now things are calm and hormone-free?
3 - Should I offer contact directly to his daughter to meet her brother given her message at the time of the DNA test?
4 - How do I go about any of this?

1-no.
2-no.
3-no.
4-you don't. CMS for financial support, if he wants anything else tell him to go through the courts.

He's been an utter twat throughout OP...he doesn't deserve any favours from you.

CMS is pointless as he doesn't claim benefits but works off the books so is all cash in hand. Even if I could get something I don't think I'd want to.

With my daughter's dad, he has no interest so I've never asked for anything as i don't want him thinking he has any claim over her and same for my son.

A bit fat NO on all accounts, any contact through a court/ solicitor.

Don’t pander to him, don’t chase him. If he’s serious about the baby let him prove it to you though his current actions tell you otherwise.

Thank you for the advice @Mum4Fergus

@epona1 thank you for your advice. He has not asked to see him since I suggested a solicitor as I didn't agree with him having 50%when my son was only 6 weeks old, even when DS was in hospital.

Think I feel bad more for ex's daughter and my son as she wanted her baby to know my son and I'd like my son to know his brothers and sister and niece who can be there for him as he grows up.

I know my ex was a twat but he wasn't violent or narcissistic or anything like that. Our relationship was a bit of fun that went wrong and he handled it badly. I am angry at him and his wife but they're still my son's family at end of the day so cutting them out seems spiteful

Given what you know of his wife, are you genuinely intending on letter her anywhere near your baby? Let alone 50% of his little life!

I think she handled it badly but I think that it was more because he was playing us both. He told me they'd been split 6 months but during one of her rants she told me that they'd only just split and were sleeping together until mid December and then got back together in the February and had been waiting for him to tell me we were over for 2 months. So she was angry at me that she thought I had tried to keep him from her when he was lying to both of us.

I dont trust her with him but I wouldn't agree 50% contact until things were better. Ex has ever looked at the baby so would not be out of my sight with him for a while yet as DS doesn't know him and ex doesn't know his feeding or anything because of his health issues

Let his daughter meet up with you at a baby group. Baby should know some of his paternal.family if they are sensible. You could always drop.outbif it all goes tits up. Leave ex to stew.

Hi OP

Congratulations on your little man - he sounds adorable!

If I read correctly, you haven't at all cut the family out of your son's life - they just haven't bothered to be in contact. This, sadly, suggests that despite their attempts to control and claim him through the dna test and 50/50 demand, they do not have a serious interest in him long term. I may be wrong, but is it possible this interest was quashed when your son had health issues? It may be, unfortunately, that they wanted claim of your son in 'puppy for Christmas' way. It certainly doesn't feel like they would be a steady, loving, consistent presence for your son.

My concern, then, would be that if you reinvigorated contact, it would be an inconsistent intrusion into your lives - sometimes your son getting 'love' of a kind, and sometimes it being painfully withdrawn for seemingly random reasons.... This can be very damaging for a child and far more painful than not having those contacts....

You may need to deal with that anyway- it seems quite likely to me that they will reappear (prompted not by love for your son but shifting circumstances in their own life). I think the more record you have at that point of their lack of contact, the more reasonably you can control their access to him.

Of course when your son is older you can help him reconnect with his father if he wants to, but the consistent love kids get in those first six years or so is so vital for their life time stability.... my instinct would be to preserve that stability as best you can for him now by not provoking contact they are not seeking....the fact that they have not bothered to seek out you/your son in nine months suggests they sadly really don't care about him- so I can't believe they would be great people to actively reintroduce into his life.

Don’t contact him or any of them him at all. Ffs - his surname etc just ignore ignore ignore. Start s new Facebook page with s totally different name and city to the reality and just cut contact. Keep logs of an abuse and phone calls. If he wants contact he can have it an hour every week whilst baby is small and then building up whilst baby is tiny he needs his mum and feeding and not to be away from you. He sounds like scum of the earth and a liar and she doesn’t sound any better. Your relationship and pregnancy is accidental - so right now focus on you

@ilovemylabrador and @BraveGoldie thank you for your advice

I think you are right that they are likely to turn up only in relation to their own lives (they have quite a volatile relationship from what I've heard so hope that he doesn't try to contact just because they have fallen out). I wish you could just say that since they haven't been there so far, they don't have the option to turn up later.

@BlackeyedGruesome thank you for your advice as well. I am tempted to message her to ask this but the other part of me feels that she hasn't contacted us since asking for the DNA test so was she just being used as her dad's mouthpiece?

Sorry to drip feed but wanted to add that he has 3 bio kids who are grown up and all 18+ and 4 step kids who are secondary age and above to whom he seems to have been a good father. I feel like it's the circumstances of my son that have made him such a dick but I didn't make those circumstances.
I was honest about my contraception, he said he had vasectomy when he hadn't, she had her tubes tied so they ouldnt have more kids
I didn't lie to him or cheat and I was only ever aware of the ONS with his ex wife while she was aware of me all the way through according to one of her rants.
He was the one who pushed to keep the baby for 2 weeks until I was abroad on holiday and then he changed his mind so by the time I got back and arranged an appointment, a termination become something more actively wrong in my eyes (a personal opinion)

Telling you he’d had a vasectomy (presumably so you’d be less likely to insist on condoms) is a MASSIVELY dickish act. And then his behaviour’s free-falled from there.

This idiot is bad news all round. I’d be careful because you seem prepared to cut him way more slack than he deserves, judging by some of your comments and questions.

Nothing he’s done deserves the slightest bit of “understanding” on your part. Agree with PP that contact needs to be built up (very) slowly and with caution on your part.

(I’m a father to two DC

I'm not sure why he lied about the vasectomy as I had already said I was on the pill cos I liked it just me and my daughter (obviously I love my son tho, he was just unexpected). He at that point said that when he and his ex wife had got together, her youngest was very young, so they decided they didn't want any more kids so he got "done"

@PaterPower it's not so much that I'm prepared to cut him slack but I don't want my son to feel that he was used as a weapon or to hurt someone else or kept away deliberately.

In an ideal world, when we split up, we should have been able to coparent as the three of us. As they are together,they are a unit/team so we should have been able to put what happened aside and move forward. In the ideal world, they have contact and love my little boy as much as they should. Wish I could give him that

OK so I also posed this question in the lone parent forum and they also lean towards not offering contact, if any of the family request then to go through solicitors and that he is a rampant arseholes (my words, not theirs).

However they keep referring to CMS so wanted to ask what is known about this as I've never considered this -
1 - if he doesn't declare employment/works cash in hand, then I'm entitled to nothing?
2 - if he pays, does that entitle him to contact or tie me to him in any way?
3 - doesn't any amount received in maintenance get taken off your Universal credit anyway so I'd be no better off?

It’s really bard OP - I wouldn’t bend over backwards to facilitate the contact, your ex really needs to lean forward on this and show a level of commitment else he could just up and leave and potentially damage your DC.

He needs to give a contribution, the fact he doesn’t is disgusting whether you go through the CMS or not.

I have been in this situation and was plagued by the fact it may damage my DD if she ever discovered her bio-dad made no effort. He’s upped his game and I’m glad for her. He pays more than ordered by the CMS and is behaving himself.

I hope you get things sorted.

@leftielefterson thanks. With my DD father, we agreed from beginning that he did not want to be part of it (despite planning the pregnancy) so he stays away and I don't ask him for anything.

Things have been so messy with DS father. I don't want to ask him for money especially as he goes to great lengths to not pay tax or be "on the grid" financially so it seems a lot of effort for zero outcome. Especially as I have to pay to apply when we are running a tight enough budget anyway

Jesus, there’s a level of naively to your thinking that I just don’t understand. Give this man and his family a wide berth!

This man is never going to step up and I do not know what is behind his flip flopping but I guarantee it has nothing to do with confusion about his feelings.

What you know of this man and associates is that they are manipulative and abusive. The likelihood that your son would be a priority in their toxic family, is slim to none. Accept that you made a bad decision in letting this mans penis anywhere near you and move the fuck on. The only thing you will get by exposing your son to these people is at best, a massive headache and at worst, a future of therapy to undo the toxicity of this man and his disciples.

He's such a liar, it's probably worth trying the CMS. Unusual for someone's income to be entirely under the radar.

If I were you, I'd stay away, otherwise. They have been cruel and nuts. Let them make any advances and be very careful if they do.

Who says he's been a good dad to his other dc and step dc? All this crazy and all this crap doesn't come from nowhere.

Are you sure you need to pay to apply? I thought you were only charged a fee (and he’s charged a bigger fee) if you ask them to collect on your behalf. AFAIK it’s free to have his income assessed (but check their website).

I’ve no direct experience of self-employed / cash in hand assessments but I’ve seen threads on here that suggest it can make the process more difficult. FWIW, I’m a paying father and it gets calculated via my P46 / payroll returns to HMRC. I pay for a lot of other things on top.

Getting assessed doesn’t commit you to offering contact in any way; it’s entirely separate. If he’s not on the BC and you weren’t married then he has no automatic parental rights and he’ll have to establish them via court. From what I’ve seen on other threads and on websites, he’d normally be expected to build up contact if the dc is very young, probably aiming for the standard (and shit as a committed father) one night in the week and EOW once they’re old enough.

Court can be expensive (for both parents) but it is possible to represent yourself to keep costs down. Keep logs of any and all interactions.

Thank you for all your advice. Im going to stick with my initial response that any contact is to go through solicitor. It's just too stressy to try and build bridges when I don't think it'd be taken up. I've done my best and I'm best to leave it there