Hi
I think I need to rant on here because I am so sick to death of constantly biting my tongue. For background - I am not in a relationship with my daughters father because he was great when we first met but over time his emotional meltdowns became too much for me to deal with and I chose to leave our relationship when I was pregnant because he was literally making me ill.
Since she’s been born I’ve been trying to encourage their relationship and in the first year of her life he cancelled the arranged times for him to see her so many times but used to use me as the reason why. For example on more than one occasion he said to me that he had meetings after work so would be late to see her (she was only a tiny baby so he would come to my house for contact in the early days which he was happy with as he didn’t feel confident). I said it was fine about him running late and he would say ‘oh no you’re so tired so I’ll see her tomorrow’ even though I said loads of times I’m not tired and he would say he’s just looking out for me. Then a few days later he would message saying he was upset he didn’t get the chance to see our daughter much because of how tired I’ve been and it’s unfair?
He also demanded to have her for full days without me from 4 weeks old when she was exclusively breast fed and told me what a selfish mum I was when I said this wouldn’t work. He said that my choice to breastfeed was actively stopping my daughter from connecting with her dad.
He has introduced DD to three different girlfriends since she’s been born (she’s only 20 months) but still insists on telling me that he won’t be happy if I were to ever meet someone as it won’t be fair on him that they will see DD more often than him. I haven’t seen anyone and don’t intend to for the foreseeable because I can’t be fucking arsed with the punishment from him.
I had to force him to pay maintenance and when I had the audacity to bring that up initially he said ‘do you know how it feels to have to ask my girlfriend to pay for our meals out because I can’t afford it - how do you expect me to pay you money as well’.
There are so many examples and each and every time I’ve kept my cool because you simply can not hold a different opinion to him - he explodes and becomes so passive aggressive. Last year we had a disagreement because I bought him a hamper with all the shampoo and bath soap I use for DD as a nice gesture to show my support to him for her first overnight stay. This got twisted to me being controlling and implying he’s an incapable dad which then led to him telling me he is not going to be letting me know how DD is when she stays with him for the foreseeable future. She was only 13 months old at the time and this felt so cruel and drove me almost insane. I had horrific PND with suicidal thoughts and was ill to the point where at times I couldn’t even get words out of my mouth and lost a sickening amount of weight. He knew this and told me to stop trying to make him feel bad when I told him in conversation once. He was going off about something and I said to him to please stop because I was unwell and just couldn’t deal with the abuse - he would send me paragraphs and paragraphs of it.
Anyway the reason for this rant is because I’ve had it up to my eyeballs now. So the most recent mood swing is because last Saturday he messaged saying ‘can I FaceTime DD tomorrow’ to which I said yes of course we will give you a call. I text him at 2pm on the Sunday saying DD had just woken from her nap (she was having later naps that whole week as me and her were Covid positive and the fatigue hit her hard). He then told me not to bother because it was too late in the day and he had to walk his dogs. I said ok, we can FaceTime this evening or tomorrow evening and he said don’t worry about it. I then got silent treatment for 3 days - he didn’t bother asking how DD was even though he knew she was unwell. He then text on the Thursday saying that he was angry and ‘miffed’ that he never got the chance to FaceTime DD which is why he didn’t want to talk to me. I said I’m confused about that statement as I offered him three different opportunities in those messages and it’s unfair to make me appear difficult when I feel I’m actually very accommodating. He then said I always turn everything around and make it out like it’s a witch hunt against me. He sent his usual texts which are filled with paragraphs of reasons why I’m unreasonable and he’s hard done by. I simply replied saying ‘I know it’s been hard for you to not see her whilst we’ve been isolating. You are welcome to FaceTime whenever you like, always.’ And he accused me of being blunt and rude.
I’m fucking sick of him. Him being in my life is just a constant erosion of my sanity. He has said some awful things to me over the years and treated me like a piece of shit and I always put my feelings about him aside because it’s not my DDs problem and this should not affect her. But it’s so hard because I bend over backward and I never rise to his pathetic passive aggression but it gets so tiring being the strong one all the time.
I feel like I’m left with residual energy and anger from stuff I refuse to say to him because it will just give him a reaction which is what he wants from me.
Since she’s been born he goes in cycles of hating me and then turning nice and then asks me on a date (this has happened six timesaver - I’ve said no every time) even though it was my decision to split up and each time I say no he ends up sulking and making unreasonable demands about contact with DD. I’m just sick of co parenting with someone who projects all their emotional trauma on to me. I don’t deserve it and it’s really getting me down.
Sorry for the rant.
If you got this far then I appreciate you listening to my scrambled words.