I am so conflicted. I know that our DD and her dad need to have contact for her, however he is just so inconsistent, how is that in the best interest for her?
He has been in and out of her life since she was born 2 years ago. Contact stopped by myself when she was a year old as I discovered he had a drug problem and I refused to leave her alone with him. I am not willing to facilitate the contact as he is extremely abusive to me and mentally I cannot cope with this and need to be in a good mental place for DD. The last contact we did have he attacked me in front of DD which is when I stopped the facilitating contact and thereby discovered the drug problem.
Since then I offered contact centre visits (via solicitor) which he refused. I then offered video call contact, this is where I can't wrap my head around it. He is taking me to court as he wants contact with her in place alone himself however he doesn't even stick to the video calls which he chose the days and times for. Most of the time we are waiting for him to call on the scheduled date and times and he doesn't, no excuses or apologies thereby I don't even tell our DD that her dad is calling because I don't want to allow for her to see the inconsistency as it's me who would then deal with the confusion of 'dads going to call' (then he doesn't) and me then explaining to a 2 year old that he didn't call. For her to then look at me puzzling as if why did YOU tell me he was then?
I don't know what else I can do to keep this going. I'm so done with it. I'm so angry everytime he lets her down and we haven't gotten to actual contact yet but I have been trying to keep these calls going to she has some form of contact with her dad and isn't completely out of sorts when and if a court grants access for contact to go ahead.
I really just want to stop all contact completely until I know there is consitency but then I realise that might never be the case and is some inconsistent contact for her better than no contact at all? I wish I could close the door completely because I feel controlled but also realise it's not about me but really affects my life!! It's about our DD and her life. I am conflicted because at times I feel like how is it in her best interest to have her only reliable parent in emotional turmoil over this constantly.
Has anyone been through this? I don't want a war with my ex although I can't stand him but i want the simplest situation for DD but my head strongly disagrees with this 'best interest of the child' when I don't see how it's helping?