Ex seeing children after long time

[SpinningFloppa]

Children haven’t seen their father in 18 months/ 2 years. What’s the best way to slowly introduce contact again? They have been speaking on the phone but he has mentioned seeing them again I would like this to be done slowly and they have only been talking for just over a week so I think it’s a bit of a rush to ask to see them again so quickly after such a long time
of no contact I would like him to be consistent in messaging them first is this unreasonable? My youngest is 5 (he hasn’t spoken to her only the older ones) so she doesn’t remember him at all.

Is he the one that moved into a hmo?

He hasn’t moved into one he’s turned his house into one.

Oh wow. Was this after you split?

I'm not sure how cooperative I'd be with someone who has deliberately created a situation where they can't have their dc overnight or at their place at all.

Whilst this may be in your best interest - is it in your children’s best interest to have him in their lives when he’s been absent for so long.

what if he keeps disappearing on them. Or letting them down? Are you going to help
navigate the 5 year olds introduction to this complete stranger for several weeks/months?

I wouldn’t be allowing any unsupervised contact for several weeks and would be meeting him in a public place for the first 2-3 months.

My children want to see him, if they didn’t it would be a different story but they do and I don’t want to be blamed as the reason why they don’t see him. Me supervising for the time being isn’t a problem I would want to do that anyway as like I said my 5 year old doesn’t remember him.

I admit that I didn’t turn myself around to re instate contact after my ex disappeared from my child’s life for years. I said I was not opposed for the contact to be re established but that it needed to be agreed between us adults rather than using a child as a messenger but the main thing was that I was sure he would disappear again as he didn’t care that much and I couldn’t put DS through that again.

And I was right, as soon as I said the contact needed to be agreed between us, we never heard of him again. The only reason I know he is not dead is because he is still trying to convince the CMS not to take DS’s maintenance out of his pay check.

DS has grown up happier without a lousy dad than with one that was messing him up and making him feel worthless on alternate weekends.

He needs to stop asking the children directly about contact, it's a massive red flag and an awful pressure on them.

Why did he disappear?

He disappeared around lock down, he kept making excuses not to see them (this was the end of 2020) he was “isolating” constantly, his lodgers were constantly positive so again he needs to isolate, but this was constant to the point it was obviously excuses. I’ve never heard of someone needing to isolate so much. He also said he couldn’t see them because of lock down (I explained parents have always been able to see their kids) he wouldn’t see them if one had to isolate because someone in their class tested positive (not them) I would suggest he could still come down and take the other ones out as it meant they was also stuck in the house unable to go anywhere, but he refused.

I believe that it was because I was allowing him to see them at my house during lock down but I would stay out of the room, he didn’t like this and said it was weird. I was only allowing it as nothing was open and he had nowhere to take them. Once things started opening again I said he now has to take them out and not have them at my house anymore, that is when he conveniently started being unable to see them anymore. The last time he was meant to see them was when he was suppose to come down on one of their birthdays he asked to and then didn’t show up. He did not contact me. I texted him twice asking where he was and he didn’t respond.