I’d really appreciate any advice on this. I have one child (now 8) with my ex-partner, who has always been an uninvolved and unreliable parent. When our child was younger, he would go weeks or even months without seeing him. He also has an older child, a few years older than ours, whom he hasn’t been consistently involved with either.
I’ve always tried to facilitate contact because I believe my child has the right to know his father. However, this year in particular, his dad has only made the effort to see him about three times, the last being in the summer. Now that my child is older, he’s started to pick up on this and has been asking questions.
Does anyone have advice on how to navigate this and best support him? Since his dad was never consistently involved, it’s not like he had a close relationship and then suddenly disappeared - it’s always been this way, with poor parenting and little effort on his part.
For context, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that he has limited contact with his dad. My ex is not a nice person - he was emotionally abusive towards me and didn’t make much effort to spend quality time with our child during the rare occasions he did see him. He’s short-tempered and grumpy, and honestly, not enjoyable for my child to be around. He has also been involved with the police before for things like getting into drunken fights. He’s an unpleasant person and a poor role model.
That said, I know this situation will still have an emotional impact on my son, so I want to do my best to support him through it. Any advice would be appreciated.