I would appreciate some outside opinions because I feel like I’ve been dealing with this for so long that I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable anymore.
I split up with my son’s father because the relationship was unhealthy for me and I felt I needed to prioritise my mental health. We have a 6-year-old son together.
Since our son started nursery, I have done every school run. His father has never taken him to school. There has always been a reason or excuse why he couldn’t do it. He says he wants to be involved, but in reality most of the day-to-day parenting falls on me.
He sends some money each month and calls our son regularly, but he rarely takes him out and has never had him overnight. He often tells me that I chose to be a single mother and chose to do everything myself. I don’t feel that’s fair because I chose to leave a relationship, not to do all the parenting alone.
What I struggle with most is that he constantly seems to cross boundaries and make conversations about us rather than our son.
Examples: He regularly asks who I am talking to, who is messaging me, whether I am seeing anyone, and accuses me of hiding things.
He has asked what appointments I am attending and gets annoyed if I say it’s private.
He has told me he hopes I haven’t slept with anyone since we split up and said it would be “silly” if I had.
He has said he won’t have our son so I can go and meet other men.
He has repeatedly suggested we could share a bed again despite me saying no.
He has talked about having more children even though I have repeatedly told him I do not want any more children.
He has said that if he gets into a new relationship I will regret leaving him and that it will “break me”, despite me telling him I would be fine.
When I say I don’t want to discuss our past relationship, he keeps bringing it up.
This weekend I invited him to stay so he could spend time with our son because he has been saying he wants more involvement.
During the visit:
He went into my bedroom without asking.
He used my bedroom to get changed without asking.
When I later said I wanted my bedroom to remain private, he said I was acting weird about it.
He put his arm around me while I was cooking. I told him I didn’t want to be touched. He then said I was making him out to be a weirdo.
He asked me when he could have a cuddle. I said I didn’t want one.
He commented on my underwear and asked whether I had slept in it.
He asked me questions about buying razors and whether I shaved intimate areas, saying that when we were together I didn’t do that.
He made noises when I bent down to pick something up from the floor which felt inappropriate and made me uncomfortable.
He repeatedly tried to have conversations about me and him despite me saying I didn’t want to.
I was also told I could have a lie-in. Our son woke up at 6am upset because his marble run had broken. Instead of dealing with it himself, his dad told him to get back into bed with me. I ended up awake from 6am anyway.
He often says I get a break when he comes over to “help”, but I don’t really feel like I get a break because I am still doing the parenting while also managing his behaviour and comments.
When I tell him that I need a break and that I would love just one morning where I don’t have to immediately take care of someone else, he says that this is what parenting is and implies there is something wrong with me for feeling that way.
The thing that really stood out to me after this weekend is that when he left, I felt relieved.
Am I being unreasonable for deciding that this is the last time I invite him to stay in my home? I am not trying to stop him seeing our son, but I no longer feel comfortable having him in my personal space because I feel like my boundaries are repeatedly ignored.
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