What about the baby???
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What about the baby???
| Thu, 11-11-2004 - 11:21am |
I have a child alomst a one year by this man and even though we are no longer together. He wants to be a part of her life, but when he comes over he talks about he still loves me and we still flirt and even kissed on several occasions. I know he never plans on leaving his wife and I just don't think I am very strong around him, but I want him to have a relationship with our daughter. Please Help!!!!

Does his wife know about the child.
If she does not then you may want to reconsider haveing private meetings with him.
Have you gone to court to protect the childs rights to child support, that money belongs to the child not you.
I know more questions then answers but if he wants to be in the childs life he needs to do it according to the lawas of the land and in an up right and honest way.
JMHO
Free
I have an about to turn 2yr old daughter fathered by exOM. He was a regular part of her life when we lived together off & on and afterwards until she turned one. He made no financial contributions towards my daughter until I filed with the Child Support Agency here in the UK, he now pays the minimum amount required by law.
ExOM's DP is aware of our child together. It is exOM's DP's parenting choice that her own daughter is raised knowing nothing of her elder sister or the circumstances behind her elder sister's existence. This will, of course, come back & bite her on the arse one day especially as she's aware DH & I are raising DD with age-appropriate honesty with regard to her parentage and her half-sister, BUT it is very much exOM's DP's own parenting choice.
Furthermore, exOM's DP states she will never allow my child into her home so if exOM wishes to see his eldest daughter he must come to the home of my DH & I. One day she will say she's happy for exOM to see his eldest daughter, the next she'll tell him if he does so then he's made his choice and shouldn't bother coming home.
I do not kid myself that she is preventing exOM from seeing his eldest daughter. He's a fireman, physically fit & healthy, and were he to decide to visit my child, there's precious little she could do to forcibly restrain him from walking out the door or even back in the door again lol. It is very much *his* own choice not to maintain contact and his life is far easier than if he were to actually grow some plums.
I was tired of receiving phone calls from exOM on the pretext of making arrangements to see DD but were actually attempts at getting back into my knickers - I simply was not prepared to allow my DD to be used in this manner. I then called a meeting of all four of us (exOM & DP as well as me & DH), where we agreed terms for contact.
It was agreed that *if* exOM wished to see DD then he should contact my DH directly, make arrangements between themselves for an acceptable date/time to meet here at our house during which time I would absent myself leaving DH to supervise the contact visit on his own with exOM. The only person who was not particularly happy with this arrangement was exOM himself since it was not DD he wished to see but me.
Like you, it was once important to me that he be a part of my daughter's life (his second child with his DP is just shy of a year old now). My daughter is a child exOM suggested we have rather than any accident of contaception.
My daughter has a loving daddy in my DH and a rather nice bonus is that DH makes a far better role model than exOM ever possibly could. It's exOM's own choice not to see our child or have any relationship with her whatsoever and in many respects he views it as a punishment to me. To be brutally honest, I'd rather she didn't have a relationship with someone so ready, able & willing to use her as some tool to achieve something he wants which is a relationship with me.
If the time actually comes that exOM suddenly grows some balls and/or develops a desire to get to know the little person that is his eldest daughter, I will not stand in the way. I just don't need to be there in person for him to get to know his child.
If you feel unable to be strong around your exMM, why not invite a friend to be there when he visits? A divorcing couple I know well are so utterly unable to be civil to one another that they have arranged for the wife to drop their children off at his mother's house where the husband then picks them up. The mother in law/grandmother acts as an intermediary in order that the children need not witness any animosity between the divorcing couple.
Bottom line here is you cannot force a man to be a good father or to have a relationship with his child. You CAN, however, ensure he is financially responsible for your daughter. That's not your money, that's money the law says he owes his child. It may not be needed right this minute, but it WILL come in handy for college fees, etc. later down the line.
Wishing you strength & peace,
Posie