Struggling with irresponsible Dadto my child

[RebeccaMcParticipant]

I’m a single mum to a 21month old little girl. Her dad and I split up about 6 months ago. He moved out of our house a long time before that because of issues he has with drink and drugs which developed after we had our little girl. Since we properly split up he has been really bad with paying maintenance and owes me about £500. I have contacted child maintenance services about this and there is a direct pay set up but he doesn’t have a bank account so he occasionally gives me adhoc payments. He also doesn’t come to see he regularly because of his drinking habits and doesn’t ask about her for days at a time. He doesn’t have anywhere appropriate to have her so sees her for short amounts of time at my house (I’d rather she didn’t go with him because I don’t feel happy about him having her for long periods). I’m just really drained with having the same conversation with him because he doesn’t seem to understand how inappropriate his behaviour is. He doesn’t contribute in any way (financially, emotionally) to her life. I’m just so fed up because I know he will turn up again this week after work to see her and I can’t do anything about it.

[SOLOMUMMYParticipant]

If you believe he’s a safeguarding risk to be alone with daughter, then you have other options:

• supervised contact by a family member at another location
• contact at another location whereby you could say leave him to it by sitting away eg softplay
• contact centres – paid by him

 

All of these however require agreement of contact timings.

[Sarah7Participant]

Hi

Ther is only so much you can say to him to stand up and be responsible but you need to concetrate on your girl. He sounds in a mess (drugs) So dont stress over what you cant change.

[BluebirdSueParticipant]

You can’t do anything about your ex’s addiction issues. That is something he must tackle in his own time.

Meanwhile just focus on being the best mum possible to your little girl. She’s getting to that age now where she will be playing and talking a lot more.

I think its great that you can trust your ex enough to be in the same house but like the previous messages suggest, a family centre or a relatives house (where you don’t have to go maybe) would be better for you 😀

[Author]

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