DEAR DEIDRE: MY ex-husband has completely cut our daughter and me out of his life and I am worried about how to explain it to her when she is older.
We started trying for a baby immediately after our honeymoon and I quickly became pregnant.
He then walked out when I was three months pregnant.
We had been together for four years and I was devastated. He is 28, I am 26.
He texted saying that he didn’t want anything to do with the baby and stopped responding to my calls and texts.
Our daughter is now a year old and her father has never acknowledged her.
I am happy with the situation now but I hate him for what he has done and will continue to do to his daughter.
My little girl is happy and bright but I know one day she will ask about her daddy.
It is quite clear that he wants nothing to do with her but how do I answer her questions?
DEIDRE SAYS: I get why you hate your ex but he could yet be a loving dad, even though living apart, if he is willing to look at why he was scared of fatherhood.
What buried trauma did that dig up for him? Ask him to talk it over with a counsellor for his daughter’s sake.
Of course he may be too scared to go there.
Just answer your daughter’s questions simply to start with. Say her father would have been there for her if he could, but has problems which get in the way.
The important message she needs to hear is that she is a lovable and wonderful little girl.
However he feels he can’t walk out on his legal duty to help maintain his child.
Contact Child Maintenance Options (cmoptions.org, 0800 988 0988).
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