Hi ladies,

I need some advice on a situation I am having with my son's father. I have tried to be friends with him for the sake of our son but no matter what we do we always seem to get into a fight. I want to stop this fighting for the sake of our son but I am at my wits end now, I want my ex and I to be what we were before we had our son and I know that will never happen again but I want that feeling that I actually mean something to him instead of been just his son's mother.

I am in two minds about what is best for my son, I know having his father around is the best possible thing but I am scared that my ex will hurt him like he did me. I have tried talking to my family about this but due to the fact that they hate my ex they don't give me decent advice and my friends are just the same so I am hoping that any single mum's in the same situation as me can help???

Thanks Scarlett

I'm sorry you and your son have to go through this! I haven't been through this myself but a friend of mine had a similar situation and i'll give you the advise i gave her:
Be the bigger person in every situation, if he says something that is meant to upset you, don't react, just let it go and change the subject, ignore the comment or say something like " I'm not going into that with you" or just walk away(if you can in that situation). Your son does need his father, even if he has other good and positive male role models he still needs his dad around every now and then. Try not to speak badly about your ex in front of your son and discourage everyone else to do the same, let your son make his own opinion of his father as he gets older without your influence as this could come back and bite your behind!
If your afraid of your son getting hurt it sounds like your ex may be unreliable, my friends ex was like this and would say he was coming to visit and then she would tell their kid and they would be all excited and he wouldn't turn up, broke her heart so we stopped telling her when daddy was coming over or she was going to see him until he was actually there.
I hope some of this has helped you, it seemed to work out in the end for my friend and her ex, once he saw that he had no power over her the bullsh!t stopped and he has their daughter every second weekend, and they may not be friends but they are much nicer to each other than they were! Good luck!!

You need to do what is best for you and your baby. I have a friend whose ex used to hit her including when she was pregnant, and sometimes in the stomach. They broke up, but when the baby was born he came with his family to the hospital and was quite hostile. He sought out visitation rights and got them, though I don't know if they still stand because of his abusive nature.

She is raising her son alone and they are both great. I think that even though the "ideal family" has two parents for every child, what is ideal and what is reasonable, practical, and SAFE in reality can be two very different things! Don't hold onto a potentially dangerous relationship - your child would be scarred more from being witness or subject to violence in any form more than he ever would for not having a father present.

Thanks for the advice ladies, it has kinda helped with what I am doing through. I guess I am just upset about the situation that my ex and I are in and I am needing to know what is the best thing to do, I wanna walk away from him and give my son the life he deserves and I know its wrong of me to wanna keep my ex away from our son but I don't what else to do I wanna teach him that he needs to start been involved with our son and showing some sort of interest in his son life. I just feel like if he agrees to be involved in our son's life then I will feel like he is only doing it cause I am making him instead of him just wanting to do it without been told. Like I said before I am at my wits end and I am actually getting depressed about all of this.