My partner never interacts or plays with our toddler. She is 14 months. He never has. When she is playing in our lounge, he will be scrolling on his phone or watching the tv and ignore her even when she is crying. Even when she is in the bath, he sits away from her on his phone.
He will occasionally talk to her and cuddle her but he won’t read or play with her toys.
I beg him to play and interact with her like I see many dads doing but he just says that he does. When in fact, he does not!
I feel I have to ask him to feed her, change her or do anything. He can’t seem to do anything off of his own back. Even when we have family days out, he moans about it.
This makes me resent him and I feel as though my feelings can’t possibly be the same as they once were due to the way he parents. We have been together for 3 years but it just doesn’t feel the same anymore.
Is there anything I can do to change the way he parents? If so, how?
TL;DR: My partner doesn’t interact with our child and thinks it is normal but it is making me think less of him.
Comments
You cannot change him. He will only change if he wants to change. You cannot make him want to change. That has to come from within him, or it will never happen.
Instead of begging him to play with her, have you had a conversation with him to find out why he doesn’t interact with her? Because there could be many different reasons for it, and knowing what those reasons are could help you to find solutions.
But at the end of the day, if he refuses to interact with her, there’s nothing you can do to make him.
i mean its possible he was not ready to have a child and while some men are motivated to step up, others aren’t. i feel like its simple enough to address your concerns unless youre worried to hear the truth about how he feels?
That’s a dangerous level of neglect to be distracted in the bath and ignore her crying. It takes a MOMENT to drown, him being on his phone while a 14-month-old is in the bath is a safety risk to her life. He sounds like an unfit parent, regardless of the cause.
You can’t change his parenting – this is him showing you who he is and how he parents. My honest and genuine advice is separate and try for full custody, especially if he’s not even interested in her I doubt he’d even try to
This is so sad. You were (and are) both very young and and got pregnant too soon. If you have already begged and pleaded with him to be a father and he has made no effort to do so, then I don’t really have any advice on how to get him to change. He doesn’t want to. He is fine with neglecting your child, and if she hasn’t already started to feel it, she will soon. Children are much more perceptive than we give them credit for.
There’s really only a few options:
Give him one last Hail Mary. Insist he step up and be a father. Would he be open to couples/individual therapy to get to the root of his ambivalence?
Leave him.
Resign yourself to a life with a partner who doesn’t care or want to be a father and partner, and take on the load yourself.
If he is not paying attention to her while she’s in the bath, this is dangerous. Small children can drown in an inch of water. She is his daughter. He needs to parent. Ignoring a crying baby is worrying. You have a choice: continue being with someone you can’t trust to be alone with your child and yourself risk a charge of child neglect/endangerment, or take drastic steps.