From the time I was very young my dad has been in and out of bad relationships. Once my mother left us when I was a baby he bounced around women. I met a large number of them and he certainly has a type. Two were arrested while staying at our house for different offenses they committed, three stole from us and then tried to act like nothing had happened and ran once they realized dad either me or dad would call the police, some brought drugs into the house, others cheated in the house when they didn’t even live with us, one dumped her child on me and dad and never came back.
As much as I love my dad he did not protect me enough when I was growing up. He hated being alone and tried to find his soulmate but every woman he attracted had issues and I know that’s because he had issues. But it made me wary of those women he dates. After I moved out his disastrous love life did not improve any but he did take a two year break from dating recently and we worked on our relationship, which was in a poor state.
Currently I’m a couple of weeks away from giving birth and my dad has been dating someone for five months now. He mentioned bringing her to the hospital or to my house a day or two after I give birth to come meet me and the baby. And I do not want to meet her while I’m freshly post partum. Given his track record I am not inspired to let her meet my baby at all right now.
I fear telling him this will hurt our relationship because he talks about her so fondly and it seems she might not be like the others. He at least thinks of her as being more mature than him. So I might be too harsh on her but my motherly instincts want me to do better than he did in this regard.
I don’t have a timeline for him either which makes this more of a reflective thing for me. So can anyone help me here?
Comments
Welcome to /r/relationship_advice. Please make sure you read our rules here. We’d like to take this time to remind users that:
We do not allow any type of am I the asshole? or situations/content involving minors
We do not allow users to privately message other users based on their posts here. Users found to be engaging in this conduct will be banned. We highly encourage OP to turn off the ability to be privately messaged in their settings.
Any sort of namecalling, insults,etc will result in the comment being removed and the user being banned. (Including but not limited to: slut, bitch, whore, for the streets, etc. It does not matter to whom you are referring.)
ALL advice given must be good, ethical advice. Joke advice or advice that is conspiratorial or just plain terrible will be removed, and users my be subject to a ban.
No referencing hateful subreddits and/or their rhetoric. Examples include, but is not limited to: red/blue/black/purplepill, PUA, FDS, MGTOW, etc. This includes, but is not limited to, referring to people as alpha/beta, calling yourself or users “friend-zoned”, referring to people as Chads, Tyrones, or Staceys, pick-me’s, or pornsick. Any infractions of this rule will result in a ban. This is not an all-inclusive list.
All bans in this subreddit are permanent. You don’t get a free pass.
Anyone found to be directly messaging users for any reason whatsoever will be banned.
What we cannot give advice on: rants, unsolicited advice, medical conditions/advice, mental illness, letters to an ex, “body counts” or number of sexual partners, legal problems, financial problems, situations involving minors, and/or abuse (violence, sexual, emotional etc). All of these will be removed and locked. This is not an all-inclusive list.
If you have any questions, please message the mods
This is an automatic comment that appears on all posts. This comment does not necessarily mean your post violates any rules.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Your feelings are reasonable and based on your lived experience. Tell him you want the focus of your visits to be him bonding with the baby, not you meeting a new partner. If she’s still around in six more months, plan a lunch.
Tell him something like “dad, husband and I are only including close family and friends in the weeks following birth. I’m sure your GF is sweet and well meaning but I am not comfortable meeting new people barely post partum. You’re welcome to come but I’ll need to get back to you on when I will be okay meeting your GF”.
That’s really reasonable babe. I wouldn’t even want to be meeting the new chick til they’d dated a year successfully. At the hospital after giving birth? In my own home with an infant? No.
Run into them at the grocery store? Sure, 5 min of hi how are you. But you’re not a jerk to not want to have some woman you don’t even know at the HOSPITAL. Good grief.
Post partum has all kinds of feels. I would tell him now that you are not sure how you are going to be feeling and want to put your best self out there to meet his new lady, but you are not sure you will be the best version of yourself. You could remind him of past relationships, gently, and you worried this one isn’t going to be much different. Since there is that worry, you don’t want the first time you meet her to already so guarded, being a new mom.
Nope you’re being reasonable.
You’re also continuing the old pattern of trying to look after him and his feelings. You are not responsible for him, you are not his parent or his savior. Let that role go.
Support yourself and your baby by asserting your boundaries. You could say something like “Dad I’m happy for you and her, but I’m not going to be in any state to meet new people, although you’re welcome. Let me and baby recover and settle in and then we’ll work out meeting her later on.”
‘Sorry dad but we are not introducing the baby to new people until they are atleast a few months old’.
That’s all you need to say. No further discussion in the topic is required.
If he waves to rebuild his relationship with you there’s no reason he can’t respect that this is not the time for meeting a new girlfriend
Newborn life isn’t the time for new drama. Be blunt but kind: you need space and quiet right now, so meeting the girlfriend can wait. If he cares, he’ll respect that. Your boundaries come first, especially with a history like his.
Yes, tell him, you’re looking forward to meeting her but his suggested date is too soon as you’ve no idea what state you and the baby will be in & you’ll let him know when you’re ready to receive her, he on the other hand as he’s your Dad can of course pop in for an hour on the suggested day if you’re happy with that to meet his Grandchild.