My [31M] ex [29F] is telling our child [6yo] that I’ll abandon her once my new baby is born. What’s the best way to proceed?

tl;dr: my ex-wife is furious at me because I’m having another child. She’s told our daughter repeatedly that I’ll abandon her and that she’ll have to move and go to another school, which caused her a lot of distress. I’m fuming.

In the last three months my life has changed so much and I’m trying to tackle one thing at once. From the beginning: I separated from my ex-wife almost two years ago and after a lot of mediation drama, threats, back and forth, divorce was finalized this year. I’ll be honest, I acted very stupid and in consequence our situation lingered way more than it should have. In the first 8 months or so of separation we kept on having sex once in a while. When I would start seeing someone, she’d go ballistic and I just couldn’t really feel attracted to other people sexually because I was so codependent (we were together for almost a decade and basically grew up together).

Recently I discovered that I’m going to have a child. I was planning on telling my ex and my daughter when my situation with my baby’s mother was more established, but unfortunately my mother spilled it to my daughter and I had to explain to her in the nicest way I could that yes, she’s having a baby sibling and that no, it wasn’t mommy’s baby. Before I brought my daughter back to mom’s, I called my ex to break the news and she was livid and asked who the mom was, I told her and she just said that she “knew it”. She treated me very coldly when I dropped our child off, but whatever, it was civil.

Little bit of backstory: my ex knows of my baby’s mother, they’ve exchanged words a couple of times but they are not really acquainted, since baby’s mom was my friend and we got closer while I was separated.

Back to the present, this weekend (I have her Thursday through Sunday) my child was in a bad mood, very sulky and uncooperative when usually she’s very bubbly and always doing something. I didn’t want to push it, but I tried to make her open up. She asked me where I was going to live when the baby comes and I told her I was going to move to a bigger place so she doesn’t have to share a room with the baby and she asked why since I’m not going to see her anymore. I told her of course I was going to see her and why she thought that. She told me that auntie (she knows baby’s mother and calls her aunt) was going to “steal all my money” and that she’ll have to move and go to another school because her mom doesn’t have enough to take care of her alone. Ok, I almost lost it there but I kept my composure for the sake of my girl. The separation was so traumatic for her, being so young and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I don’t want her to suffer all over again. I try to comfort her and reassure her, tell her that I love her and that I’d never abandon her.

During the next couple days the situation came up again, to the point where I heard my daughter tell my mom (who was visiting) that “auntie x is a w****”. Foul language is a no-no here and although I didn’t chastise her for that, I asked where she heard it and she told me her mom said it (amongst other disgusting things). Although friend has spend little time with my child, they always got along well. Friend is good with children and always respected my daughter’s space when they interacted. I know it’s a lot of change from “dad’s friend” to “potential stepmom”, but I was trying to do it slowly. Ex forced my hand and then is trying to sabotage my relationship with my daughter.

I left my daughter at school this morning and I still haven’t spoken to ex about the situation. I’m too pissed off and I want to measure my words. Friend/baby mama is not aware either because I don’t want to scare her. My mom and brother are the only people in my life who know of the whole thing. What should I do next?? Confront her? Threaten to go for full custody?

Submitted October 24, 2022 at 09:01PM by friendbabymamadrama https://ift.tt/dEp9r1S