This is my first time in a forum but I am so at a loss what to do I thought this might be a good place to start..
I became a single mum at 20 years old, I raised my daughter by myself until she was 4 and then I met someone. We had almost 5 years of a very toxic relationship. Sometimes it would be great but he was very angry and my daughter and I were exposed to a lot of emotional abuse. I left him multiple times because I was scared and knew it wasn’t a safe or healthy place for my daughter and I to be. But every time he would claim he would quit drinking and get help but not long after we would come home he would go right back to how he was. In September 2019 he went so crazy that I grabbed my daughter and ran out of the house and never ever went back. It took us a long time to heal and still work through it sometimes. Just over a year ago a very close friend of mine and I started dating, he is the most gentle, kind person in the world and my daughter just loves him. It is the exact life I had always pictured. However now my ex husband suddenly has reappeared in our lives trying to spend time with my daughter. He says he has changed and truly acts like he has but my gut feeling is that he hasn’t just because of the past. My daughter hadn’t seen him since we left but two days ago he was “coincidentally” biking by our house as I was driving her to school and we were cornered in the driveway so she talked to him. Now she wants to have him around but I am struggling because we have such a peaceful life now that it scares me to reopen a door that could be potentially very toxic. What should I do? Can people change? Has anyone else gone through something similar?
I became a single mum at 20 years old, I raised my daughter by myself until she was 4 and then I met someone. We had almost 5 years of a very toxic relationship. Sometimes it would be great but he was very angry and my daughter and I were exposed to a lot of emotional abuse. I left him multiple times because I was scared and knew it wasn’t a safe or healthy place for my daughter and I to be. But every time he would claim he would quit drinking and get help but not long after we would come home he would go right back to how he was. In September 2019 he went so crazy that I grabbed my daughter and ran out of the house and never ever went back. It took us a long time to heal and still work through it sometimes. Just over a year ago a very close friend of mine and I started dating, he is the most gentle, kind person in the world and my daughter just loves him. It is the exact life I had always pictured. However now my ex husband suddenly has reappeared in our lives trying to spend time with my daughter. He says he has changed and truly acts like he has but my gut feeling is that he hasn’t just because of the past. My daughter hadn’t seen him since we left but two days ago he was “coincidentally” biking by our house as I was driving her to school and we were cornered in the driveway so she talked to him. Now she wants to have him around but I am struggling because we have such a peaceful life now that it scares me to reopen a door that could be potentially very toxic. What should I do? Can people change? Has anyone else gone through something similar?
