How? Contact when there's a child involved (not mine) & talking to his family

[VitaminC]

One thing that kept me in the relationship was the existence of his child, that I became quite close to over our 18 months together. His daughter lives with her mother. Very early on in our relationship he began to involve me in all aspects of his life, especially the time he spent with his daughter.  I knew that was premature and that the motives were to hook me, so guarded against it and tried to keep boundaries to that, but the fact is I love kids, would make a great mom, and just really hit it off with that little girl.

I have been thinking of a way to establish a better contact with the mom - I have met her on several occasions, but she is naturally wary and simply quite a reserved person. He cheated on her too, when she was pregnant with this child, and I imagine she's been through some pretty rough times. But that relationship ended about 5 years ago and now their contact is restricted to issues with the child and the mom has, quite healthily, moved on and is in a very stable relationship.

In any case, I would love to just occasionally see the child. I have no way to ask him for that and wouldn't want to. I don't trust him anyway, and in any way. I wonder if it would be completely off to appear at the mom's house and just briefly explain that while he and I are over, I'd like the daughter to know that our friendship means a lot to me. She said I was her "best adult friend" and we giggled and messed around and chatted about all kinds of things. The mom has seen how easy the daughter and I are together, and I am sure also sees that I am a healthy influence insofar as I'm any at all.

Should I do this? I don't have a number so would have to appear at the house. Perhaps I could leave a note?

I genuinely don't want any more from this than to at least have the daughter know that my disappearance from her life doesn't mean I don't care for her. I don't expect him to say anything remotely helpful to her - the lack of empathy and true emotional connection to even his own child is one of the things that made me think he must have a condition rather than just be a selfish and insecure clod.

I've read a lot of posts, and the ones on post-break contact here https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=120426.0 are useful, of course. Just to say I'm not unaware of the issues from that perspective. 

Discussing this with friends is just not going to help - as I said in my original post, they don't understand why I didn't leave over a year ago, the first time I tried to.

Thanks, guys, for any input.

[Mutt]

Hi VitaminC,

What would you say in your note?

[VitaminC]

Hi Mutt,

I suppose just that I wanted to let her, the mom, know that the dad and I are no longer together. That I didn't have a chance to see the child or mention anything, and am not sure that it would have been appropriate for me to speak to her anyway.

I might go on to say that the state of mind of dad is not entirely clear to me and am not sure how he might explain my absence to the child. Because of this, I want to let mom know the stte of affairs.

My concern is just that child know I'm still her goofy friend and if mom thought it ok, I'd love to see her once in a while, but that I completely understand if mom doesn't want that. I'd be thinking of minimising the strangeness and being upbeat - but I realise child has a full life already and don't want to overestimate the importance of our little friendship.

( I also just thought that dad would, of course, hear about any meeting between child and myself and be v unlikely to not be threatened by that. This might have repercussions for child and is probably a v bad idea!)

But I still feel like communicating something along those lines to the mom, mainly because I doubt his ability to do an adequate job of it.

But maybe it's none of my business anyway and I should bear the loss of the child and believe she'll be just fine.  The mom is a v good parent. Children forget people if their lives are full and healthy enough - its not as if I'm a significant figure in her life. I don't know.


ZR

[Mutt]

VitaminC,

It's worth a shot? I'm a single dad. My kids have friends and some of their friends and their parents are familiar with my ex wife. I don't have qualms that the parents take the kids out but I have to know the parents. Some parents have called, texted and they have come to my door with their kid too. I trust my kids and the choices that they make with friends. The parents that I have met are good parents.

But that relationship ended about 5 years ago and now their contact is restricted

I don't think that I would mention your ex. Their contact is restricted and I'm going to guess that she restricted it for good reasons. They have been out of a relationship for 5 years and she's in a new relationship but it can take time for the emotional wound to heal.

She may also not want to talk about him to someone that she doesn't know. You could try either going to her door or leave a note. I would leave a note with my number and ask her if she would be interested in going for coffer or go to her door and introduce yourself and ask her if it's Ok if you remained friends. I hope that helps.

[VitaminC]

Yes, it helps. Thank you, Mutt.