My kids dad is abusive and idk what to do, AITA??
Going to try and make this as short of a long story as possible.
My kids dad and I had been on and off for a long time because he was abusive. The last time we were together I ended up pregnant .. twice. Was abused during pregnancy, and postpartum, and ended up pregnant again before finally leaving when he was arrested. I am F22, he is M23, I did the whole pregnancy with my second child by myself. Have done it all by myself since he was born. No child support , no overnights with dad, barely even visits.
Recently, he got married. ( we have been split for 15 months, our daughter is 17 months and our son is 6 months. ) I was keeping communication at a minimum but occasionally ( about once every 1-2 weeks ) he would ask me if he could pick our daughter up from daycare before I got off work and hangout with her. He was lying to me about putting her around another woman, she was always around when he had our daughter and it makes me feel this whole parenting act he’s doing is performative for the woman. ( before they married I was lucky to get a text checking on the kids once every 1-2 weeks., never wanted to come see them.)
I started seeing someone , I told him after a few months of dating this guy that I had recently introduced him and our kids. The abusive talk started back IMMEDIATELY. Within days he was downright begging me to sleep with him, to stop seeing this guy, and when he didn’t get a response or not the response he wanted, it would turn into abuse talk quickly.
Even more recently , I got a restraining order because he told me he “ thinks about killing me “ and “ that it would be easy “ ( in a text message ) restraining order was granted. He has been breaking the restraining order and I recently reported it because over a phone call , when I told him I wouldn’t drop the restraining order like he was asking , he said “ I’m gonna come kill you right now then” and hung up the phone. I was about 90% sure he was just talking out his ass but I’m pretty over being threatened just to scare me. The police have been attempting to arrest him for over a week now. Can’t make contact, people at his job are lying for him, he won’t answer the door at home and he’s driving his wife’s car around. The police are working for a warrant.
I’m pretty positive I can win a custody battle, I have videos of him hitting me when I was breastfeeding , voice recordings of him simply degrading me and saying horrible things. The most insane of insane screenshots of text messages, evidence of harassment, ext. AND I’m pretty positive I’m not being crazy , but am I the asshole for wanting custody?? Sometimes he acts like he genuinely wants to be their dad but I feel like a man who wanted to be a dad would be a dad regardless of how much he dislikes me. We don’t have to be best friends for him to parent but when he sees the kids it feels like he’s doing it to see me?? He doesn’t even hangout with them when he’s supposed to, if I’m in the area he’s harassing me and asking me questions , running off and cussing me when he gets upset. The whole nine. What do I do?? I want to push for full custody but just don’t know if I have that in the bag or not.
Location: Columbia MO
EDIT. The likelihood is that I will continue pushing for custody and delete this post. But I think it needs to be known we are NO contact, he blows my phone up and I ignore it. He’s playing the “ my bm won’t let me see my kids !!” Role, I just don’t want to take it to family court and be told that I don’t have a case because the abuse was to me directly. I want what is best for my children and I don’t want their dad to fuck that up, I also don’t want to fuck that up.