Ex/baby's Dad Constantly Verbally/emotionally Abusive to Me in Front of Child

I'm trying to figure out why you went to bed while he was still in the house. You should have told him it was time for the baby to go to bed, and he had to leave. If he refused, then you call the police. You have no relationship with this man other than he's your daughter's father. He has no right to sleep in your home.

In addition, do as the others have said: get a lawyer and have a written agreement for visitation and child support. You also need to find a third party drop off/pick up.

This is all about your control, and you letting him have it.
Sorry mama.
If he begins to disrepect you - particularly in front of your daughter - you throw him out. If he won't leave, you call the police. If that doens't work - YOU leave and THEN call the police telling them that there's an intruder in your home.
Your daughter needs to see YOU be STRONG in how you handle him. From what you're describing here, she's seeing you back down and put up with him speaking to you in any way that he chooses.

And if I were you, I'd make friends with those neighbors and TELL THEM that he's abusive. You need them to be your advocates.

PS: Let him take you to court. I bet you he doesn't, and in the event that he did, he'd have to prove seriously negligence on your part in order to gain custody. In other words, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Be strong mama. Nobody gets to treat you like he does. Ever. It's time you stop putting up with it and show your daughter what a strong woman looks like.

This is very simple to solve.

Get an attorney and get custody and child support put into writing through the court system. He will have visitation wherein he can pick the child up then bring her back. He will have to pay regular child support.

See, simple.

There is absolutely no freaking reason for him to hang out at your house to visit the child. Again - simple - just don't let him.

Of course she is noticing the fighting - she has been noticing it all her life. And of course she will emulate the behavior she sees and hears - and no amount of correcting her is going to solve that. The only way to solve it is for you to set a better example for your daughter.

Get an attorney
Get it in writing
Get him out of your life and house

Good Luck

The two of you together in the same breathing space needs to stop. Figure out another way for him to see his child without you there, it's not only damaging to you but way more damaging to your child to hear this stuff.

My friend left her husband for this same reason. Three years later he is finally civil to her, but wow it was tense for some time there.

She NEVER said anything back to him. I don't know how she did it, but she never sunk to his level. She would simply say "I'm done talking to you in this manner. I'm hanging up now, good bye."

At work she would just put her phone down for 5 minutes and pick it up and he'd still be yelling! It got to be funny for all of us, her included.

I think you need to ignore him. Get something legal down so you protect you and your daughter (custody agreement). If he continues to act that way, seek our a lawyer and see what you can do. I know where I live they'd tell him to stop, but it wouldn't stop him from being around the kids.

You need to stop asking for his help. Once you do that, then make other arrangements for the exchange of your child. For example, maybe you can drop her with a mutual friend and he can pick up from the friend. Same with the return - through a mutual friend.

At this point, you are encouraging the contact because you keep asking for his help. He knows you need his help; you are giving him the power he needs to control you. Stop doing that; stop depending on him for ANYTHING.

I don't know how much money you make, but you could check in to Cal-Works for help paying daycare and also maybe think about applying for food stamps so you won't have to depend on him financially.

You can't "make him" stop abusing you if you don't take any action. You need to cut him out of your life as much as possible and keep your daughter away from him as much as possible.

I saw another response suggesting a restraining order. You might get one based on what you're stated here, but then again you might not. If he's friends with the neighbors and he's been a good boy in front of them, and there's been no obvious signs of trouble between the two of you, he could subpoena them as witnesses and with their testimony, you may not get the desired restraining order. It is worth a shot, but don't count on it.

And why would you go to bed with him still in the house? This is one of your problems - you are allowing him control even over your home. He apparently decides if he stays or not - you need to take control of your own home. See him out before you go to bed. It is YOUR home - act like it!

Your ex sounds quite a lot like my ex-husband. Same behaviors, same insecurities, same reactions. But I realized early that responding in anger would only increase his anger. I was easily controlled because my mother had been utterly controlling, and as it turned out, I married what I knew. It took me 13 years to grow up enough to exit that marriage, 15 years to divorce him. How lucky for you that you never married this childish man.

There are a number of self-help processes that I personally found very empowering. One was reading I'm Okay, You're Okay, an older book that is still pretty popular today. It helped me stay in Adult mode when my husband lapsed into his Critical Parent mode. For awhile, that just made matters worse because he felt his power over me slipping, but eventually his rages became less frequent because they didn't have much visible effect on me. I found this book to be the single most important influence on my early adulthood.

Another, more contemporary assist is the wonderful website The Work (thework.org), which offers free materials so you can gradually change your relationship with your own thoughts, and consequently change your relationship with those people in your world who trouble you for any number of reasons.

If you can stop reacting to your ex and answering on his level, you'll give your daughter a new and better model to follow. She sees you feeling helpless and using anger to defend yourself, so she's coming to believe that only anger will empower her. She doesn't yet have the experience or imagination to see other possible responses or outcomes. Model them for her. Studies show that children are not negatively affected by their parents' fights IF the parents have a way to resolve those fights.

I agree that if you keep asking your ex to help you out with his daughter, his power over you will continue. You will probably do well to find other ways to meet those needs that don't lean on him.

Good luck. There is a better future waiting for you, if you are willing to take the steps you need to move yourself to a steadier, stronger, more adult foundation. Even if you didn't have that modeled for you in your own childhood, you can still learn it with some of the great resources available at your local library and online.

Please get it on paper.

Past mistakes apart, you need to make things right now. First and foremost, get legal custody rights sorted out and on paper. Next, hash out child support. Go get a lawyer. Stop asking him to babysit, and ask your family, or friends to help. Or hire a baby-sitter. Do you want to face this kind of unsure time for the rest of your life and your daughter's life? Allow him to go on behaving the way he does? Please, I ask you to see the more important things in future.
Your daughter is not going to see and understand things the correct way, unless you show it to her who is in charge. If she is getting influenced by his wrong behavior, then it is because you are letting it grow. Help yourself first by going all legal in black and white and ink!

Get an attorney and set up a formal custody agreement and child support. Request supervised visitation and that drop-off/pick-up be in a public place. You do not have to put up with this in your own home. Regardless of whether you 'need' the money or are financially independent, this man still has a financial responsibility to his child. I don't understand the downside of you going to court...it will be far more beneficial for you than your current situation.

Get a lawyer! Ignore and walk away.

First and most importantly there is absolutely NO reason for him to visit. If he wants to see his daughter, then he has that right, but it doesn't have to be in your home.

Also, it's time to grow up and protect your child. Go to court and set up visitation and child support.

You need to talk to an attorney to get an order from the court for child support and a visitation schedule. You also need to find someone who will be a witness for you that he is an abuser. The arguments you had that you said were almost violent were actually violent---he threw things is violence. You can ask the court to schedule his visitations be supervised and if he gets violent or abusive your daughter is removed from the situation by the supervisor and brought home to you. You can also ask the court to order him into counseling. If he refuses to go, he doesn't get visitation. But still needs to pay support.

Then get yourself into counseling and a martial arts program. You need to increase your power and confidence.

Get an attorney. Do not engage with him. Take her to the doctor with you. Do whatever you can to get him out of your lives. If he is not contributing in any positive way, do what you can to cut the ties.

Get a lawyer and take him to court. Your daughter doesn't need this man in her life. I understand that you want your daughter to know her dad but not like this. Not with him fighting with you whenever he is around. You said the fighting is starting to scare her and that isn't right at all. He should never ever stay over at your place. Let him say what he wants to say but once when you get a lawyer and take him to court he may end up realizing he can no longer control you or talk to you like that.
Stand up and take charge. She is your daughter and you have to show her that no man should ever treat a woman like this period.

I'm sure plenty of other people have said this but document EVERYTHING. When I was reading your post I was reminded of my situation exactly! And I didn't document everything and I regret it now. I wish I had documented all the times my ex threatened me physically with my life in front of our daughter. You may even consider getting a little tape recorder that you can have rolling when you have to be around him. I had a restraining order on my ex but those can only last so long so I would definitely see about a lawyer and what else you can do in the meantime. Please, please take action ASAP! I held onto the hope my ex would change and subsequently my daughter only associates "mommy crying" with her dad because he did the same things to me as yours did you too, including the trying to act like a good guy in public. I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this I wouldn't wish it on anyone...please let us know if things get better! xx hugs