advice on my daughter.

SuziQ

I personally don't think maintenance has anything to do with it. My first husband has point blank refused to pay a penny to our kids for 11 years. He does however love the kids and sees them regularly. They will probably resent is lack of monetary support when they are older but why should a child even know that their father hadn't paid maintenance? Tellig them is cruel in my opinion.
I would rather my ex had contact than not and the maintenance is a different issue-typical excuse that he thought I would spend it on myself!
However I have never allowed it to affect what the kids had-when we first split up I got a second job,was workig f/t as a health visitor and then did agency on top when the kids were asleep.

Non resident parents should pay maintenance-of course they should-but I know my ex loves his kids despite his attitiude to maintenance.

Whether he should/should not have contact has noting to do with whether he paid maintenance.

Without discussing with the child's mother and finding out what has been said to the child/whether the child has taken an interest in meeting him it is pretty pointless him taking any action.If he takes legal advice the first thing the solicitor will do is ask if he has tried to contact the pwc. If not the solicitor will suggest writing a letter. If I was the mum I would much rather recieve the first contact from him than a solicitor which would feel 'all guns blazing' to me.

Even at this late stage it might be good for the daughter to meet him.

How many programmes do we see on TV where people discuss their heartbreak and ongoing anguish over not knowing their blood parent? And how often do you hear 'it would have meant so much more,if he had contacted me first rather than me have to track him down. At least I would know he wanted to see me.'

People make mistakes and sometimes as people mature they can see their mistakes and want to try to alleviate some of the hurt they have caused.

It needs to be handled with great sensetivity as already stated but if this is a genuine post and not a wind-up hopefully the op will take a caring approach and get professional advice of the best way to proceed.

Paparika

wonders if she might have a face book account that you might be able to make contact with her.

I understand how you are feeling, a good friend of mine went through similar, he was threatened with his life for being gay, and so was forced to keep away.

It didn't matter that he wanted to pay child maintenance, and keep contact with his child, but death threats were meant, so he made a tough choice,

but now he is struggling to get contact with his daughter, without upsetting the apple-cart of her stable home.

At the end of the day, if you need to leave this until she is 18, then there is nothing her family can do to stop the contact happening, if your daughter wants contact (I bet she does)


Good luck, you'll need it