Originally Posted by FutureTrip

How does your XA earn enough trust to gain back partial physical custody or unregulated visits?

My XAH just recently moved to the same area as me and my daughter after we moved back in January due to a job change. Out custody agreement is split legal custody and I have sole physical custody with him having supervised visitation, what that looks like is up to my discretion.

He claims he's been sober since August last year...or whenever it was that I had found a receipt for alcohol in September...because he doesn't remember exactly when that was but it was definitely the last time he drank. Uh huh. I don't believe him. And while "his sobriety is not my business" when it comes to our toddler it is. He has never been honest about his recovery. I have talked to him on the phone back in January when I know he was drunk. He claims he was just crying. But he is going to hold on for dear life that he's been sober since August. To me this shows he's not in recovery in the sense of not owning up to the truth. Because of that I don't know how to trust him enough to loosen the arrangement.

The fact is that I do think 9 times out of 10 she is perfectly safe with him. But it's that 1 time that scares the s**t out of me. He has always hidden his "slip ups" and if he gets out of control again I fear I won't see it coming until it's too late and something awful happens.

He visits her every weekend and I allow him to spend the day with her in my home because she's only 2.5, still needs naps and I want them to be able to have a nice relaxed day together.

I see him trying. I know he is trying. But his lack of honesty in his recovery prevents me from trusting him to know when things may get bad again. When he visits I can tell he's getting better. Over the last few weekends I have allowed him to take her to breakfast on his own. And 2 weekends ago I allowed him to watch her for the day in my home. These are baby steps for me in slowly giving him and me the space to trust. But I've told him that I have no idea how to get to the place to make that a legal understanding, to just hand her over without first being able to gauge his current state.

We just recently started seeing a coparenting coach, for me the biggest topic is how he can gain back the trust to have unsupervised visits or physical custody. She suggested we go back to him doing a breathalyzer before and after each visit, no questions asked, make it part of the process to just to have a fair starting place. We both agreed. He nodded, totally in agreement. We discussed it later and he was on board. Today was the first visit since then and we both forgot when he arrived. Later in the day I needed to run to the store and asked him to do the breathalyzer. He did, but then started in on how I havent made him do it in months, I obviously know our daughter isn't in danger, making comments about the short times I allowed him to have her unsupervised that made it clear he's building a case, rather than those moments being an attempt at us trying to build trust.

Also at the coparenting visit, he admitted that he doesn't count "slip ups" in his sobriety days. So when I ask how long he's been sober, to him the answer will always be August even if he has "slipped up" since then. To me, when it comes to the safety of our daughter, this answer is not acceptable. To me this is yet again him getting to build his own story and tell me the facts as he sees them/wants them to be. And that is what led to him getting out of control. I honestly would feel much better about things if he would say "I had a slip up 2 months ago and I have been sober since. I am committed to this and to our daughter and I will be honest about my state of sobriety." That's asking for way too much of an addict, I guess. But then isn't trusting him with unrestricted access to our daughter not a good idea?

Any thoughts on this is appreciated