Hey Everyone. I've seen reddit stories on other platforms, but never came directly here, until now. Just needed other's opinion about a matter, so I signed up today.

I have a daughter whose dad is inconsistent in her life, but she loves him dearly and misses him often. He and I aren't the best of friends, but I pray for him and encourage him when we do speak (when we are on "good" terms). We were childhood friends and have gone thru a whole mess of things over the span of nearly 25 years.

I moved a few years ago less than an hour from where we grew up and didn't let him know where we stayed for safety reasons. He complained that he should be able to just "pop up" whenever he wanted to see her, but I wasn't ready for that. I asked could we meet up at a midpoint for her to spend time at a park(one of her favorite things to do) or any place of his choosing, and he said no because he was not going to let me dictate how he saw his daughter. I would bring her to him to stay for a night or two if he was able to keep her, but those times were few. Other times we planned for day or overnight visits, but either something came up with him or something came up with me. I allowed her to call and video call often, but a lot of those calls went unanswered, and he didn't always call back or would a week later. He often complained I moved so far away and didn't let him know where we stayed and that evrything had to be on my terms so it was difficult for him. I moved back to our area last year and let him know we were back. He visited a few times, but the visits slowed to a stop. He would call here and there to check on her, but would want to talk to me, and then if I said I'd give her the phone, many times it was something wrong with his phone at that point or it was "going dead" and he said he would call her another time. My daughter put in more effort than him in calling. I was asked almost daily, "Mommy, can I call my daddy?" I let her do that for months (a majority of those calls went unanswered, or he would speak with her briefly and then would say he was about to get some rest, or the phone was going out). After a while I told her she didn't always have to call him, and that he could and would call her when he was available.

So, at the end of the year, we hadn't heard from him in a while, and he didn't reach out to her for Christmas. I thought he would have at least done that, but no. At the top of the year, I decided to check the county jail site to see if he may have gotten arrested (yeah, unfortunately he has been in and out of jail before) and sure enough he had been arrested the day after Christmas. He has called, spoke to her a few times, but usually just asks about her and wants to talk to me. He's asked me to set up video visitation and at first I was going to, but then something switched in me. I know she misses him and wants to see him. I, however, don't want to put in the effort of registering on this inmate site to have my daughter "visit" with her dad who has not put in much effort to "visit" with her.

Am I being petty? Am I being unreasonable? Should I just do it to appease my daughter? Opinions? Suggestions?

Thank you if you've read this far. I look forward to reading your feedback.