Absent father

I do wonder how many men agree to having children because their partner wants them.

To add: it’s a big part of why it’s absolutely abhorrent to deceive someone into a pregnancy by lying that you’re using contraception when you’re not. People say ‘well he was stupid, he should have used condoms too’. Funnily enough when a woman is sexually assaulted by a man removing a condom without her knowing, nobody says ‘silly stupid woman, why didn’t she check the condom was in between thrusts?’

You’re willingly choosing to have a child with a man who has no desire to have one, and have a very high risk of saddling your kids with a shit dad.

I don’t say this to shame people who had kids with men who were enthusiastic and looked like they were going to be amazing fathers but then turned out not to be (people change and can conceal their true selves for a long time), but one of the wisest pieces of advice I ever got was this:

The biggest gift you can give your children is who you choose to be their father.

Having an active, involved father brings a lot to a child’s life, wellbeing and chances of success. More resources, more people there for support and encouragement, better outcomes in terms of cognitive development and education. There are many single parents working incredibly hard and doing an amazing job, often picking up the slack when the other parent has decided to opt out. But if you’re not yet pregnant it truly is imo the most important thing you will do for your future children. Choose a good dad (as far as is possible). I.e. don’t deceive a man into unprotected sex because any old sperm will do. It’s horribly unfair on everyone involved.

My children have asked why their dad doesn’t like them and if they can get a new dad, my son said to me can I get a new dad or is it too late

Yep my youngest asked if I could find a husband so he could have a dad. That just heartbreaking.

My ex is more likely to love the kids of the person he is with.

He has sporadic contact with my oldest (only uses him now that ds has a good job and his own place) the other 3 I have with him don't get a look in, bar £20 shoved in a card on birthdays.

He used to say it was me stopping contact, now they are all of an age they don't need me to facilitate contact and he simply doesn't bother and can't blame me.

His girlfriend posts all over Facebook about their fantastic family days and how supportive he is with her sons autism (meanwhile he threatened to smack our DD because he couldn't cope with her ADHD).

It truly sickens me that he has the time, money, and energy to support and love kids, and chooses to do it with someone else's children and ignore his own.

Absolute bell end is missing out on the most fantastic kids and then swooping in when they hit adulthood and taking all the credit.

Oh here come the poor men apologists. Piss off. It's the same old crap in this country of single female parents being penalised and feckless men let off Scot free. I'm sick of it.

You can't know that for sure, about women abandoning dc more if abortion wasn't available.

I mean it didn't happen before abortions were possible did it?

Also it's a silly comparison - having an abortion isn't anything like neglecting a living human.

A PP made a very good point. If a woman doesn’t want to be a parent and has a contraception fail, they have the option to abort, and many do. Men don’t have that option.

I guarantee if you removed a woman’s right to terminate pregnancy there’d be a huge uprising in the numbers of absent mothers. The vast majority of women in this country who have a baby have chosen to have that baby, because even if the pregnancy was accidental they made an active choice to continue with it.

I truly believed that however crap a dh(soon to be ex) was as a husband that he would never walk away from our kids.
Cue a couple of years after our split he has moved in with his gf and her kids an hour away. He now sees our DC's an hour a week after his gf threw our kids out the house in the early hours and tried to assault our teenage DC.
I am hoping that when our divorce is finalized that he pisses of all together. Of course he believes he is a great dad.....

no understanding. Not “to understanding”

I don’t know why you're mad, it’s the case for most single mums to have 100% of the responsibility

This is very telling and exactly the sort of comment my ex used to make (he’s been absent for 4 years now- he was a “dip in and out” sort before that) it tells you has absolutely to understanding at all that his absence impacts the children. He just sees it as an issue for you, and of course you aren’t his responsibility so in his head he has done nothing wrong. But in order to get to that to conclusion he has to totally remove the children from the situation as if they don’t exist. As if there aren’t 4 children who have missed having a father, who have missed out on so many lovely experiences with him, who feel rejected and confused and will probably have low self esteem as a result at various points. He has to pretend they completely don’t exist and make it just about you. That’s how he justifies it.

I'm sorry for your situation OP

I'm always being told how lucky I am that xh has the dc two nights a week, because most single mums would love that. Yes this is exactly the life I dreamed of

It's just heartless in my opinion.

Few other factors too though. My Dad didn't want dc in the first place and (because of?) he had trauma from his childhood, so when dm left and took us he was relieved.

Also when dm left it was for another man, who was very violent, so Dad was intimidated and avoided visiting us for that reason too, also I think he justified it by telling himself this new man was supporting us now. Which was very far from the truth.

Ideally men would refuse to become fathers unless they really wanted to.

These men are utterly without morals. There are loads of deadbeats out there and male-dominated society lets them get away with it. Think of the disapproval there used to be of single mums yet these are the parents who stick around for their kids! Of course their existence reminds the men of how they have deserted their kids. Deadbeat dads should be society’s outcasts yet they run the country.

My Dad seemed only too pleased to let my step-dad adopt us, meant he didnt have to pay maintenence (not that he did anyway)

I've only seen him once (at my grandma's funeral) in nearly 50 years

I just dont understand how these men can just walk away without a care in the world

I really struggle to wrap my head around it. I can somewhat understand if they haven't been involved in the baby's life from the start - it's still utterly shit and selfish but I can imagine it's easier to do.

What I really struggle with is fathers who abandon children they've actually parented. My DH has a "friend" who, when his DC were about 1 and 6, called his partner from an airplane and told her he was going to Australia then switched his phone off!! How can you be in your child's life for six years and fuck off without a care in the world? I've met this guy, he seemed normal. It's so baffling.

society still sees raising children as womens work, and thus of lesser value... double standards... women get judged for walking away, in men it is seen as not that unusual and they get praised for having the child at all...

Because far too many men are deeply selfish.

I've always assumed these men are fantastic at compartmentalising. How else do you explain it?

When DH was growing up, his dad lived down the road, a ten minute walk from him, and didn't see him at all for 2-3 years at a time. Sometimes they'd see eachother in the street and his dad would turn and walk in the other direction.

They're still in contact. He did and still does attempt to keep all aspects of his life in neat, little boxes. When our children were born, he didn't tell anyone he had grandchildren. Photos of them were posted on Facebook and only when DH tagged him in them, did his friends even realise he had children AT ALL. He'd been outed and he wasn't happy, oopsie doopsie.

So yeah, it's easy when you're a shitty person and are great at ignoring your responsibilities.

YANBU and I do wonder about it myself.
This issue is very personal as I did separate from STBXH almost 2 years ago after 19 years.4DC(20,18,7&4).Last 3 years of our relationship were horrendous,he was very abusive,refused to address his problems with alcohol and drugs.When pregnant with last DC he started to be extremely violent,emotionally abusive and said many times how I destroyed his life.Children were targeted as well hence my decison.
However back to the issue,after his arrest and my final decision,SS said that the contact with children will have to be supervised.He did nothing to arrange and secure contact with children.I did reach out to him during Christmas (4 months after the split) but it ended in further abuse towards me.He also openly told me that he is in new relationship.TBH, I was relieved as it meant he won't focus on abusing us so much.Since then he did nothing again to have regular contact with DCs.He did try to persuade me to facilitate this but I was really scared of him.When I did suggest to arrange more formal ways of contact,he was always finding millions of excuses(lockdown,the police said that I should allow him etc.)
I also found out that his new girlfriend has 3 children and he moved in with her.She is also very aggressive towards me,sending threatening messages,trying to intimidate us by knocking on our door and running away.Thanks God we have moved 3 months ago and they don't know where we live now.
For me personally,it's very hard to understand that he is happy to form a relationship and be a father figure to other children but he is not making any steps to have a healthy,secure relationship with his own children.I think it is more common than we realize.

I do think it is much harder for father to be fully involved after a split since custody is usually granted to the mother, although obviously plenty of men still manage it and some are just shitty people

Not true. Relationship break ups actually rarely end up in court, and those that do very rarely end up in “custody” being granted to anyone. Parenting arrangements are made between the parents the majority of time. So it’s absolute rubbish to blame courts for disappearing dads.