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Original poster

To seriously judge this man?

117 replies

Canyoucreateoneplease · 17/08/2025 16:11

A colleague of mine’s BIL has had an affair, got his affair partner pregnant, and is now moving to China to be with her. He’s divorcing his wife and leaving behind his three sons, who are 17, 11 and 5.

How can anyone do this? I know affairs happen and lots of people leave their partners, but how can he leave his kids? Colleague is backing him and following her DH’s line that he’s been unhappy for years and his wife is awful, which I completely believe, but leaving behind your kids? I can’t fathom how anyone could do it.

OP posts:
Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:54

lotsofpatience · 18/08/2025 13:51

You know jackshit about this family so you are not in a position to judge. Stay out of it

What could there be to know that would justify leaving your kids to move to China?

OP posts:
StrokeRecovery25 · 18/08/2025 13:53

5128gap · 17/08/2025 16:53

It doesn't work that way, does it? Or we'd have to not judge drink drivers and muggers and racists until we were sure we knew every detail of their stories. Sonetimes the one thing we do know about a person is so bad, no detail would prevent us thinking the person was a wrong 'un.

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This.

leaving his wife, well, it happens & we've no idea what he has/hasn't trued or what she's really like.

moving out if the family home when you have kids. Sad but sometimes for the best.

moving away so you're not near by. Not ideal but sometimes jobs/col have to be considered

moving continents away, unacceptable (except for possibly a few reasons & strategies put in place). Moving to bloody Chinese for an AP & leaving your 3 children ???

though given he can do this to them. They're probably better off without him!!

Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:52

VaseofViolets · 18/08/2025 13:47

We’re all different. I’m not sure how that’s news to you. Do you often struggle to see other people’s points of view, or find it difficult to understand that people make different choices to the ones you think you’d make?

Not very open-minded of you.

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No, I am very much not open minded about abandoning your children.

OP posts:
lotsofpatience · 18/08/2025 13:51

You know jackshit about this family so you are not in a position to judge. Stay out of it

Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:50

42wallabywaysydney · 18/08/2025 13:45

You’ve met your colleague’s husband’s brother’s wife?

It’s not that uncommon for this to happen. Yes, it’s sad that he’s abandoning his kids but I’ve seen it happen quite a lot especially when living abroad or with expat friends. I silently judge a bit, and feel sorry for the kids, but at the end of the day you don’t know the ins and outs of other people’s relationships and I do think ‘not my monkeys not my circus’ is very appropriate here when it’s quite far removed from you by the sounds of it. I have colleagues and acquaintances that have done this, I’m not going to write them off when it’s not really my business. If it was a close friend or family member that’s different. No idea why some people would judge the colleague in this situation either it’s clearly nothing to do with her.

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I’ve met them all many, many times.

I must live in a different world. I don’t know anyone else who’s left their kids to move abroad.

OP posts:
Netcurtainnelly · 18/08/2025 13:50

OverlyFragrant · 17/08/2025 16:14

Not your circus, not your monkeys.

Exactly nor ours.

Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:49

whitewineandsun · 18/08/2025 13:43

That probably explains it, though? He's in love with this one.

How you end up having three kids with a person you don't care about is bizarre to me, though. He's a bastard.

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I completely understand him leaving his wife. I’d say it was almost inevitable. It’s the abandoning the kids I can’t get my head around. Her moving here to be with him and raise the new baby? It’s shit but I can see how it happens.

Walking away from your 15, 12 and 5 year old not knowing when you’ll next see them? Just cannot understand how anyone could.

OP posts:
VaseofViolets · 18/08/2025 13:47

Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:40

What’s so difficult about leaving your three kids to move to China? I would find it impossible. And impossible to understand how anyone could.

Not sure what you’re struggling with.

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We’re all different. I’m not sure how that’s news to you. Do you often struggle to see other people’s points of view, or find it difficult to understand that people make different choices to the ones you think you’d make?

Not very open-minded of you.

StrokeRecovery25 · 18/08/2025 13:46

OverlyFragrant · 17/08/2025 16:14

Not your circus, not your monkeys.

Are you not familiar with how chat sites work??

42wallabywaysydney · 18/08/2025 13:45

Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:30

I’ve met her. I can completely believe he wasn’t happy. But I cannot fathom him leaving his kids.

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You’ve met your colleague’s husband’s brother’s wife?

It’s not that uncommon for this to happen. Yes, it’s sad that he’s abandoning his kids but I’ve seen it happen quite a lot especially when living abroad or with expat friends. I silently judge a bit, and feel sorry for the kids, but at the end of the day you don’t know the ins and outs of other people’s relationships and I do think ‘not my monkeys not my circus’ is very appropriate here when it’s quite far removed from you by the sounds of it. I have colleagues and acquaintances that have done this, I’m not going to write them off when it’s not really my business. If it was a close friend or family member that’s different. No idea why some people would judge the colleague in this situation either it’s clearly nothing to do with her.

whitewineandsun · 18/08/2025 13:43

Canyoucreateoneplease · 17/08/2025 16:49

I’m not sure he ever really loved his wife wife. He stuck by her when she found out she was pregnant, but has had plenty of affairs over the years. I just can’t wrap my head around leaving the kids. I can’t imagine how they must be feeling.

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That probably explains it, though? He's in love with this one.

How you end up having three kids with a person you don't care about is bizarre to me, though. He's a bastard.

Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:40

VaseofViolets · 18/08/2025 13:36

You can understand, what’s so difficult about it? It’s been explained multiple times on this thread. You just don’t like that he’s done it and don’t imagine doing it yourself - fine. That’s your prerogative. That’s not the same thing as not understanding. We’re all different.

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What’s so difficult about leaving your three kids to move to China? I would find it impossible. And impossible to understand how anyone could.

Not sure what you’re struggling with.

OP posts:
Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:38

Swiftie1878 · 18/08/2025 13:36

He never really loved her but somehow managed to have three kids with her. Poor man.

🤦🏼‍♀️

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You don't have to love someone to shag them.

You may think he’s a poor man. I don’t.

OP posts:
VaseofViolets · 18/08/2025 13:36

Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:30

I’ve met her. I can completely believe he wasn’t happy. But I cannot fathom him leaving his kids.

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You can understand, what’s so difficult about it? It’s been explained multiple times on this thread. You just don’t like that he’s done it and don’t imagine doing it yourself - fine. That’s your prerogative. That’s not the same thing as not understanding. We’re all different.

Swiftie1878 · 18/08/2025 13:36

Canyoucreateoneplease · 17/08/2025 16:49

I’m not sure he ever really loved his wife wife. He stuck by her when she found out she was pregnant, but has had plenty of affairs over the years. I just can’t wrap my head around leaving the kids. I can’t imagine how they must be feeling.

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He never really loved her but somehow managed to have three kids with her. Poor man.

🤦🏼‍♀️

Hankunamatata · 18/08/2025 13:31

He didnt care about his family when he had an affair. He wont care now. He gets to pretend to start over again and not deal with the devastation that his kids feel prioritising his new partner and new child.

He can also play the line that the ex alienated his children.

Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:30

YetiRosetti · 17/08/2025 23:16

She might have but we don’t know. We don’t know anything about her. My point is that men who cheat always claim they weren’t happy and that their wife is awful, whether it’s true or not, so OP shouldn’t assume that it is true.

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I’ve met her. I can completely believe he wasn’t happy. But I cannot fathom him leaving his kids.

OP posts:
Maddy70 · 18/08/2025 13:30

I would keep my nose out, not pass any comment and get on with my life

VaseofViolets · 18/08/2025 13:28

Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:20

So you fight in court for access and don’t sign over the house. You don’t go to Saudi without your kids.

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Apparently there’s no limit to the nastiness, abuse and cruelty a woman can inflict on a man that other women won’t seek to excuse and condone. Because women have to be endlessly coddled and indulged, even when their behaviour towards an ex is vengeful and spiteful. And they just expect a man to take it endlessly ‘because of the kids’ - maybe if the woman in that example had loved her children more than she hated him, and not gone out of her way to make his life a misery, the children would still have a father in their lives.

Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:26

MidnightMeltdown · 17/08/2025 22:03

How is it a good relationship? You said that you’re not sure that he ever loved her. Would you want to spend the rest of your life in a relationship with someone you don’t love? I certainly wouldn’t.

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I said ‘with the children’.

She is not the children.

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Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:23

MidnightMeltdown · 17/08/2025 21:59

That sounds a bit suspect. Some women intentionally get pregnant to try to keep a man. That sort deserve to be cheated on. Never the fault of the children of course.

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This was definitely not the case. It was a big shock to them both.

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Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:22

AquaFurball · 17/08/2025 20:00

Never surprised by people leaving their children for an affair partner. I even know a women who left her 3 kids, one was less than a year old to go off with the man she was having another child with. She never saw two of the 3 children again. Claimed husband was violent and abusive but left her baby there anyway.

What will never fail to confuse me is why people in such unhappy relationships have multiple children together when it was never a happy relationship.

I honestly do not understand how they can leave their children.

OP posts:
Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:20

rwalker · 17/08/2025 19:51

to the outside world my friend did this went to work in Saudi
the reality was his then partner was a complete narcissist
told him he’d have to fight her in court for access and she’d make sure it bankrupted him with court cost and he was regularly threatened by her family
no great back story she wanted the house ( they weren’t married and he had it before they met she’d contributed nothing) signing over to her and it all spiralled from there
pushed him to the verge of a breakdown but tells anyone who would listens including there daughter he’d abandoned them

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So you fight in court for access and don’t sign over the house. You don’t go to Saudi without your kids.

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Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:18

VaseofViolets · 17/08/2025 18:51

Not based on what you’ve said, no. It’s not surprising. I think he’s a low-life for leaving his children, but based on what you’ve said about his marriage it’s never been good right from the start. His wife’s probably less shocked than you claim to be.

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Leaving your wife is very different to leaving your kids.

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Original poster
Canyoucreateoneplease · 18/08/2025 13:17

VaseofViolets · 17/08/2025 19:06

I can’t imagine being this shocked or interested in a colleague’s BIL’s marriage. Why bother speculating on perfect strangers? It’s a waste of mental energy when you know practically nothing about them or their relationship.

They are not strangers at all.

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