A man who doesn't see his children

I’ve read all of your updates and I would still end the relationship. Your gut is telling you to run for a reason.

Well no..giving up for adoption usually involves hoping / knowing the child is going to have a better life as a result ..wanted by parents who have gone an extra mile to be so. It's in the best interests of the child. A father walking away, especially if he does not contribute financially, involves deciding what's best for him and screw the child. Totally different.

A comparison is a mother who leaves her baby with a foster family. Then never turn up.

The men do have the option to double up protection. Wrap it up or go solo. It is simple as that. I think men who abandon one child should get vasectomy. And the same with mothers who do these cruel acts that hurt children deliberately. Abandonment is a horrible cruel thing that people try to normalise. It will never be normal or morally right.

See how I'm saying abandonment and not protection against abuse. Abortion and abandonment are also different. It is called taking responsibility for your actions.

I would run for the hills. His family is also horrible agreeing to abandon the child.

However, I'm incredibly biased based on my current situation. Ex decided to abandoned our children but his siblings are very welcoming and see dc regularly. He is applying pressure and he stopped communicating with his oldest sister over it.

She apologies for her brother behaviour and she compares it to some one being a drug addict. You can refuse to buy the drug but still have your door open for them.

Me and ex were married over a decade. I also knew his family before marriage. So it is different circumstances.

Personally I’d see it as a huge red flag and a turn off, however, DS’s Dad seems to have done alright (ish), with two marriages since we seperated 22 years ago. Personally I would have run for the hills!

I think it depends, OP.

The case of the mother saying she wanted him not around would be v difficult.

I know someone who was divorced and although he initially saw their child a fair bit, the mother didn't want him involved and he thought it would cause too much upset to the child to go against it.

However, I think it's significant that he himself barely knew his own father, and he believed that fathers were not particularly important in kids' lives, his upbringing was solidly matriarchal. I think he regretted later though.

Run for the hills

Yes it woudl be a red flag and with the excuse he gave I would lose all respect for him

The most enormous and reddest of flags. I wouldn't have any interest whatsoever in a man who has no involvement with his own child.

Yes I would be f delighted to have some help and funds and the odd break.

In another version, I am painted as crazy ex who weaponised children and put him off seeing them because he is too hurt to see them now. It’s too upsetting for him. So he has cut off all contact. There are no birthday cards, no phone calls, no Christmas cards, no money to them or to me, no savings accounts, no contact details.

It is all shit. And his family make it sound pretty reasonable.

As a single mother, I agree.

95% of me says he’ll do that again.
but.. I do have one mate that had a child after a one night stand with a guy she didn’t really like. She wanted to be a mum but genuinely did not want him in her life.
she refused to accept money on the basis he didn’t get involved.

I think the problem with "didn't want a child" is that it sees the child as a commodity which is conjured up at our whim and for our amusement.

Well, like it or not, that child is here and he has clear responsibilities for his own actions, morally and financially, These are to contibute bring up the child in terns and see it reaches adulthood unscathed. But he has chosen just to ignore this duty.

To be able to push your own self-interest at the expense of a vulnerable and innocent baby takes a special kind of selfishness and hard-heartedness that would count him out as a potential partner to me.

It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me. For me, a dealbreaker would be a married man who agreed to have children but is a shit parent & partner, or who abandoned his wife and children for a new partner. Demonstrates utter lack of loyalty & i often suspect it’s because many men only marry and have children because that’s what their partners want.

In this case, he made clear he did not want a child, & his partner decided to have it anyway when she fell pregnant. Maybe they were on birth control which failed. Or she claimed to be on birth control and wasn’t, or she sabotaged his. Regardless, she decided to have the child after he made clear he had no interest in being a father.

Forcing a relationship in those circumstances would likely be impossible, & also not a good idea. So his lack of contact is no surprise.

So he knocked a woman up and thought he could dodge his responsibilities by walking away. This is not a nice man. He is just good at pretending his is.

Of all the red flags “my ex is mentally unwell and I don’t see the children” is the biggest one. If you can’t see why, you’re part of the problem

I’m sorry OP but this!

Run!!

Unless he can show active and repetitive efforts to see the kids

Sorry your DH’s children were being sexually abused in their home, but he wasn’t seeing them because when he did they were so traumatised they were crying - and he’s a great dad?

Have you missed out part of the story?

How unattractive

I’d run in the opposite direction and never look back. This one thing would tell me everything I’d ever need to know about him

What would you say if a woman never saw her child? What perception would you have? This is no different.

They both made the decision to have unprotected sex and a child has been the consequence of that.

For a lot of women abortion is not an option for various reasons, and continuing the pregnancy is not a decision, as there is nothing to decide.

Well, if this is the case - he pays and simply doesn't want anything to do with the child - then of course its not an issues as such. What I would worry about is what would happen if I decide I want a child with this guy. Will he do the same?

Yes, but usually they are not easy decisions to make and carry long term consequences.