To think a man with five kids he barely sees won’t be considered a catch on the dating scene?

The ‘father of 5’ should be enough to make women not want to date him!

Why do you think people would know about it? I very much doubt his dating profile says, "father of 5, but I don't see them."

@Anarchy99 i’m not quite sure what you mean, which bit of my post said that they were worse than the original poster?

Why didn’t you ask more questions at the 3 children point?!!

"I dont know what I did wrong" my ex wailed in January
You cut down contact
You stopped contact
You demanded and got contact of one hour twice a week
You stopped contact again
You moved away then back again years later
You never asked to see them

This is all clearly my fault and not a you problem at all!

He has also not bothered asking about them or to see them since January 🤔

And his wife and family fully believe im the problem

Can you explain how someone who has abandoned their kids can be a decent person? Genuinely interested.

Why are they any worse than the OP?

Everyone judges by how people present and treat them, not just ND people.

Obviously not in MN land where people also claim to vote against their own best interests for the greater good of the country but in the real world.

Do you automatically think someone is a good person because they haven’t left their kids or been an OW?

Given the number of threads every day about friendship dilemmas and relationship issues, I don’t think it’s me that is the crap judge of people that you assume.

He will spin a story of psycho exes, stopping him from seeing his children. Peoples internal misogyny will lead them to believe him, he’ll target young women, probably in their 20s, who will think he’s a catch. Sorry OP but there it is, vile, but there it is.

You would think not but I am continually amazed by some of the substandard men women are willing to put up with so who knows?

I will say that I judge people on who they are and how they treat me.
I think you said this.

How they treat you.

It’s definitely a moral choice!

It’s a moral issue if you have children with someone who has proven themselves a sub-par father as you are putting your children at risk of the same

Not sure what I have posted to make people think I’m thick but there is a massive difference between a criminal and someone who has walked away from his children.

Even ND people have the ability to reason more than ‘this person is nice to me therefore I don’t care that they murdered someone’.

If people only judged people on how they treated them and not others they would see nothing wrong with associating with convicted criminals because, after all, they've not done anything to them.

Not saying you would but this is where it would take you.

I see that there might be trouble with that way of being.

Just as I see that a man who's waltzed out of his children's lives is likely to be a piece of shit.

Not really, having children with a man who has other children isn’t a moral issue, regardless of his interactions with them, although in OP’s case she clearly states he had a relationship with them to begin with. Naive possibly, poor in judgment, stupid maybe, but it’s not a moral issue.

That made a very good point.

@Bezerk This must be a very difficult and disappointing time, but it sounds like you are doing everything you can to dig yourself out of it and following up where possible with police etc.

It is is hard when you are struggling to get things back on track after having such an awful time, to think that he has waltzed off and is still carrying on, having a good time, without letting the small matter of things like actual feelings get in the way. But what you are doing is building a far better life for you and your children, where you don't have to life a life based on the whims of someone who has very very little to offer.
It may look dandy for him at the moment, but what has he really got. A string of broken relationships, children he doesn't seem to care about who will grow up not caring about him. These things will weigh heavily on him as time goes by. He lives his life in a really shallow way, if the things he values and doesn't value are anything to go by.

You by contrast, will have a well earned freedom from a very unsatisfactory relationship, with two children who know that you love and care about them. You are so much better off now than you were when you were still putting up with him. You have shown a lot of bravery, things will get back on track. Wishing you and your two little ones all the very best x

You do know that ND people aren’t some generic group? It might be your experience and you clearly think I’m lying.

But then you clearly think I’m a bit thick, given you felt the need to explain red flags.

As it goes, people who I choose to have in my life don’t get a chance to treat me badly and anything I did find unacceptable would just lead me to walk away with no drama.

You could argue that it is a moral failing to have children with someone who has already left his existing ones because you are knowingly risking the exact same situation

People can only say about their own experiences.
My experiences with autistic people is that they are not that good at reading people. Sorry.

I will say though, in the spirit of fairness, that judging other people on how they treat you and not in my opinion the bad things they've done to other people is a mistake because chances are if it is in them to treat others badly one day you might be the target.

The question to ask is, 'what bad things do I know they've done to others?'

This is the basis of the concept of red flags.

To be fair, though, both so-called neuro-typical and neuro-divergent people can and often do ignore this wisdom.

Of course the irony is that I’m not so desperate to be liked that I will accept any crap.

Do you make decisions about people purely on what others say about them? That seems quite short sighted.

My NT friends are used to me being proven right about people.

You took him with three. In terms of attractiveness as a partner, I'm not sure there's a lot of difference between 3 and 5.

No sensible woman would see him as a prospect but unfortunately there are plenty of women who will fall for an attractive man who says what she wants to hear

If I was dating then possibly.

If you can’t see the difference between pre meditated murder and leaving your children then I worry for YOUR ideas around relationships.

I understand human interactions perfectly fine. In fact I can read people incredibly well and am rarely if ever wrong about them.