My dh walked away from his children after fighting to see them for six years - AMA

[Katypp]

Family courts about 12 years ago - things hopefully will have changed by now

Why is it bizarre?

Its internalised misogyny and its so tiresome.

Your are talking about child maintenance as if it is only the CM calculated by the CMS. Plenty of men pay voluntary CM and have no contact with the CMS at all. Anything paid to the mother by the father (not spousal support) is child maintenance.

Or is based on their situation that you know f all about?

Well those children are adults by now? He could reach out to them now. Forget the past and start afresh.

How when he doesn't know where they are?

I’m sorry for your DH, OP. Poor guy.

Would he consider hiring a PI to trace his kids?

How long did he pay 50% of his salary to ex?

How much was 80% of his salary?

Were you with him when he was paying 80% of his salary?

Because the OP claimed 80%

Maybe try reading the thread before commenting?

Ok, I know nothing ffs.

As I said 12 years through family court, we went through every manipulation tactic possible, every holiday was ruined, near enough every contact was withheld. You have no idea what hoops we had to jump through. Every time we took her back to court and every time it cost the grand sum of £250 for the application, We didnt use solicitors, she did a few times, so monatary reasons I do not view as valid for not fighting.

Her lies were astronomical, If I wrote it all down I would be here till next week.

She was a social worker, she had social worker friends writing lies about us and also her Mother who was a social worker.

And do You know what, for years we told the court she was an alcoholic but all her social worker friends wrote statements saying she was not. Did we give up? Not a chance! Dss was unsafe in her care, she was manipulative, she used great alienation tactics she was bloody crazy and an alcoholic to boot.

So glad we didnt give up though as if we walked away it would have been 13 year old Dss who found his Mum dead from her alcoholism and not a random neighbough.

I dont care what excuse anyone wants to use for their Partners/Husbands for 'walking away'. No good parent would do that.

No its based on personal and professional experience.

It's weird how it's always the GF/new wife always doing the threads about pushing for contact not the DFs.

Fair enough. Your case is extreme though and absolutely I wouldn’t have left my kids in the care of someone with a drink problem.

That doesn’t mean that everyone who walks away is a bad parent or hasn’t pushed themselves to the absolute limit though.

In my own case the children are in no physical danger with their mum and it was 100 percent in everyone’s best interests to walk away for a few years.

I based my comment on what the OP said as we all do and others have raised the same point.

Beexo-I mean it's mumsnet isn't it? Obvs there are some dads here and welcome-but no surprise it's predominantly women that start threads mostly surely?

Sending some support here op. My dh was in a similar position. He did maintain contact with his kids but it was hard and their relationship is distant now.

His kids are now similar ages to your dh's so I also hope that the attitudes of the family court have changed towards parental alienation and disrupting contact.

But short of jailing the parent or moving the kids to live with the other parent I don't know what the courts can do even now.

There was never any suggestion of jail for the mum, I don't think dh would have wanted that anyway, and when he applied to court to have the kids live with him and he would facilitate contact with their mum the judgement was that they were better off with their mum because that was their established home and they barely spent time with dh. (Because their mum thwarted it at every turn)

I think sometimes you come up against a particularly difficult parent who just doesn't put the kids first. That can be a mum or a dad.

From what I saw, putting the kids first means protecting them as much as possible from the intricacies of negotiations, not criticising their other parent and not getting in the way of whatever relationship your kids want to form with their other parent and that parent's family, whatever shape that goes on to take.

And if both parties are not willing to do that then it really is tough on the kids.

I'd be interested to know if people do think this situation is dealt with better nowadays.

No one rides harder for a deadbeat...

Until of course they experience it themselves.

Lol.

can you imagine how that would go? They would be absolutely crucified before the first page was finished.

I actually did years ago under an old account that I lost all the details for, and was accused of all sorts. I was only looking for advice from people who might have been through similar. The thread was removed in the end and the general consensus was that I was obviously a wife beater in denial.

I’m so confused about this thread.
I have no difficulty believing that a decent father could be alienated from his children by a manipulative mother, and eventually gave up trying to see them for his own mental health and their sakes.
But I have absolutely no idea what AMA means, nor why this thread has been posted, 12 years on. What do you want from us, OP?

This isn’t about gender.

male or female. Walking away from your own children is heinous and a woman doing it is usually seen as worse than men.

I am unsure why you started this op. Men or women abandoning their kids and still having no contact as adults, is never going to go down well. I understand for you its all good, but for most of us reading it these are children without a father.

That doesn’t mean that everyone who walks away is a bad parent

Yes, it does.

I agree.

No decent parent would walk away but unfortunately there are a lot just full of excuses.

@Porcinimushroom Some have been on the verge of suicide with the crap they are put through via the courts and social services. I have even heard of some committing suicide over the whole issue. In these cases, they need to take a step back to recover. I think a lot of people don't realise what this whole process can do to people, especially when no one believes you and they believe the abusive parent.