to wonder about the assumption that a wife is just unhappy so leaves husband but also takes the kids

[tangledweb]

I am a 'relationship' thread addict as my marriage isn't knit of the strongest fibre but i am a bit about the assumption that, just because you don't love your husband anymore, you should leave AND get the kids.

Doesn't that mean that men then have much more of an impetus is trying to keep marriages together than women as they don't just lose their partner but the kids too. It just seems imbalanced and of a selfish presumption to me.

I'm not sure what the answer is but it just seems unfair.

YABVU and you're quite wrong. The 'assumption', if it exists, is that a woman that leaves a relationship and doesn't take the children with her is an appalling creature. That is not true of men that leave a family and leave the children behind. And the impetus - because the balance of financial power, even in 2011, is still most often with the male half of the partnership - to keep the relationship together is with the woman, because if the relationship breaks down it is she (and the children by implication) that come off worse

YANBU, I hate the idea that mother's automatically get the kids in a divorce. I've known plenty of mothers who are nowhere near as good parents as their husbands, yet they get the kids. The children should go to the fittest parent.

Someone on my street left her husband and the baby, but took the cat

cogito, seriously, read the threads. Woman says 'i'm scared of being alone' and gets responses of 'but you won't be you'll have your children'. I competely understand the financial aspect (in wieghs on my mind for example) but that rarely comes up. If a woman says she'd like to stay, despite not loving her husband much anymore, she gets rounded on for being a gold digger.

gypsycat, i agree with you or at least a genuine recognition of shared parentling.

inmysparetime, now that sounds tempting!!

Would anything really change though? Would that sort of woman then not leave?

I don't need to read the threads, I see it IRL too often. Most often what I see are women that feel trapped in relationships because they & their children are too dependent on their partner or husband. (And they are not 'gold diggers' ffs). Closely followed by women who have been left by their partner/husband and who are beside themselves with worry about how they are going to cope. The woman described by inmysparetime is very untypical.

I think this assumption exists because it often is the mother who does the bulk of the childcare. Of course if the mother does most of the childcare, then the kids should go with her - unless she is unfit as a mother in some way. DCs deserve to have as little disruption as possible and this is one way of ensuring this.

I know fathers are more involved in childcare nwo and there is a growing number of SAHD. Where father does bulk of childcare, I think the kids should go with him. But it is still a less common situation.

I agree with you, OP. Where either parent is a good parent, there shouldn't be an automatic assumption of the children going with one parent or the other. One parent or the other might have put their career 'on hold' to care for the children on a full time basis so they aren't in a position to step back into the workplace and so don't have so many options to consider.

Agree completely with Cogito, too much dependence with no 'exit strategy', but who wants to think of that when they settle down and have children?

I read a novel recently about a divorcing couple who went to court, the judge awarded the house to the children and the parents had to alternate a week in and a week away to care for them. Quite innovative really but I think that would strike fear into a parent who has made it their full time job to care for their children.

Have no personal experience in this, but I have read interviews of adults who had the alternate weeks or half week custody and they hated it. Said they ended up feeling like nowhere was really home.

Cogito i think we're coming from the same angle. The advice on 'Relationships' is often very at odds with what happens IRL. That was why i was prompted to post on here about it. The financial imbalance is never really addressed properly because of gold digger accusations if a woman insinuates that she may stay for the stability.

Anyway, i'm reassured already that there are others that think differently.

(Obviously only talking about generic unhappiness, not abusive relationships etc)

The other problem perhaps is that this assumption reinforces the belief that the children belong to the mother, ao she should do the bulk of childcare, man can walk away etc. Is it a vicious cycle?

I'd love to see the courts automatically grant 50/50 shared care. It would mean that the children are not used as pawns, neither side would need to pay maintainance so no financial issues and neither parent is more important than the other. Yes it wouldnt work in some cases but it would in so many and ofr the benefit of the children.

I do think men get the short straw and do have most of the disadvantages in a breakup with children.

lesley33... but if the children stay in the family home, they aren't disrupted at all. The parents are, admittedly, but they can cope with it. It's not for the children to be displaced for the decisions of their parents.

I agree that there probably is that assumption. there is also the reality (in the majority of cases) that the man has the economic bargaining power. The man probably has the better chance of meeting someone else too (leaving the woman with her fear that she will be left alone for the rest of her life).

So the woman has the kids, the drudgery and financial worries as well as a fear/reality that she'll be alone for ever. The man has the money and another woman. Of course that's a massive generalisation, but I think the woman has almost as much to lose from a relationship breakdown as the man.

i'm going through a relationship breakdown, and my H used to say that the kids were the most important thing in his life. He seems quite happy now living the life of riley and taking them on exciting days out every weekend. While I have the rest. Seems a fair split to me.

As Lesley says, the basic reasoning behind this is that the mother is typically the one who devotes the most time to childcare and so is assumed to have the closest connection with the child(ren). It's not always the case but it is the most common case.

But I do think you have a point about many men staying in bad relationships because the alternative is to risk losing contact with their children. Even if you're a dad who has a full-time, out-of-the-home job you'll still likely be seeing and interacting with your children pretty much every day. To go from that to being an every-other-weekend dad is a horrifying prospect for many fathers.

This is one of those situations that make it clear how a patriarchal society is bad for both women and men.

Yanbu I notice it too all the time. And men who leave the kids are seen as hideous monsters - I see that allthe time too.

You could look at it the other way round and see how many husbands don't love their wives anymore so decide to leave, and see how often they take the children with them. They rarely do. They nearly always leave the children with their Mother.

lyingwitch - If DCs stay in the family home but the main caregiver changes, their lives are disrtupted. So if mum used to do most of the childcare and then suddenly that changes to dad, then that is a big change for the children.

Lesley33... but not as big a disruption as being shuttled from home to home. Some parents do have 50/50 custody.

I think that the family home is more important for the children than for the parents. If the children love both of their parents then what does it matter who is looking after them that week? Even in a non-split relationship, one or other of the parents could be away working, in hospital, etc.

A lot of men dont work hours that fit around childcare therefore they cant do 50/50 care.

I don't know for others. But as a child my mum was the main caregiver. If my parents had split up, I would have wanted to be with her. I love my dad and he did play with us and spent time with us, but because my mum was the main caregiver I felt closer to her.

My mum actually worked away from home for a year when my dad suddenly became the main caregiver. It felt like a massive disruption, even though we continued living in the same house.

Men mostly leave the children with the wife dont they?

I remember when my exh left me for ow to start a nice new life with her and make a shiney new family,i asked him "what makes you so certain i want to be in this house with the children?" He looked panic stricken as 3 teens and a baby would have seriously disrupted his plans.

Of course i didnt mean it but it did make me wonder.

So well i was dealing with the expense and stress of seeing 3 through college and a baby,full time job and big rambling house in need of repair,he was starting fresh in a child free new home should be a fucking law against it

You'd think that if some of these men love their children so much they might make the effort to be nicer to their mothers. The women who are unhappy in their relationships often feel that way because the man ignores them/puts them down all the time/does nothing like his share of the domestic work/spunks all the family money on his own hobby or any of that stuff that a lot of people say isn't actually abuse but is horrible to live with.

In my experience will RL friends, the woman gives up her earning potential to do childcare, the relationship breaks down for whatever reason. The woman is left doing childcare and trying to get a job that fits around that while the dad gets to keep his FT job and do fun stuff with the dcs at weekends and take them out to the cinema and pizza express one night a week after school. I don't know any dads in this position that arrange their own childcare for the after school to after work gap on their contact day, they expect their ex wives to cover any awkward gaps like that.

Dads say they can't do the day to day stuff because of work but aren't prepared to pay towards childcare so the mums can try to get their career back. If women go back to work full time they will pay for the childcare on the days they look after the dcs but men seem to be able to dodge this.

It's the default position in this country.

In Sweden the default position would be shared custody and that both parents would subordinate their own convenience to this, i.e. not move too far from each other and make a great effort to keep communicating. The children I know who are in this kind of situation have their two homes very close together and are not shuttled from place to place, but can run over to get things when they want to. I am sure it is not always an ideal situation for the parents, but it doesn't have to be traumatic for the child.

And not all couples divorce because someone's been horrible, SGB; as you yourself tend to point out, some people just find they were not made for monogamy. Others find they did not have anything in common. Others again fall in love with somebody else.