To wonder why so many men lose interest in their kids when the relationship breaks down?

[dadsnkids]

I am wondering why so many men seem to lose interest in their children and don't even seem to love them any more after their wife eirher dies or they split.

I've seen this so many times from previously so called devoted dads and it makes me wonder if they are devoted to their wives not the children and then fall out of love with the kids along with the wife.

Or is it that their new relationship(s) take priority over the kids?

Disclaimer - I know this isn't every man but it seems to be true in many cases I have known.

I've seen this a few times - one of the dads I know told his son "if your mother meets someone else then I won't consider you my son anymore".

And she did, and he didn't.

My pet theory: many men have only one primary emotional relationship growing up - with their mother. They transfer this emotional relationship from their mother to their wives generally. Then the kids come along and they are seen as an extension of the mother and the emotional relationship with the children is transmitted via the mother to the man. If the man then stops having an emotional relationship with the mother he often sees the kids but when he transfer his primary emotional relationship to another woman he loses the connection to his previous children as his relationship with them was entirely mediated by the woman.
If he has children with his new woman he emotionally bonds to them, again via the mother.

Society expects women to manage a family emotionally and this really disadvantages men and boys.

As I say, it's a theory generated by me from seeing men take on second families and being the perfect family man while leaving a devastated first wife and children whom he ignores.

My theory on this is that many men hate the idea of failure, and having a visible and constant reminder of the fact that the relationship with the DCs mother broke down - regardless of if it was their choice or not - makes it easier just not to see the DCs that often.

Coupled with that the fact that the DCs will look like his ex and the fact that actual parenting is hard work when you have to do it yourself, then I can see why some men walk away ( I'm not condoning it though at all).

Having said that, in the relationships that I have seen breaking up the DFs do actually continue to play an involved role in their DC's lives - in some cases they seem to be better parents now than they were when they were together.

Interesting and I suspect correct theory Miggsie - it also explains why many men don't maintain much contact with their parents when they get married.

For me my dad stopped seeing us once he left because of his new wife. She admitted she hated the fact that his children where the same age as her.

She knew all of this at the beginning of their affair and they still went ahead with it. But at the end of the day my dad was a selfish arse who felt his needs and wants were more important then anyone else's. He was the one to lose out, he lost his relationship with his 3 children and he had no relationship with my children.

The only time he himself admitted he was wrong was went it was too late as he was dying.

I think Miggsie has got something there. I know someone whose ex partner gushes over his step children but is full of excuses about why he can't spend him with his actual bio children. They just attach themselves by default to the family setup of the woman they're with (not saying all men do, just that it's a pattern for some)

That's my Dad to a T!

Have seen it a few times, yes.
With horrendous impact on the children.

My personal experience is limited. ExSIL had an affair and shares custody of kids with my DB. She supposed to have them over alf the time, but the reality is different. She is happy for him to have them a lot more frequently as long as she gets the money. DB goes on holiday with the kids, she goes off to the Med with new bf and sends the kids to say with her parents.

There are undoubtedly feckless dads out there, but he is not one of them.

An alternative perspective. When my parents split up, it was my mum that left and we lived with my dad. My mum was terrible at maintaining contact with us. I did most of the work to see her (I was a teenager). So maybe it isn't a man thing, but an absent parent thing? And it is just easy to withdraw from a relationship if you are not present every day and if there are lots of emotions hurtling around?

The cases I know of are where the mother has died, so I don't think it's an absent parent issue.

In every case, the deciding factor seems to be the attitude of the new partner.

That's a problem too, OP - why on earth do some women take on men with kids, and then do all they can to drive a wedge between them? I don't get it. I fought a lot with my stepmother as a teenager - it wasn't easy for either of us, but to her credit she never questioned our right to be there.

My dad fought for joint custody of my sister and I, and we lived 50% of the time with him and 50% with Mum. They both had to make sacrifices to do that, for instance, not moving away from the area. It might have helped that Dad and my stepmother didn't have kids until DSis and I left home so there was no conflict between new children and old.

My dad was a bit of an odd one, he was a crap dad, disinterested in how we did at school, never knew how old we were, etc.
But, when my parents got divorced he was insistant on access, we saw him twice in the week and at weekends. His new girlfriend didn't like it but put up with it.
He was still a pretty crap dad, his needs and wishes came first and foremost. I cant really understand why he bothered, it was just like a routine.

My gran (his mum), used to bang on all the time about how lucky we were to have a dad that bothered with us as most men "would just leave", like he deserved a bloody medal or something.

I think Miggsie's and rookie's theories have legs.

A friend of mines mother died when he was very young. His Father took to drink and in the end him and his brothers ended up in care. I don't think his dad didn't care he just felt to bits after his wife died and never recovered, he too died fairly young due to alcohol abuse it isn't an excuse but it is a reason.

My exh sees the dcs about once every 3 months or so. He moved hundreds of miles away and is too busy to see them.

When he does see them he is Disney dad- last time he bought them a games console, games and dvds, he spent a fortune. Shame he couldn't think to buy them stuff they actually need like shoes

I don't know why he's like this but tbh he was pretty uninterested when we were together so it's no surprise.

I think the other thing is that some men need positive feedback for everything they do.

So whilst in a partnership with the DCs DM then they will generally be rewarded by at least a smile and some thanks when they do things with their own DCs.So in bertsdinner's DF's case, the DF probably continued to see them because his DM praised him for it.

In most cases once the couple have split up there's little external positive impetus for the DF to keep seeing the DCs - DC's DM is unlikely to thank him for his efforts, if there is an OW or a new woman on the scene it's not in their best interests to encourage the relationship. Thus unless the DF is internally motivated by the fact that he is doing the right thing, meetings with the DCs drifts away.

I don't know why, I wish I did. My ex husband wasn't a great father from the start but after we separated (due to many things, lots of which involved his hands around my neck), he couldn't have been worse. He bad mouthed me to our mutual friends resulting in them backing away from me, told them and my 2 eldest children (his biological sons) that I wouldn't let him see them (absolutely not true, every line of communication was open he just refused to use them and made them feel guilty for not contacting him instead) and when we moved overseas, with his full permission and after signing a letter with the notary (he almost ran to that notary) he stopped paying maintenance. Ok, he wasn't legally obliged to but morally, this was a kick in the teeth for my sons. It really took me about 5 years to get to the point where I thought, fuck it, they don't need this shit and neither do I. It was such a difficult time before that though. When both myself and the boys would ask him to spend more time with them he would say that he had a life too and that he needed to 'sort himself out'. I went through years of trying to convince my children that their father did love them but showed it in different ways. Even after several years, he refused to come into our home (I had now remarried and had 2 other children) and would only eat cake with them on the front step on their birthdays, refused to come in to their home. They eventually realised for themselves how selfish he was.

On his last weekend with them, before we moved overseas, he told them that he couldn't afford to come and see them that year, that he had lots of bills to pay (they were 9 and 12 by now). He then took them, with his girlfriend, into a travel agency and booked a holiday for himself and her for a couple of months later. She has since been in touch with me (they are no longer together) to tell me how he always thought it was a massive effort to see the boys on his one weekend a month.

Anyway, to cut an extremely long story short, my ex husband didn't see our second son for 3 years untill he saw him in the mortuary after he took his own life aged 15. We don't know why and I'm not blaming my ex husband, in fact I blame myself more than anything for not realising how he was feeling but I did think that it would make him realise what he had lost and what he could still have with our eldest son who is now almost 20. He did, for about 2 weeks, even though he tells friends that he calls him and Skypes him regularly - not true. But his life hasn't involved our children for so long and they never did mean a great deal to him. I hope to god that he rots in hell for all that he has put them through, even though they have always felt sorry for him for me leaving that abusive relationship. Ah yes, I'll always have to live with the fact that I broke up our family because that's what he made them believe. Narcissistic and toxic ex husband. Tick. Selfish twat of an ex husband. Tick. Ex husband that thinks more about himself than his children. Tick.

In answer to your original question OP, I think that it's very much a case of out of sight, out of mind. For men and for women although it's usual, in a vast majority of cases, for mothers to look after the children after separation and so this tag line is often applied to more men than women. I know that there are a lot of fathers out there who want to spend more time with their children and their ex wife's won't let them. This is not the case with my ex husband and with a lot of people that I know.

A family member of mine split from his partner, two kids who he adores/adored. The family member concerned (on my side of the family) made his life unbearable in respect of the kids, never let him see them, cancelled plans, changed plans, even hid in the house with the kids when he came round (as arranged) to collect them. She even once invited him to the birthday party of the youngest and told him it was at home (in the house where they had both lived for 11 years and on which he was still paying the mortgage) only for him to arrive to an empty house and not find out until 4 hours later that she had already had the party at a local pub in a function room. It was truly heartbreaking to see the hurt and loss on my ex BIL's face. He never lost interest as such, it just wore him down so much over 3 years of being cruly taunted and treated so badly that he walked away. He is now in touch with his son who is 15 and they go out but the younger one (girl aged 12) wants nothing to do with him. Very, very sad.

I'm so sorry to hear about your DS LoustertheRooster.

Well with my ExH I'm sure it was because of me. He wasn't ever a particularly good dad but he was a SAHD with them from birth so he was with them a lot but not very engaged with them a lot of the time.

When we split he moved to the other end of the country because he wanted to get as far away from me as possible. Said he couldn't handle being around me. Never mind that his DC's had gone from having their dad there all the time, every day if their lives to seeing him once every 6 months. No, his needs were more important.

He kept promising he would move back but he met someone else and now lives with her and her 2 daughters and I'm 99.9999% he will never keep his promise. His loss really but I do feel sorry for the kids, ds used to ask why daddy wasnt around anymore but I couldn't tell him the truth.

Thank you Rookie

I would just like to say that sometimes I do think it's better for the children involved to have no contact with a parent rather than a part time contact that just can't be arsed. I think it's far more detrimental to childrens lives to have someone popping in and out when they feel like it than cutting ties altogether. I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but after all the shit we've been through as a blended family, this is what I believe to be true for us. That's not how I wanted it to be but for my children's sanity, I'd have preferred that.

I think you may well be right Louster.

I read somewhere that it was actually easier for DCs to adjust when a parent died, rather than when they got divorced.
Before everyone jumps in to have a go, I'm sure that's not the case in all circumstances - in those situations where parents I know have split I've been amazed at how amicably they have managed to resolve contact and the DCs seem very well adjusted - but as a DC I can't imagine how painful it would be growing up with sporadic contact and gradually realising that for whatever reason the absent parent prioritised other things above contact.

Apig please don't think like that my love. Sometimes - sometimes things happen in a relationship that can't be resolved. Moving to the other end of the country though seems like a two fingered salute to you. Did he have to do that? Is he only really able to see his children every 6 months? Sometimes jobs and life mean a shift in our pattern but please don't blame yourself for that. It takes no more than a day to drive from one end of the UK to the other and although it's not a drive I'd want to do on a daily basis, I would for my children. It's not your fault.

its not just men though women can be the same when they leave their dcs, i saw my mom for a while but then she just stopped contact and that was that, till i was an adult then regained contact. we have a good relationship but i dont see/ phone her very often im just used to not haveing her in my life

Abney - I think you might be on to something. Maybe absence just makes it easier to drift away and move on. As men are far more often the non-resident parent, its more likely to be fathers that do that.
We'd all like to believe we'd never behave that way but who really knows what they'd do, in love with someone new, a fabulous new life on offer, a chance to do it all again without making the same mistakes etc.

Or maybe its just men. Dp (a very hands on, loving father to dd) and I went away for a weekend recently without dd. On the way back, I was just about to say I'd missed dd when dp said 'Oh god do we have to go back?'. I think he was joking.