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Original poster

How the hell can dads just up and leave their kids?!

152 replies

harboromummy · 01/12/2015 23:23

Feeling super hormonal tonight.

Left abusive ex husband over two years ago. He was around the kids the first year, this year he's been shocking. Haven't heard from him in over a month, doesn't pay csa, demands to have the kids on his terms (I.e every time it's someone in his families bday so he looks "good").

My dd isn't that bothered, she's 7 and my ds whose 6 doesn't really talk about him. But they adored their dad.

I'm heartbroken for them. They must be. How can someone just leave like that?! How can he carry on his life and no be bothered especially having spent 5/6 years with them practically full time?! I'm so angry.

OP posts:
amarmai · 02/12/2015 00:52

let him see them as much as you can. They will come to their own conclusions and better they do not blame you.

Canyouforgiveher · 02/12/2015 00:58

I also don't understand this. I couldn't leave a dog I owned without wanting to know how he is doing/does he have enough to eat etc. How do people do it to their children?

Years ago I worked as a family law solicitor and so many many women were through my office whose husbands had left their children without a backward glance or contact or money or anything. What really disturbed me was in a fair few cases (not all) the parents of these men also abandoned their grandchildren - the women were strangely resigned about it. My own uncle did something similar. My mother - and he was her favourite brother - and her other brother called him on it and fell out with some family members and stayed in touch with the children themselves but it was just baffling. How do people do this?

I feel for you OP.

SinisterBumFacedCat · 02/12/2015 01:00

It's not just Dads. DSS lives with us full time and hardly sees his mum, they can go for months without contact. He's now not bothered about her at all, which is sad. I don't understand how she can just go without seeing her son, it would kill me.
Some people just don't make very good parents, unfortunately the kids don't have a choice. Flowers

antimatter · 02/12/2015 01:01

I think is lazines multiplied by low emotional inteligence.
I am talking about you, my ex....

NeedsAsockamnesty · 02/12/2015 01:03

I'm half thinking that a much better question would be

"Why do most mothers who are in abusive relationships leave them?"

When you answer that you may feel a whole lot better about the situation as it stands today

Openup41 · 02/12/2015 01:06

I often wonder this. How a part of you can be somewhere else in the world and you have know idea what their day to day is like, whether they are happy or sad, hungry or thirsty. My father did the very same thing. I have never really got over the rejection almost 40 years later. I felt I was not worth sticking around for, had I been he would have maintained contact. I now know this not to be true but the damage has been done. ..............

iminshock · 02/12/2015 01:07

You can't educate pork

Openup41 · 02/12/2015 01:08

no idea Blush

Canyouforgiveher · 02/12/2015 01:09

It's not just Dads.

not exclusively. But it mostly is actually. not denying your situation Sinister but it really is mostly men.

PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange · 02/12/2015 01:10

I will never understand how people can just stop seeing their young children.

Unreasonablebetty · 02/12/2015 01:13

Because they aren't the role models our children need.

I was a child abandoned by my father, my child is a child abandoned by her father- though not before quite severe emotional abuse in both cases. Guess what, were both better off without such wastes of space.

I've come to peace with the fact he isn't around now, because he is losing out on this amazing little girl who's growing and growing each day. And she now has a father figure. Someone who loves her as much as I do. That's what she needs. Someone who adores every fibre of her, who would move mountains, who buys her glittery shoes just because, who comes home from working in the freezing cold, and the delight for his day is to hear her read.

The sperm donor moved aside and a better man stepped in.

Unreasonablebetty · 02/12/2015 01:16

OP- I will say, it takes years to not feel hurt for them though. And the way you feel at the moment, it really will stop feeling so sore. It just takes time, but you and the children will get there.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 02/12/2015 01:36

I never understand it either - but I suspect in many cases it's because they're too selfish. Only bothered about looking after number 1 - and that doesn't involve putting themselves out to see children when it's not easy. What is easier is putting the children out of their minds and lives, because that helps remove feelings of guilt. The only time they get interested is when someone makes their life more uncomfortable to ignore their children, than to make effort to see them, as in the OP's case. Family prod to see the children, father makes efforts to see them because of prodding, not because he actually cares.

The truly amazing ones are the ones who never make any attempt to see their children, bitch about paying any maintenance for them, and then publicly sob all over social media or to their friends and family about their "bitch ex who won't let him see them". I know of a couple of those - astounding!!

LaLyra · 02/12/2015 01:52

I think in a lot of cases they didn't really care that much in the first place, but it's not really obvious until you look back. Then you realise that they did a lot of the things they did because it looked good, or because people told them they should, or because it was easier/they got nagged less if they did it.

I know one guy who seemed super interested in his kids. Took them every other weekend. Made a big song and dance about them being included in his family events. Paid maintenance every week on the dot. Until he fell out with the rest of his family over something daft. Then he didn't bother because he had no-one to show off too.

bobs123 · 02/12/2015 02:02

I lived in the same house as XH for years as I knew as soon as I left him he he would have nothing to do with our DDs. I thought that at least by being around they might have some sort of relationship. He is a man not made to be a dad. Too much effort!

I am happy to say that I have now been divorced for one month. There is NC between him and our DDs and they like it like it that way. All my fault of course! Not quite sure whose fault it is that he also has NC with his kids or grandkids from his first marriage Hmm

milaforni · 02/12/2015 02:43

Shame
Selfishness
Immaturity
Doesn't really know how to father (poor role models)
Ego has been wounded
Doesn't want to deal with mother

There are so many, many more. It's an epidemic. And the sad thing is that there are many more, still living in the home, that have effectively abandoned their children.

runawaysimba · 02/12/2015 03:13

They're also validated when they walk away.
When my DP split with his ex, three separate men, including his own father, told him it would be "easier" for him if he didn't see his DD much. Less painful. Two of those men had done just then when their marriages broke down.
DP did no such thing, and has co-parented really well, but he would have had a bunch of people telling him he'd done the right thing if he hadn't. Really sad.

BoringlyRestrictive · 02/12/2015 04:23

This is what I'm scared about. Am in the process of organising a divorce behind my abusive husbands back.
Dd is 3 and DS 14 months.
I'm so scared of the emotional damage that will be done when he cancels/is late/doesn't show for contact.
He'll do that thing where he's got between 4-6 and see them and he'll show at 5.30 and still leave at 6. Even if I say it's ok to stay late he will still leave.
I know him. He will become quite detached.
And it's the kids that will bear the emotional fall out.
So scared for this. A PP up thread said the damage was done even though she now knows it is his fault not hers and this is my fear. But tbh, he rejects my daughter now. He never has time. 'Daddy look at this!' 'Not now baby, I'm busy' yeah, looking at Ebay or sky sports centre.

Some men just suck I guess

Original poster
harboromummy · 02/12/2015 04:53

This is so true.

He has always put him self first, one of the reasons I left.

My dd cries if she has to go to grandmas and writes me notes saying she doesn't want to go.

His whole family haven't been in touch in two years. They have kind of just dropped them too.

Thing is, iv just found out he's moved into his new gfs house, and she has 3 kids! They have been together 5 months!

OP posts:
ohlittlepea · 02/12/2015 05:54

It's crap behaviour to leave your kids. Also the really bitter horrible contact battles that go on. I have a friend who everytime an agreement is raised her ex takes her back to family court to change it slightly. It's so stressful for the little one. I think just like there is state sponsored online cbt there should be an online course or lots of different resources for mums and dads who are splitting. Obviously it would be optional. Just a website that said in a much more complicated and polite way ' you might hate each other, but here's how not to be complete knobs'

Original poster
harboromummy · 02/12/2015 06:30

Yes!! I can't ask him to "have the kids" and make plans because if he thinks I'm "dumping the kids to go out with "lover boy" (been together 2 years! Took a year before he met dc ect) he will have ago at me telling me i don't deserve the kids ect"

Funny thing is iv "dumped" the kids once in two years for two nights away. I never go out!

OP posts:
ValancyJane · 02/12/2015 06:37

My Dad did this to me as an adult, I have seen him once in the last ten years and that was at a funeral. I don't understand it, but have resigned myself to the fact that he is a twat! I'm better off without him now, but it took me a long time to get to this point.

frillybiscuits · 02/12/2015 06:44

My dad did this to me when I was 1 and I didn't see him again until I was 11. My exOH left me at 6 months pg, his mother seems to have forgotten that I'm having her first grandchild. It's heartbreaking that people can do that, how they go about their daily lives knowing I'm doing it by myself I really don't knowSad

RebootYourEngine · 02/12/2015 07:13

What pisses me off even more is when the new wife is all over social media telling everyone how hard done by her husband is because the bitch of an ex is stopping him seeing his kids, when in fact its the ex whose fighting for him to see the kids but he isnt interested.

Marilynsbigsister · 02/12/2015 08:21

Various reasons. No. 1 being women's (completely understandable) willingness to be the default parent. They leave because they can. Absolutely secure in the knowledge that the mother will be there and care for their children 100%. Many men are inherently selfish and will rarely put their dcs needs before their own and when the decision to leave is made, any 'guilt' will be removed with the knowledge that the mother will look after them.

Another reason why abandonment has become so prevalent in the last 40 years is also tied up in the social acceptability of single parenthood, women's economic autonomy, welfare support and the control women have over their own fertility.

When I was a child, (50 yrs ago) if my father had abandoned us, he would have been very harshly judged by friends and family. Divorce was beginning to happen but only amongst the very very wealthy of my parents friends, those with 'independent' means.
My mother had no career path and no work experience. There was no early years childcare except 'play school' for a couple of hours a morning. There was no welfare except 'supplementary benefit' where a man came round to the house and told you what you should sell prior to being granted a very small payment.
The pill was only available to married women. A women would never be unconcerned about getting pregnant outside marriage.
All of these conventions have been swept away. As there is no shame in single parenthood there is consequentially no shame in abandoning your partner and children as unlike previous years, they will be looked after. Either by the remaining parent or the state.

The final reason is fairly unpopular and no doubt there will be those who will accuse me of being unfair, but sadly from experience (I have work in social welfare for 30+ yrs) there are a some women who make the unilateral decision to have a baby with partners who are unsuitable/unreliable/feckless fathers.
The relationship is not strong and children are rarely planned. The men in these relationships take absolutely no responsibility for their fertility. The women control the contraception and the decision to use it (or not) is made by them. The decision to have a baby flies in the face of all the evidence that this person is highly unlikely to be a good and committed father but the woman's desire for a baby over rides these concerns. Some hope to 'change' poor behaviour with the birth of a child. The decision is often made against the knowledge of the father and presented as 'an accident of contraception'.
The argument has to be made that they should have made their own contraceptive decisions if they did not want children, the reality is that they don't. Men bounced into parenthood rarely make good or committed parents and will bail out during pregnancy or when the children are young and time consuming.