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

[harboromummy]

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.

Often it seems the children weren't honestly wanted and the guy just went along with it to preserve his meal ticket/home servant. Hence the ambivalence in the childrens development, though this isn't helped by the acceptance by people that "dads are crap" which gives the men a pass.

Felicia my dd at 15 would call bullshit on that too!

I'd actually like to know why women who get together with men like this believe them!?!

If I'm dating someone and they're not paying maintenance or seeing their kids they get dumped! I don't want someone in dds life or mine that's like that!! Oh and I've heard all the excuses when I'm dumping them too! Given I've a friend who's dating someone who's kids live in Canada and he still has regular contact I've yet to hear a reasonable excuse!

Yanbu op this is something I can never understand. If I knew someone like this be it a friend/family/colleague I would judge them very harshly even if I didn't know the circumstances. I look around at the people I do know and I can't see any one of them doing this, I wouldn't really feel much to say it to someone either.

Keeponmoving either you're very young or lucky. I'm 43 and can count the decent fathers I know on one hand. 2 of those are the ones who were left.

I also agree non payment of maintenance needs massively tightened up and should ultimately result in a jail sentence!

Well, for my dad it was a case of him being a sociopath. He had no use for us so he no longer wanted us. He has done it to 10 of his 12 children (yes he managed to produce 12 children with his history! Actually there is more than 12 but that's a long story ) And yes, as someone else said, it trashed my self-esteem and I have issues due to it even though I know it is not personal. I just can't fully get over my dad not loving me. It still hurts. He wanted me when my mum left him, thought nothing of telling me he was suicidal because he was lonely without me and wanted me to live with him and then he threw all my stuff out he bought for me the week he met his new partner.

I knew a man who I believed was a devoted father. He has his children every other weekend and twice during the week. He got a new partner and he stopped bothering. This put his partner off him, thank god. He was the last man on earth I ever thought was capable of doing this- he still did see them but not even half as much until his partner left him.

On a positive note. When I left my ex husband he remained a great father. The only time he didn't see them weekly was when he was in hospital for weeks having a transplant that meant he wasn't allowed children to visit. He was sick as a dog on chemo and he still made every effort until the day he died. So thankfully there are plenty of men who don't leave their kids, but sadly I know too many who have.

to those who have been affected by this issue

It's not just Dads. A mum in our extended family has just upped and left her kids. Words fail.

Bacony I'm 36, and I don't think it's luck either to be honest. If I look at our friends, if any one did this I can see them being shamed and cut off, none of us would tolerate this. Looking at our families, it would be the same.

I don't really understand. I wonder if part of it is because men traditionally do less caring for children so don't really bond with them as much. But then I have memories of playing with my dad and I'm sure he loved me. Also he forced my mum to have children. She'd lost two babies already and didn't want any more. He pressured her to have us, (and I think actually raped her for at least one of our conceptions). The aunts, uncles and cousins on my dad's side had nothing to do with us eithe once he left. Did not once ask my mum how we were doing or did we need anything.

Sorry to hear this my ex hasn't seen my son regular for about 12 years now

He says he hates me more than he carers to see my son

Charming ay

The perverse thing is that my son sees my exs father once a month

Personally it's about sigma I think more women would fuck off but men don't get any stick for fucking off and they will won't even be judged by new partners in most cases are happy they don't have to deal with step kids

This thread is to upsetting. I'm so worried about my children.

I don't think it is necessarily a gender thing, but society does make it much more of a stigma for mothers to abandon children than fathers. Men are certainly not held to the same account by many in society.

I dont get the grandparents who sit back and watch this happen, or facilitate it, either. I can only imagine that this is a localised cultural or perhaps a low emotional intelligence thing.

And yes to the ambivalence being there all along - just becomes more apparent when the other parent isn't there effectively masking it.

Do you think there is a biological reason? I know women can abandon their kids but lets be honest, it happens much more regularly with men and there must be a reason for it... some men go on and create new families and become great fathers to their new children, why?

My ex sees our daughter regularly, I say his girlfriend plays a part in this but he has a son from a previous relationship who he never seemed have much bond with since the split and rarely sees. He never gets judged on this as he's a man and I am sure that's the case for most absent fathers, they are not held to the same responsibility as a mother who leave would be.

Thanks all for this thread. My DD is 13. My ex husband/ her biological father left when she was a few days old. This thread has given me food for thought.

Any advice from adults who were abandoned as to how I can help her deal with the abandonment? I met and married a wonderful 2nd husband when DD was 18 months old so she has never been without a dad. But I am sure she must be hurt/angry to have been abandoned. Especially as the biological father went on to have another child 3 years later.

Ps we have had no contact with biological parent since he refused to agree to step parent adoption when DD was aged 8.

Dodgeballqueen I used to be go angery with my ex but then it hit me he's just like his mum

She has pretty much encouraged his behaviour and often instergated arguments

Don't let her tell you when your gonna see yOur own son

Or don't give her any money she piss it up the wall you can hear her saying

The acorn doesn't fall fair from the tree most men bigger off because the people around them will condone it parents , new partner etc siblings

Three generations of abandoned children in this family - it's almost the norm for the men to skidaddle. My father walked out on 4 dc (different families), my grandad walked out on 9 children (different families), my uncle walked out on 6 children (different families) etc etc.

I'll never be able to get my head round it. An extended family full of deadbeat dads. The wondrous thing is that my own brothers are completely loving and committed husbands and fathers (and step-fathers) - it was almost their rebellion against the family norm!

Yes, women do this. But men do it loads and loads more.

My 'father' has also done this to me as an adult. My mother passed away a year ago and within weeks he had a new girlfriend. She took offence to the previously close relationship my father and I had and as son as she could started causing trouble between my father and I.
He, being afraid of losing her and his now regular supply of sex, has decided to go NC with me and his only grandchildren as any contact with me now apparently causes 'trouble'.

Weak, spineless bastard. I'll never forgive him, ever.

I find the posts on this thread heart-rending.

I don't think there's a biogical explanation. The tradition that women raise children is still very strong, even in developed countries. Certainly I notice a current in society, an almost unconscious expectation that parenting comes more naturally to women, and that the best men can do is just 'chip in'. Mother knows best. That would explain why many men are less emotionally invested in their children and in parenting them, which makes it far easier to move on if the relationship breaks down.

I would be interested to know what family courts (particulary in the UK) will grant fathers who wish to co-parent their children. Where I live (in NZ) I understand the FCs will typically grant shared care if fathers ask for it (child support is also efficiently collected). By contrast, I understand that the more typical solution in the UK is that the woman will be granted custody and the man granted access rights only. If this is correct, it powerfully reinforces the view that many men may hold that there is no point in remaining involved in their children's lives. Even if this is not true, I understand that it is certainly the perception amongst men, and I guess it is perception that counts.

I'm another one abandoned by their father. While my DM was pregnant no less. Apparently he suddenly decided he couldn't cope and fucked off. A few years later, he had children with a new woman.

I've never met him. I know where he lives and sent a letter but he didn't reply. I paid to get his ex directory phone number through some website and spoke with him once. He denied knowing me, knowing my mother. You could hear him squirm down the phone. I suspect his wife doesn't know about his previous engagement or that he already had a kid when they met. Either that or he thinks I'm after something.

I'm not going to lie, it took a long time to make peace with everything that happened. Even today if I think about it I get sad and angry. Having my own DS made me realise just how cold my father must have been to leave. I am a cynical person because of the past, I often quesion people's motives and can be distrustful. However, I know that others have had worse childhoods, and I did end up with a stepdad who feels like my 'real' dad, so it's not all doom and gloom. I just wish I could get closure.

you know I posted earlier on this thread but didn't think it applied directly to my life but have been reading and thinking about it more

I was born to a young unmarried mother - she gave me up for adoption. I had 2 lovely parents, including a dad who wouldn't have given up contact with a dog still less a child. I am as confident and as happy as I am because of them

My birth mother never forgot me, she left contact info with the adoption agency and eventually managed to get in contact with me when I was an adult. She had given me the best pregnancy and birth she could.

She stayed in contact with birth father so she would be able to give me info on him.

After she met me, she contacted him and told him about me. Showed him photos (I was, I will say frankly, the adult child anyone would have wanted - happy, educated, married to successful educated man, with a happy health child, needing nothing from anyone, no particular interest in contact but happy to be nice about it).

He had absolutely no interest in even sending me a letter still less meeting me. How does that work? your dna is in another human being and you have zero interest? I honestly don't get how that works.

And I don't get the excuses about long distance driving for contact or difficult relationships with ex. How does any of that matter against the incredibly powerful need of a child to have a parent who loves/is involved with/supports him/her? As a parent wouldn't you do anything to facilitate this? lots of parents/non residential fathers do and their children appreciate it.

Sorry, I'm not much help but this thread's making me sad. As a 38 year old with a happily married mum and dad from birth and now married myself to the father of my children for 13 years and together for 20, it's kind of eye opening to levels of shittiness out there.
I just don't get why anyone would make a baby when they're 'not ready' according to some posts on here. Why do it then?
Unmumsnetty hugs to anyone who had the misfortune to procreate with such deadbeats.

for notquite and everyone else on this thread

I was raised by my DM after her and my dad divorced. He fought for full custody, despite never even watching us on his own for even an hour, and was awarded weekend access. He showed up 3 times and then we didnt see him for years. On the rare occassions he reared his head and had contact he was verbally abusive and emotionally unstable (,sobbing, lying and saying he had a brain tumor etc ) and we just.didnt want to deal with. He never paid a penny in maitenance and since I was 11 has not been in contact - even when my DSis passed away a few years ago.
And then last summer I saw him in the supermarket - he didnt know who I was.

The mans an arsehole and I dont feel sad that he's not involved in my life - I just really cant understand how you can literally not care if your kids are dead or alive

And while I know there are some women who abandon their children the fact still remains that around 92 per cent of single parent families in the UK are headed by women.

Ex husband woke up one day in France, said he'd had enough of us (3 dd's) and the place and was gone an hour later! Not a word for 13 years... then, ' I love you soooo much, here, have a few £100, come and live with me away from your nasty mother who makes you do things you don't want to do etc'. Kids left me, went to live with him. Result: truanting, pregnancy no GCSE's, no work, play on FB all day, loadsa money, say I'm dead. Well, when he croaks, I won't be able to help then, will I? I've washed my hands of the bloody lot of them.

I think men have the ability to compartmentalise aspects of their life in a way that perhaps women do not. They are better at emotional detachment and so find it easier to walk away. They are also be selfish, self centred and needy and I think many resent the fact that their kids take precedence over their needs, let's face it some of them are just big babies themselves.

My FIL is happy to spend lots of time with his DPs DCs and her DGCs but makes minimum effort with his kids and DGCs totally rubbish but his loss at the end of the day.