To think there's nothing wrong with leaving your wife and kids

[Fuzzybuzzybeebee]

As long as you support your children and continue to be an active part of their lives.

I'm not talking about men or women who have affairs and leave their partners after cheating on them.

What I mean is a man or woman, who has fallen out of love with their partner or spouse and leaves them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I actually think it's more cruel to stay with someone you don't love anymore.

My cousin's husband has left her and they have a 1 year and 3 year old. Everyone is saying he's the devil incarnate. I just don't feel that way. He obviously stopped loving her, so had to leave her.

He is still a good Dad to his children and supports both of them and she has said this.

I left my Sons Dad when my son was a toddler. I tried very very hard to stay together but I didn't love him and couldn't stay. I don't think that makes me evil.

You should try and make a relationship work. You should try everything. But when you truly stop loving someone, the right thing to do is leave. And that doesn't make you a bad person as long as you support your children.

AIBU?

[BertrandRussell]

I used to think like the OP. As I've got older and seen more families, I am coming round to thinking that staying together for the sake of the children is not such a bad thing. Obviously if it can be amicable. Not if it's all arguments and tension.

[GretchenFranklin]

'Falling out of love' is such a simplistic childlike life view it astonishes me how many adults continue with it.

Life, marriage, especially with children (of any age) can be somewhat mundane, sleeping eating and farting with the same person year after year, is clearly going to tarnish the desire that brought them together in the first instance.

So fucking off and leaving your young kids is far from reasonable.

[HmmOkay]

"You're not leaving your children. You're leaving your partner or spouse."

But if you don't take your children with you then you are leaving the children surely?

If you really don't want to leave your children then you take them with you or work out 50/50 custody from the outset. Then you are not leaving your children.

If children go from the situation of seeing their dad every day to a new situation where they see their dad twice per month, you're damn right they will think they have been 'left'. Because they have been.

Did you leave your child, OP? Or did you take your child with you when you left?

[DuchessK]

wrong thread sorry!

[StripeyZazie]

You are being very unreasonable to frame your question like that.

It is rarely that simple.

And also, making a unilateral decision about something that affects more than one life is very much the start of being a bad person. It's the start of that road. As in, being inconsiderate, irresponsible, selfish.

The only time when it is absolutely the right thing for the children of a relationship for one of the parents to leave that relationship is when there is abuse- then the kids are subject to abuse and don't grow up thinking that abusive behavior is ok.

I think people can no longer be together and both still be good parents- but I think that takes a huge amount of work and the right attitude. And to be honest, that is so much work that it would probably have been easier and less work to make the relationship work. The sort of people who could make divorce work are the sort of people who manage to make marriage work so never get round to having to make divorce work.

One model that can make that situation workable is "nesting"- kid or kids stay in one home all the time, parents take it in turn to live there. So it's pretty likely that 3 homes are needed.

Very few people have the resources to do that obviously. But many wouldn't do it even if they had the resources, because they wouldn't like the faff/dislocation of traipsing back and forth between two households. Which is exactly what kids get made to do all the time.

Many children of divorce say that one of the worst things is not being able to fully participate in school clubs/activities or social life because they have to make two locations work. They don't feel fully rooted in either family, and find it more difficult to put down their own roots (friendships, hobbies etc) that would stabilize their lives.

Also I hate it when people leave their children and then insist "But my kids come first, I'd do anything for my kids". Well obviously not.

I think it is possible to be a good parent after leaving a relationship, but it's unlikely, because most people aren't prepared to take on that kind of work. So what usually happens is one person, the resident parent, takes on the vast majority of parental work out of necessity, does their best and manages to varying degreees. That person is often a very good parent, but it's always difficult for one person to do the work of two. And sometimes it overwhelms them and they don't manage to do as good a job as if they had a more sensible share of the role.

And I don't think that a leaving parent is someone who has any right to claim that they "put their kids first" or that "my kids are the most important thing in the world to me".

[histinyhandsarefrozen]

I used to have your view, OP. And I have a very amicable separation from ex and have had a happy time both as a single mother, and laterly with a partner.

But I think my 16yr old in therapy might see it differently. :(

[McTufty]

Very difficult this. I understand sometimes relationships don't work but the inflicting the utter relentless torture of being left by your partner (and parent of your children!) isn't something that I could bring myself to say it's ok to do to someone.

[yourcarisnotadiscovery]

It is never that simple! How could it possibly be? Just wake up one morning and realise you don't love someone any more and so just leave? Perhaps it is more the case that they don't want to air their dirty laundry in public and so have come up with this response/story?

[Pallisers]

Very few people have the resources to do that obviously. But many wouldn't do it even if they had the resources, because they wouldn't like the faff/dislocation of traipsing back and forth between two households. Which is exactly what kids get made to do all the time.

Many children of divorce say that one of the worst things is not being able to fully participate in school clubs/activities or social life because they have to make two locations work. They don't feel fully rooted in either family, and find it more difficult to put down their own roots (friendships, hobbies etc) that would stabilize their lives.

This is so true. And there are so many threads on MN on this very topic - kid wants to go to a party but can't because seeing dad that weekend or dad won't bring to activities at weekends. Quite a lot of posters think this is fine because it is important to keep the relationship with dad - maybe so but it is another way in which children of divorce are in a worse position than children of a reasonable intact relationship.

A good friend just divorced her husband after many miserable years. She should have done it years ago - for the sake of the children. Because her husband refused to make any effort to work on the relationship or his own issues etc., his children (late teens) hate him and want nothing to do with him.

[VestalVirgin]

I think that if you have DC aged 1 and 3 (like the example in your OP) you are still deep in the throes of the baby years. You and your spouse are probably sleep deprived and have little quality time together. If you stay for another year or two and give it a proper chance, things may well become much, much better

Regardless of whether things become better, (in my opinion, people should be able to tell the difference between falling out of love and feeling shit because of sleep-deprivation) I think it is a shitty thing to do to leave a woman with two small children to cope on her own ... unless you are rich enough to pay for a nanny, which most men aren't, you have a responsibility to stick around and do your share, until the children are old enough to travel from one parent to the other regularly.

People who can't afford living on their own share housing with other people they're not in love with all the time, so while I do not advise to continue a relationship after falling out of love, responsibilities are still there and there's no reason to immediately move out while the children are still small.

Unless that is, the guy just wants to get out of the less fun aspects of having a small child.

[HmmOkay]

That is a great post, Stripey.

And OP, your thread title was "To think there's nothing wrong with leaving your wife and kids".

And then you hastily said that, actually, this man was not leaving his kids at all, just not living with them anymore. He left, didn't take his children with him when he went, ergo he left them. Those are the facts.

[BitchQueen90]

My parents divorced when I was 2. I'm a happy, well rounded adult who's never had any issues growing up. 3 close friends of mine are the same. One is a qualified teacher in a happy LTR, one is currently having an amazing time travelling the world and the other has just bought her first house. They're all doing fine.

I find this "children of divorced parents are all damaged" view odd. It didn't bother me in the slightest growing up. I know there are some children who are negatively affected but there are all sorts of other issues children can face that are unrelated to divorce. My cousin got involved in shoplifting and crime at a young age and her parents have been happily married for over 25 years. There are all sorts of factors. No child is the same.

Honestly as a child I preferred 2 happy households rather than one unhappy one which it would have been if my parents had stayed together.

[BrickInTheWall]

I hate this assumption that the man leaves the wife and kids. It's always the bloody men who get the best end of the deal, get on with a fab social life, have time to focus on their career and play the part of doting dad for 24-48hours every fortnight.
What if the woman fell out of love with her husband? Do you think she would just up and leave her kids?! I'm sure there is the very rare occurance where this does happen but the menz do this shit all the time.

Boils my piss. It took two parents to make the kids why does the dad just get to walk away?!

[skerrywind]

Then why have the kids?

OP if your cousins OH walked out on his family leaving a 1 year old and a 3 year old there must have been some fairly solid reasons.

He must have cared for your cousin well enough to have 2 kids in three years.

To walk away because things have gone off the boil shows a lack of commitment in the first place, and was therefore an irresponsible choice to have children with that person.

If there are other factors like adultery or abuse or anger problems then absolutely there are solid reasons for splitting up.

But simply because someone is feeling "Meh" it's not working for me is not admirable.

[HeadsDownThumbsUpEveryone]

There is solid evidence that DCs from a family unit, with parents living together in a relationship fare better in life on almost all fronts.

As someone whose parents really should have split as I was growing up but chose to stay together for the children I would just like to dispel the above statement. I truly feel that if your cousin and yourself no longer love your partners any more that separating is not the big life damaging event it is sometimes made out to be. The children are young, yes but that doesn't mean they will not still have a relationship with the parent who left.

[PoisonousSmurf]

Sounds like you've shacked up with him...

[worridmum]

The reason nrp don't appear to be fully involved parents is down to the fact they are only EOW dad's is that the UK system in contrast a lot of European countries it's automatically 50/50 care and it's out of the ordinary for EOW contact

[ShotsFired]

@Trifleorbust I don't know about should. I couldn't leave my baby any more than I could chop off my leg.

Even if by staying you were making their lives miserable through your own unhappiness? Isn't that worse?

[papayasareyum]

sounds like he's fallen out of love with sleepless nights and the constant, unrelenting hassle of looking after very young children!

[BoomBoomsCousin]

In general YANBU. BUT in your cousin's case, absent abuse, I don't think it's a sensible time to be making a decision when you've got two such young children. They put a huge strain on your relationship and those years can often be a bit of a blip. It may be that with counselling and time (i.e. when the children have grown a bit and are less exhausting) the relationship can be rekindled.

[Widehorizen]

I've never regretted or doubted my decision to leave. I have absolutely no romantic attraction to my sons dad and never could.

I love him as a person, but I could never be happy with him romantically.

I'm so so much happier as a single mum

Can you see how many times you have used 'I' in that post OP?

Makes it very clear where your priorities lie.

[Widehorizen]

HeadsDown Whilst I'm sorry you had an unhappy time as a child, a sample size of one (you) does not 'dispel' the findings of a a significant body of longitudinal research.

[sonlypuppyfat]

I think some people really rush into having children, fall out of love? Sorry you weren't in love to start with

[I17neednumbers]

"He obviously stopped loving her, so had to leave her."

Not sure that that follows, does it? It is interesting though that in our society it would be seen as a fairly non contentious statement.