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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

305 replies

Fuzzybuzzybeebee · 27/04/2017 13:54

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?

OP posts:
Maxandrubyrubyandmax · 27/04/2017 19:24

People walk away far too easily these days. The priority always has to be the children the two parents should work with each other to ensure the child has stability and happiness. Unless there is abuse parents can and should work together to make a happy home. You don't have to be madly in love with each other to create a happy home. Once you have a child they are the priority not a parent chasing an idealised life of flowers and romance. Either find it before you have children or wait til the have left home. People don't have to argue or treat their spouse disrespectfully just cos they have fallen out of love

JacquesHammer · 27/04/2017 19:25

Not quite. I questioned whether your point provers actually existed.

But hey. You've assured me thereof

JacquesHammer · 27/04/2017 19:26

Max co parenting from two homes doesn't automatically equate to lack of stability or unhappiness.

And you know what? I wanted more. I wanted to be madly in love with my partner. Not rub along as friends.

But then martyrdom has never been a particularly attractive character trait to me. I wasn't prepared to be a martyr and neither was he. And our family is better off for it.

Ktown · 27/04/2017 19:30

my friend co patented by the parents moving in and out of the house and the kids staying put.
Worked out well and was less distruptive for the kids.

JacquesHammer · 27/04/2017 19:38

ktown what a fab idea 😊

Pallisers · 27/04/2017 19:39

I don't think it is so much that people walk away too quickly as they don''t consider deeply the incredibly important and lifechanging decision they are making when having a child with someone.

So maybe your cousin's husband couldn't hack the first year with 2 kids and bailed without trying. Or maybe he didn't think at all seriously about whether he genuinely loved the woman he was having children with. (I think we've probably all seen couples where you wonder how they hell they are together and then she is pregnant). And came to his senses when - whoops - he had already had 2 children with her.

Either way, I don't think he is a poster child for anything positive

FrancesHaHa · 27/04/2017 19:40

Another one here whose parents should have divorced much earlier than they did (waited until the youngest child left college). My father was unhappy for most of my teenage years - not arguing, abusive or blaming, just quietly unhappy. It would have been so much better for all of us if he'd left 10 years before he did.

Plus witnessing my parents in a loveless marriage was a terrible role model for me and my siblings.

RoboticSealpup · 27/04/2017 19:41

I remember seeing a quote from that serial monogamist Natasha Hamilton from atomic kitten, talking about why she left the father of her second child for the second time. It went something like: "When you get home after a busy day and you'd rather just lie on the sofa in your sweatpants instead of tearing each other's clothes off, you know it's over."

I think she's been engaged and married around five times. Always on the front page of some magazine declaring that the latest one is the One.

I was about 19 when I read that quote, and even then, I knew that's not how long time relationships work!

indigox · 27/04/2017 19:42

Some of the posts here explain why there's so many miserable women in shit relationships on MN.

RoboticSealpup · 27/04/2017 19:45

And you know what? I wanted more. I wanted to be madly in love with my partner. Not rub along as friends.

But were you ever actually madly in love with him? Are you saying you were at some point, and then it just "disappeared"?

JacquesHammer · 27/04/2017 19:48

But were you ever actually madly in love with him? Are you saying you were at some point, and then it just "disappeared"

Yes I was.

We separated when we had been together 14 years and had an 8 year old.

The love didn't disappear but - for both of us - changed totally in its direction if that makes sense? We remain close friends but neither of us wanted to spend the rest of our lives without a sexual relationship. I still love him. He's a great bloke. We just didn't work together anymore.

MoreThanUs · 27/04/2017 19:48

I don't often agree with Bertrand, but she could have taken the words out of my mouth with this:

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.

RoboticSealpup · 27/04/2017 19:49

Some of the posts here explain why there's so many miserable women in shit relationships on MN.

Quite the opposite. I can only speak for myself, but I find it extremely difficult to imagine just "falling out of love" with my DH, or he with me. Even if we're not currently tearing each other's clothes off or even sleeping in the same bed (because: toddler!).

brasty · 27/04/2017 19:51

Dads who go for joint custody or full custody, are more likely to get it than women are.
No I don't think being a good dad means seeing your kids every 2 weeks, which too many do.

RoboticSealpup · 27/04/2017 19:52

We separated when we had been together 14 years and had an 8 year old.

I think that's very different from leaving when your have babies or toddlers.

annandale · 27/04/2017 19:59

I'm quite a fan of staying together for the children, if that means acting like grown-ups. Not if it means taking out your resentment at some imaginary lost opportunity on your partner, or making your partner suffer. TBH anyone who thinks they can split up without affecting their children is fooling themselves. Disastrous? not necessarily but it will always, always have an impact. My parents split up when I was 23 and it still shook me to the roots despite it being no surprise at all.

bigkidsdidit · 27/04/2017 20:00

Maybe it's as I am a fairly unhappy offspring of divorced parents, but I increasingly agree with Bertrand too, and now I am getting older and my friends are getting divorced and setting up blended families, I am unfortunately seeing a few unhappy Jack and Olivias.

I know an older couple who could have divorced a few times (for reasons I won't go into!) but didn't. No abuse. They were unhappy, but now are in their 70s and very happy and st the centre of a big family, all still together, with a support system. That's very powerful imo.

JacquesHammer · 27/04/2017 20:02

annandale my daughter is totally and utterly unaffected by our split. We are completely amicable which I am sure makes a difference but she is completely as she was before the split. I am sorry you were so affected Flowers

JacquesHammer · 27/04/2017 20:03

For me though - acting as an adult was acknowledging both my husband and I deserved more: and both wanted physically relationships. Not sure anyone at 31 and 34 would be willing to commit to staying together and never having sex again.

Ktown · 27/04/2017 20:06

I agree some kids can be affected and others not.
Having observed a couple of hard-work blended families and the aggro and financial loss this entails for the kids I am inclined to think people should stay together (if no abuse) until the kids are a little bit older.

twattymctwatterson · 27/04/2017 20:08

Do you fancy him op? Men rarely leave in these circumstances unless there is someone else. They have a one year old and a three year old. Chances are if he's not involved with someone else, he's left because caring for a young family full time just wasnt as much fun as he hoped

AllPizzasGreatAndSmall · 27/04/2017 20:13

OP, why did you get to take your child away from his father and force him to have a part-time relationship with his child?

GogoGobo · 27/04/2017 20:15

it would have to be an absolute last resort to split with young children and unless the relationship was abusive I can't imagine leaving a 1 and a 3 yr old.

Of course there are exceptions but the majority of people delude themselves when they believe that their actions have no impact on the children.
Listen not to what I say, but look at what I do..........

PollyPerky · 27/04/2017 20:17

I don't think the term 'unreasonable' is the right word for this scenario.

No of course you are not being unreasonable. There is plenty wrong in principle with breaking up a family, but it happens all the time, sadly.

I don't think you ought to differentiate between why people leave though. Falling out of love is one reason; falling in love with someone else and that being the reason to leave is another. Neither is perfect and you can't legislate over it!

FixItUpChappie · 27/04/2017 20:18

If you're a Mother this usually means you get custody. If you're a Father you cease to live with your children but still play a consistent and regular part of their lives.

Would you feel this way if you were the one not to get primary parenting? Your spouse had children also presumably wanting to live with them, see them every day - I would be beyond gutted to not have that and I wouldn't choose to have children if I was knowingly going to be in that situation. The leaving spouse is making a major life decision that effects everyone but generally without including everyone/compromise.