To feel hurt that my DC's have been forgotten about.

[Eyerolling]

My father has remarried again in the past year. Whilst my DM was alive they rarely saw or wanted to see or spend time with my children, always making excuses that we lived too far away (20 mins drive), or my mum was unwell (suffered with anxiety) etc. I got used to this, never had the expectation that they would help with the children at all and we did it all ourselves.

DC's are now late teens, since my father remarried in private and without us being there (8 months) he's not seen them at all, I suspect this is at the instigation of his new wife who has a large family of their own. If I made arrangements to visit him he would make sure he was out, change plans at the last minute etc. All invitations to come to us were declined. Contact has become very sporadic as I took the attitude that I'd wait to see how it would be before he thought to pick the phone up to me and he hasn't. This is how he seems to want it, and I suspect its partly manipulation from the wife, whenever we have met she's been very cold and unwelcoming.
Christmas he sent a card with £10 each for the DC's. No other contact. The DC's text to thank him and he replied 'no problem'.

I now find out from extended family that him and his wife have been taking her grandchildren (babies) on short holidays, been looking after them for her daughter to work etc.

I feel like I've been kicked in the belly, really hurt and upset. My kids actually couldn't care less but I do. I know If i have it out with him it wont change anything and my kids don't actually want to see him anyway so there's no point. On the other hand its gnawing at me and I'll love to clear the air once and for all and give him a piece of my mind. WIBU to do this?

inkydinky that's awful. You poor thing

And a scary thought indeed.

Your dad has behaved really badly and is unlikely to change. I feel your sense of abandonment and needing an explanation but it's hard to imagine you getting it.

His new wife will learn in time that he is an emotionally absent man.

What was he like as a father in your own childhood? I'm guessing he was pretty uninvolved even then but you maybe didn't notice. If your DC couldn't care less then I guess you have to try to accept him as he is.

Would he ever agree to meet you for lunch or a coffee just to chat? He must know you are hurt...nobody could fail to invite their child to their wedding and think that was ok without some very solid reason.

Finally, do you have siblings who can support you? It must be a horrid feeling.

I don't think it's biological, I think it's completely social. A woman leaving her children will be totally vilified and viewed as some kind of freak by everyone around her. For a man to do this is seen as normal and certainly no reflection on his character. Men are socialised into feeling that their needs are primary over everyone -children included. So they feel able to walk away, put their financial needs first etc - and society reflects this back at them by not condemning this behaviour.

Men who don't pay maintenance should be total pariahs in society - no friends, no new partner and shunned. As would happen to a woman who did this.

My love, I know. I have had this too. My DDad left us and his ow dw banned us from his house. oh yes.

he let her.

I think you need to be honest with yourself here, your DC are neither here nor there about your dad, but YOU are the one who is hurting, because you feel (have always felt) that YOU are not important enough, and you place more importance on your DC than you do yourself and therefore have worded this post about them, not you.

He is not the dad you needed him to be, so he's also not the GP your DC should have had either.

It is sad, but THEY wont miss what they never had. Its OK for you to mourn the loss of your dad, you do need to process these feelings.

I have had counselling to help me with my dad situation, and also my dm situation which is similar and was excruciatingly painful.

it won't change anything, but at least we are heard. we get to say the words out loud and explore our feelings in a safe place.

What wherethewildthingis said, 100%. It is very sad though OP for you and your DC. I don't think there is really any downside to telling your Dad how you feel. It is possible he's told his new wife the lack of contact is down to you & that is why she's cool to you, so if you could talk to her it might help - maybe just say you're really sad your Dad isn't more involved and you'd like him to be.

His new wife will learn in time that he is an emotionally absent man.

I disagree, he has just moved on from his past. A quiet life is more important to him.

The last straw with me was that Dsis and I were not invited to his 70th, he took ow dw and her kids away for a weekend.

we got the offer of a crappy chain italian on a sunday lunchtime

I declined.

inkdinky - what a fabulous post (11:59) - now why cant the Family Courts see and recognise this behaviour? Choice, the judges choose not to. This issue is so worthy of a proper research project.

My oldest dd's father was a great father when she was born, we were very young when we had her but we got through it, but after the first year he began to lose interest in her and me and preferred going out with his friends, so we spilt up, he is a great father to my dd when he is single but when he gets a new girlfriend dd is pushed aside, and when that relationship ends he is back wanting to see dd, I can read the signs now when he has a new girlfriend, the excuses start that he has to work over the weekend etc etc DD is now old enough to see what he is like and luckily I met someone who is a great father figure to her and that get on great,

My own father just stopped having any relationship with me in my teens and to this day I am ignored but I have learnt to let it go and I get on with my own life, as a mother I can't understand how anyone could do that to their children but unfortunately men do seem capable of walking away some women too but it's mostly men and I have seen so many friends going through it too, husbands who leave and that's it.
One dear friend nearly lost her house as her husband walked out on her and their two children and didn't give a penny towards their mortgage etc she was in such shock at first that she thought he would come right and come back and fix everything but he didn't, luckily she pulled herself together and realised she was on her own and came to an agreement with bank, I will never forget what a brilliant father and husband he was, to see him and the way he was with the children you would never ever expect him to walk away but he did and only sees his children once in a blue moon now

My ex did exactly the same thing Angelscare. He only ever showed any interest in his children between marriages (he's now on number 5 last I heard) You could tell when a marriage was going tits up as he would suddenly be back in contact wanting to see the kids and soon as he met next potential wife they would be forgotten. Both of the kids are now grown up and want nothing to go with him.

I don't think YABU to be hurt. I wouldn't say anything though, just stop making the effort - as I did.

My FIL has seen my DD for a grand total of twice in almost 8 years. I meet DH after his DM had passed away, his father would ring every week and come over to visit and we would visit too (100-odd miles away). Then he met his now wife, sold his house and moved in with her (again, 100-odd miles away from us) and we basically never saw him again apart from those 2 times - one of them being my DN's wedding, new wife didn't attend. Every offer to visit was met with excuses, same with invites to come over to ours. I stopped asking to be honest and haven't heard from him in years.

I think DH still talks to him occasionally via email. FIL sends birthday cards and money to DH and DD. It used to upset me that he didn't care, it doesn't any more, but I think it's easier to detach when it's not your parent. DH used to get really upset, saying his DM would love DD so much and want to spend time with her, and how unfair it was that she was no longer here, when the ones who are don't give a shit. We haven't talked about it in ages though (mostly because I let it go) so I don't how he feels at the moment.

Personally, I don't blame new wife, FIL is an adult and surely could make the effort if he wanted to - he clearly doesn't. DD struggled to understand when she was younger that she had two living granddads - she just thought FIL had died too because she never saw him.

eyerolling. I'm so sorry your Dad is like this. Clearly his wife isn't a very nice person either, but I wouldn't bother myself over that because it's not like your Dad has changed because of her. This is who he is.

My Dad died very suddenly (and quite young, 65) a few years ago and I miss him terribly. Posts like yours remind me that I need to be grateful, very grateful, for the time we did have. Life is bloody unfair isn't it, if I could have him back, I'd happily share him with you x

As it is, all we can do is work out how to deal with your feelings about your father & what to do practically.

I think, in your situation, I'd write a letter. Get all of your feelings about him, your mum, your kids etc down on paper, just write & write. Don't worry about anything, you can choose whether to send it, or send an edited version or nothing later. Just get it out.

Then I'd stop trying. Totally. I'd resign myself to the fact that he's my father, but he's not my Dad. I wouldn't bother to 'go no contact' officially, I'd just stop bothering with him. If I had Facebook or whatever, I'd remove him (and her obviously).

I can't imagine how much it must hurt to have a parent like this. I think all you can do is focus on your family & friends and do your best not to dwell on it 🙁💐

Fizzy

I think I said that a specific attitude was cuntish as opposed to directly attacking you. I'm glad you didn't see it as such and report the post. Your ideas (aspects of them) annoy me but I certainly didn't want to personally attack you as someone else said I did.

I take everything I read on MN with an enourmous pinch of salt in general because they has such little semblance or my notion of reality.

Of my direct knowledge of the world, one family with children has divorced. The father moved out of the large family home. He sees the children every second weekend from Friday afternoon to Monday morning and has gone from very comfortable to living in quite a small place. He still pays school fees etc with not a hint of bad attitude. FWIW, his wife left him for another man.

I don't think that men leaving their children is an everyday occurrence and I think you post of "men do x, men do y..." makes me defensive on behalf of my DH and other good men who I believe make up the vast majority of mankind.

When you talk about women "not being wired like that", are you suggesting that men and women have different brains and react and behave differently? That would go against the feeling of the majority here. Alternatively, you could take the easy way out and say that whilst we're wired in exactly the same way, society has made us behave differently.

You say you're talking about a minority of men, as of course I obviously was in my examples, but they way you wrote it certainly came across as talking about "men".

I would be inclined to just let it be.

He clearly isn't interested. It's his loss.

Just in case anyone's finding this thread depressing, I have to say all the split up dads I know (my brother, my dad, my bil, various friends) are wonderful fathers and every bit as involved as they ever were.

I haven't lived in a house with my dad since I was 11, but he is an absolute rock to me and the most beloved, devoted grandpa ever.

The stats are grim about absent fathers, but I've never met any like that.

I would.

Fizzy is spot on. Excellent post.

I have seen it first hand. Long marriage, abuse towards the end. Completely and totally abandoned his kids overnight and refused to pay child support.

I'm still staggered by his betrayal of them. Nothing will ever convince me now that men love their children like women do (in general).

I've seen it time and time again. There are a hell of a lot of shitty fathers.

Op, both of my parents are like this so I really get how much it hurts I have come to the conclusion that they are both pathetically weak people who do as their partners tell them without question, an easy life means much more to them than their dcs and gcs.

I agree with previous posts that it is much easier for men to do this than women, it hasn't been my personal experience but I have seen it a lot with friends parents.