Is it unreasonable to move out when DCs are still at school/college?

[movingoutmovingon]

Just wondering about this: would you move in with a new partner if your children were adults (18) but still living at home, doing A levels?

Obviously still continue to support them financially and drop in once a week?

[Ravenblack]

I actually know a girl (woman now actually - aged 22) who had a similar thing happen. Parents split when she was 13/14, her dad left the county to live 500 miles away with the woman he left her mother for. This left her and the brother (aged 5) and her mother.

Not long after (when the girl was 16,) the mother met someone else (from Greece,) married him real quick and fucked off to Greece with this man and the girl's brother. She stayed in her mother's (private let) home for a wee while, (working almost full time as well as doing A levels so she could afford to live,) but realised she couldn't afford it alone after a few months and moved in with mates (in a flatshare.)

Even 5 years on, she has non-existent relationships with her parents, they rarely contact her, and she is insecure, has few friends (as she trusts very few people,) no boyfriend, she is sad all the time, she can't hold down a job, and drifts from house share to house share. Very sad, lonely girl. Really feel for her.

[movingoutmovingon]

Do you think that was purely down to her parents leaving her?

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

This happened to someone I'm close to as well. I can't understand it myself and I'm not looking forward to when his children reach the same age and he will be even more acutely aware that it's a shitty thing to do.

This person's parent moved a couple of hundred miles away :(

[user1493059174]

Absolutely not. You need to be there to support in all the ways a mother does. When my daughter did her A levels I didn't see much of her as she was always in her room studying, but I was there providing nutritious meals and words of encouragement when it all got too much.

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

I mean 90% of parenting is doing stuff and making sacrifices for your dc that they don't appreciate. The very idea of abandoning them at such a key time is just mind boggling to me.

[Ravenblack]

Yeah I really do think it was down to her parents leaving her OP.

Left her insecure and lost.

if you can't depend on your parents, who the fucking hell CAN you depend on.

[StaplesCorner]

Sorry Movingout did you say what happened to your Mum in all this? So sad for you, I'm imagining my DDs being left alone

[movingoutmovingon]

Oh, she died the year before. It was hard as it was like losing them both.

[Liiinoo]

I work with teenagers and young adults experiencing MH difficulties and see the damage caused by this sort of situation over and over again. Whilst I can understand that sometimes the parent can't see any other way out of a terrible situation they are deluding themselves if they think it is unlikely to make a deep and lasting impression on the DCs. I am sure that some people get over it very quickly and don't feel any negative long term impact but IME they would be the exception that proves the rule.

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

:( sorry to hear that movingout.

If it's any consolation the person I know who this happened to is the very best man in the whole world. He's very self reliant, very responsible and very kind.

So it doesn't have to end badly

[DarthMaiden]

I can't conceive of anyone being selfish enough to do this. However they do. There was a similar scenario i remember (I think it was the guardian- Mariella's column) where the husband wanted to move to Devon to start up a business and leave their 17/18 yr old son behind so as not to interrupt his studies. The mother was asking for advice - I just remembered being gobsmacked that she felt she needed any - if any time "no is a complete sentence" was appropriate it was then.

It's an awful thing OP and shouldn't be normalised.

Yes there are some kids who choose to live independently at 17 but that's very different from that circumstance being foisted on them.

Personally I think your father is a selfish bag of shit.

[sobeyondthehills]

My DP's dad did this to him, except (I think) he was 15

He was doing his GCSE's and DP's dad's girlfriend was living in a different town.

Basically they had barely any contact with each other till years and years later and even then they were never close, up till the day his dad died.

[StaplesCorner]

movingout she died? Oh no that's heartbreaking. You need a hug my love and I don't care who sees. Your father is a selfish shit, I hope life is better for you now and you have people around who care about you.

[Mellifera]

That's awful, OP 😡

[ChopinLisztFinder]

My mum did similar to me and my brother. I was 16 studying for a levels and working part time. My brother was 19 and jobless. My mum moved 2 hours away to be with her new boyfriend and left us behind.

I quit a levels after she told me that she couldn't afford the family home and pay her bloke rent. I got a full time job.

I'm now a parent. I use my thoughts of my mum as an example of "what not to do". She was an astonishingly​ selfish and neglectful mother. I will not be like her.

[ForeverFearless]

My mum did this...my youngest brother was 17 at the time and still living at home doing exams. she sold up and moved away out of the country with her new husband - my brother moved in with our other sibling who was barely an adult herself. It really deeply affected him. He's in his 30's now and has suffered with depression for years. He is very angry still and feels abandoned. I feel angry and sad about it too and it happened 20 years ago. So sorry that you had to go through it too OP xx

[Freyanna]

No way.

[Ericaequites]

Can't you wait six weeks until exams, leaver's dance, and such are over? Youths need stability during exams.

[MayCup]

@Ericaequites
RTFT!

[Pallisers]

Sorry this happened to you OP. It was wrong. I would never do this to my children. You deserved better and I am sorry for your 18 year old self dealing with this - you must have been scared and worried. well done for dealing with it all.

I have a good friend whose mother moved out to live with a boyfriend when he was 16 and his brother 17 (older sisters already moved out). It had a profound effect on both of them. Truly profound.

[notangelinajolie]

Not many posts leave me speechless on here but this is one of them. Shocked at the OP even asking about this.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Happened to a friend of mine. On the back of years of low level emotional abuse. She coped, she had to. My mum took her in for a bit.

[emmyrose2000]

What an absolutely shitty and selfish thing to have happen, OP - and all the other posters who've experienced similar. Clearly your dad was thinking with his dick and not his brain.

I don't understand all these so called parents who choose to put their sex lives before the welfare and well being of their (minor) children.