To wonder why women fall for this?

[Falalala]

My ex got remarried two years ago. He hasn't seen our son for four years. His choice. He hasn't paid a penny in maintenance, he ducked and dodged the CSA for ages and now I've given up.

He got together with his wife very soon after we split up. Not sure if she was OW. She's well off, and I suspect ex is a cocklodger with her as he was with me. She did send me some out of the blue texts telling me that I was a terrible person and I'd never be able to touch a penny of her money. Not nice, but I suspect ex was filling her head with shit. So I don't hold it against her.

Anyway, I've heard through mutual friends that she is pregnant. My son will have a sibling he'll probably never meet. It's dredged up a lot of thoughts and feelings to be honest. Ex has already abandoned one child. He's said some awful things about me,but if they were true then why was he happy to leave his son in my sole care? With no support?

Now he has another woman eating out of his hand, making herself vulnerable, and he'll probably fuck off on her in a few years too. and no doubt charm another woman into paying for him to sit on his ass.

I wonder about his wife now. Does she ever think of the child he abandoned and worry he will do the same to her? Will their happy family life seem hollow, knowing there's a little boy who for all they know, could be living a shit life? My son has a great life by the way, but how do they know that?

Maybe my experiences have made me overly cautious, but I really think men who don't support their children should be shunned. When a woman abandons her child she is vilified, she is seen as an unnatural bitch, but when a man does it he still has a queue of women lining up, ready to give him another chance, making excuses for him.

This really isn't right, is it? A man who abandons his children should not be seen as a good relationship option. I see this time and time again, they walk away scot free, only to do the same thing again

My ex lives the life of Riley, drives a fancy car, has multiple foreign holidays a year while I slave to afford a week's camping for DS. How on earth do.these people sleep at night?

There are some men who play happy families with their next family after abomdoning their first.
No idea what they say in regards to abondoning their first child though
Unfortunately he probably rately does op.
It's easier that way!
I think some countries have it right, you don't pay child support, you get arrested.

Great post from kickassangel

I'd vote for a party with that policy

I know what you mean, op. I brought up ds1 without any practical or financial contribution from exdh. He was abusive during our marriage. Despite this, i did all i could (for ds) to get them together & met up with ex pils & sil so they could see ds when exdh lost interest. Always friendly & smiles with ex ils.
On ds's birthday before last his GPs sent him a cheque (1st financial input ever from that side of his family) along with a very strange document listing everything negative exdh had ever told them about me (interspersed with ds's 1st words, funny phrases etc). I couldn't believe that they still thought that privately, but saying it to ds was unbelievable; he was so embarrassed. You can't control it, just hope for kharma.

And the answer to your OP is of course - Patriarchy.

A woman is only a good parent if she devotes 100% of her entire life to her children.

A man is a good parent if he tells everyone how much he loves his kids and posts their photos on Facebook. The £2.50 birthday card isn't even necessary.

"Plenty of both sex don't financially support their children and go onto have more."

I find it hard to believe that so many women fall for the stories of "my evil ex won't let me see my child". My DH's ex didn't let him see his child so we spent many years in and out of court and eventually won a contact order. That's what a decent father does.

I wonder whether some women find it rather convenient to believe the wicked ex story as it gives them a get out of jail card on having to play a role in the life of a child that isn't theirs.

Usual helpful contribution by Rainbow, I see. Yawn.

I think some women, I don't know if it's insecurity or that they think a lot of themselves, but they think it will never happen to them. And they're so desperate to have The Prize Man, that they swallow their bullshit hook, line and sinker. There really is absolutely no justifiable excuse for a man not seeing, or making any effort to see, his children. And no excuse for not supporting them. I don't know why any woman would be so dense as to couple up with someone like that. And yes, WDIT blah blah blah.

But then, men abandoning and not paying for their children has been something supported by successive governments, who happily sit by watching the CMS being a chocolate teapot. So if the government don't think there's anything wrong with men doing this, then why should new partners?

BuckinghamLass

but you'd have to be pretty thick to believe that "she doesn't let me" would stop someone seeing their kid if they really wanted to.

I can only assume that you are not speaking from experience.

A mans love for his children is real and true and sincere.

But, he loves his children through their mother. When the love for the mother is no longer there, he finds it harder to access his love for his children.

Is that a joke, calyrical ?

C0RAL

I hope so! If not, it's deluded.

Many years ago an acquaintance of mine was a very well off, second trophy wife with two kids. I remember her gloating in the changing room of the gym that her DH had been able to drastically reduce the child support he paid his first family (or that bitch and her sprogs as she referred to them) by getting his accountants to cook the books on his very lucrative company. I can remember the shocked silence when she said this but she was oblivious to everyone's pitying looks.

Inevitably after a few years she and her very nice DC were left high and dry when her DH moved on to the next model. God knows why any of them fell for that horrible man.

What complete and utter bullshit Calyrical.

Only a proper arsehole cant separate the relationship with his kids with the one with the mother.

OP - plenty of women encourage men with this attitude. It would not happen so often, otherwise. Retaining any kind of a relationship with his ex and his ds would be an inconvenience for his new partner, who would rather pretend to herself and the rest of the world that her child is the one and only. Don't waste your time having sympathy with this woman, as she has chosen what she wishes to believe because it suits her. No doubt she will form a completely different view when he dumps her, but he has got away with it because she wanted him to. She would not have texted rude messages to you if she were the sort of woman who had a conscience.

Not at all.

I wish it was, actually.

Despite what someone said over the page, the enormous gap between lone parent households headed by women and those headed by men is so large as to be almost not a gap at all but simply non existent, i.e. children almost always live with their mother. Lone parent households headed by men are less than ten percent of all, and seven out of ten are due to the death of the mother.

I cannot find it but some years ago I found statistics that indicated the number of children who end up in foster care following their mothers death is very high - I seem to remember it being around 80%. This is compared to less than 5% following the death of a father.

Most (a precise stat isn't given) mothers do not receive any maintenance for their children from fathers.

Everything points towards a basic makeup difference between men women and their children. Men can and do walk away, forget and have a new family and forget the love they had once.

No one disputes that men walk away from their kids. But that's not genetic, they are socialised to think it's ok.

And the OP is asking what so many WOMEN also seem to think it's ok.
So please dont post such BS justifying it.

I wish it was bull shit coral and I'm not exactly justifying it. I see it and it saddens me, I don't think it's "okay" but I don't see it changing any time soon.

It suits women is the answer to the question.

I suspect that there is some truth in what Cal says, in at least some cases. But it's not biological, it's social conditioning.

Probably explains why so many of these shit fathers are actually much better step-fathers to their new partner's DC than they are to their own DC (for as long as that relationship lasts).

What absolute bollox Calyrical you can't honestly believe that?? It's not a difference in make up, it's a societal attitude that accepts men being shit fathers. If that attitude changed many more men would step up.

I have an exbil like your ex OP..

When dsis met him she was very young (19) and believed his bollocks about the crazy, alcoholic ex. She also believed him when he said he didn't give crazy ex money because she'd only go out and enjoy herself and spend it on booze, but that he paid for anything the child needed.

Predictably, dsis now gets not a penny for my two nieces, nor does he buy their school uniforms or anything.

She and the first ex and now quite good friends, while tosspot has just had another baby with an impressionable girl of 22. (He is 41 now)

It's depressing how many women fall for this shit.

Tbh, I do think it's time for women to stop just blaming the men for this. Women are more than 50% of the population and are not that poweless any more. It happens because of female attitudes as well as male attitudes. These men go off and have other relationships with other women because the other women want to have relationships with them. They can justify it in their heads any way they like, but the truth is they are choosing both to collude in and often also actively encourage the behaviour, to the extent of sending threatening and ludicrous texts to ex partners.

I don't know if it's social conditioning Aye as no one explicitly says it's acceptable, but for it to be done the love must go, if that makes sense!

I also think you see it in adult sons: once they meet a partner their relationship with own mum and dad is often impacted if the woman isn't a driving force.

I don't understand why women give these men the time of day, but so many do. FIL has never been in any of his children's lives or payed for them but always has another woman on the go to sponge off, the women must know he ignores his children and doesn't pay for them as he is constantly chased for money by his exes, but still stick around while he bleeds them dry. However, most of the women he pursues are to be perfectly honest (and I'm really not trying to be mean) of pretty low intelligence, and while he is no Einstein it is easy for him to cover up and deceive as to why he doesn't see them, and perhaps tells them that he does contribute financially and that's why he is 'broke' so the woman has to help him out and feels she is doing a good thing for this poor man who is denied access to his children.

DP has a friend who doesn't see or pay for his child because 'the mum is a psycho bitch' and his girlfriend who he lives with and has been with for the best part of a decade has no idea he has a son. His parents see the child so he doesn't allow them any contact with his girlfriend. He's a disgusting creature and I will have nothing to do with him because it is too difficult not to mention it in front of his girlfriend.

It's unfair that men who abandon children aren't strung up for a verbal beating the way women are. Our society places all responsibility for children at women's doors and they are lambasted as being unnatural if they aren't involved in their children's lives. For men it is seen as normal and not even the shitty behaviour that it is. Women should be more wary that if they can treat their child with so little remorse how do they think they will be treated in the relationship?

Some of you are just hanging out with the wrong people. Am a bloke and know about 20 guys with kids, some of whom are separated or divorced. Anyone who didn't pay support or otherwise abandoned his kids would be a total embarrassment.

Granted, overall males are far more likely to do this than females - in humans and every other mammalian species. That's a Bad Thing, but it's now widely recognized as unacceptable. Behaving otherwise is just being a tosser.

Calyrical, as others have said, it is patriarchal social norms and social conditioning, not 'biology' that makes men abandoning their children seem 'normal'. And the same answer to why subsequent women go on to have more children with them.