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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To judge friend for leaving her children

345 replies

GuiltyJudging · 15/05/2019 13:10

NC and Dailymail are scum.

My best friend of 20 years has confided in me that she plans to leave her DH and DC in two weeks time, once the oldest DCs communion is out of the way.
She has organized a job relocation to a different part of the county and has paid a deposit for a little flat. She’s been planning this a while as she met someone (also married) through work and he plans to follow her when he ties up his loose ends.

She spent an hour on the phone after she’d “let me in on it” excitedly telling me about the decor she’d chosen and talking endlessly about the dress and shoes she’d chosen for a friends wedding next month and gushing about this arsehole who’s also leaving his wife and child.

It hasn’t exactly come from nowhere, even when she didn’t work she had them in full time childcare and never seemed to enjoy motherhood.

I consider myself a feminist but I’m so upset about this, her youngest is only 3.

AIBU to question a 20 year friendship over this?

OP posts:
NeatFreakMama · 15/05/2019 15:38

YANBU I'm super judging her, to leave such young children is shocking. I wouldn't even know what to say to her.

Tunnockswafer · 15/05/2019 15:39

I would think she was having a breakdown as I can’t comprehend a mother doing this.
If she were a man I’d still think she was a cunt.

Loveandstuff · 15/05/2019 15:39

Has she got a mental health issue? She sounds like she feels overwhelmed and needs to escape. Ask her.

LittlePaintBox · 15/05/2019 15:43

I'd judge anyone, female or male, who was doing this. I'd be very surprised if the OM managed to 'tie up his loose ends', so her future sounds very unclear.

Angrybird123 · 15/05/2019 15:47

To those saying she's entitled to leave an unhappy marriage yes she is. But she's giving her stbxh no choice in being the RP 95% of the time by moving so far away. You don't (or shouldn't) get to just decide that proper parenting is a bit of a drag and fuck off apart from a couple of days a month when she'll take them to the fair. Just because many many men do it doesn't make it OK. There's a huge difference between leaving an unhappy relationship, establishing a second home nearby and co-parenting and upsticks and leaving for a fantasy life, regardless of whether or not that life materialises. It sounds as though even if her om does let her down she'll enjoy her bachelorette pad and single, childcare free life.

Fifthtimelucky · 15/05/2019 16:02

How far is she moving? My reply was based on an assumption that she was staying in the same county and would be able to see the children regularly.

Huggybear16 · 15/05/2019 16:05

I can't believe some people think she's not being that terrible.

Of course she can end the marriage if she is unhappy. But that's not all she's doing. She is also lying and cheating on her husband, planning and building another life whilst pretending all at home is fine and dandy, secretly planning to live far away enough so that she doesn't have to really be a parent, and planning to drop all on this on her poor family once she has already left.

The fact that many men do it doesn't make it ok. That's one of the worst arguments there is - many men abuse their partners, does that make it any better?

Notjudesmum · 15/05/2019 16:06

I couldn’t imagine leaving my children for anyone or anything. Never. Judge away. She doesn’t deserve children.

Raindropsonroses27 · 15/05/2019 16:07

Shocking. I can't believe she's being so flippant about abandoning her kids. I try not to judge people's parenting but this is off the scale of shittiness as a person and a parent.

TheFastandCurious · 15/05/2019 16:07

Spot on HuggyBear.

AnnieMay100 · 15/05/2019 16:11

This happened to a friend of mine when I was a child, her mum left with her friends husband and started a new life. It destroyed her childhood she’s still struggling now 25 years later. Those poor children, she doesn’t deserve them or her husband. Judge her all you like, she deserves nothing less. If you have a way to I’d be letting the husband know about this too and providing some support as shes clearly a crappy mum and wife. Chances are the new man is leading her on in her fantasy world and she’ll be completely alone. She wouldn’t be a friend of mine after this.

Chillyegg · 15/05/2019 16:21

Poor children .
What an awful person
Sex/gender has nothing to do with it. It’s a moral thing . It’s scummy.
Tell the dad. Cut her off

TeddybearBaby · 15/05/2019 16:23

You’re not a feminist, what a strange comment! I think that women usually have a maternal instinct that is so incredibly strong that this kind of behaviour is absolutely shocking to any mother reading this because they just cannot fathom it, there is no comprehension.

I feel like it’s not that I’m dismissive of men doing the same but it’s almost like I’ve accepted they’re shittness and hold women to higher standard. I don’t think that makes me ‘not a feminist’.

Not all women have this maternal instinct inside of them and as much as I feel like they can’t help the way they feel I still find it a bitter pill to swallow and I think it’s because I start picturing doing it to my own children and become filled with a burning rage. Poor kids 💔

choli · 15/05/2019 16:27

The children are better off living with the parent who wants them than the parent who does not, regardless of the gender of that person.

Fiveredbricks · 15/05/2019 16:28

@spanishwife "lol??" Didn't realise we were on netmums.

People still say 'lol'? Confused

JuniFora · 15/05/2019 16:29

She sounds horrible, she should be talking to her husband, not bragging about her plans to the world while planning to surprise her family with it after the communion. I'd judge her.

However, it sounds like the kids would be better off without her. She's not into them, doesn't think of them and appears to have no concern for their wellbeing.

I doubt the other man is going to show up and if he does, he'll be gone like a shot. A lazy woman who has used her kids as an excuse not to work while putting them in childcare so she doesn't have to do anything all day, who abandons her kids and expects to be kept by a man isn't much of a catch.

I would leave her to it. I wouldn't want to be friends with her. If she's that disloyal towards her husband and kids, she's not going to have any feeling for you...

I'd support her husband and kids in the fallout though. They're going to need it.

corythatwas · 15/05/2019 16:29

I don't accept the shitness of men- all the men I know have a very strong paternal instinct (and would be decent enough to fake it if they didn't feel it).

And I absolutely think you should be allowed to end an unhappy marriage.

BUT I ABSOLUTELY judge anyone who does not put planning for their child and preparing for their child and organising how to be there for their child first.

Fiveredbricks · 15/05/2019 16:29

If she is happy to walk away from her children then they will be better off without her. Just like any parent who wishes to walk away.

Nonnymum · 15/05/2019 16:32

Did she have PND after having her youngest? Is she depressed because its very odd behaviour I can't imagine ever leaving a child.. Poor children

Whatisthisfuckery · 15/05/2019 16:43

OP is your friend alright in the head? I have bipolar and during one of my manic episodes I can get carried away with all manner of fantastical nonsense. I’ve never pulled anything like this though, I’m a single parent mind you so it would be kinda hard.

If not then yanbu, judge away. I can’t tell you the amount of hurt my DS feels over his DF basically freezing him out. Ours is a different situation but the harm this will cause to those three kids can’t be under estimated.

I would tell the H, but only if I was sure the reason she was off wasn’t down to him being abusive or violent. You’d think she’d take the kids if he was like that but then you can’t necessarily see the dynamics of someone else’s relationship.

As for the friend, well she either needs MH intervention or to be cut loose. Chances are this OM will never ditch his family for her and she’ll spend the next decade begging him to do so. I’d say she bloody deserves all she gets if that’s the case. Mean while her DC probably won’t want anything to do with her, and I wouldn’t blame them either.

The sex of the person doing this doesn’t matter, I’d judge them all the same. It’s fine to leave a relationship if you’re unhappy, but this isn’t the way to go about it.

NorthernRunner · 15/05/2019 16:43

I wouldn’t tell her husband, but I would make it clear that she is no friend of mine if she feels what she is doing is acceptable.
I would tell her that you don’t wish to “be in on it” and she should keep her plans to herself.
To abandon her children?!?! Thats Lower than a snakes belly!

UrsulaPandress · 15/05/2019 16:43

I know someone who did this. Planned it for ages, delayed due to the death of her DH's father, went ahead with booked summer holidays etc and then just left. The children were 5 and 8 I think. The father always did the bulk of the childcare and they were genuinely better off with him but still ...

She left for the only single bloke in their large friendship group. Didn't have the children for a while but now has them on a regular basis but parents in a very different way to her ex.

I will never forget the youngest child sitting at my table one afternoon. My DD and I were joshing around and she leaned up to her father's ear and whispered 'When am I seeing Mummy again?' Fair broke my heart.

horizontalis · 15/05/2019 16:49

I have a friend whose mother walked out one day, leaving her and her brother behind. She just packed up and left, and they never saw her again.

My friend is now in her seventies and has never come to terms with the sense of abandonment.

BogglesGoggles · 15/05/2019 16:51

She’s a horrible person. Her sex is completely irrelevant here and femenist doesn’t entitle women to act like selfish bastards. That said an absent mother is worse than an unkind one (I speak from experience). There msybea lot you don’t know about going on at home. She may not cope with her children and be quite cruel to them (more common than you’d think) andshe May have just decided (correctly) that it’s in their best interests for her to leave anyway. Or maybe she fights with her husband and thinks it’s effecting her children and thinks it’s better to move faraway and leave them with him because he is reverted parent. Doesn’t excuse being a shitty parent but more that there may be a fuller explination for her behaviour.

Whoops75 · 15/05/2019 16:54

Do 100% you believe her?

I had a friend like this and after frying my brain would say ‘ oh I was just testing you’

I don’t see her now but she’s still with her husband.