Who has the kids?

[Ijustwanttoretire]

This is kind of hypothetical (never really been in the situation) but has anyone ever...

I read on here all the time about how a husband has decided he's had enough and swans off to another life with (or without) another woman, leaving the wife with the kids and all that entails. I am older now, and far less tolerant - but if I was my young self and put in that situation I would say 'fine, you want to bugger off, take the kids' (in fact me and my husband used to joke when the kids were younger 'whoever leaves has to take the kids' - they are now grown up and we are still together so it obviously worked ). I know the vast majority of people on here would say 'I couldn't do that!!!' but it would be interesting to know if anyone has. I was a single parent but that was my choice, I'm sick of hearing how men deem it acceptable to cut and run when they've had enough, fine, you don't love your wife? Fair enough, leave her - but if you love the kids as much as she does take them with you. Not a chance!!

I don’t agree with you. My ex is absent through choice and has no contact. Hasn’t done in 3 years. He has severe mental illness and was violent to me. There’s no way I would give him my kids. You also can’t force a man to have them if he doesn’t want to, the vast majority of nrp are men, what does that tell you? Men find it easier
To walk away than women.

I bet most men would $hit their pants if they were presented with having to take THEIR OWN kids. Still seems to be more acceptable for a man to cut and run. It a woman did it I am sure she would be faced with horrible reactions from people .

Me and my husband joke that if we divorced I wouldn't let him get away with every other weekend.
I would miss my kids if I was a EOW parent and DH doesn't consider things like homework and reading as he never did those things as a child so I would want to be heavily involved. I would love a proper break one evening a week though and every other weekend. I think I would appreciate them more when they were around.

I'd hate to be parted from my DS, I'd fight tooth and nail to keep him with me as much as possible! DH is a lovely man, and a fantastic and equal parent, and would definitely want to keep DS too if we ever split up - I think we'd have to end up with 50/50.

I am, however, amazed and saddened by the number of fathers who fuck off and then make no/little effort to see their DC, or use the DC to control their ex. I don't understand how you can go from living with your DC and tucking them into bed at night to abandoning them.

There is absolutely no way I’d let my husband leave with my kids. Or the other way around, I imagine. I can’t imagine anything worse! Yes it would be nice to have the occasional weekend off but I can’t imagine living without them.

I think a lot of these men would just say no I'm not taking them and go. It seems like more men are that way than women, don't feel like it's their responsibility. Obviously NAMALT my husband feels the responsibility for his kids as much as I do for example

A word of caution to anyone who thinks their DH would not walk away from their children...I used to think exactly the same, mine was a good guy, devoted dad, would never abandon DD if the worst happened. But he did just that...moved 200 miles away to be with OW and her kids and never sees his own daughter.

Meeting your "soulmate" in later life can do odd things to a man.

I’ve always said to dh, jokingly, that I’d want eow, and I’d live in our his pride and joy camper van. In reality I couldn’t leave them. I don’t understand how dads do. I’ve sometimes wondered if, as a society, we were as intolerant of fathers that leave as we are of mothers who do, would it make any difference?

I always wondered what would happen if a woman refused to have more than 50/50 in court. If they can’t force a man to parent his kids, then surely they can’t force a woman to have them more than half the time?! Obviously would be an awful case for the poor kids, but I’ve always wondered out of curiosity.

This is a brilliant topic and one where I'm massively angry at fellow males for what is a nonchalance bordering on inherent arrogance when it comes to DCs after a split.

The assumptive position that many men take, "Kids are better off with their mums" is fine if you want the children to have one main home that they reside in, for stability sake etc.

What then happens after that, however, is clearly up to the dad to help decide. And once a fortnight for an afternoon (a couple of people I know do this) is arrogant when you consider the sheer amount of mental energy, presence, caring needed to raise a child, let alone multiple.

There definitely feels to me like there's thousands of blokes who hide behind that "kids are best with their mums" truism as a blanket way of copping out of proper shared responsibility - whether that be helping them learn, spending sustained time with them in their home, etc etc.

I think much of that is to do with the propensity of blokes to usually have jumped ship onto another so to speak, and therefore they go headlong into setting up a new family with that person. As a result, they don't allow themselves the mental energy or time to invest back into their "past", which really should be their future when it comes to the precious lives of people who exist because of them.

Sorry it's a bit of a bugbear of mine because I think we don't help ourselves a lot of the time, such is the arrogance.

As a result, they don't allow themselves the mental energy or time to invest back into their "past", which really should be their future when it comes to the precious lives of people who exist because of them.

^^
I think this is a very good point. A lot of men (not all!) don’t seem to spend enough time getting over what must have been a serious relationship.

As far as the OP’s question is concerned, I wouldn’t want my kids to be with me any less than they are. I have 9/14 days, and tbh that often feels too little.

However I would say that been a lone parent for those days is much more tiring that having your kids with you plus partner (assuming they are a decent, supportive person). The days when the kids aren’t with you seem like a “break” but you are doing EVERYTHING the rest of the time, so don’t see it as easy. Obviously it’s much harder for those who are the sole/ lone parent 24/7/365 (or 366!).

I was in that exact situation and I was so blindsided by events that when he announced he was moving away and would only be seeing them one night EOW I didn't think if saying 'um no, you won't' or asking how early he'd need to get up to get here to do the school run 2/3 days a week. Off he went, does eow and looks like a hero because he travels a distance to see them. He doesn't give a shit about their own plans for a weekend and they've missed out on stuff because he won't accommodate an activity or something that occurs on his time. I actually am not overly sentimental and can happily enjoy my time off from the kids. I would, if it suited the kids, do 50/50 but he'd be utterly unable to cope with the day to day logistics.. Good thing he has ow there to help him on weekends really. If I could repeat the experience I absolutely would fight much harder to get him to do 50/50

A word of caution to anyone who thinks their DH would not walk away from their children...I used to think exactly the same, mine was a good guy, devoted dad, would never abandon DD if the worst happened. But he did just that...moved 200 miles away to be with OW and her kids and never sees his own daughter.

I'm pretty confident in that because my DH has a child from a previous relationship and he's a fantastic dad to him and fought tooth and nail for as much access to him as he could get

I always wondered what would happen if a woman refused to have more than 50/50 in court. If they can’t force a man to parent his kids, then surely they can’t force a woman to have them more than half the time?! Obviously would be an awful case for the poor kids, but I’ve always wondered out of curiosity.

If neither stepped up then the kids would probably be taken away otherwise the dad would have to pick up the slack (like the mothers usually do)

I'd fight to the ends of the earth to retain the DC if DH and I divorced because I know I wouldn't be happy without them. That's not to say DH is lazy or terrible; he's not at all, he cherishes them and is a great Dad. But they're my children, I wouldn't be willing to allow them to live full time with him unless I was desperately unwell and unable to offer them the security and safety they needed.

I've never understood how any parent leaves their DC, to be honest. And I think very badly of anyone who waltzes off into the sunset with his soulmate and leaves their DC behind. It happens so often and causes so much damage, but how is it possible to change the sheer selfish shiftiness inside some people?

am, however, amazed and saddened by the number of fathers who fuck off and then make no/little effort to see their DC, or use the DC to control their ex. I don't understand how you can go from living with your DC and tucking them into bed at night to abandoning them

There are of course many many great dads who end up in this position through no fault of their own.

The wife decided she wants to leave (or didn’t actually want a father for the children anyway, just a sperm doner and provider). Gets legal advice, makes false allegations of domestic abuse that are pretty much impossible to disprove, gets unlimited legal aid, and leaves the Dad unable to see his kids and skint due to legal fees.

Some dads are twats, some mums are twats. There isn’t a delineation of good parent and bad parents based on if they are Mum or Dad

Tbh, all the separated dads I know (including my partner) would have jumped at the chance. For most of them it is a source of sadness that they don't get to live with their kids, but they have just gone along with it because it's generally assumed that the mother will be the main caregiver. For my partner, I know there was an element of "I'm leaving her, I can't take her child away too as it would be too cruel". Whilst she does bring up resentment of how much she has to do as RP, she also makes it clear she misses him too much when he is at ours as it is, which is clear because his son feels guilty about it and claims he has to comfort her regularly.

I'm don't doubt there are many feckless dads out there that are happy doing the minimum and/or underestimate how hard it is to be a lone RP, but equally a majority of the single dads I know are constantly down about not having them full time but feel it is off limits to them.

The wife decided she wants to leave (or didn’t actually want a father for the children anyway, just a sperm doner and provider). Gets legal advice, makes false allegations of domestic abuse that are pretty much impossible to disprove, gets unlimited legal aid, and leaves the Dad unable to see his kids and skint due to legal fees.

Really? This is how you believe life works, that Mothers get the better deal with unlimited legal aid and poor little men have no chance?

Let's not derail the thread with 'but women do it too' and 'what about this other scenario'. Can those have their own thread? Just because the OPs scenario is not the only one, it doesn't make it any less true that a huge number of mostly men do do the ow / new family, eow Disney dad thing.

Really? This is how you believe life works, that Mothers get the better deal with unlimited legal aid and poor little men have no chance?

I never said it always happens.

However. Anyone who thinks the above isn’t a regular occurrence fuelled by greedy lawyers and women who just want to be seen as a victim and separate a loving father from his kids is either naive or a bit slow.

The press are regularly running stories on dads separated from their kids, battling the system and taking their own lives.

There isn’t a one size fits all here. Some dads are feckless tosser S, some who might look like they have walked away from their kids are actually going through years of hell fighting for more contact.

Ds3 had a friend who had parents that were divorcing. Neither of them wanted full care and 50/50 was apparently to much effort. He was an. Only child and any relatives he did have were not interested. He

However. Anyone who thinks the above isn’t a regular occurrence fuelled by greedy lawyers and women who just want to be seen as a victim and separate a loving father from his kids is either naive or a bit slow.

Where's your evidence that this is a "regular occurrence"? I've plenty of friends who've separated from their children's father over the years and I've met plenty of families in my career as a teacher who've separated; not one of them has got "unlimited legal aid" as you mentioned - does every separated Mother get that then? Are you able to provide some kind of proof to back up this sort of comment, or are you just one of those "NAMALT" sympathisers who feels sorry for the poor men who can't be arsed to fight for their DC so give their next girlfriend the "she won't let me see the DC" line? Believe me, I've met plenty of those men in my career, too, and they're as frequent as the good Dads who do step up, so please don't try and paint them as the victims.

I’m in the unusual position of knowing a few men who are/were single dads including my own brother, though in his case his ex died.

It’s rare but it does happen that women leave their families too and in my experience when that happens they can and do behave just as badly as many nrp dads do.

My own ex like a pp while we were together I never would have thought he’d be a deadbeat dad. He was scathing of others behaving like this and had a good example set him by his father (his mum was wife 2 no affair, ex fil married first wife very young due to unplanned pregnancy and it didn’t work out) who was more than fair to his ex wife and very involved with his children from his first marriage, they all only lived one street away from each other.

His behaviour was a total shock not only to me but to his family and oldest friends too.

But he played the victim as far as he could then several years ago he basically vanished out of dds life altogether, just didn’t make the effort to so much as text her.

Sadly too many men when they leave a relationship. Especially if there’s an ow or a very “new” woman then choose to pour all their energy into that.

Even more especially if there’s more dc. My ex has 5 with wife 2, by the time he announced pregnancy 4 to dd her immediate reaction was to burst into tears as she KNEW from past experience it meant he’d make even less effort with her. Dd hasn’t even met her youngest sibling, because her dad has never done his part to make arrangements for dd to visit.

It’s incredibly heartbreaking and infuriating!

He recently got in touch with dd and she got her hopes up but it turned out he had ulterior motives and he eventually just flakes out on her again when he didn’t get exactly what he wanted! Arse!

It does need to become socially unacceptable to abandon your dc in this way, at the moment many men who “fight the system” and get away with barely seeing their dc and IF they pay cm pay a pittance they get backslaps and “yea don’t be paying for that crazy ex’s manicures” bullshit!

We are fortunately not separated or separating..... fingers crossed it never happens.

BUT if we did, I know that neither of us would willingly stop being resident parent. I think we’d have to go 50/50 otherwise it’s be a battle for custody.

We we’re both brought up by single parents and I think it has affected our views on people leaving family/children.

My dad did just that. Left when I was 15 to be with another woman and her children. Didn't see me and my brothers again. I never understand how he could go from helping me revise for my GCSEs one week to abandoning us the next.