Do you judge women who stay with men who don't see their children?

[BlatantPineapple]

A close friends situation got me thinking about this sort of thing...

Basically her Dad has older children from before she was born who he never sees and she has never met.

He has been married to her Mum for a long time now and she has two brothers. She says he's always been a good Dad to them but I know she finds it strange that she has siblings out there somewhere who she has no idea about.

Whenever she mentions it I just can't help but feel really sorry for his older children. How hurtful it must be to know your Dad is a good father to other children but never bothered with you.

I also wondered how I'd feel as his wife (my friends Mum). I don't think I'd be able to be with a Man who did that, would you? Would you judge a woman who was with a man who'd abandoned and never seen his children?

I'm more likely to judge women who use dc as pawns, refuse access or make it really difficult, bad mouth dad to dc and then complain he never sees the kid(s).

But tbf I'm basing that on a survey of one.

I don't think it's always black and white. There are some women out there who disappear off the radar and block all attempts at contact.

BUT if it's a case of the dad not being bothered or not making an effort, then yes, I would absolutely judge. I think if people judged men harshly for not seeing their kids, and they saw real-life consequences to their actions (rather than out of sight, out of mind) they may buck their ideas up.

Yes I judge the woman and the man.
I also think she's pretty stupid to have yet more kids with him too.

Absolutely. My own father remarried a woman with 2 DC of her own after leaving my mother. Never saw him again, nor did he pay a penny in child maintenance. When we finally met up again (briefly) when I was in my 40’s, his wife and stepdaughter made a big thing about what a great Dad he was and how close he was to his stepdaughter .

My mind boggled at the lack of awareness. There’s no cure for stupid unfortunately. Or desperation.

If I was ever to be divorced/widowed, a man like that would be a complete turnoff.

@NailsNeedDoing

I’d wonder what the back story was before judging, and I wouldn’t automatically blame the man.

Back story is always the same script

“My ex is a psycho and won’t let me see the kids. I pay the maintenance but she spends it on her hair and nails”

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe

Why is your thread premise to judge women, OP? It's not the women who abandon their children, never to see them again, it's men.

And what 'judging' do you do? Tutting? Eye-rolling? Throwing rotten tomatoes? Is it useful?

Because I didn't think it needed saying that men who abandon their children should be judged harshly. Women who are with men who abandon their children seems like more of a grey area which is why I was curious as to people's thoughts on it.

Not entirely the same but a bit like saying 'do you judge the OW?' obviously you'd think the man cheating is a twat, and the bigger of the two definitely, but it's still a valid question.

Obviously I can only go off what my friend has said. She hasn't been able to get much out of him about it apparently other than he was young and wasn't with their Mum long and wasn't ready for a family. As far as she is aware he hasn't made any effort to see them but obviously that doesn't mean he hasn't.

I judge men who don’t see their kids or pay child support.

I’d feel sorry for women who have more kids with him as I assume they are probably vulnerable in some way or at least very gullible.

I've seen too much nonsense from men with so called "crazy exes". If a man told me his ex wouldn't let him see the kids, I'd automatically think he was lying unless I saw proof with my own eyes, and even then I'd wonder if it was his fault for whatever reason. The only woman I know who doesn't let her ex see the kids did so because he was an alcoholic and a danger to them.

Have you seen the Elton John biopic? This was interesting about his father who was very cold & absent. Then had two sons with someone else and was a dream father. But they never really delved into why.

My dad had a girlfriend for a few years while he was being - delicately put - a fuck up, and I never liked her for that exact reason. He asked why I hated her so much and I told him "Because she's happy to be with you while you're such a shit dad."

Fast forward 6 years, he meets his now fiancée. She told him he wasn't making enough of an effort, that she wouldn't respect him if he wasn't a better father, and he got his shit together. We now have a good relationship and I like his partner a lot.

Yes I was the "crazy ex" according to my ex's new wife he speedily impregnated and married.
A few years down the line she contacted me telling me how awful he was and how she realised how much I must have gone through...

It's funny though me having a non molestation order on him and him not seeing his children or paying for them at all was not enough of a red flag to her..

With the whole 'ex won't let me see them' thing is it common for courts to just not allow a father access because his ex said so?

I agree. My mums husband has kids he's never seen. He plays dad to my sisters who aren't his and my mum says what a good dad he is. Makes me sick. Our dad's left her to raise us alone and she'd be fuming if anyone ever said they were good dad's. I don't understand how she can bear it especially when she's been on the other side of the situation.

The courts can order contact, but if the mother chooses not to comply there are rarely consequences for her. So dad goes back to court, more money, still she ignores it...

Like a few other posters I find it baffling that any parent can just turn off being a parent...I've purposefully used parent because women aren't immune to the selfish impulse but it does seem to be heavily weighted towards men that do this.

It's even more baffling that these 'parents' then go on to have a second family and actually take on the role properly without a single thought for the children abandoned.

I genuinely couldn't enter a relationship with someone so base in their morals.

@RandomMess

Hmmm well I know one Dad whose ex was an expert in child alienation (she actually had other serious MH conditions) and even the SS/Cafcass officer at the time could not convince the DC that their Mum was being untruthful about facts such as their Dad paying maintenance.

The other Dads I know of that don't see their DC are just utterly feckless.

My point is your never know the real truth of what went on.

Whenever I hear stories like this I think of my own df and dh. There is not a thing I could say to my dc that could possibly convince them that their df is a bad guy or didn’t love them and want to be with them. The same with my df. Nothing could make me doubt that he adored me and my siblings because he went out of his way to show us that he did. I also can’t imagine trying to take the kids away from dh. He would follow them to the ends of the earth and they know this. So when I hear that kids are convinced, usually by a manipulative mother, that their df’s are awful and don’t want anything to do with them, I do wonder just how involved said father has actually been in the upbringing of those dc.

There will always be three sides to every story. His/hers/truth

Yes I would probably judge someone who’s left their children started again & never had a relationship with their first born.

But, I know a family member who genuinely is a lovely father and I have seen him fight to see his daughter from his first partner. Parent alienation & control from her mother made it extremely difficult- he didn’t want to have more children with his 2nd partner until the issues resolved. He paid maintenance and stupidly gave her a lump sum which she denied and went to CSA claiming never to receive any money and he ended up in more debt - remortgaged his house to pay for solicitor fees and CSA debt. He was destroyed as a person he missed his daughter and could see the damage his ex partner had done. Eventually court ordered visitation- it never worked the daughter was uncomfortable and never settled. She is now over 18 and they still have a very fractured relationship.

It’s sad to see. He does now have another child and is a very good involved father. But trying to get access to his daughter really took a toll on him he won’t be the same person again :( it affected his mental health badly. Suffered depression badly.

I also know a man who left his family and moved onto never to have a relationship with his first family - i dont have anything to do with him as he just thought the grass was greener.

Back story is always the same script

“My ex is a psycho and won’t let me see the kids. I pay the maintenance but she spends it on her hair and nails”

Except sometimes, it’s true. It happened to a family member and he missed out on seeing his kids for nearly 2 years. He is now in thousands of pounds worth of debt because he had to take it to court. The ex was just spiteful, she used every tactic she could to hurt him because he didn’t want to be with her, including using their children as weapons. Not all mothers put their children first all the time.

My dad has five kids between two mothers. We're now all adults (20-33 in age) and 3 of us, me included, have nothing to do with him. We came to that decision ourselves as adults (for PPs bleating about parental alienation).

I often wonder about his current partner. I've only met her once but she seemed sharp and like she didnt suffer fools... has adult kids of her own who she is close to so I dont understand how she clearly believes his woe is me... or she chooses to turn a blind eye, which I think might be worse!

@BlatantPineapple

With the whole 'ex won't let me see them' thing is it common for courts to just not allow a father access because his ex said so?

I wouldn't have thought so. However if you turned up to pick up your children and your ex refused to open the door to you or was always out with the kids when it was your turn, there isn't much you can do. The police aren't going to remove them from someone with parental responsibility and there is only a certain amount of time you can take your ex to court before you run out of money.

I judge those who refused to pay maintenance most, then those who use their DC as pawns second and those who refuse to see their DC third.

Yes in a "bad decision " type of way.
That applies to women who knowingly get into relationships with these type of men (sometimes with kids from multiple women) thinking they/their kids will be the special ones .

And I judge because of the effect on the kids when things go tits up, he fucks off again and she's wide eyed with disbelief that he "could do that to her/the kids".

My friend went out with a man who never saw his kids. He had moved 100s of miles away from them to work for his family business - not because he didn't have a good job there, but because he wanted the freedom to pick and choose his hours with his pushover dad. He hardly saw them and paid no maintanence claiming he couldn't afford it, but some how managed to find the cash to get wasted every weekend. He told my friend how horrible his ex was, how she was stopping him seeing the children more often - this turned out to be because she was refusing to move close to him and had made the oh so unreasonable request of expecting him to give her a bit of notice before showing up to visit. He had pictures of his kids on social media and kept wanking on about how much he missed them and how awful his ex was to keep him from them, but the truth was there were a million choices he could have made to see his kids more often and he just couldn't be fucked. It was all about him, his free time, his spare money etc etc. The awful ex was supposed to run around after him facilitating his lifestyle and caring for the kids, asking for nothing, and dropping everything to accommodate him when he felt like dropping in. For refusing to do this she was called every name under the sun and accused of withholding his children. My friend was outraged on his behalf that such a terrible woman could possibly exist. I told her she was a bloody idiot but she wouldn't have it. A year of him treating her like absolute garbage later and it finally started to dawn on her that maybe the ex wasn't the bad guy in that situation. The final straw was when she came into some money and offered to pay his legal fees to gain custody of the children (something he kept saying he wanted) and he looked like she'd threatened to kill a puppy. After that he couldn't break up with her quick enough. I'd be lying if I said I didn't judge her at all but she had fallen for his bullshit hook line and sinker. The vast vast vast majority of my judgement is for him and him alone.

Forgot to say, it's a very very small number of women that actually fit in that description though.

Not quite the same thing, but I very much judged Robert Lindsay when I heard him being interviewed on the radio a few years ago (maybe on Graham Norton's show?).

He was mourning the fact that he'd been far too obsessed with his career when his older children were growing up, and had chosen to be absent a lot, so HE had missed out on the joys of parenthood (boo-hoo). He was so glad that he'd had another child(ren?) later in life, so HE had after all managed have that wonderful experience that HE feared that HE would never have had the chance to have.

Kind of like an inanimate object you don't bother taking care of at all, but when you're older and wiser, you get another one, get proper pleasure from that one and it's all good, you haven't missed out in the end, lucky you....

Yep. My eldest's biological Father has 3 abandoned children by 3 women (that we know about). We didn't all know about each other for a long time but apparently his now wife knows about us all. We're all crazy psychopaths though, obviously, not his fault....
We all get on very well.