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?

To put another perspective on it- a good friend of mine has 2 young children with her husband.

He has an older son who he no longer sees or has contact with- absolutely not for lack of trying.

His ex pulled every stunt possible, he spent thousands paying solicitors fees, mediation etc but she was determined he was going to have no part in their lives.

She moved away with son to unknown location/would not provide an address. He tried for a number of years to make contact after tracking them down.

His son was only 3 when he last saw him and this was several years ago. Sad really, they will likely never have a relationship again unless the son decides to when he's an adult

Just another perspective

Yep because why does she think that's correct behaviour? It's literally rewarding him with sex for abandoning his children, and setting yourself up for the next round of abandonment.

I know it's not really the point but "rewarding him with sex" is such an odd way to describe being in a relationship with someone. Where does that come from?

The projection on here is unbelievable.

These are not little kids. If the daughter is the age where here BF is posting on MN, she’s probably in her 30s and the ‘kids’ 40ish or older. What’s he supposed to do if they don’t want contact? People argue and fall out with their family all the time.

I’d judge hard, being so desperate for cock that you’d tolerate a spunk-n-go low value male who feeds you some bullshit about the previous sperm-vessels (in his eyes) being ‘mental/money grabbing/won’t let me see’. Pathetic. There’s eight billion humans clogging up the planet, why pick some walking ballsack who thinks you’re stupid enough to believe his spiel?

Have you actually read the OP Carbara? The father concerned has been with her mother since the BF was born, so he’s been in a relationship with the Mum for a few decades at least. Not exactly (ahem) ‘spunk-n-go’. I’m sure she would have realised by now if he was some sort of rotter.

And it doesn’t appear like he’s said much at all about the reasons because the OP’s friend didn’t even know if he’d ever tried to contact them. He’s obviously not lurching around railing against his evil ex.

In this situation, maybe he is an evil old git who abandoned his kids. Equally he may have been ditched by his kids because they couldn’t be bothered which causes him a great deal of pain. Given he’s now in a decades long marriage and has kids he’s committed to, I would suspect the latter. But really I just wouldn’t know.

And I’m certainly not going to go round judging people based on a scenario I made up in my head.

I'm surprised at the number of people on here saying that all men who say their ex prevented access are liars. There is quite literally a thread on mumsnet just now where the OP has openly said she hasn't allowed her ex to see their children in over a year because she wasn't happy that he introduced them to his girlfriend after 11months, because she had told him he had to wait 12.
There are women out there with waster exes who don't bother their arse, but there are also women out there who will use their children as pawns in their own control games. One doesn't mean the other doesn't exist.

@Flowerlane

Has he never bothered though? Does the other children’s mum stop contact maybe? Moved away etc? There may be a lot more to the story.

My thoughts too.

When my parents split up my mother moved back to Avignon - with the complete agreement of the divorce court !. That made it a tad difficult for my father to have us over every other weekend !. He used to speak to us on the phone but by then he had returned to New York.

He then went on to have 4 kids with his second wife. As far as she was concerned, we were on another continent 3000 miles away !. As it turned out, I returned to the UK and grew-up in my grandparents farm in Dorset.

I would judge, but often think these women are usually stupid or naive, rather than awful. How often to you read posts from the new girlfriend, spouting the “What Deadbeat Dads Tell Their New Girlfriends About Why They Don’t See Their Kids” lines.

1. His ex is a psycho
2. She has alienated the children
3. He can’t take it to court because, insert- too expensive, too upsetting for children, he is too depressed, she is a big meanie liar
4. She wanted him to have them during the week when he was working at his Very Important Job
5. He had to move far away from his children for his Very Important Job

Lots of women swallow this rubbish.

@SuziQuatrosFatNan

Funny how so many hear about these psycho bitches second hand but never encounter such women themselves in their own lives, whether through work or school mum socialising or whatever. You'd think with the legions of deranged bitter exes stalking the land that other women would have at least met one or two.

They're hardly going to say what they're doing are they? I know one, what she tells her friend (who is a mural acquaintance) bears no real resemblance to the truth. She didn't say what had really happened with a particular major event in the poor child's life, I got told what she was saying and when we investigated it, the paperwork proved hugely contradictory.

Do you if you split with a partner reel off all the stupid and awful things you've ever done? I doubt it.
I don't hear many calls from friends saying "we broke up. Probably because I was reading his phone all the time, calling him an idiot when we argued and we have nothing in common. I've also decided to make it a nightmare if he wants to see the kids because I'm just so angry with him right now and behaving like a spoilt princess."

Sounds better to say he's a twat, he never dud anything with you, hides his phone so must be having an affair etc.

@Tallybeebloom

I'm surprised at the number of people on here saying that all men who say their ex prevented access are liars. There is quite literally a thread on mumsnet just now where the OP has openly said she hasn't allowed her ex to see their children in over a year because she wasn't happy that he introduced them to his girlfriend after 11months, because she had told him he had to wait 12. There are women out there with waster exes who don't bother their arse, but there are also women out there who will use their children as pawns in their own control games. One doesn't mean the other doesn't exist.

Yes I saw that and thought of the irony of this Thread too

@Tallybeebloom

I'm surprised at the number of people on here saying that all men who say their ex prevented access are liars. There is quite literally a thread on mumsnet just now where the OP has openly said she hasn't allowed her ex to see their children in over a year because she wasn't happy that he introduced them to his girlfriend after 11months, because she had told him he had to wait 12. There are women out there with waster exes who don't bother their arse, but there are also women out there who will use their children as pawns in their own control games. One doesn't mean the other doesn't exist.

I don't think that ALL men who say that are liars but the vast majority are. It's far more common for men to just not bother with their kids than it is for women to deny them access without good reason. I'd need to see proof before I believe a man who says his ex doesn't let him see the kids.

I know a couple who refer to his child from a previous relationship (as far as I know he has never seen this child) as ‘the b***d’ and both can’t wait till they turn 18 so he can stop paying maintenance, or as they say ‘the gravy train can stop’.
To be honest this is the main reason I have no contact with her any more. They both disgust me.
They have younger children together, that have no knowledge of their older sibling.

I dont understand how so many men can walk away from their own children without a second glance. I, as most women, would find it impossible to not be completely consumed by worrying about their welfare if I wasn't around to at least keep an eye on them. I'm old and have met countless men who have walked away from families, oh, is that the PM over there? I have also met two women separated from their children. One willingly and one unwillingly. Two, over about 45 years. I dont judge women for male behaviour. I do judge those who happily facilitate this destructive anti social behaviour.

@SuziQuatrosFatNan

5 posts until we hit "she took the fucking kids" payload.

Brilliant. 👍

Ah yes because obviously that never happens

@Waxonwaxoff0 I’ve seen too much nonsense from men with so called "crazy exes"

There are men who struggle to escape abusive relationships where the women is emotionally and physically abusive and uses their DC as a means to control the father. Would you think it “nonsense” if a woman had “crazy exes”?

No, because I (rightly) wouldnt know the full story and I'm not an arsehole.

I would judge someone who openly didn't bother with their children, and I knew there was not more too it.

@CutieBear. There are men who struggle to escape abusive relationships where the women is emotionally and physically abusive and uses their DC as a means to control the father. Would you think it “nonsense” if a woman had “crazy exes”

There is an issue here with language. In days gone by, women were locked up for life for being ‘hysterical’. If you were in an abusive relationship, you say so. You don’t refer to the ex as ‘psycho bitch’. In my experience women leaving abusive relationships talk of domestic abuse, not that the ex was ‘psycho’ or ‘crazy’. Ex partner’s using the words ‘crazy ex’ and ‘psycho bitch’ need to be viewed with a healthy dose of scepticism.

This is pretty awful but then there are women who gave up their children for adoption. I also met a woman who had just upped and left her partner and children.

Sometimes leaving is the kindest thing, a lit of substance misuse or debt crises end up this way. If they get back on their feet do they get to waltz back in to lives that have adapted without them?

I judge women who have children with men who are obviously dickheads, and not seeing your children for whatever reason is the ultimate dickhead behaviour. I also very harshly judge men who have children with women they go on to describe as ‘psychos’ etc or whose behaviour they later claim was always irrational, unreasonable, controlling etc and would have been obviously not conducive to good parenting. You can split up with a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse and find another but your children will only ever get one mother and one father and I think you have a responsibility to set very high standards for the parents you give your children. Obviously people do sometimes change and have personality transplants overnight (particularly when they get their head turned by an OW or, less commonly, an OM) but when people talk about what a dickhead their ex always was I do think, why did you have children with them? And often continue having children after they proved to be wholly useless and disinterested in the first one?

[quote EnoughnowIthink]**@CutieBear. There are men who struggle to escape abusive relationships where the women is emotionally and physically abusive and uses their DC as a means to control the father. Would you think it “nonsense” if a woman had “crazy exes”

There is an issue here with language. In days gone by, women were locked up for life for being ‘hysterical’. If you were in an abusive relationship, you say so. You don’t refer to the ex as ‘psycho bitch’. In my experience women leaving abusive relationships talk of domestic abuse, not that the ex was ‘psycho’ or ‘crazy’. Ex partner’s using the words ‘crazy ex’ and ‘psycho bitch’ need to be viewed with a healthy dose of scepticism.[/quote]
Why don't we hold men to the same standards? Because when someone says their ex husband is this that or the other we all believe them without question. When we say it about a woman we should be sceptical? Why is that?

The men in question always have a list of reasons they can't see their DC usually all blamed on the ex for being a psycho blah blah.
Nothing or no one could stop me seeing my DC I've I'd to collect from the devil himself I'd be there with a smile at pickup.
Abandonment never leaves a DC even throughout adulthood.

Surely sometimes it is the dads's fault for being feckless, sometimes it is the mum stopping the contact in spite and sometimes a mixture of both. The world isn't black and white.

[quote CutieBear]**@Waxonwaxoff0* I’ve seen too much nonsense from men with so called "crazy exes"*

There are men who struggle to escape abusive relationships where the women is emotionally and physically abusive and uses their DC as a means to control the father. Would you think it “nonsense” if a woman had “crazy exes”?[/quote]
Depends. Men being abused in relationships is far less common than women being abused in relationships. That's just fact.

I'm surprised at the number of people on here saying that all men who say their ex prevented access are liars

You're suprised that the number is ZERO?

@EmeraldShamrock

The men in question always have a list of reasons they can't see their DC usually all blamed on the ex for being a psycho blah blah. Nothing or no one could stop me seeing my DC I've I'd to collect from the devil himself I'd be there with a smile at pickup. Abandonment never leaves a DC even throughout adulthood.

How are you going to do that if your ex refused to open the door to you or is always out? The police aren't going to help as both parents have parental responsibility and the courts can order contact, but it doesn't mean that the other parent will actually allow it to happen.

When my parents split up my mother moved back to Avignon - with the complete agreement of the divorce court !. That made it a tad difficult for my father to have us over every other weekend !. He used to speak to us on the phone but by then he had returned to New York.

So he just said whatever, and moved to New York. And you think that's ok? If ny children moved to France, do you know where I'd move? France. Not New York.

I’m in a relationship with a man who has a son from a previous relationship that he has no contact with. We have 2 children. He pays maintenance. His ex truly made it impossible. She lives 5 hours from us so he kept a rental property where she lives to facilitate contact. She would wait until he had driven all the way there then make up an excuse as to why he couldn’t see his son. She has moved without telling him, changed her contact details and refused to give him them. We have been to court, her behaviour doesn’t change