Have you ever known the woman to leave the family home and leave the kids behind? (title edited by MNHQ at request of the OP)

[Iliketocallthemsmilelines]

Or did you leave yourself?

It seems to be very rare, but it surely must happen

Discovered this thread when about to go to bed.

My maternal ancestry has a whole string of events along these lines.

Great great grandmother: had 6 children. Husband abandoned her to her fate and refused to support her financially. All the children were brought up in a children's home. I do not know what happened to their mother.

Great grandmother: Had 2 children. She left them in England and returned to her birth country, when they were 5 and 3 years old. As far as I know, they never saw her again.

Grandmother: Had one child. She didn't leave, but she died. My mother was 4.

I am invested in the idea, the concept, of family. I don't like people falling out or cutting off contact. But stuff happens. I left my husband when my children were older teens. One came to live with me. One stayed with their dad. One left home.

Same

I am the main breadwinner in my home and we live in a socially rented property
If me and oh had ever separated I’d have left, as my partner was the children’s main carer and I would have had more scope to provide my own home. I would have also been dropping the kids to and from Dad before and after work, so me leasing would have been the most workable solution for all. I suppose for the same reasons many Dads leave when a relationship breaks down.
i wouldn’t have been less of a Mum or loved my kids any less.
I know for a fact that despite this being best for the children, there would have been huge judgment, there already is when Dads are the sahp instead of the Mum.

I know two women (Boomer generation) who did this—both left their DHs and DDs for new relationships. In both cases, the new DP didn’t want the kids/baggage (both men were unmarried, w/o children of their own). Both women went on to marry the new DP and have more children. One never saw their DC again, and one maintained contact with their DC.

Yes. Acquaintance left husband and two young children for a younger man (15 years younger). After the divorce, she married the new man and they are still together. She still has a very fractured relationship with her children and their families. Daughter refuses to speak to her and son’s wife wants no contact. She does see some of her GC, but under strict conditions. Her DD will not have her mother in her house.

A relative of mine left with the kid then dumped him back about a year later.

That must have been so traumatic. Did she stay with the other man? Did you see her/ have a relationship when you were an adult? Hope you don't mind me asking.

Father in law and his sibling aged 8 and 6 were dropped off at a boys home. His mother kept a younger sibling. They saw her again when they were a lot older. Thankfully Barnados had a lovely couple running it, who he considered his family.

My friend at school, she was 11 when her mother left for Ireland, leaving her 4 children behind with their father (a lovely man). My friend had huge abandonment issues.

That must have been absolutely heartbreaking for the children.

I don't want to judge anyone when I haven't been in their specific situation, some marriages are shit (to say the least) and the women might have had to leave quickly or similar, but I can't imagine just leaving them with no plan to get them back ASAP.

But as i said, I can't imagine what they're all going through so it's irrelevant what I would do in that situation, because I fortunately haven't had to experience it.

My sister left her 4 kids when the youngest was 4 and her life has been in a downward spiral since, her attitude is that its always everyone else's fault

My best friends moment her for another nan when my friend was 10 and her sister was 12. My friend is 67 now. Mum and friend didn't speak for decades but friend is now her mums carer and resents it. The sister will only have minimal contact with her mum.
Time hasn't been a healer.

My sil did. There were 4 children-including her own child from a previous relationship.

My friend's mum did- her dad raised her and her sister. No DV from what she was aware of but mum was very flighty, seemed to bounce around from man to man and job to job whilst having a bit of a 'bohemian' attitude to life. Both have life-long attachment issues as a result.

I know someone else who left and moved countries- took their youngest child but left the oldest (who was around 10 at the time) with dad. Said she didn't want the oldest. As you can imagine, he has issues now.

Yes - my aunt was a married woman with three children. Apparently her husband knocked her about. She had an affair with my uncle. Eventually they ran away together, she got a divorce and married my uncle, They had one baby, my cousin.

She left her first family of children behind. We used to go on holiday with my aunt, uncle and cousin to the seaside. One year, they brought a young friend of her’s and her husband. My mother told me years later, the young woman was her daughter from her first marriage. I don’t think they were close, and I never heard of her seeing either of her other two children.

My guess is they resented her leaving them, with a violent father, for another man.

Im not that poster but had a very similar situation so can answer from my perspective.
My mum left the day before my first GCSE exam. She’d been having an affair with my dad’s friend, and that was the day she decided to tell him. She moved out that day to live with the OM, an hour away.
I still maintained contact, although to be honest I didn’t really want to. She married him, then they divorced a few years later (ironically he cheated on her 😏). Ever since, my mum has played the victim because her second husband had an affair and left her and ruined her life 🙄.

Our neighbour left her husband and three sons for a man she’d been having a long term affair with. It fucked them all up.

My neighbour did, well she made her DH move to his Parents house and to take the DC aged 11, 7 and 4 with him, whilst she moved another man into the 4 bed family home. Her DH did not want to split. She had just started a social work degree at the time and had never worked so he still paid all the mortgage etc as she didn’t have much of an income, just her student loan/bursary. He couldn’t afford to run 2 houses so waited until she got a job after qualifying, at which point he bought her out and moved back in with the DC. Contact between her and the DC was minimal at first but I believe is slightly more regular now with the odd overnight too.

A woman I know left her husband and 2 teens to be with another man, they got divorced and he bought her out of the house, kids live with their father full time , i don’t think the kids see their mother anymore

A relative of mine did. She did come back after a few weeks and try to take the younger 2 with her but they refused. They were primary school aged. The youngest resented it the most and it did him the most damage I would say. After that experience he became much more seeking of validation and in adult relationships is clingy. It definitely affected his self esteem. I would say the older 3 did understand how difficult it must have been for her but for the big two the relationship was never quite the same after. Only dc3 really has a strong relationship with his mum now. My mum took all 4 in as the dh was violent and she wasn't happy for them to be left in his care. He never lashed out at his dc but mum wasn't willing to take the risk and they were welcome at ours. All 4 have a great relationship with my parents.

She left them to go to a womens shelter.She came back, chucked him out with support and found a job. She then raised her kids as a single mun but with lots of family support. She made difficult choices but I admire her.

This is true in Ireland too, that if a woman had an affair and wanted to leave she couldn’t take the children as the law would side with the man. Well into the 1970’s. In addition as women were mostly housewives they had no money to fight legally.

I think you are putting rose tinted glasses on, lots of women have affairs and leave for their AP, but because this a mostly female site - that’s probably not talked about much

Why are fathers different from mothers? Come on, this is pretty basic stuff.

My SIL’s mum did. SIL also has various half siblings from mum with two other dads, mum was neglecting the older kids so by the time she was born, she was taken into care as mum just kept having kids with various men. Her dad ended up with joint custody of her but her mum never bothered with contact so he raised her alone. SIL reached out to her mum later on in life but they don’t have a close relationship

My partners mother did this to him in his very young teenage years. She also changed continent, they didn’t connect for almost a decade afterwards.
The damage this did to their relationship is still palpable today, I will never fully understand her reasoning but there’s been zero indication of any regrets, which makes the whole thing so much harder for my partner to be at peace with.
Horrible situation I am sure led to her decisions, it wasn’t her only option at the time, she did so anyway…but the mental anguish that remains many years later I cannot imagine making it all worthwhile.
So sad.

A family friend did this. Ran off with her riding instructor to the US leaving distraught 6 and 8 year old and bewildered husband behind. She sent the odd birthday and Christmas card home for a few years then stopped even bothering even to do that. It was a huge blow as she was the major ‘earner’ (inherited wealth and substantial passive income) so the family had to undergo a major lifestyle adjustment when she left. Husband also couldn’t afford to run the house but couldn’t sell it as it was in joint names. I think he found a way to do so legally eventually but it took years.