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)

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Or did you leave yourself?

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

Would it be classed mental illness for the dads too?

My great aunt did (in the 50s) apparently it was a huge family scandal and no one would say why. My mum was very young and all the people who knew why (great uncle, grandma etc) are long since gone

Yes ex mil left my husband and his sister when they were babies. I suspect she was having an affair as remarried pretty quickly then violent husband #2 left her, then she emigrated to Canada with husband #3. Reconnected with the kids when they were in their 30s but not really interested in them or their families & caused them to be very damaged. Very selfish vain woman, totally self obsessed and had many affairs. Her own mother we nicknamed The Bolter. She left 10 kids with an elderly aunt, 5 partners and husbands respectively. Apples and trees.

I had a friend who walked out on
her husband and two young children. She was having an affair. Not sure the children ever completely forgave her.

My sister did in the 80s. Went off with husband's best friend and did not think it would be fair if she took the kids as well

My DH mum did, she left 3 children and moved in with the man she had been having an affair with. My DH has never got over it and neither has his brother. His sister has a good relationship with their mum, him and his brother have a relationship but not great. She’s never explained why and fails to see the damage she has done!!!

I know one woman who left her young daughter, got pregnant by another man, 3 years later almost got married to that one but then left that young child as well. She saw neither child for almost a decade and now has sporadic contact with both of them (19 and 22 yo now)
She lives with another man and is raising his daughter.
No DV in either relationship, she’s just a very very selfish woman

My former neighbour left her husband and two boys of 9 and 7 to move in with a man she had met through work. We both moved to the houses next door to each other at the same time and had I no idea that she had previously been married with children for at least a couple of years. She was a really nice woman who was so kind when I was pregnant and unwell and then when my daughter was born. I was quite shocked when she told me as I could never imagine leaving my children behind. There was no abuse or DV and said her husband was really good to her but she fell hard for Stu (the man she lived next door with). She rarely saw her children as she said they did not want to see her. I must admit, as lovely as she was I did privately judge her a bit for it.

It does

I did for a short while until I set up home for them. It was hard I used to stay at the family home durring the week and go to my flat at the weekends. I don't think there is a right or wrong solution

My mother did. I was 5 years old.

My great uncle's wife left him with their 3 kids (I say "their" but the youngest wasn't my uncle's) in the late 70s. She reappeared while I was at uni so sometime in the mid 90s; the oldest refused to have anything at all to do with her but the other two did eventually accept her back into their lives - that caused a massive stooshie in the family.

My grandmother did. Walked out on her husband and small son, never told her daughters from her second marriage that they had a half brother. He took his own life as an adult.

My mother left. I grew up with my Dad, this was years back too, rarer then than now I think. Lots of people presumed he was a widower. She'd met somebody else.

My partner’s ex did, she walked out on him and three children saying that she didn’t want to be a mum anymore. Didn’t see the kids for about 6 months then after that only if he took them over to visit her for an hour or two and brought them back. Would occasionally drop in if she was passing on her way to something more exciting. She has 2 of the 3 every other weekend now at our instigation, but has never asked to see them at any other time. Not bothered about birthdays, Christmas etc and jumps at the chance to have them less. She’s a terrible parent and honestly I can’t see that she adds anything positive to their lives in any way.

My grandmother left. Essentially she felt she deserved a better life than my grandfather could provide. She didn’t feel that her children deserved that too sadly. She had some contact, usually if her current boyfriend liked children. She’d already left her first husband and children before she met my grandfather!

A high school friend’s mother left a few times, always for a man, and she’d come back when the new relationship failed. It had an absolutely devastating effect on my friend’s life.

I left my ex and my DS’s (older teens) chose to stay with their dad. My daughter (11) came with me. We moved in with my new partner. I stayed in the marital home for a couple of years after I initiated the separation but it was pretty horrendous.
It wasn’t a good marriage. I’d wanted to leave for years. Cut myself. Thoughts of suicide.
I'm in a really happy relationship now. My partner is just the loveliest man.
unfortunately my DS’s don’t talk to me now. It absolutely breaks my heart and many would probably say that I deserve it. I have actually been suicidal (and been admitted to hospital) over the problems it has caused with my DS’s It’s a really hard situation to be in but I believe that if I had stayed I would not be here now.
Nothing ever takes away the pain of losing my sons. It is something that I have to live with every day.

I did, about 18 years ago. Son was 11 and daughter just turning 9. Ex husband having affair with a 19 y.o and I kicked him out. FB was very new and him and gf were hounding me, getting their friends to contact me on there, hundreds of them and tagging me in photos of the 2 of them. Really messing with my head. I had no family, so I turned to his mum for help. They knew I had a history of m.h problems, not long before I met my hb I had tried to end my life. His mum didn't believe he was having an affair and when I said I was worried that I wanted to end my life she just said 'Go on Then'. And I knew I had to do something drastic or I probably would go through with it. I moved away, ran away really truth be told. I've never asked my children if they forgave me; I've never, and will never, forgive myself. Within 3 years my son came to live with me and then my daughter followed shortly after. Both have had very troubled teen lives. Understandably. My son ended up not talking to his dad and my daughter rarely speaks to him. Both are now wonderful parents, but I know what I did to them ruined them and was unforgivable. Although I know that I wouldn't be alive if I had stayed. But that's not something you burden your children with x

Yes a friends mum when she was 11, she moved in with her new partner and left her behind with her depressed dad, i remember her waiting for a weekly phone call, it was awful for her

I knew of a woman who did. I don't know her history but she attended a Pentacostal church and she, her husband and 2 boys were very involved.
She left the family home to be with her lesbian lover and the whole community turned against her and was very nasty from what I heard (which wasn't very Christian of them IMHO!)
It was a bit of a scandal to them. I felt bad for her. I guessed she'd been denying her true identity her whole life coming from a strict religious background.

Happened to my brother. He has full custody of his 4 children. 3 have disabilities.

A friends mum did this.
I only met my friend as an adult but she was really scarred by it, it still upset her as an adult, the feeling of being rejected and also the social stigma was so much worse than if ot had been a dad.
She said she had never met anyone else whose mum had left.
Her relationship woth her mum never recovered.
Sounds very harsh to say its much harder when mums leave compared to dad's but its true. I think it is very rare fira mum to leave her children, biology, maternal instinct, social condtioning probably all play a part to making it so rare.

In the couple I knew, she left for another woman. She left the children with him for logistical reasons initially, then it became a shared care situation with the dad having primary residence. The kids were surprisingly chilled about it all and the dad adapted admirably to what had been a devastating blow. I do hope his life turned out happily.

My best friend's mum left when she (my friend) was doing her A Levels.

I remember her knocking on my door one evening in tears. She'd come home from school to a note from her mum saying she'd moved to the other side of the world to be with an ex boyfriend from her teenage years.

They'd been having a long distance affair via letters and phone calls for about 5 years after getting back in touch somehow.

My friend's dad (who was actually her step dad) was working away from home that week and she had no way of contacting him. My parents insisted she stayed with us until he got home.

The mum did eventually leave the boyfriend and return to the UK but, understandably, it's affected her and my friends relationship very badly.

My friend's step dad had always treated her as his own and simply carried on parenting her. Never remarried and my friend still looks after him now.

Are you my sister? Same story with my uncle (except it was two very young sons). My uncle eventually married the wife of the man his first wife left them for. She was a wonderful mother to the boys (who turned out remarkably well adjusted, in another deviation from your story). And a wonderful wife and aunt. I know nothing about the wife who walked as she was never discussed. My older cousin had only the vaguest memory of her, the younger one, nothing at all.

Final difference - I believe my uncle was blameless in the entire story, he was not unfaithful or mean…