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

Yes, it happened to two of my friend’s. Once when we were 10, though she stayed in touch and eventually did shared custody. The second one was when we were 15-ish and she really just left. The family had been placed abroad with the dad’s work, they came back to the uk and their mum just left around the same time. I’m still friends with him and he never heard from her or speaks about her.

Yes, my mother.

My mum left my brother and I with my dad who was awful to her. I was 11, my brother was 9. I used to hear them rowing often at night whilst I was in bed. She left one day but my dad wouldn’t tell us for 2 days. She had run off with someone else who she is still married to over 40 years later. For the first few months afterwards my dad wouldn’t let us see my mum or talk about her. We were then allowed to see her once a week on Sunday afternoons. My dad wouldn’t let school have her contact details so when I got hurt one day and needed hospital treatment. dad couldn’t be contacted and I had to stay at a teacher’s house until he picked me up after the pub closed very late to take me to hospital. Couldn’t really forgive him for that. He then emotionally and physically abused me (and my brother )until I was 18, although mum wouldn’t let me live with her as my step-dad came first and still does. I know I should just get over this experience but I think it has shaped my life and personality.

When I was a kid a girl in my class had a mum who did this when she was 4, brother around 7. Her Dad worked FT and the child had a key to the house and came home alone, at 4! Dad played golf on Saturdays. My friends mum stepped in a lot. I heard so many times about that poor man who was left alone and not one person suggested he get a childminder or reduce hours or not golf on Saturdays. I don't know why the mum left but I know she never visited. The kid was wild as a teen, drinking and sleeping around. She was failed by both parents, poor thing.

Our mum left an abusive long term relationship with my step dad and moved in with her boyfriend in the same village so she was still close enough to see my younger siblings (I was at college). There was no way on earth my step dad would have left the house and would have done anything he could to hurt her in custody battles etc so she just left. We were all teens though.

the really tough part was having to sit and listen while my step dad went on two hour long rages about how awful our mum was expecting us to agree with everything and tell him all about her new life etc. he never loved her he was a narcissist who hated losing power.

I know a number of women who left because they couldn't live with the domestic abuse any more, but had to leave their kids behind as the kids refused to leave but were too big to force into a car. Horrific choice to be made to make.

No that’s being too hard on yourself. It’s not a question of deserving or not deserving forgiveness, it’s a question of coming to terms with what life throws at us. Looking back, you’re being harsh on yourself, but at the time you were in the middle of a desperate situation and couldn’t see a way out. Remember that. Few people have had to deal with what you had to cope with.

If your daughter understands, and it sounds as though she will do, and possibly she does already, that’s what is important to focus on.

My own mother did that to me in the early 50s, left me and her husband, my father, to run off with an American Air Force pilot., whom she married later. I was then put into a children’s home, then fostered. She married and divorced three men.

Happened in a close relation's extremely messy family. Mother walked out after years of abuse, when the father started in on the children in order to hurt her.

The father destroyed the weekly letters she sent to the three children for years, til she gave up. They never knew she'd sent them till decades later after contact was reestablished, when she asked them why they never replied.

The effects are still playing out now. Lives totally ruined.

Some people deserve to rot in hell very, very slowly.

I did. My ex was the kids' main carer and I didn't think it was fair to fight to take them away from him.

My sister did. Had DS at 19, then married had DD. Cheated and got pregnant. DH said he'd accept DS2 as his own. Stayed 2 months then left with DS2 to be with lover, leaving other 2. 59 years later, we just found out lover was not DS2 father, some other guy was. My sister is very mixed up. Unfortunately has dementia now.

I have a friend who left her 2 year old daughter with his dad and left. She said her ex was manipulative. She then did it again with another child (10yo) in a different relationship. This time she just wasn't happy in the relationship and there was no space for her child in her new bfs home. She has contact with both kids but it's very strained.

My MILs mum left when she was 8. She's never heard from her since.

A friend of mine married a woman who described herself as an earth mother. She had 4 children then got bored and left him to bring them up

That's really fucked up. What an arsehole.

My SIL did. She was hardly ever at home anyway. Partying away, going on holidays without her kids and husband, shagging a guy down south most weekends and in the week whilst "working away". She's now living in the Midlands with another bloke that she was probably shagging at the same time as the Southern one! Her daughter was about 9/10, her son a little older. I'm sure other people have their own reasons but she's always been a selfish and self-serving cow.

This thread is really sad. You have to be next level delusional to think you can leave your kids at the mercy of an abusive partner and they won't be affected.

2 relatives of mine did

Yes my Mum. I was one, my brother was a preemie in the neonatal unit. She was always a bit self centred and selfish and my brother wasn’t planned so when he was born early and became unwell with gastroenteritis, she said she couldn’t cope and walked out leaving us with My Dad and my paternal grandparents. She came back into our lives a few years later demanding we live with her and my Dad fought tooth and nail for full custody but unfortunately we were then split between him and my Mother. I had an awful abusive childhood with her and looking back it was clear she just wanted us so she could be given a council house and the benefits. She kicked me out when I was 16 because I wanted to leave school and get a job ( which I was luckily enough to find a government job at the age of 17) and she lost her child benefits. I came home from a friend’s one afternoon to find my things in bin bags in the front garden.

we had a very turbulent relationship and I witnessed things no child no matter what age they are shouldn’t have too witness from slicing her wrists open to overdoses. She then developed addiction issues and passed away last year.

And yet, I still found myself there at the hospital everyday brushing her hair whilst she was dying and not very responsive.

I mourn for the relationship we never had opposed to the one we did.

My Dad left when I was newborn and my sister was six. He moved to the other side of the world.
Within days my mum was on a flight to chase him. She'd just given birth.

My mum came back to the UK but didn't return to us and bring us up.

I’ve considered it. I am quite mentally unwell with OCD and anxiety and sometimes I consider leaving. Their Dad is a better parent than me at the moment. The only reason I haven’t is because I know how much it would affect the kids. But it’s definitely something I’ve considered.

When I was in 1st year of High School in early 1960’s, my best friends mum left her and her 3 sisters aged 9 - 13 to be with her ‘lover/boyfriend’.
The 4 girls were brought up entirely by their father who just did the most amazing job. It was quite unusual in those days but he certainly was Number 1 Dad for everything he did for them.
My husbands paternal grandmother had 5 kids in her first relationship in early 1900’s, left them with their father. She then married my husbands grandfather and had 4 children including twins. Left them with father ( they ended up in a Children’s Home,) then she went on to have 3 more children with her last partner.
All up she had 12 offspring and 8 ended up in Childrens Homes. Very sad.

Which is supposed to AIBU & which AINBU? 😅

I've worked with 2 guys who's wife walked out & left the kids with them. Also my ex had a friend who walked out on their husband & kids. I'm not sure of the circumstances in any of those. A good friend had his wife walk out on him & their son, a toddler at the time, to be with someone else.

So yes, it's probably more common than some people think.

My mother did, I was 9 and my brother was 10. My father brought us up and remarried 5 years later to a lovely woman who was very kind to us and I got a step sister too. I still have a relationship with my mother but it is not close, she married again and turned out to be a very selfish woman who always put herself before her family. I will never forgive or forget but she is still my mother.

Yes my mother who left when I was 5 and my sister 1. Left us with an alcoholic single father. Who caused misery and abuse for us until we went i into the car system aged 11 and 7. My father died when I was 14. During my 30s I found a half sister and bother I didnt know about turns out she had left them too.

Never saw my mother again then she died 4 years go. I am 46. Luckily I had a fantastic mum and extended family.

A former friend left her then husband and children for another man. They’d married young, she wasn’t happy. The dad was a good dad. She didn’t want to uproot the kids. She saw them EOW and in the week. Maintained a good relationship, the kids both lived with her later on, got on well with the other man. She stayed with him and eventually married him. He was a good man too.

Another former friend, her mum left when she was young. She later found mum had done similar before, and I believe after too. She had no relationship with mum, but was pleased to later in life to discover a half sibling, then get on. She was an only child until her dad had another kid with new woman when she was an adult. That didn’t end well for her either, no relationship with dad now.

It happens, less common, and less common it works out well, but can. There are many variables.