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

My mum did similar..she left my dad and moved on with another woman who also left her husband difference is the other woman actually took her kids with her, so my mum was happily living with her girlfriend and kids whilst not bothering with me and my siblings. She turned up when I was a teen and we saw her for a while but all she wanted to do was manipulate me into hating my dad. I cut contact and she wanted contact with my kids when she knew I had them.

No experience of this but I can understand why women do sometimes. I guess it happens in complex domestic abuse situations where the woman (wrongly) believes the children will be safer without having to witness her be the target of their fathers abuse. Maybe they don’t want to uproot the child from their home and school and/or lack the means to set up home away from home. Sadly a man who is horrible enough to abuse his children’s mother is likely to turn on the children eventually. The barriers to leaving domestic abuse are so huge though.
Or maybe it’s mental health situation.
I hope you are ok and safe OP.

Maybe. But the woman I know wasn´t suffering DV either time. I guess she just wasn´t interested in being a mother. Plenty of men do it.

It's not that rare, just less common than the father leaving. The mum of one of my primary school friends left her husband and 3 kids in the early 80s and ran off with her tennis coach... He was a fantastic single dad afterwards. I know several other cases - including leaving, but not wanting much to do with the kids afterwards. It's a taboo, as especially mothers aren't supposed to feel like that, but it has always happened.

I think it's still a taboo and not much talked about. I am sorry it happened to you. The mum of one of my primary school friends in the 80s ran off with her tennis coach and left her at the age of 5 and two slightly older brothers. Didn't want anything to do with them.

Yes an ex friend did this and moved to the USA
leaving behind 2 young boys aged 4 and 6
unbelievably selfish particularly as she left for a man. ( they’ve since divorced)
Has given both kids attachment issues
Have never been able to understand how a mother could do this however fantastic the father is that’s been left to care for the children. Completely selfish in my eyes.

I did.

Oh no 😢 What happened?

I think the time has come to treat women who leave their children behind the same way we treat men.

Men do it all the time and by and large the reaction is condemnation then 'acceptance': "Tut tut, shame on him, shall we invite him and/or him and his AP to tea?" whilst women are completely condemned no matter what the circumstances.

Yes, women who leave their children for OM or simply because they get bored or decide they simply don't want to be mums deserve condemnation. But those who are forced to leave their children behind due to DV, financial or emotional abuse, and/or threats against themselves or their children deserve our pity and our acceptance that they did what they did for a good reason. The same for those who realize, for whatever reason, that their children are actually better off with the father as RP. Maybe if there was more acceptance in the latter two cases there would be more support and help for those women to build new lives and hopefully have their children with them or to build a healthy relationship with their children even if they continue to live with their fathers.

It’s not necessarily abuse or mental health. Maybe they just split are fine being the parent without primary custody.

How do you “trap somebody into marriage”?

I don’t think we do condemn men who leave relationships and don’t have primary care as long ad they are still involved dads so not sure people start with condemnation for men (unless they leave for another woman). I do think you are correct though that if a couple split and mom leaves kids with dad she faces far more vitriol.

Yes, I've known two personally and know of at least one other as well

By getting pregnant. This was at a time when attitudes towards unmarried mothers were much less forgiving than they are now, so it was expected that the child’s father would do the decent thing.

Yep I did but 50/50 childcare so didn’t leave the kids. Just left the house and moved out. He wasn’t going to leave!

My mum did this! We were 6 and 8 dropped us at school and didn’t pick us up. Dropped us at school knowing she had a secret flat set up with her new partner. Gave my dad an extra 14k in the divorce so he could have sole full custody of us.

For what reason?

My workmate, single Dad after the mother left both kids under 10. I don’t know the full details but I got that she was pretty flaky she had started having the kids again once or twice or month but didn’t even stick to that.
Lovely guy clearly very dedicated to his kids

My sister did. Her husband has become very religious and they used to party and drink and do drugs so she still wanted to that life and he was a good dad. She found someone who would party with her. She’s 47 and hasn’t changed now kids are older. Kids have a room at her house, but they don’t stay there very often at all. It’s a real shame. Boys have taken after their dad, very right wing Christian type.

A friend moved out of the family home, leaving her husband with 2 primary - aged children. She rented nearby and they co-parented well. She did this to ensure that he did his share of the parenting, otherwise she suspected she'd have had to do most of it. It's all worked out very well for all of them. Kids are now at uni and still spend lots of time with both parents.

My half brothers. Their mum walked out on them and our dad. They both don’t really like their mum very much, relationship is basically doing the bare minimum they feel obliged to do.
Also my DH friend is married to a woman who left her husband and kids. This woman and her new dh met in Ibiza. She moved countries (within uk) to be with new man. I never understood how she could have left her kiddies. This was before we had kids and I said to dh I can’t be friends with her any mother who can leave their kids is weird and not someone I can align with.

I did - but not until I had initially asked my ex husband to leave. But it was awful for months. He used to let himself in while I was out and move things around, come back to go through the bins. Even though he had ‘left’ the family home he would not leave me alone. So the only thing I could do for my own sanity was to leave and rent another property which I did. He then didn’t set foot anywhere near and I had my daughters 4 days a week, as per our arrangement. These days I own my own house, and my eldest lives with me permanently. My solicitor was adamant to start with that I should be the one to leave the family home, but after a few months of enough stress to make my hair start falling out it became clear it was the only way. However I could not have moved away and not had my girls with me. As it was it was incredibly hard as I found somewhere without them knowing, got as much stuff in there as I could and made their rooms as pretty as possible without them even knowing then broke the news gently…. Not easy but right in the long run.

I know of someone who did this. She was having an affair and ran off with her lover, leaving her 2 daughters behind with their father. The father remarried and their stepmother, fortunately, had a very good relationship with them.
They both had contact with their real mother over the years but I believe one has now gone no contact.

I find it sad too, but not depressing. Because my family has several incidences of children being abandoned, it helps me to read about other families where that happened. The children in my family grew up and had their own children, and not all were traumatised by their experience. I find it very interesting to consider the various pathways and reasons why a mother might do this