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 and I’m not going to lie, the people I know who’s mum’s walked out on them are orders of magnitude more fucked up by it than the ones I’ve met who’s dad’s walked out. Especially if it was when they were very young.

My mum's friend left her child and husband for a lover. The husband was really unpleasant and I think the son suffered a lot having been left alone with the father.

Of course Anna Karenina did as well 😄

My mother. We didn't see her again

Yes, my mum did this. I was 15 and my brother 12.

My mum did . She knew my Dad was a good dad . He was a bad husband (not physically violent ) She had to find accommodation and when she did tried to get me but my Dad went to court and won custody. Mum paid maintenance and saw me at weekends. When I could decide, I decided to split my time between the two homes . It was tough but I know both parents loved me. I never judged her however i could not leave my son behind now I am a mum myself .

My mother left following my dad’s promise to hand us over once she got settled. We were 3 and 6; he remarried within 6 months and told my mother that she was a fool for believing him. This was in 1971. She didn’t stand a chance. His other two wives also left him and had to have the help of male relatives to get away with their children. Nasty beast.

My wife has just done it but we were a same sex couple so the odds were definitely high for it being a woman leaving 😂

my step siblings, their mum left them with their dad. From what I gather I don’t think she ever really wanted kids. They saw her a few times a year as kids/teens and now have a somewhat normal/closer
relationship with her I believe.

I remember being amazed as a kid, what do you mean a mum left her kids!! This was in the very early 90s!! So even rarer.

A family member, but this was late 59s/early.60s. She had mh problems, undiagnosed and untreated. He was an abusive husband and very strict father. He gave her the choice of leaving and never seeing the kids again or he'd have her committed and still woukdnt see dc. No contact but kids found out years later where she was. Siblings werent told but her bil believed hed seen her sleeping rough.

My mother left me and my brother when I was 12 and he was 14.
She told us we were old enough to look after ourselves.

2 high-profile examples which certainly caused life-long problems: Diana Spencer's mother and Muriel Spark, the novelist, who more of less abandoned her son as a child.

I think Frances Spencer was very unhappy in the marriage and being aristocrats, the Spencers would not have just let her take the children with her.

But it caused unhappiness and insecurity for all her children.

Yes and it had a profound affect on the children. Mum left when they were teens but did have contact. She left to be with another man she had an affair with. The older son was deeply affected and is no contact. The younger daughter has contact but cannot talk about it as she feels she is betraying her dad as he was blindsided by his wife leaving.

I lived next door to a man (we’ve reminded friends) years ago who’s wife went to work one day and never came home.. They had 5 children between the ages of 9-17. She made contact 2 weeks later to say she’d met somebody else and had moved in with him over 100 miles away, she had no interest in seeing her children either. This was 20 years ago now, during lockdown she made contact with him for the first time in 15 years, she was dying of cancer and had no one. He let her move back in and cared for her until she died less than a year later, 3 of her children forgave her, 2 didn’t.

Exact same thing happened to me.

It definitely isn’t as unusual as people think.

Why are so many people keen to make excuses for mothers who desert their children? When men do it it's all guns blazing though.. I wonder of any of these dead beat mothers pay any support for their children, just as a father would be expected to?

I wouldn't have, but I I worked with a woman who did it twice. Two affairs. Never made her happy though. 🤷‍♀️

It happened to a guy I knew.
The kids were teenagers and his wife wanted to retrain as a teacher.
So she did that, got qualified and then fell in love with another teacher at the college who was also a mature student.
She came back one day, packed a bag and left to go and live with the other teacher.

My mum and dad both left! I put myself into care at 15 and my 13 year old brother was home. One day I called home to speak to my dad and my brother said he doesn't live here anymore, he lives with Ann. so I asked to speak to my mum and he said she's moved in with her sister. Leaving him and all the animals. I am 3xtremly lie contact ( twice iv3 seen them in a decade ) and he is completely no contact. I haven't seen him in 25 years or more.

An old friend from primary school, who I'm no longer in touch with but have mutual friends who are, left her entire family when the children were roughly 10 and 12, had an affair with a work colleague, moved out with him and more or less immediately went on to have a new family with him leaving her ex raising the kids (around the corner from where she moved).

I'm still Facebook friends with her and her social activity is all entirely focused on the new kids and husband (who are now roughly early teens). The earlier family (who must now be early 20s) are completely absent, have never seen a single post relating to them.

I try not to judge people based on their social media activity as its highly unreliable and I often think it's yet another moral stick to beat women with, but it is very striking that an entire family and about 15 years of her life has been written out of history. I often think that even a really awful deadbeat husband wouldn't expunge his previous family like this. Very strange.

My mum did i was 3 months old

I know of one woman who left her 3 kids for another man,went to America and only saw them during the 6 week holidays (my mother was their childminder)

He met and married another woman and had 2 more dc

All seemed happy with this arrangement and as soon as the big 3 became adults,they went to live with their mother (that's when I lost touch and have no idea where they are now)

My friend's wife was shagging her boss. She left him and their two children to move in with her boss and his four children.

Do you judge men who dump their children?

Back in the 60’s when I was a child, the mum of the family opposite us ran away with her lover, leaving 3 young children.
The dad couldn’t cope and they ended up in an orphanage.
It was all very sad.