Male friend wants to leave his wife but thinks she will 'poison DCs minds against him'...

[fortyplus]

That's it, really...

Their relationship has apparently gone from bad to worse in the past few years. Constant rows and his wife tells him at least once a week she'd leave if they could afford it.

They have teenagers plus an 'accident' who is still only 7. So the youngest child is the main concern.

Friend thinks it's time to split but he'd end up financing everything, living in a flat and never seeing his kids.

He's a fantastic affectionate, hands-on dad who does loads with his children. One of his main concerns is that his wife isn't interested in any of the more humdrum aspects of parenting - taking their son to swimming lessons etc.

Now - obviously I'm only hearing his side of the story and I'm sure he has his faults - but is there any way this bleak scenario could happen?

Tanga - exactly - he is already doing loads with the children, especially the youngest one.

His fear is that his wife would somehow deny him access to the family he loves.

He expressed his concern about this to me recently - I'm rather surprised that some people seem to think that this makes him a bad person.

He's said that he and his wife were very happy for years but they have grown apart and are making eachother unhappy. In no way is he saying that his wife is entirely to blame.

Having read through the replies to your thread, I think it highlights the many personality types out there. You sound sensible enough to sift out what is truely helpful advice, but I thought that the advice from Snorbs was especially useful. I have seen some very sad situations due to poisonous mothers, but will not fill you with more fear. My advice to your friend is be prepared in advance - use the internet for sites for separated fathers and think things through before separation. Forewarned is forearmed and puts him in a stronger position to fight the fight if necessary. Mediation is only helpful if both partners are willing and co-operative. For his 7 year old, he needs to remain the loving father he has always been, and pre-empt any effort to refuse contact, using whatever professional bodies are relevant.

That's great advice, too - thank you

To be honest I think I'll play it very low key and just try to drop in a comment about Families Need Fathers at some appropriate time.

His situation at the moment is that he's hanging on in there - mainly because of his fears. But who knows - maybe his wife will pre-empt things by initiating the split herself.

She may even be speaking to friends about it - I wonder if the feminists on here would consider that she's being 'disrespectful' to her husband and children.

If you can only give him one piece of advice, it would be stay in the house until agreement about the children has been reached and written down.

I await the advent of such comments on the threads in relationships, too, but think we might be waiting a long time just that little whiff of hypocrisy that hangs around mumsnet.

Tanga, your point about staying until a written agreement is reached is spot on. Even though such an agreement doesn't have the force of a court order it can be used in court as evidence of original intent. This could be important if one or other of the parents subsequently break the agreement's terms.

I could have told you that in fact she's very overweight and the times that I've met her she just sits down and doesn't seem to interact with the children at all - but that wasn't relevant to the question I was asking.

What on earth is her weight got to do with it ? The times youve met her shes just sat down and not interacted with the children ? How old are they again ? I thought they were teenagers and one was seven ?

Well then i guess your the expert on their marriage, the relationship he has with his kids, and now her weight. You commented earlier that previous freinds have confided in you , paticularly the husbands and theres a very good reason for this .

If i found out that my husbands " freind " was posting on the internet about me and our family, ( and my weight ) id be having serious words with you and telling you to get your face out of my business.

Why not advise your freind to stop criticizing his wife and simply move out if shes so fat lazy and horrible.Im afraid i couldnt and wouldnt listen to some bloke whine about his wife like this.

I'm with Dittany and Dignified et al here.

If he's going around talking about his wife behind her back then he's a jerk, and it doesn't matter how great he is with the kids.

I found out that my ex had been moaning to anyone who had ears about how afraid he was to come home and find all the locks changed, and lots of other delightful stuff that he actually made up, for months before he left. Made me sick to realise that there were people we both knew who were being fed this rubbish, and lapping it up. The person I found out from was my oldest DD, who was reading his e-mails. She hasn't spoken to her father for years.

If this man's children were ever to know that he is going around slagging off their mother, then I can safely predict that he will alienate his children all by himself, with no help from anyone else. He sounds as if he is well up to this task.

If you really want to find out what sort of man your friend is, try telling him you no longer want to be regaled with information from this part of his personal life and see what his reaction is. I would bet any money that he would move on to someone else more receptive.

What he's doing here is not developing a deep and lasting friendship with you or seeking your help in sorting out such a complicated situation with the best interests of the children in mind, he is isolating his wife from a network of people who know her, and poisoning their minds against her (hence this same pre-emptive accusation before it actually happens) while encouraging the opinion that he is some of poor put upon diddums, a victim, and a potential victim, of an unreasonable and vindictive woman. You are being suckered, in other words.

I am still trying to figure out why her weight was an issue, and then said to to irrelevant. I suppose the man in question has moaned about his overweight wife too.... nice.

Mine did similar max, there was a number of women freinds who would happily soak up all his crap, and get all involved advising him what to do, again in relation to things that hadnt even happened.

Op , do you really feel it is apropriate to get involved in this in any way at all ? I wonder, like max says, what would happen if you stated that conversations about his wife made you very uncomfortable .

Its highly unlikey hes " confiding " in you, he probably bleats to anyone who will listen , and enjoys the attention he gets from you, youve stated repeatedly what a great guy he is.

I would wonder, with such a man, that if he is speaking about his wife in this way, what he would say about you. Unless you think of course that you are more important to him than his wife and he would never say such things about you.

And before anyone starts the man bashing attitude thing, i give these back stabbers a very wide berth, whether they are male or female.

My DH had a friend who carried out a quite chilling
character assassination about his soon to be ex-wife. Pleased to say my DH saw through it - and swiftly moved to support the wife.

Ok I'll try one last time... [sigh]

I don't want to get 'involved' in their situation.

You've conveniently ignored the fact that I said '...I think I'll play it very low key and just try to drop in a comment about Families Need Fathers at some appropriate time.'

Why on earth would I wonder what he says about me?? What a very strange comment. Of course I'm not more important to him than his wife - he's been married for over 20 years whereas we only became friendly a couple of years ago via a sports club that both we and our sons are members of.

I imagine that he expressed his concern to me because I'm a pragmatic, middle aged married woman and he probably thought he'd get a sensible female opinion on something that was worrying him.

My husband has female friends too. I certainly wouldn't think he was being 'disrespectful' if he ever needed an opinion about problems with our relationship.

And that , ladies, is my very last post on this thread!

I do struggle to understand why he fears that the wife would try to poison the children against him?

If the relationship is mutually unsatisfying, surely she would welcome some sensible discussion about what they are going to do? If he is afraid she will poison the children, that suggests she is going to be very unhappy and bitter about the relationship break up, which just doesn't fit with his description that the relationship has been dead in the water for some time.

If the relationship is really over, counselling has been tried and failed, he needs to think very carefully about why on earth he is dragging this out. It will be a horrible example to his children about relationships.

If they do separate and the children live with their mother, can I just add a plea from a single parent (this might not apply to him if he is a hands on dad and understands the reality of child care)- it is absolutely infuriating as the resident parent to have to deal with a non resident parent who thinks they can just make or break contact arrangements at a whim. the seven year old will require routine and predictability; the teenagers can probably manage for themselves.

I am surprised that some people think he is disprespectful to talk about his relationship difficulties with you. I talked about mine to anyone who would listen as I was desparate and sad and needed help. I didn't think for a moment I was 'disprespecting' my ex - I just wanted some help and he refused to talk to me.

Depends on what exactly he is saying, though, Spero. If he is implying that his wife is a vindictive person who will attempt to use the children to get back at him (which is what a pre-emptive charge of 'poisoning the children against him' essentially is) then he is not exactly just talking about his relationship. He is accusing her in advance of something she has not done, he is telling all and sundry that she is capable of such malice towards him and is not mindful of the welfare of the children either in other words, a bitter, vengeful, obsessive woman. This is just plain nasty, it's not fair and it's not right. I agree with everything else you said, except your last paragraph.

It makes a manipulative and hostile man very happy to think he has got people on his side, btw, Fortyplus. The fact that you are a married woman with children and a similar social life, so similar to his wife, probably makes him feel even happier about the effect his manipulation is having. By you falling for what he is feeding you, he gets the kind of ego boost his wife probably no longer gives him, since she knows him too well and has long ago stopped buying his crap.

I realise no-one likes to think they are having the wool pulled over their eyes, but you are involved in a dynamic that may one day leave you feeling disgusted and used. Don't fool yourself that he is just looking for your valued opinion on his relationship -- he wants the ego boost that comes from successful manipulation, he wants the ego boost that comes from fooling and manipulating women, and he wants to isolate his wife from women she may meet in the sports club where her son goes, while portraying himself as some sort of put-upon saint, and the sympathy that comes with it. He has told you so that you'll pass on gossip or the odd throwaway comment to other women in the club. Someone will give her a funny look and she will never really feel comfortable there again. Score! Mission accomplished by the jerk! You are being used. Don't flatter yourself that a grown man with access to a solicitor needs your help. He does not.

I am struggling to find the source for everyone's assumptions about this man, except for obvious prejudice against men.

If it were a female friend of the OP noone would question the odd comment about her husband, everyone needs to confide in someone especially if they are thinking of being pushed out of their dc's lives.

We don't know that he is an evil manipulator that is trying to pool allies, this may be the case but aside from very very little information here there is nothing to go on.

OP I would stay out of it completely, the wife could be a poisonous parent or he could, you just don't know.

The relationship is over, and he is spreading stories among his soon to be ex wife's possible support network (the OP and the wife both bring their children to the same sports club and the OP has been in the house or mixing with the wife on at least one occasion) about the wife's parenting style not interested in doing activities with the children and implying the wife is vindictive enough to use the children in some sort of vendetta against him.

A grown man needs the help and advice of the OP here like a grown man needs the help of a small child to find a lost puppy in the park. Men are not so helpless that they can't find the phone number of a solicitor in the phone book, call him or her, and sit down to talk about financial repercussions and standard visitation arrangements in the case of divorce.

No-one would question the OP if it were a female friend of the OP, I think you're right here, Posieparker, but that is not just because of female bias. It's because a man who is sincerely looking for advice or help would go to another man who had been through a similar experience, or call a solicitor; he would not attempt to damage the reputation of his wife in the eyes of a woman whom she probably meets regularly in the club, (and who has shown by posting here that she is not averse to spreading the stories she hears). Let's remember that one of the things he has suggested to the OP is something that has not actually happened -- the poisoning of the children's minds against their father. It's very easy to cast someone as a villain and turn her into a pariah, with a few well chosen words.

I've tried to keep quiet, but the assumptions are completely out of line.

Man tells friend (woman) about some problems, and his fears about splitting. This woman comes here and gives us a little info, then asks "Is it possible for such a scenario to happen"

The answer was yes it could. We have no information on level of friendship or wife or guy or state of relationship or anything.

It was a simple question "CAN IT HAPPEN".

The answer is simple "YES IT IS POSSIBLE AND DOES".

It was not a judgement on her, or him, or his wife, or anything.

What has the rest of the thread got to do with it. The OP posted in legal, for technical information. Not relationships, chat or AIBU.

What is happening in the relationship is really not our business. We take it at face value, and give her an answer. Whether it will happen or not, really not our concern. The OP in the first post, said she only has one side.

That's horrible, MJ.

But did your DH go around telling people in advance what he thought would happen did he speculate out loud about what his wife might do? The man in the OP has accused his wife of something that has not yet happened Fortyplus doesn't say if she thinks it's a likely scenario or if she has ever considered this.

I've been on the receiving end of the spreading of malicious suggestions about my character and mental state, while my ex ran around on the hookup sites he belonged to, and it's not one bit pleasant for anyone to be maligned by a loose cannon going around sharing his fears with anyone who will listen, be they plausible or not.

Yep, ive been on the receiving end too, very unpleasant and as someone else says they do it to gain support, they often see a divorce as a war to be won.They usually have the nerve to slag the wife of while there still living with her too.

Someone mentioned what if it was a female freind. I dont think any of us would like our husbands confiding in another woman about our marriage , i think this is a betrayal in itself.

Then I look forward to seeing you say so on the many, many threads in Relationships when a female OP does exactly that.

Are you saying that we can't have friends of the opposite gender now? Or just that we can't talk to them about anything that happens in our marriages?

Having limited access to their children is a very common fear for men who are unhappy and wishing to end their marriages - and given the statistics I don't think it is unreasonable. We all have fears about the unknown and ending a marriage is very, very scary.

If we ever had trouble in our marriage, I would rather my DH got advice from someone who sounds as pleasant and sensible as the OP than got on the phone to a solicitor.

Are you saying that we can't have friends of the opposite gender now? Or just that we can't talk to them about anything that happens in our marriages?