How do single fathers feel?

[Mummalish]

I was thinking about this today.

My ex sees my ds once during the week, and every other weekend on Sat and Sun.

In between that, he does not phone, text or email to find out how ds is, or what he has been up to etc.

I know when I am away from ds, I want to know all the little details, but then perhaps it's because I'm his mum and it's different. Or is it?

I just don't understand how he doesn't want to know the little things, how his weekend was, or what he got for Christmas, or how he's sleeping.

Since we split, my ds has changed, as all kids do, but he has different favourite foods, and songs etc. Ex displays no interest, is this the norm?

I know he loves ds, but wondering how he feels when he is away from him.

exremely why do you blame mothers for slack parenting on the fathers' part?

I think many of the posters on lone parents made really bad choices in whom they chose to father their kids.

Yep...highly offensive comment especially to post it in Lone Parents, or were you looking for a reaction?

OP, its not just dads that do this.

One of my closest friends is a male lone parent, his ex-w walked out on him and their 2 boys to be with another man and she sees the boys every other weekend (she often cancels) and doesnt bother phoning to see how boys are etc either. In fact a couple of times my friend has contacted his ex cos one of the boys ill or to discuss an important matter and she was on holiday abroad and didnt tell him o the boys she was going.

And I too find it offensive that someone would think its my fault for making the wrong choice of father to my children, life and people change and you cant see into the future unfortunately .When I met and then married my ex he was hard working and responsible, we had a good life, a lovely home and we both had good jobs, when we had kids he was a very hands on dad and was a good parent. Years later he chose to have an affair which is why we split up. How can anyone know that their partner will do this 9 years down the line??

There are so many fathers groups out there with men lamenting the fact they don't see their kids often enough and that the law seems to favour the mothers etc. Some men climb up buildings to get the governments attention and it seems they would do anything for equal access to their kids.

Then some fathers just accept the bare minimum, and leave most of the parenting to the mother.

I would love my ex to display more interest and phone my ds on a regular basis, but he is happy with the time he does have. I accept this is just his way. It's just not my way, is what I'm getting at.

Extremely how do you know?

Wow extremely that's a horrendously judgmental and ill-thought out thing to say.

If you really feel the need to come into a section of the board that is specifically for lone parents, just to make ignorant and insulting remarks about the choices that people have made, and broad, sweeping assertions about they way you "think" that people handle access with their exes then I'd say that you really need to have a good look at yourself.

You've made the decision to go out of your way to be judgemental, nasty and confrontational and I think that it probably says a lot about you.

I think many of the posters on lone parents made really bad choices in whom they chose to father their kids.

FFS, do you think we don't know that already, and feel guilty about it, and feel like we have to try even harder to compensate for shitty exes' lack of emotional maturity, even though it's hard when you're on your own and some days you just can't.

Also nice judgement on those who got pregnant accidentally, against their will or before their partner showed his true colours.

TBH I wish XP would either shape up and take an active interest in DS' life, or fuck off out of it completely. The half-hearted oh yes I'll see him once every 3 weeks approach (he lives in the same town) really pisses me off because it feels as though he can't be bothered, and what kind of benefit does he think it brings to DS if he sees him as an inconvenience most of the time.

"I do think that solo dads find parenting very hard"

do me a favour
they are usually thought of heroes and have plenty of women wowing (is there such a word/) and raving about to no end

as missing

Right Stop that ... this started off as a nice thread about single fathers feelings and now its just got silly

soooo-rrry

feelingold - absolutely. I was married to my DCs father for 10 years, good jobs, nice house, great dad... until he ran off with someone else and now doesn't see his DC. I made a bloody good choice of father for my kids but sadly he had a mid life crisis and made some very poor choices.
Extremely, you do sound smug and judgemental. let's hope you don't find yourself in the same situation one day.
Bertie, yes I think the half arsed approach is the worst of all worlds. Piss or get off the pot I think is the phrase

MummieHunnie Mon 10-Jan-11 16:33:49
Extremely how do you know?
she knows cause she keeps him on a leash

Lillian, extremely is far too smug to find herself in that position, as unlike you and me, who made poor choices in our husbands/fathers, she has a husband who has never and will never do what our ex's did to our children and us.

Justforthisone, men leave controlling women too, Peter Andre did in the end.

Of course mummyhunnie cause men who turn out to be lying bastards wear a sign around their neck don't they...!

Getting back to the OP... I know one NRP who couldn't cope with the heartache of not seeing his dd.
He dealt with it by blanking it out. Not talking about it, not having photos to remind him or art work around the house. Keeping her bedroom door shut and putting every single toy away out of sight when she wasn't there.
And when she was with him he didn't want her asking for her mum and not being 100% involoived with having a great time with dad. So he deliberately didn't ask any questions about what she'd be doing between visits etc.
In fact one time I left my bag in the hallway and she said it looked like her mum's and he asked me to put it out of sight.
On another occassion he had to leave the zoo we were at with my ds because he couldn't handle the fact his dd was missing it and felt guilty that she wasn't there while he was with a different child.
Have to say I did have a very small insight into it, when I felt upset one time when we took his dd to the beach and my ds was at school so missed out. I really wished he had been tehre to enjoy it too, but I was able to comfort myself with the knowledge that he had been to the beach lots of times with me in the past. Must be very hard if you can't do that.

Basically we all have different ways of dealing with things. OP maybe you deal with being apart from your dc by finding out everything you can about it. Maybe your ex deal with it by blanking it out, or maybe he really doesn't have a clue that/what he is missing out on.

gillybean2, I like your explanation. That does makes sense.

I have absolutely no idea how ex feels, so who knows how he is dealing with things. He seems to be having a fab time, but maybe he's not after all. i'll never know.

Ive been with my husband 7yrs now and have personally witnessed everything he has gone through with his court case. Everything kicked off when his ex and him were having a huge row over texts about the lack of access he has been having and she told him that he wasnt their daughters father anymore that her new boyfriend was. My husband (much to my annoyance which I screamed at him at the time) said he wouldnt hand over maintenance for a child he isnt allowed to see, he was hoping she would change her mind and used it as a tactic. She was more than happy to do so. So the case dragged on for years and it wasnt until the month before our wedding day (4yrs later) that I eventually met my stepdaughter. I know there are alot of men out there who get a girl pregnant and leave them and I understand there is alot of ppl out there who would raise an eyebrow at why he wasnt allowed to see her in the first place but this has been going on for best part of our relationship now. My husband has sent countless texts asking about his daughter's health only for the texts to be ignored and has even called at christmas and birthdays to speak with her which went unanswered until later on when a texts gets sent saying "didnt hear my phone she was having too much fun and prob wouldnt have wanted to talk to anyone on the phone". There are only so many christmas holidays/birthdays etc where you can watch your husband cry and wish he would know what she likes to do and what her favourite things are now. I had to watch my husband do that for 4yrs straight before he finally got somewhere with Dolphin House. Granted he sees her know but I cant understand why at all some men dont care about their kids interests. Gives all the other fathers out there a bad name!

I agree with Gillybean.

I d

I'll carry on.

I don't think many posters can realize what it would be like to see their children every-other-weekend. Perhaps have a new man move in and see his children more than he does.

I'm a single dad but I see or speak to them every day and we do shared-care.

If I'd had to become a NRP I would have had to find coping tactics, and switching off would have been one. Or you'd end up permanently grieving.

But I suppose in time it would get better. The only way I can relate to it is when they go away on holiday without me, that gut-wrenching feeling and to have to live through that every 12 days out of 14.

Well, I think I'd find that very difficult.

I have to say I'm not actually surprised at all that the OP's ex doesn't ring in the week. By my reckoning, he has him for roughly a third of the time and that's not really too shabby on the "non"-resident parent front.

My ex sees ours for a week every half-term and holidays, tho he barely bothers ringing in between to see how the girls are and I'm afraid to say I take a cynical view on this one, knowing him as I do.

Not a NRP myself but my ex is one and so is my partner now, so have some idea about what they feel. For example why it is not as simple as some might think to just go to court to get contact or even why phone calls don't happen when the NRP is stating they want to be involved.

To give you a bit of background, my ex has 2 sons and there is no question he is an extremely difficult man and both first wife and I now agree a terrible husband!

I won't go into the whole access/court stress but there was a stage where he only saw them once a month. He did not immediately take her court as he was frightened he would end up with a 'standard every other weekend' pattern and was terrified of having to wait 12 days to see his children. This sounds odd as he was seeing them a great deal less but he genuinely hoped that if he didn't rock the boat she would relax the once a week gradually back to 2 or 3 days a week and just couldn't believe that this would not happen as it seemed so unfair to him. It was only after a year he started to realise this would not happen and very fearfully took her to court which led to much increased access.

During the time where he saw them every month, he rarely, if ever called them. As others have mentioned there was a lot of 'why don't they ever call me' type thing going on and she certainly was critical of him for not calling. I also felt he should just call and be done with it. However the reluctance was due to the stress of such calls. They were absolutely not on speaking terms and he would have to speak to her to speak to the children. Both our adrenaline levels would shoot up for half an hour before and after. Usually they would be handed the phone 'only briefly as they're busy' resulting in a monosyllabic conversation whilst they were obviously watching the TV or doing something else. It was almost impossible to get any information about what they'd be doing ('nothing' or 'don't know' being a common answer) and didn't seem to make any difference to them at all. It was upsetting. She said that it was his responsibility to phone if he wanted and that the children could phone him 'if they wanted'. When they were with us it was a different matter - she wanted daily or at least calls every other day. I should point out the children never once asked to call her either, even during a 2 week holiday (I think they don't really think about it? When I was a young child it certainly never occured to me to call my grandparents for example and it was always my parents who initiated family phone calls) However, we would make sure they were free from distractions, remind them about various things they had done that day so they had something to talk about and then leave them to it. They made the call and the parents didn't have to speak. The phone calls were much, much more productive and beneficial to the boys and less stressful for us.

I can't judge on others situations as all are different, but in our case, she was very subtly obstructing contact and even this made a massive difference to the amount of contact the boys had with their Dad. And ultimately its for their benefit not Dad or Mum however harsh that sounds. I feel this even more strongly now my ex and I have split up. I still see his sons regularly via his first wife and she and I have a perfectly amicable relationship now. I think she assumes I will automatically agree with her (and because I want to keep in contact with the boys I keep entirely neutral to not fall out with her!) As a result she earnestly tells me various things she has done or said that have clearly undermined contact to great damage to her sons. They are all honestly done I think, and she just feels she is being open with her sons and acting in their best interest. It has led to 2 lovely boys who have various anxieties and insecurities relating to how much their father loves them and worries about their future which are completely unnecessary.

I also don't believe its a difference between men and women, and again I can only speak on the situations I know. However I think that some NRPs are absolutely terrified that one wrong move on their part might mean they suddenly get restricted access to their children at what feels like the unpredictable whim of the RP. Imagine knowing that someone, who you may have had some very serious disagreements and conflict with, who doesn't like you very much, has complete control over when you see your children? It leads to some pretty odd looking behaviour including a lot of 'head in the sand' and avoidance.

I find the whole fathers-4-justice craziness pathetic and I am certainly offering absolutely no excuses. But... I do find it fascinating that there is something about the whole group that seems a good example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Absent fathers are seen (and perhaps NRP mothers even more so) as 'irresponsible' and that they 'don't care about their children'. They are an extreme example but if you treat someone as useless and irresponsible some people unconsciously start to accentuate those characteristics in their behaviour. Look at what happens when you shout at a child for being naughty compared to what happens when you praise him for being good? Perhaps the way society views NRPs perpetuates some of the difficulties (whilst not taking away individual accountability).

horribly long post sorry!

Just read that back and wanted to clarify this is entirely about my own experience op! Your son sounds like he has good contact with his Dad and I was certainly not implying that you are undermining contact :) As someone else said, it might just be that if he sees his son at least once a week he finds it easier to find out what he has been doing directly rather than via the phone.

As a single mum, I am used to being judged. Usually in a positive way too. But if it is felt that the two decades of loyal marriage I gave is to be judged as a failure of mine, for not choosing more carefully 20 years ago, the man I married and had children with, then I can only reply that it is lucky for the children my ex choose me so well.

His choice is to have no contact whatsoever with his children so I must applaude him for his choice in ensuring they have me.