Can someone help me understand

nothingbutheartbreak · 2025-02-03T21:20:10+00:00

Can someone please help me to understand how a dad (or mum) can decide to have nothing to do with their own child, in this case a baby that's 10 months old, her dads never met her and doesn't want to be in his own daughters life. I really can't get my head round it. It's so unnatural to reject your own child, surely! It's driving me mad thinking about it constantly.

EliflurtleAndTheInfiniteMadness · 04/02/2025 05:32

I don't think you can understand it if you're not like that. My mum walked away, I never understood, after I had kids of my own it felt even more unfathomable. Your ex is who he is, he doesn't feel the same connection you do with your DD, he doesn't value having a child in the same way, he shouldn't have become a parent, some people really aren't cut out for it.

Toomanysquishmallows · 04/02/2025 06:13

My ex hasn’t seen dd1 for 20 years. He also has had a second daughter he dotes on ! Some men just seem to decide that children are inconvenient, it’s rubbish , I’m sorry .

BabyMushroom · 04/02/2025 09:27

Unplanned? Not nice no but in that case that is why. They didn't want the child.

Original poster

nothingbutheartbreak · 04/02/2025 09:44

But if you make a child how can you turn your back on them, I just can't get my head round it, your child, your flesh and blood, I'll never understand it, need to try and move on though, it's ruining my life

OP posts:

Toomanysquishmallows · 04/02/2025 09:49

@nothingbutheartbreak , my ex simply saw my daughter as an extension of me , so because our relationship had ended , he ended his one with her Tbh she has been much better off without him .

BadSil · 04/02/2025 09:51

Well his part in the creation of the baby was considerably different to yours. He literally just had sex. You on the other hand grew her, incubated her, fed her. You are hard wired to love and protect her. He isn't. It's hard to accept the rejection of a child (and on some level of yourself) but you can reframe it. She deserves better than half a relationship with a man who doesn't love her above all else.

BabyMushroom · 04/02/2025 10:17

nothingbutheartbreak · 04/02/2025 09:44

But if you make a child how can you turn your back on them, I just can't get my head round it, your child, your flesh and blood, I'll never understand it, need to try and move on though, it's ruining my life

Because to him it was a mistake and he didn't want to or intend to be a father?

BabyMushroom · 04/02/2025 10:24

I'd stop trying to understand it tbh, men abandon planned children after bringing them up for years and watching them be born, so its not hard for a man to abandon an unplanned child when they can do that, you say he has never met her so out of sight out of mind. Men are different, people will disagree but they are and that's why there are so many absent fathers (not all men blah blah but a lot of them)

Toomanysquishmallows · 04/02/2025 10:30

@BabyMushroom , I totally agree

Original poster

nothingbutheartbreak · 04/02/2025 10:30

@BabyMushroom thank you, you're right, I'm just hurt and angry for my baby girl and I'll never be able to understand it, I'm finding it hard to not constantly think about it though.

OP posts:

Purplelady1 · 05/02/2025 02:17

Toomanysquishmallows · 04/02/2025 09:49

@nothingbutheartbreak , my ex simply saw my daughter as an extension of me , so because our relationship had ended , he ended his one with her Tbh she has been much better off without him .

Exactly this!

Purplelady1 · 05/02/2025 02:20

BabyMushroom · 04/02/2025 10:24

I'd stop trying to understand it tbh, men abandon planned children after bringing them up for years and watching them be born, so its not hard for a man to abandon an unplanned child when they can do that, you say he has never met her so out of sight out of mind. Men are different, people will disagree but they are and that's why there are so many absent fathers (not all men blah blah but a lot of them)

Spot on!

TickingKey46 · 07/02/2025 17:37

I think the reality is that it's often about priorities. When the top priority is something other than the child, drugs, drink, work, sex etc etc then the parent slowly starts to detach.

Original poster

nothingbutheartbreak · 07/02/2025 17:42

@TickingKey46 I just don't get that someone can not care about their own child. I think I may need some counselling because it consumes me and I don't think it's healthy

OP posts:

TickingKey46 · 07/02/2025 21:33

How old is your child/children?