There are always two sides but please nobody make this mistake of thinking some women are not nasty and vindictive because some just are,
I am going back to the Seventies here but my Uncle lost contact with his children until they were adults as their mother made sure he couldn't see them. It went to court umpteen times and in every case she broke the judgement and made sure my Uncle was kept away from his children. My lovely grandmother was also excluded from the lives of her grandchildren. Every year she sent birthday and Christmas cards and money which we now know were opened by the mother, the money went into her purse the cards were thrown away.
How do we as a family know this? Simple, the children are now adults, they have nothing to do with their Mum and built a fabulous adult relationship win their Dad/my Uncle until his death from cancer. The stories they tell of their mother are horrendous, one of my cousins (the only boy) was literally a battered child. The girl cousins tell of the horror of their mother beating him for what seemed like hours.
This woman was and is the most toxic and vicious mother any child could have had. My cousins all have ongoing issues as a result of their upbringing by her. All would have fared better had the courts in those days made sure the contact arrangements were adhered to and certainly the abuse would have stood more chance of being picked up. In those days though children were often not believed, my cousin finally told one of his teachers what was happening,....what did they do? Of course.....they brought the mother in "for a chat". She denied it, my cousin got the worst beating of his life and never bothered disclosing again.
My cousin is now waiting impatiently for his mother to die, the only time he wants to see her again is in a coffin and he says then he will kick it "to make sure she is dead" 
Okay I know there are useless men out there, my Dad was one of them but there are plenty of men who DO want to see their children and who DO pay their way. There are two sides to ever story indeed....but the bad one is not always the Dad.