Men who choose work over family

[3lilbirds]

So my relationship of more than a decade is ending. Has ended? In a conversation last night he told me that he is not coming back to the house. This is after I told him that if he keeps treating me like I'm invisible I don't want him here. He has been badly impacted by lockdown, pressures on his business etc etc and we had a baby at the beginning of lockdown, our third.

But honestly, I think he can't handle the pressures of being a father. His own father left his family, and they were pretty destitute. He seems to think as long as his business is surviving and he can contribute money to the children he's doing well as a father (as in compared to his own, which is true, but it's a low bar), and he talks about 'legacy' for them and their future. He truly thinks if the kids hardly see him now, they'll forgive him when he can drop millions in their lap at age 25 or something.

But, I he also says 'if it wasn't for the kids, I would work all the time, no breaks, my business would be my life'.

He says lots of other stuff, but I can only sum it up as what I understand - he is choosing the business over family, and tells himself it's not selfish or ego-driven because he's doing it for the kids (Though yes, he says if it wasn't for the kids he'd be even more on it!).

He says he no longer 'loves' me, and I think at least huge part of it is that he resents me for having the kids who are the reason he cannot work all hours. I didn't;t hoodwink him with any of our kids. I wasn't using contraception, never did really since falling surprise pregnant with the first, but somehow of course it's my fault. I remember him once saying 'wow you must be fertile' - nothing about maybe him being really fertile! Some men do make me wonder sometimes....

We are now splitting and I said 'ok, so do you see this as being 50/50 with etc children' he says no, he can't, he's working. Which I knew he'd say.

I just think he has looked at it and seen that he can't do both and I;m a good mum, t he kids will be alright, he's off the build a billion dollar business, or whatever.

I'm just wondering whether anyone else has had experience of a man who put career /business over family and what happened next. I want to know what other f*&keries to expect!!!!

I can't end this without saying that he works monster hours but is very present in the children's lives. He wakes up with them in morning, breakfast, school run, then goes to the office, stays there until 12/1, comes home, does it again (no, we didn't get any time together the last 18 months since lockdown, it's been kids and business, and then the new baby, a bit overwhelming for all). But he's fun, daddy, loving daddy. I collected one of the DC from school together ad teacher mentioned that DC said they were sad because dad is away (he's away on business trip of about a month, there have been lots of those since travelled opened up again) and last night one of them was wiling tears because they missed daddy.

So now that he is not coming home from this trip I'm just so goddamn sad for them. They have huge expectations of seeing daddy everyday. And that will now be EOW when he's in the country, and when he isn't they will now have to know he's not coming home.

I despair for them. I am so so so distraught. My kids face when I collected them from school today was so sad, they miss their dad so much. But it just won't work. Business, and work has killed our relationship. He won't get therapy to talk about any of these issues mentioned above, says he can't face it, can't face what person it might be apparent he has become.

Running this business has changed him so much, he's really not the man he was or whom `I chose to have children with.

It's all so aaarrrggghhhh. And I just want to have ideas about what is on the horizon for the children.

So, the next time you get a tearful “But of course I’ll look after you financially”, say “OK, how about X amount per month? How about setting up a standing order tomorrow?”

@EarthSight

Elon Musk? Yes. Eeek. I wouldn't be looking to him for guidance either.

I don't think he was onboard with it either in hindsight. When we discovered I was pregnant with DC1 he raised the option of termination. I said no. I was 33, a house, a job, a lot of love and I felt ok with it. I also had quite bad morning sickness so it felt very real. I told him that I wouldn't press him for anything money or time if he decided he didn't;t want children. He said he would lose me if he did that so he quickly ended that conversation and was completely into the pregnancy. We planned no. 2 because we both felt DC1 needed a sibling. We both have siblings and love them very much. I wanted DC3, he said no for a long time so I used contraception. Then he changed his mind. I came off contraception though we weren't trying. Within a month or two I was pregnant. This was when he made the 'woah you're fertile' comment. I once wanted to talk to him about his initial response to pregnant with DC1, he told me he does not like to be reminded of that and we are basically never ro discuss it again. But it happened, he did want that termination, at least at first, same here. The words that he might prefer a world where he didn't have kids so he could work even longer won't escape his lips, even if there's a truth in it.

I think prt of his not loving me was to give the business more time. because we had a great relationship, would put the kids in front of the tv and snuggle in bed and talk, or send them to gparents for a night and chill with a drink, or go to a bar etc etc. Over lockdown those things became impossible, and anyway the business was on the precipice, and so maybe he felt a dip in his feelings for me, but I think he purposefully did;t address it because it gave him more time for the business. I did ask him 'so when you first felt this way about me, why didn't you raise it with me etc' and his response was 'I just decided to put my energies into work. I asked 'did it work out for you? Did you get good work done'. and he said 'honestly? Yeah, it really helped to just concentrate on work and the kids and nothing else'. Now I wonder is he inching away from kids too, because then he might get even more great work done?

I once said 'I think you pushed me to one side because I was an obstacle to your business'. He replied either 'I don't think of it like that' or 'I've never thought of it like that'. I can't remember verbatim.

@Enterifyoudare

No wonder your relationship has imploded OP. You're both working with three kids aged six and under. He's been trying to run a business during covid and working away alot.

I think you need to cut each other a lot more slack. I don't know any relationship personally that would survive in those conditions. I don't think he's actively making a choice about the children. I just think neither of you can properly see the wood for the trees in the shit storm you're both currently in

VERY possibly.

Talking to absolute strangers on here helps, because friends and family are never that, they are involved and they hurt too and risk losing lots when relationships end.

@Fireflygal

Op, to answer your first post. I know someone who sounds very much like your partner. He worked incredibly hard to build a business and anytime available was spent with the children. As they got older he looked back and regretted time worklife balance however his children (who are now adults) say he should never regret his work as the life they now have is brilliant.

Due to the dad's finances they get time with their partners, children as have no financial worries. The dad is always there now for them and has been since late teens/early adulthood.

I can't say the Dad got it wrong, it was incredibly hard on him and his wife but they seemed to pull together as had a vision of what they were building in the future, fabulous houses, holiday homes, no financial worries for their children.

I would also say 3 children under 6, plus covid would strain any relationship so just check in to see if this is temporary.

Thank you for this.

I was totally behind him with this and picking kids slack etc and his efforts at the business were for OUR future.

Then he said he no longer loved me and of course I felt 'oh shit! I need to step up on attending to my own stuff because we might be over soon - this was news to me, I was just digging deep in hard times'. Now I feel like that even more. This man might marry someone shiny and new in 2 years, have kids etc. My kids suddenly get half or less than half, I get nothing (being unmarried) and I was there at the beginning huffing and puffing along with him, and then having the kids on a EOW basis while he got the new relationship up and running!

This could very well be my life shortly.

I did want marry in the last few years. He resisted, said he only had time for the business, I need not worry he'd never leave me. We didn't marry before because actually I'm not into the romantic side of it so much, but since having kids and especially since starting the business, I had been more on it. But by then he called the shots on that score.

Another mistake.

That's true, as a single parent my income might decrease because I'm doing it all alone.

I will talk to him about drawing up some sort of contractual arrangement for finances.

It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom though.

I have since remarried, to a gorgeous man who loves spending time with me and also with the DC. We work as a team and I appreciate him so much. If we’ve been a bit busy and stressed, he is quicker than I am to say “we haven’t had much quality time together lately, let’s book something in”. And we do, it’s lovely to feel seen and to be a priority.

As it happens, he also has in own business - in the same sector as ex. However, he doesn’t work weekends or late, and he takes time off in the school holidays or just because he wants a decent work life balance. His business is also more financially successful than ex’s, possibly because he is not so stressed so he does a better job for people and also because he treats his employees really well. I’m able to work 4 days now as I have someone really sharing the load.

Ex-h will sometimes even ring him these days and ask him to help out with things he is supposed to do - “I’m supposed to be taking DS to football but have to work so can you take him?”. DH usually does it too, as he doesn’t want the DC to miss out, and he enjoys being self employed as he can finish early when he wants to. They aren’t even his DH but he makes them a priority.

As my DM recently said to me though : “The difference is that your DH is a family man and ex-DH just isn’t really”. Which sums it up. Not a bad person deep down, but the signs were always there and I chose to ignore them.

Yes,

I don't think he is an awful person. Just when the chips are down, he' made some choices that subjugate family in favour of business, and that impacts all of us.

But yes, maybe the future has something great in store for me and them.

Thanks

Sorry Op, it does seem like he has "moved on", especially if over the last few years he hasn't been willing to commit to marriage.

Definitely get some agreements in writing, do it legally so you have it court ordered. You are right to consider if he has a 2nd family and the consequences of that financially.

You should assume you are doing most of the parenting and don't force 50:50 if you know he won't step up as you'll have the worst of all worlds. Ex H insisted on court ordered access when I knew he wouldn't step up..I went along to minimise further conflict but how he uses it for max flexibility. Didn't see the dc for nearly 2 months as choose to wfh in a warmer country and then when back I have to let him have court ordered access. It is always on his terms which is highly frustrating for me. He also used 50:50 to reduce payments for the dc.

You should definitely ask him to come home. This has got to be the most self indulgent and melodramatic way to move out ever. Adult feelings are manageable. Have it done without doing this to the children. They've been promised a return.

This story reminds me quite a lot of my father. He never wanted children, my mother got pregnant with my older brother within 6 months of them meeting...they met in the January, were married in the December (she was Catholic, it was the late 60s, so they 'had' to get married).

My mother was then pregnant with me less than 4 months later. There's only a year and two weeks in age between me and my older brother. My father finally had a vasectomy when my younger brother was born 3 years later...

My father checked out of family life totally when I was 9 by going to work abroad. He rarely came home on leave, and back then there was no mobile phones, no email, internet etc so contact with him was very poor. Unlike you, my mother felt (and still does) that my father 'owed' her support financially for the rest of her life because she'd had children, so she refused to work. It was pretty obvious that the marriage was over from that point, but my father didn't have the guts to say so ... instead he did cowardly things like trying to dump us back with my mother's family in our home country when I was 11 (plan was rumbled at literally the last moment by my mother...but she still stayed with him). My father finally left my mother for an OW when I was just 21.

I'm sorry to say that I don't think your ex ever really wanted children in the first place. He's being a far better parent though than my father ever was. Is it all unfair on you? Of course it is...but I can also see in you the beginning of the bitterness towards him that to this day still totally consumes my mother (she was 47 when my father left, she turned 80 this year)...you say you feel like you are a 'nanny' doing all the hard work so he can turn up and be Disney Dad...I'd try and change that thinking, to see it as you being the parent who is trying to make things as steady and settled as possible for them. Believe me, your children will not appreciate you if you start to show your bitterness towards their father. Think long term gain for short term pain.

@Fireflygal

Yes I can see any arrangement that is more than EOW taking over my life actually - being inconvenient times or places for me etc so that lots of my non-children time can't be productive. And yes, it is very clear to me that he'll continue to travel for business.

Commitment and time on the business won't ever change. Everything else will change around it. This is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on our family life. The business will survive! Everything else might wither.

@noirchatsdeux

I have no desire to let any of my negative feelings towards their dad spill over to touch them. I cannot promise of course, but I don't talk about this around them and I show him and their relationships respect.

I can't tell the future, and I am human, but I'm giving it all I've got. I just want them to be happy and healthy.

You are right he needs therapy he has become so obsessed with the fact his dad did not provide he thinks that's more important than anything, children need food and warm clothes ect but need love and happy memories and security, you can give that to them alone if you have to.
They will surprise you with their resilience. X

“I am so level headed and sorted that he finds it so easy to leave. he knows his kids are set with me, I'm that 'my kids are everything' hard work ethic sensible, out kids first mum.“

Your story really resonates with me, especially the above. Had DC with a damaged and ambivalent man who desperately loved them but couldn’t love me too. This is still me. My now adult DC have a relationship with their dad but it is nothing like the one they have with me. Bringing them up essentially alone was hard but they’re not fucked up, and I’m happy and free. Try not to catastrophise or ruminate on past mistakes. Just picture what you want for you and your DC then make sure their father doesn’t get in the way of that.

I have been there op, well, in a similar situation. I have name changed for this as any details might be outing.

My husband became a workaholic - a complete shock from someone who'd said he'd be a SAHD when we were ttc for our first (I was the higher earner then).

At a time when I was meant to be re-building my career, having worked around our children as toddlers and babies, he took on a role that involved working away a lot. It was meant to be a few weeks and became much longer. When he was home it was like he wasn't there. He went thought the motions with the children but not with me. The relationship between us died. I started to think there must be another woman (there wasn't). He was depressed - I got him to the GP. But he wasn't willing or able to do anything to help himself.

Eventually it all came to a head and he moved out. He told me we both needed to accept he was a man for whom work came first. He didn't want 50/50 with the kids, he barely wanted to see them at all. I was heartbroken for them as by this point he was no longer working away and he saw them every day.

I wasn't going to let him get away with it and neither, as it turned out, were the kids! He started out wanting to see them just one night a week for tea at the ex-family home (that I stayed in). The kids (primary age) told him he was their parent and they expected to see where he lived and be able to stay over. So, things changed - they changed a lot actually and within a year he had his fixed days with them every week but we were parenting as friends and sometimes the kids would call on another day and he'd pop in or he'd have then an extra day. I honestly thought that was an utter impossibility of ever happening when he left.

Long story short, overtime he realised he'd been an utter dick. That made his depression worse and then he decided fo sort himself out. I honestly think sitting alone, away from the daily pressures of family life kicked him into gear. Over the next few months, the man I had married re-emerged. He became much more aware just how much bad his depression and anxiety had been. It turns out there were a couple of things that had happened that he hadn't told me that had made his mental health so much worse and he had been running away inside his head, long before he left. The things he was hiding weren't actually that bad and if he'd told me it would have been fine. But he became convinced it was all terrible, he was a terrible person who didn't deserve a family, who must be someone who shouldn't just work, etc. I think he just got dragged down in a vicious cycle mentally .

We can't turn back time. We can't have the marriage we once had. But it turns out he didn't value work over his kids. He was suffering from depression and anxiety and that manifested itself with a hyper focus on work.

It's possible your partner is going through something similar. But you can't help him if he won't help himself. Maybe, over time, he'll do right by the kids. If not, well at least you're out of an unhealthy situation and can move forward.

Good luck with whichever way it goes.

@beenthere20

The exact details aren't the same, but this is very close to my life. I think I understand you sentiments. I'm glad your kids were demanding, I hope mine can be, too.

Thank you for this.

A guy married to a relative of mine was like that.
Work came first. He was moody at home - overworked and stressed out.
His boss was a "friend" so he worked over and above.
Then he was fired.
He wouldn't do dodgy stuff in the job.
He got more stressed out being jobless and ended up very ill.

So sad for my relative. They are still together but just about hanging in there.

[quote 3lilbirds]@beenthere20

The exact details aren't the same, but this is very close to my life. I think I understand you sentiments. I'm glad your kids were demanding, I hope mine can be, too.

Thank you for this.[/quote]
When I read your OP, I couldn't help wondering if the new business is causing him a lot of stress and anxiety that we doesn't want to admit to. He's scared he took a leap and may fail while also wanting to feel he's doing everything he can to succeed. The combination of it all has brought him to this warped conclusion that the only way to be sure he's done all he could (and hopefully make a big success of it) is if he has nothing else in his life. If he focuses on anything else and the business failed or doesn't take off hugely, he thinks he'll always be wondering 'what if...' Most parents wouldn't want "success" at the expense of their kids/family life. But if he's feeling overwhelmed and anxious to the point of perhaps having depression and/or anxiety, he might not be thinking straight? I don't want to project too much, but if his father was lousy maybe there's a part of him that has always feared he can't be a good dad and the fact he's struggling to 'do it all' is proof of that so he might as well focus on what he could be good at - a business legacy? I'm just wondering, based on my own experiences.

I could be completely wrong. And I'm not trying to excuse him behaving like such an arse. But it did really help me to understand some of the why.

Of course some men just want to have the status/symbol of a wife and kids and only put in effort with family for appearances. They want to be seen as a good, solid family man who is doing so much for their family. But really the over-inflated ego of a man like that means he doesn't genuinely care. A man like that needs work/business success as a status thing too and effort goes in there because the existence of a partner and children simply ticks box in self-image. A family's not something a man like that wants to actually invest time in. It could be your partner/ex-partner is one of those men.

I hope you get through it all okay.

He's not a narcissist, he is much more the man you describe. He's shit scared this doesn't;t work out - he left a very well-paid job with amazing prospects to do something bigger and better, covid really screwed up a lot of the opportunities and the anxiety is through the roof.

I would have been there all the way, whatever it took @beenthere20. But he no longer loves me and unfortunately (?) it is actually important for me to be in a loving relationship. The only thing he feels he can do to better the current situation is work harder. He can't do therapy, talking to people etc, I think he thinks he'll disintegrate if he does.

And I'm tired. And I want to shelter the kids from this. And it's bloody hard to hear. partner say he's living and then not, and then inch away and then wobble and, sigh, it's just all a bit much.

That's tough and you are right to take care of yourself.
You were his partner not his mother or keeper. He has to want to help himself.

My ex told me he didn't love. He was adamant. He told me we just weren't compatible. When he moved out it got worse and he claimed we were toxic together. That really hurt. When the depression was more under control, he said he could see it was himself he hadn't love and he was pushing me away. But also that he'd truly believed it at the time.

All very sad and caused so much damage.

We co-parent well as friends now but I'm glad I just got on with my life and didn't try to 'fix' or second guess him. I didn't write him off but wasn't prepared to be shat on. You seem to have decided to do the same and you need to otherwise he'll drag you down mentally and emotionally too.

My ex told me he didn't love. He was adamant. He told me we just weren't compatible. When he moved out it got worse and he claimed we were toxic together. That really hurt. When the depression was more under control, he said he could see it was himself he hadn't love and he was pushing me away. But also that he'd truly believed it at the time.

@beenthere20

You've clearly been a fly on our walls! This is verbatim some of our recent conversations. And I just don't want to hear all of that anymore. TBH I feel some relief, now.

Thanks for your messages.