Can it be just as damaging to have an absent father as an abusive one?

[Cookiemonster83]

The court seem so focused on having abusers in children’s lives do they know something different?

Are there occasions where it’s better for a child to see for themselves what their father is like rather then hold a false idea?

My daughter has started seeing her dad after 3 years apart ordered by a judge because of his emotional abuse. She has started to refer to him as her hero. (She is 6) He really is far from that but it seems she has this built in love for him. I wonder if perhaps it’s better for her to find out that he isn’t then for her to be kept away and have me to tell her he is not and she not believe me.

you don’t seem to grasp the pervasive nature of abuse and what safety really means in this context. Many many abusive parents use contact to inflict denigration and alienation upon the other parent via the child yet because they’re not beating the shit out of the mother anymore or they’re not together anymore: yet that’s not abuse of the child?

what do you to say to a child who is utterly terrified of spending time with someone that they witnessed abusing their other parent. What do you think that child will think of that so called right? Not a lot. I think personally it is a good thing that the predisposition of the benefit of involvement in a child’s life is being challenged by new legislation. The legacy of damage that family courts have left is huge.

the family courts have had a long needed wale up call with new legislation and changing cultural attitudes towards abuse and how children are being actively failed by a system that is supported to put their safety at the heart of what they do.

Clearly there are many children and adults - including some of us on here - who have experienced the effects of one or both

I agree that abandoning a child oftnen raises many difficult and complex issues to support a child through. Having said that there are also many happy and functioning children of single parents who have never known their father. In contrast to that there is not a single child who as the victim of abuse that has not been significantly harmed in some way.

I do grasp it well enough thank you. I've been on MARAC panels more than enough times and did say a caveat of if the victims life would be in danger or the perpetrator was being managed by various agencies. There are levels of abuse and not all abusive men continue to abuse.

I'm seeing this from the childs perspective. Having absent parents is damaging. If steps can be taken to mitigate the damage then they should be taken. It's very hard for teenagers especially to cope with absent parent trauma.

As with many things, I think that it boils down to least harm, not no harm.

It is least harmful to have an abusive father.

However, it is still harmful (sometimes) to not have one at all.

My dd died when l was 7. It has left me with severe abandonment issues, and has impacted every single part of my life. I’m 58 now, and l would say the impact has become worse as I’ve got older. I didn’t understand men in my young adulthood, and found myself totally out of my depth in the dating game.

l think carefully controlled access is better than none tbh

MARAC panels ….. ah yes I’ve had more than a few of those about my family. Most of them were bullshit bingo not worth what they were printed on. They resulted in more years of abuse not less for all of us.

the fact that you’ve told me this confirms why I found your statement naive and concerning in terms of what you consider to be abuse or what constitutes in danger.

children are being and have been actively failed. In one breath they are too small to be listened to in court but need protecting: protects by a system which allows too
many abusers chance after chance at the child’s expense.

I find myself wondering how these things ae worked out these days. One of the most tricky aspects, is that (on occasion), by the time the child themselves has any kind of say in the matter, it is too late.
Some fathers are simply not worth having, and yet the Courts may force them to remain in the child's life in some way.

My father "fought" (out of spite) for custody of me when I was 2-3 (despite the fact, which I found out much later) that he had beat me as an infant and my mother (to hear her tell it) had to stop him from trying to kill me.... He won, and I did not see her again until I was 16. The proviso though, was that his parents were very involved. So much so, that he then buggered of and started a new life. He came back occasionaly, keeping me in line, and depressed and envious and miserable. Making sure that I knew I was not wanted, never had been, and that I was just a nasty thorn in his side. All of that coninues (sort of) to this day.

Thee is no easy answer, and there can be lifelong consequences when these adult decisions and choices are made FOR the child, not BY the child. It will shape them forever.

Personally, with hindsight, I wished I had been adopted right out of the mess.

That's so sad. I'm sorry.
I understand as well, of course (if you see my post above).
One realisation I had as I got older, was how I self-sabotage (in dating, with me, and all aspects of life really.....), thinking that I don't get to keep anything, so give up before there is a chance of failing.
These inner beliefs can be set in place at such a young age, and everything after that is coloured by them.
💔

Agree
I was never allowed to see my father whether that was because he didn’t want to see me or my mother decided. I think it is the latter.

Either way growing up my mother would say I was perfectly happy not seeing him. I was a perfectly well adjusted child without having a father around
She was either lying. Or had fully bought into the lie herself and couldn’t see what was in front of her.
By the time I was 11 I had an illness that was brought on by stress.

Please excuse typos in my post 😶
(I can spell, I promise.)

I work in this area too, and given what you have said op I think it is far more likely to be damaging to a child that has to endure an abusive father. Thousands, if not millions of children grow up to be well rounded individuals without contact with their fathers. If we consider the period of time of the world wars, some parts of Africa and other parts of the world where children grow up without fathers is perfectly normal.

An abusive father can be extremely damaging to a child, especially one that is not being monitored. Can you introduce a contact centre at least? Or supervision? I would be worried this kind of man would use the child to continue his abuse of you, and he could eventually treat her in the same way. I would be very careful. The hero narrative has come from him, and that is a worry.

I agree with @CatchersAndDreams it has to be carefully managed but abandonment and abuse are capable of causing equal trauma! Of course it all depends on child's personality and there is so much pressure on the remaining parent to get it perfectly right which often doesn't happen. But either way it's usually a shit show for the children.

You don't know the level of MH problems and potentially in some cases physical injuries you would have suffered had your father been in contact with you.

It is impossible to compare and measure the two, and sometimes you have to trust that those that loved you the most were probably trying to protect you and do their best for you.

You might feel you missed having a father, and feel sad about it, but there are many worse outcomes that happen to children every single day.

I would also add especially the cases where it becomes known that the fathers are paedophiles or are prosecuted for child abuse images, many mothers choose not to share that information with their children and will use other reasons for the separation. This is not uncommon. The shame is not something they wish to give their children to carry throughout their childhood.

As someone who was the child in this situation I think you are very very wrong.

Everyone thought I wasn’t bothered by having an absent father. Or rather I was told
I was perfectly fine without him in my life.

The truth is I was never fine about not having a father. The hurt was wrapped up and put in a box and filed away in the deepest recesses of my mind but the hole it left wasn’t ever filled.
As a child people would speak for me. Tell me how I felt.

Dont ever say a child is fine because they have an absent parent because you don’t know that. Children learn very quickly to say the right things and know asking for something that isn’t doing to happen would only cause shouting or punishment or a long lecture as to why it wasn’t going to happen.

I googled my father a few months ago and found he is still alive and living in a care home.
What made me weep was seeing his date of birth. Knowing that he couldn’t have not remembered the date his daughter was born yet never once sent a single card or made any acknowledgment even when I was a young adult. It wasn’t as though he had to travel far as we lived in the same small town and now I am plagued with the thought I could have passed him in the street and had no idea who he was.

It’s unlikely that an abusive father would abandon their child
on the contrary they are far more likely to doggedly pursue contact with the children they are either abusing or exposing to abuse through the courts.

absent fathers raise many questions and most of them remain unanswered which is of course damaging but there are no questions left unanswered in the mind of an adult or young person who was abused as a child. Wondering why someone did love you and left your life is quite different to wondering why someone claimed they love you but actively destroyed your world.

It's shit parenting imo to not let your child know it's history. Trauma imprints in the brain and being told nothing bad happened when it did isn't the right move.

Therapeutic life story work is an amazing practice that helps dc understand what happened to them and that it wasn't their fault.

Children who have abusive fathers should be told about things their father has done to them/their mother but in a Therapeutic way that helps them build the blocks on their minds of who they are and to not see their other parents actions as part of who they are.

Not knowing yourself in the context of not knowing your parents leaves lifelong scars. It shouldn't be undertaken lightly and only for the most extreme abuse towards the other parent or abuse from that person towards the child.

i absolutely agree that children should know their history and be helped to unpick and navigate this. It has been really important for my children and whilst there are aspects of their experiences that are not specifically revisited they have been gently as well as appropriately supported in this process so that they no longer blame themselves, which was heartbreaking.
we need so much more of this kind of service and infrastructure for all aspects of children and young people’s lives.

@Kissingfrogs25 i wish there was something I could do but I can’t anymore. Contact was stopped for 3 years whilst at court and now we have just finished. He has been reintroduced and will go on very shortly to have every other weekend then leading on to half the holidays. His abuse is very under the radar now but he has not changed.

I guess I posted for re-assurance as I no longer have any say. I was believed in court but they say he is now a changed man. He has another relationship and another baby (all extremely rushed) I suspect to make him look changed. He needs constant love and adoration, I know he will be looking for supply from out daughter. I feel bad for her that I can do no more really.

There’s a woeful bordering on criminal lack of understanding about EA and how perps do it to their children/use their children to continue to abuse their ex.

I can assure you, my abusive ex did just abandon our child before she was even born, and he gets his supply from playing the victim of the “bitter ex who won’t let me” when, in fact, he’s never asked for me to block him, and had zero desire to be a father in even the vaguest sense of the word.

@WhatsAVideo they absolutely love playing that card. My ex was found guilty of the emotional abuse at court but he put on such convincing acts, he cried in front of the judge and they felt so sorry for him. He blamed his fathers abuse of him on his behaviour. He tells people different stories depending on what works. I can only imagine the stories he has told about me to his new girlfriend. To get a girl and get her pregnant knowing he was denied access and found guilty at court she must have the wool completely over her eyes, as we both did really. He is a true master.

I honestly don't know but thank you for starting this thread as its something that has always confused me.

My dad confused the hell out of me and my DB. I have vague memories of DV towards my DM but they had split by the time I was 7. He was then back and forth, very loving towards us but would let us down constantly. So as kids he showed lots of affection but very erratic and eventually contact dried up completely. He was also an alcoholic.

I had a stepfather immediately replace my father. He ignored me until I left home at 18 but beat the shit out of my mum for the entire time we lived with him. I was scared to death of him and his moods. Also a big drinker. Thankfully mum got out after I left and we have a v good relationship which I am so thankful for.

I have never talked to anyone about these two 'father figures' and I wonder just how much of an affect they've had on me? I am married with DC but have always had a major issue with partners getting drunk or not knowing where they are. My self esteem has always been in the toilet and since hitting my forties, I am questioning whether or not I have bpd /adhd etc etc because things I am struggling again.

Yep, there’s 3 different versions that he tells, depending on what will work best with whoever he is targeting.

He burns through friends within a year as it doesn’t take them long to realise he’s a liar. He has no long standing friends. His family don’t even bother to challenge him any more because it’s not worth the rage they get from him.

My ex is both emotionally abusive to our daughter and partially absent. By partially I mean he sees her but shows zero interest in her / her life. He makes no effort even to do basic things like go to parents evening at school.

After 10 years of this ( courtesy of a court order) I would say the absence is more damaging than the abuse. Our DD is utterly convinced he doesn’t give a damn about her, that cuts deeper than anything.

The one foot in, one foot out shit has been fairly damaging to my elder DDs.

Their father has them EOW, drops them at his parents house around midday on Saturday, doesn’t see them again until 5pm Sunday when he drives them home. So less than 24 hours out of every 14 days; no parents evenings, couldn’t tell you what their friends are called, no clue what GCSEs are eldest is doing, so on and so forth.

It’s almost like he does just enough to avoid the “dead beat Dad” label.

My nephews father is in and out as and when it suits him; he can see his Dad every Sunday for 3 months and then won’t see him for 6 months. Poor kid is in a constant state of anxiety and DSis genuinely doesn’t know what to do for the best.

So many men just see parenting as something optional that they can do when they feel like it, when it’s fun, when they want to show off to a new girlfriend, and couldn’t give a shit about the damage.