Would you date a person who didn’t have contact with their children?

[Rainbow03]

I’m just a little baffled (and a bit bored to be wondering it). But why would a person date another person who didn’t have contact with their child.

For context my ex didn’t have contact because I stopped it due to abuse and a judge denied it for years. But in the meantime he met a lady (who is nice) and had a baby with him.

Wouldn’t that be an absolutely huge red flag. I mean the story he must have told must have been outstanding. My daughter does see him now and the lady really is very good with her and is kind.

Firstnews24

I know exactly which you're talking about and if you look at the title of the thread someone is asking which is the hardest years when raising children? And I had 3-4 years or so I thought. Sounds like you've got not anything better to do, then nitpick to be honest when obviously it just typos

Not unless he had a note from his mommy.

title thread

To ask which number of children you found hardest?

🤷‍♀️

says the person saying that my approach to this issue “doesn’t make sense” because i don’t want to risk the stability and happiness of my children by taking a risk on a man no contact with his children

@Firstnews24 Are you that bored?

No but my father never seems to have trouble attracting women. For context, he abandoned 2 sets of children.

If he is in England he would’ve had to have given permission for this move. It’s a different jurisdiction.

Firstnews24

Ok then I just misread the thread.

So sorry I didn't realise everything I did, and didn't put on MN's was going to Political.

If you don't wanna introduce boyfriends to your kids, that's your prerogative.

There's loads of unhinged people out there whether they be boyfriends ex-girlfriend's ex-wives, ex-husband, family members or friends. What are you gonna do spend the rest of your life hiding in a bubble?

Not sure how he could spin being found guilty of abuse and deemed emotionally damaging to his daughter. Courts don’t stop contact on a whim with no evidence. How he got her to believe I don’t know. I’m pretty sure most people know they don’t throw objects at someone, shout and scream and pin them up against a wall etc etc. All I can say is that he looks on the outside totally different to how he behaves intimately on the inside.

I don't think she said she had 15 year old daughter, she said she had 1 5 year old daughter i.e. one 5 year old...

I agree that appearances are deceptive, and abusers do not have signs on their heads. They are perfectly normal acceptable people on the outside for the most part.
But here is the thing - you had a relationship and a child with this man, and your DD does see him now. So you and the ‘new’ woman both saw something in the man to progress a relationship and your DD does now have a relationship with her father. So the man has managed to convince you or a court that he should have the opportunity to be a father, despite past harms.

So to that extent, the story he could have told is simply as honest as ‘I did not have contact as I behaved appallingly, but I realised the error of my ways and have been through court and done what they asked to get contact back’.

Odds are there was more likely a hefty dollop of ‘my crazy ex’ thrown in, as there usually is, but it only takes the ‘new’ woman to believe in second chances and that she will be different and special, and now that she needs to stick around to make sure your DD is okay, to see how she could have got there.

Sometimes there isn't 2 sides to every story.
Unless you mean that one side is a lie and the other is the truth.

I had to stop overnights with my ex due to cocaine use, which he would do with the kids in the house, and have random people staying over doing drugs too. There's a lot more to it too (it was bad) but I had concrete evidence of it.

There was no other side to that story except for his lies.

If you had met my ex and wanted to understand the full picture then the only way for you to do that would be to contact me, which I'm sure you wouldn't have done.

Jesus this is a low bar

@DaffodilsAlready when I met him we were much younger and no kids were involved. It took a while for me to fully understand what he was doing. Eroding my self esteem etc. But yes when I met him there was a sad story and I felt I wanted to help him. I Believed the story he was abused as a child and I should make it up to him….didnt work tho.

I did not want contact but I wanted what my daughter wanted and courts deemed him acceptable after all the courses. The girlfriend looks after her anyway. When he was alone she used to eat off the floor.

He hasn’t learned anything as he shouts at this girlfriend in front of our daughter. When the girlfriend is at work he tells daughter his side of the story. Tells her that her mum and my family are all disgusting liars. If it wasn’t for that I would give him the benefit of the doubt but he has admitted to nothing.

I would never date a man who wasn't taking enough on as a parent. He doesnt have to be 50/50 but i would expect a few days a week and some maintenance or money for the kids at least.

I dont want him doing the same to me should we have kids and then break up

Do other women really often believe these men when they said their exs are just crazy. Don’t they trust other women?

@Rainbow03 I don't think they probably want to know the truth so they bury their heads and place all the blame on the ex.
I wonder how many women have made this mistake at the start of the relationship then true colours have slowly started to show?

I think it's a big red flag, but it doesn't mean the man is a bad person. I assume the thinking is: if he doesn't have contact with his children, he must have a terrible flaw. 1. This isn't necessarily true. 2. There are other signals a man is flawed that women ignore: Many people ignore red flags when dating, for many reasons.

In an ideal world the man most women want to date doesn't already have children; isn't divorced; owns his own home; has a good job etc etc etc. Lots of people make compromises for dating.

I suppose I’m ignoring the reason why that gf is wanting to date a man like my ex. She obviously has her own reasons and issues etc. She might like the idea of helping him for whatever reason that is.

She is many years, I believe 14 years younger.

@Rainbow03 Easily manipulated and controlled...

@LorlieS I suppose. It’s so extremely complicated also. It would be hard for someone to know what’s happened if they’ve no experience.

I dated a man who had little contact with his children (every other Saturday, no overnights) because that's what the mum wanted. Their relationship ended due to abuse.

I didn't care too much at the time because: (1) I was very young; (2) the relationship was very casual; (3) he made it sound like the abuse was only a couple of isolated incidents; and (4) I grew up in an abusive home and experienced abuse myself (from my mum), which made his scenario feel "normal" - e.g., well doesn't everyone lose their temper sometimes and lash out.

We grew closer and I carried on because he wasn't abusive to me, and I never wanted children - so I didn't care about his lack of parenting skills. In the end he was abusive to me - throwing things, shouting and swearing in my face, telling me to get out the house, threatening me. I ended it, but by then I was very much in love - we were living together by the time I experienced anything negative.

Thinking back, I feel like the lack of contact was a symptom of the issue (abuse). So my issue was "he is abusive", not "he doesn't see his children". I'm not sure if that makes sense. But that is why I would avoid in the future, I would have to think why isn't he seeing his children. Not just "all men who don't see their kids are a POS". And, oddly enough, he was open about the abuse right at the beginning, I was just too naive to know our relationship would play out in the same way.

I think it is not usually just that the ex is crazy but the whole concoction of victim narrative plus a woman who is a people-pleaser looking for love (which is not a criticism, woman are socially brought up to be pleasing and romance is prized in our culture). Any vulnerability and someone like your ex will exploit it.
As you say, you didn’t recognise his behaviour as abuse right away either.
There is a whole lot of research into the cycles of abuse. It’s never just one thing which is obvious, otherwise no-one would start a relationship with an abusive person, no matter their age.

@DaffodilsAlready yes he was brilliant at romancing and reeling you in. He made me feel so special so quickly and so intensely I definitely overlooked red flags. There was no previous partners around though so I believed what he told me.