Step dad won't see kids

[beec]

I really need some serious advice on this please.

I was with a man for 5 years but had two children previous, one of the being just 1 years old so he has raised her and she has grown to call him daddy, my other daughter is 12 and was always so happy to have a daddy.

We split 6 months ago and it’s been a bit scetchy but he said he wanted to contribute each week which he has been but the last 3 weeks I have asked for it. The last two weeks has been like getting blood out of a stone to call or see them. He says he is too busy with work (I do work also) but he can’t see them as too busy but doesn’t even have the time to call. But when I do call him he also tells me how he has been snowboarding and doing photos shoots as he is on the rise to stardom after doing some Facebook video. I’m not in the slightest, jealous or bitter, I just feel for my kids. He’s told me I need to back off and he will see them when he can but it’s been a week now with no phone call. I’m not going to ask for the money any more and I know he either wants me to snap and say “you can’t see them any more” so he can point the finger at me which I’m not playing into or he wants to slowly, slowly disconnect and get on with his own life. I feel devastated for my kids but also I’m very close with his family, have known some of them years before him and they want me and the girls at family gatherings so how will that work in the future? The family are not happy with home but let’s face it, bloods thicker than water and I don’t except them to take sides. They are being decent people and wants the girls still in the family. What’s the best way around this. I want to call him a scum bag but I won’t rise to it, please please has anyone got any advice?

I totally agree with you op Hope you and your dc have a lovely time.

Have you seen the statistics or marriage (legal commitment) only a small minority and better still religious minority take marriage for all that it is meant to be. The rest it’s just a day to be a bride and have a big party. As iv said and I think the point is being missed here. If you go out of your way to this hero of a father figure, the what kind of man (human) are you to dump some kids, one of them being a baby when you met them because you don’t want to be a responsible, decent person any more. As I said, I just came here to see what others thought but have taken it heavily onboard that iv been naive but how could I have stopped someone who wanted to be the dad he was for all those 5 years without causing problems that might have not needed to have been caused? There’s always what if’s isn’t there

It's not a small minority and its definitely not only religious people that take marriage seriously. I wouldn't be so rude about it if I were you, since you don't actually know anything about it

is he in the wrong? Yes, of course. But so are you.

I think there is a larger population that don’t take marriage as seriously as you think. It’s easy to get out of, just as much as being in a long term relationship, it’s a easy thing called divorce. A legal document has nothing to do with putting your trust into a child. And what exactly have i don’t wrong?

There’s always one

I was married, he used it as a means of control, to batter the shit out of me, rape me and intimidate me. He cheated relentlessly and did as he pleased all the while drumming it into me that I was his wife, his property.
DP and I have been together 6 years, own our own home, and are more than committed to our children (DS1 is from my marriage), which is all written down in a letter at a solicitors office, that if I die first he keeps all 3 kids together. We have no desire to marry as both of us have had bad marriages and are well aware it’s a lot more than a piece of paper and a ring that makes a strong relationship.

Why is OP getting such a hard time? Not one of us knows what’s coming in the future, bio parents can be just as shit as step parents, and a ring makes fuck all difference in the event of an acrimonious split beyond making it harder to get away. If anyone thinks being married is the way to get an ex to step up and take responsibility they’ve clearly never met mine.

I think you need to completely cut contact. Even if he carries on seeing them now as soon as he has a new girlfriend and definitely his own biological children the contact will stop if he's already limiting it now.

I'm sorry this has happened to you and have sympathy for you and your children but I have to disagree that having children and taking them on is the same commitment. I'm a mother and a stepmother, have been a stepmother almost 10 years and a mother 5. I adore and love my stepson but its not close to the way I love my own children. But..my stepson has a mother in the picture so I have always been 'stepmum'. Whilst I disagree with you about it being the same I agree what he's done is rubbish. My cousin has a stepson and also a son with his ex. He has now just had a baby with his now gf. His biological son with his ex actually lives with him full time now and he has his stepson regularly. He doesn't pay any money to ex for stepson (and so he shouldn't IMO) but he makes the effort to keep a relationship because he wants to and has always been this boys dad. Unfortunately not all men are.like this

Thank you ladies. And I totally agree, the love you have for your own bio kid is different but I just think you shouldn’t go out of your way for kids the way he did if your just going to drop them the way he has?

He has done this for me to snap and say you can’t see them any more so that he can point the finger at me and say I stopped him because this all starter that other day when I said he’s not “fathering them” you can’t call yourself a dad and FaceTime them once a week. I told him you either do it properly or don’t do it at all and that’s as close as he got as he could get to go and run and tell everyone that iv said he can’t see them because he knows his family and some friends would look down on him for walking away.

I agree I will stop contact now. It really is not about the money but he didn’t pay anything, he has for 6 months now which is a obviously sign and he’s gone for calling them and seeing them in the week to nothing.

I won’t let it happen to them again xx

It's only been 2 weeks abd he's not their dad I think you are getting to the angry stage did he leave you?

I know for the children 5 years is a long time especially the youngest who has never known any different but to him an adult 5 years isn't that long or at least it isn't to me

TBF I’m inclined to agree that marriage wouldn’t have made a difference. My DD was 3 when I my Ex and had no contact from her father since birth. We got engaged and had a DS of our own too... and although he played a fatherly role to her my DD knew he wasn’t her dad.
When we split he made it abundantly clear he was only going to see his DS and not my DD as she “wasn’t his problem now”. This is after raising her for 5 years and her adoring him. She was and still is a very sweet, quiet little girl and she was greatly affected by him leaving us.
However she only lost her “his name” and psychologically to her it doesn’t seem as bad as losing a “daddy”. It’s not just a word to children, it has huge value to them just like the word “mummy” as it’s in all their books and tv shows etc.
Letting a child call someone mummy or daddy is a dangerous idea because non-biological parents by nature are not as committed to that child as the parent who bore them.
Your ex is out of order for forcing his role and making you believe it. But I think you need to stop believing the notion that he has any obligation to. He’ll move on and so will you and your children.
It’s a crap situation but also a learning experience that next time you date you won’t let someone have that extreme involvement with your children - you went against your instincts by the sounds of it, he pushed when you didn’t want him to. Trust yourself and protect your children xx

OP, this will sound awful, but sadly, lots of men walk away from the DC after a relationship ends irrespective of whether they are biological DC or not. Lots of men buy into the package, partner and DC/ family life. When that’s over, in my experience they just pick up a new DP and take on their DC as their own.

Why didn't you arrange for him to legally adopt them?

Is this to do with him still wanting the relationship or something?

The sad fact of life is that biological fathers (and mothers sometimes) bugger off, so it would be much easier for someone who played the role of dad to do so, as they have no obligation to retain a relationship with the child.

I think that sadly whether a child is bio or step many father's lose interest when their interest in the mother wanes.

Yes in any case be it a father or mother, you have got to be a really crappy person to build a child up to only walk out when it doesn’t suit you anymore. He said often he wanted to adopt them and I said if it’s something you are really serious about then you will start the process. I wouldn’t of wanted him to have adopted them and then legally force him to see the kids because I know he wouldn’t be happy with them and no child deserves to feel like they are a pest. Guess I just wanted to come somewhere where maybe others had been through the same situation?

You let your children call your boyfriend daddy. Dont do that.

People mentioned marriage because it shows commitment. He didnt show commitment. Yet he was treated like he had because you think he went above and beyond. I dont think he did go above and beyond. I think you have low expectations of a father, which is understandable since their actual father is absolutely useless.

Seriously though go back to the cms. Self employed doesnt mean he doesn't get to pay. It, at the very least, will make him have to face his shitness.

My dad wasn’t my sisters dad and you wouldn’t know the difference. He looked after her and my mum from when she was one. It’s bullshit that just because he’s a man and they’re not his biological children all men would just walk away. My parents have been separated for five years and he’s stil there for her.
This man is jeeping himself in their lives but wants to be child-free. He will see them when it suits him and he doesn’t pay because he doesn’t have to. Biological fathers try and get out of paying, why pay if you don’t have to. He’ll still get to see them when it suits him too.

It’s bullshit that just because he’s a man and they’re not his biological children all men would just walk away

Noone said that. Or anything like it.

I wouldn't see my stepdaughter again if DP and I broke up.

It really really isn't the same thing choosing to have a biological child and choosing to be in a relationship with someone who just happens to have a child(/children). He has absolutely no obligation to you or your DC any more

Frankly, you were an idiot to let someone else be called Dad. You should've put a stop to that and now it's on you that your DC are upset your ex bf (because let's face it that's all he is) hasn't seen them.

Though as others have said, it really hasn't even been that long since he saw them so maybe he is busy with work. Give the guy a break.

Also of course he was there for your DC whilst he was with you. It doesn't sound like he was being a "hero", just a guy who genuinely cared about his gf's kids and now the relationship is over is possibly compartmentalising as any normal person would do.

Having been a child who was brought up believing someone was my dad when they weren’t, I would strongly advise against ever doing that to a child. Both my parents died by the time I was 13 and it was left to someone else to tell me the truth. (Though I had already worked it out). I have no clue who my real dad is.

Even if he had adopted them, you couldn’t force him to see them. How many bio fathers have been forced to see their kids? But if he was willing to go through the adoption process, I’d have been more inclined to believe he was in it for the long haul.

Anyone who “forces” his own family to call him daddy in front of the kids would have me questioning their integrity and motives.

The point that posters are making isn't that if he married you and adopted them he wouldn't have left and disappeared from the children's lives the point they are making is that by not marrying you and adopting them he was just talk.
The relationship you describe isn't hero status either, just decent regard for his girlfriend's children.

I thibk he might be struggling with the brake up. He's talking about all things he's been doing thinking you will bothered trying to get a reaction from you.

You really should not be having chats like that as this stage of the brake up.

Your best of leaving him to it. If he gets intouch fair does but if he dowent leave him to it.

I understand your hurt my ex ignored his bio kids for months on end it hurts but step parents or bio parents that don't want to be involved won't be involved