Fiancé wants to completly withdraw from DSD's

[45thighs123]

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone has experienced this. My fiance is so alienated from his first two kids aged 5 and 7 he now just wants to withdraw completely.

We live 250 mile away. Contact has been sporadic over the last three years and he left the ex 4.5 years ago he does have to move heaven and earth to get contact time . He just says he cannot deal with the high conflict anymore. We have a one year old together and he's amazing with his son and we have great family time . I'm at a loss , it's his choice so what am I meant to think ??!?? I'm so conflicted. I get on with DSD but to be honest I have not seen them very much. He pays maintenance and always has. He said when they are older he will be there. But I've never seen a parent emotionally withdraw before. And when I see him with our son , I always ask well could you leave him ?He says it's different circumstances, different partner and he's committed to this family life. He has deep regrets over having his first two so young and he didn't want the second to be blunt he said he knew by then the relationship was doomed and bringing another baby into it was a massive mistake. But he's still responsible. Should I just accept his decision and move on?

@Littledoodles90
This is what I meant by my comment of there are pros and cons to each scenario. I really feel for DSD when she’s trying to get head around our family dynamic and there are times she has really struggled even though she’s still so young. I do sometimes wonder if she’d have been happier in one household with one parent 🤷🏻‍♀️

@vivainsomnia

People act so shocked that we didn't fight harder Why WE though. It was never your battle to fight. If indeed issues started when you came in the picture, when it went to court and subsequently having to decide how best to proceed, would it have been better if you kept away?

In the end, if it really was a case of mum forcing them to lie against their wishes, there will come a time when they will be confident enough to make contact on their own and therefore come back to your OH. That's a different situation to that of the OP whose partner has failed to properly bond with his first children.

Going from 50/50, so a time when they were managing to coparent at least to an extend to nothing at all is quite extreme. All this because she has an issue with her ex moving on with another women after some time separated? It does beg to wonder whether there is more to the story.

Do you think in these situations it just involves the father? No it often goes way,way beyond that. When these vile women decide to target their ex, it usually involves them making sure every agency is informed to completely mess up his life. Social services get involved, and in then involves the current partner/ their kids ( incase they're at risk) usually the kids are visited in their schools so social services get the words from all the kids. The ex has to be CRB checked by CAFCASS, and anyone else involved in the kids lives. All these people saying go fight harder are 9 times out of 10 screeching LTB for the slightest thing a guy does on a thread started by his Wife/ partner/ GF on here. Total man haters half of them when they talk about their ex's. You just know what they're like to their ex partners or husbands and any new partner in their lives now. You see on the Step Parent boards, they're dripping with bitterness and saying their kids come first. They know full well that by intimidating their ex's they have control, and don't they just love that. It's not about the kids, it's because they're not relevant anymore in their ex's lives. They only want to see their kids.

@TotorosCatBus

The legal process is slow and a gamble but the odds of getting some contact at his home l,like millions of NRP have won,are good. There might be hoops at first like supervised contact because he's seen his children so little but I couldn't leave my kids with someone like that 100% of the time. If they are abusing towards their co-parent it's highly likely that they aren't the best parent towards the kids too. I find it shocking that he's never been down the legal route and is having to listen to threats about removal from the birth certificate. Poor kids with parents like that

That's mild! I deal with 8-12 cases a week, and trust me some of the vile nasty allegations and slurs concocted to keep complete control are just beyond belief. You would never dream that these were supposedly lovers/ partners/ spouses at one time. Half the times it's never about the kids, it's solely about control. The kids are just pawns in a very, very warped game they play.

@GertietheGherkin I believe that. It is so depressing.

And when I see him with our son , I always ask well could you leave him ?

Of course he could and would if he wanted to. Why do you think your son is somehow more special than his two daughters?

@Kendodd To me my some is special , he is MY son any mother would think that. I don't think that he is more special than his half sisters to people who don't have a realtionship with them.

The biggest difference is the bond between father and son and father and daughters. Which is down to time spent in each others company and the environment and circumstances. My fiance doesn't know his daughters, he has a connection with the elder to a degree , but with so little time spent together on the last three years they have grown apart. And his second daughter , there is no bond as he just doesn't know her.

With our son he's there everyday, has his own time with him every week . Does swimming , takes him out . And the home is a happy one.
These are all things that he didn't experience doing with his daughters. He would have loved to have done so. But the home at the time was very toxic and he left in a depression. And then every effort to get contact, get a schedule was met with disdain. The ex was much more interested in calling at 10pm at night to talk about her problems.

When these vile women decide to target their ex, it usually involves them making sure every agency is informed to completely mess up his life
But the point is that despite being a single mum, she manages to find the energy to do what she thinks is the right thing to support her children. Wrongly maybe, but she is fully invested. In the case of OP, he just can't be bothered to even start the process, which says it all.

These are all things that he didn't experience doing with his daughters. He would have loved to have done so. But the home at the time was very toxic and he left in a depression
But he had a few years together to bond with them. As you know, you bond with your children from the moment they are born by giving them as much physical and emotional time as you can. You feed them, bath them, cuddle them, play with them, comfort them. Is he trying to make you believe that she prevented him doing any of the above when they were together?

Or could it be that he was young and immature and couldn't be bothered to give the girls more than a few minutes of his time daily and left it all to her to do? That's it's because he realised that you don't get much back from what you don't invest in that he is now much more involved with your child?

It sounds like he is so quick to blame his ex because it make it much easier than facing the fact that it is his fault that he hasn't bonded with them, his fault that he wasn't attempted to fight for them legally, and now facing the fact that he just wants to take the route that will make his life easier.

OP, my friend is in a similar position to you. Her DP has had no contact with his first child for about 5 years now due to eventually giving up trying to work with a high-conflict ex who was constantly playing games, messing around with times of contact, cancelling last minute, or taking the child out when the dad was due to collect him.

In the end he just couldn't cope with it anymore, he has mental health issues of his own and just didn't have the tools to manage in that kind of high stress environment. Court isn't an option for him either, there is no way he could get his hands on that kind of money, even via other family. He has spoken to a lawyer and he did try to get the ex to mediation but she just ignored the letter and without going to court there is literally nothing he can do.

My friend struggles with it as she doesn't feel good about him having a child that he doesn't see, especially now they have a baby of their own, but now she has experienced some of what he's been fighting against (as he has tried to get back in touch a few times) I think she's just had to make peace with it as it really is such a difficult situation and there doesn't seem to be any way to overcome it if you can't afford court.

@GertietheGherkin

It's very easy for people to say they would have no respect for someone who ceased contact with their children. If you meet a guy who has done nothing more than moved on with his life, but has been repeatedly over and over made to jump through hoop after hoop to maintain contact with their kids, but has every single tiny pathetic obstacle thrown in his way to cause alienation of his children why should he not say enough is enough. Also the kids will probably hate him in future years, but it won't be the dads fault, it'll be a given that their mother will do everything in her power to bad mouth and cause hatred. Not all relationships are easy, and if it means new partners, their kids, their step siblings being dragged through crap why would anybody want to go through that? Seriously? If the kids are very, very young it means many, many years of having to deal with a problem ex. When contact is constantly disrupted it causes upset for the children, but a guy has got to keep putting up with that for years on end? Why? It's all very easy to make judgements, but only those in the situations know the truth, making judgements on someone's parenting skills when they aren't given the chance to parent is unfair. I'm sure all the ones judging the guy in this situation wouldn't put up with being treated as he has. It doesn't always end in children resenting the absent parent either, being around their resident parent usually helps them see the situation for themselves when they are older, they usually then choose to live with the absent parent to get away from their nastiness themselves. It's very easy to judge, but faced with the same situation many would do the same.

^^ This

We have been and are in a similar situation. We have no children together yet he does the Dad job brilliantly with my child. One of his children's mothers has lied and spouted poison for over 20 years and DH fought hard for many many years. The other mother moved away when the child was tiny and kept the truth hidden from the DD until she was 16 - her first passport arrived with a surname she wasnt expecting ffs! He tried to maintain contact, he tried to reinstate contact many times. Some women will always choose a child as their weapon of choice.
DH is not perfect but his biggest failing is making bad choices in women!

@Motherlandismylife

That is totally unreasonable to say 'what a shitty man' with the little info provided. I am sure there are Dads who are happy to have an easy out, however some Dads had had to go through such high conflict, accusations and being dragged through the courts only to have the Ex renegade on the agreement and then have to go back through that process again an again is sole destroying. My DH has had to deal with alienation and it is shocking the extents someone will go to brain wash their kids. Sadly these actions are not in the best interests of the children and they do not want the kids to maintain a relationship with the other parent and are actively stopping them doing so. Its not as simple as to just say keep fighting, I'm not saying they shouldn't but its really fucking hard and takes over your life, not to mention is really painful having no control , no access to try and have a relationship and the constant rejection is terribly hard.

Yes exactly this.

Even if parents do have the means to get the other to court, it is very difficult to actually get the resulting order enforced if the other parent refuses to comply. Add to that a child who has been manipulated into thinking poorly of you and as a result hates when they have to spend time with you, I can see why people just can't go on with it any longer.

@Motherlandismylife

A NRP cannot be "dragged through court" in regard to child contact. There is no scope to enforce a NRP to have contact with a child. The NRP is the one who takes it to court.

But that's nothing to do with the OP's partner and their situation. He hasn't taken it to court, dragged or otherwise.

I wouldn't have love or respect for a man capable of doing this. He's just choosing an easier life. Why does he think his dd's will want to know him when they are older if he can't be bothered to fight for them now? The only difference between your children is the sex and if he favours his son over his daughter's then he is a lowlife of epic proportions. As for not wanting his second dd, well he should have used protection if he didn't want another child.

The mum does have a lot to answer for, using her children as weapons is the lowest of the low.

I think some posters are totally missing the point. Going to court is not about taking action to benefit the nrp by establishing contact, although of course that's the ultimate end goal. It's about showing the child, then or later, tht they did try everything in their power to establish the relationship.

If you are a young adult who stopped having contact with their nrp, and start to questioned what happened. Do you think you'll feel the same when you hear that your parent didn't even bother to go to court, but instead managed to find money to bring up another child. As opposed to a father who tried and tried to go to court, until he had spent so much money going nowhere, he had really no more choices but to give up?

They might want to establish contact with the latter. They might actually turn against their mother. They might still build a strong bond as adults. The former though? Likely to question why they were so unimportant that they could just turn the page and just start a new family with not a care that he never saw them again. Likely to never think well of them, nor ever see them.

So basically we must bankrupt ourselves to be seen as acceptable and if my fiance is financing his son ... (he also pays maintenance regardless and hasn't decreased it since our son has been born ) then that means the household money should go into court fees getting a contact order the ex would never in a million years stick too. Again what good comes out of that,

Had he already abandoned his children when you got with him and decided to have a baby with him op?

Why bankrupting? Is it the initial court fee you're worried about, or the potential for it to escalate from there? Why not just start with the first step and go from there?

How much even is the court fee?
I assume a solicitor isn't essential and the court will allow him to represent himself.

As far as I can tell he walked out on his ex when they had a 2 year old and a baby?

What a prince.

I’m not surprised his ex is making things difficult for him in whatever way she can.

@minipie

As far as I can tell he walked out on his ex when they had a 2 year old and a baby?

What a prince.

I’m not surprised his ex is making things difficult for him in whatever way she can.

Yes, I'm starting to think OP and her partner are well matched.

So basically we must bankrupt ourselves to be seen as acceptable
I don't know. If you were suddenly prevented from seeing your DS, wouldn't you be prepared to go bankrupt to use the only mean that could give you a chance to have him back?

Why is it different for him because he is a dad? The reality is that they are just not important enough to him to fight for them, even if the chances are genuinely very low. You can't escape that fact however you and him try to twist it.

@minipie

As far as I can tell he walked out on his ex when they had a 2 year old and a baby?

What a prince.

I’m not surprised his ex is making things difficult for him in whatever way she can.

Pretty much, and he can't be arsed with them either and admits they were mistakes. Sounds like he is really bothered about trying to see them.