Do your ex's bother with the kids?

[RaspberryK]

My ex has never met my son. Not my choice. I tried and that's all I could do. His loss because my son is wonderful xx

Ditto. I've asked him numerous times if he wants to meet her. Told him not to reply straight away, to take some time and think. "I don't need any time - I don't want to."

How do they sleep at night? ! Xx

 

[kosh]

to all of you
I'm not single but my relationship is very shaky at the moment and I am very concerned re what will happen
can I ask you ladies - how do your children cope with their dads not being there?

 

[ClairAye]

to all of you
I'm not single but my relationship is very shaky at the moment and I am very concerned re what will happen
can I ask you ladies - how do your children cope with their dads not being there?

I'm sorry you are having troubles

My daughter knows no different, we haven't lived with their dad since she was 2 or 3 weeks old and she hasn't seen him since she was 9 months old, even before he walked out he hardly held her or payed attention to her. My son wasn't quite 2.5 and was really upset at the start, he got up one night at 3am and sat at the top of the stairs crying his eyes out and shouting for his dad. It slowly got better and now he doesn't recognize him. If he sees photos of himself and his dad in his baby book or something (not that he has in a while) he sometimes says 'dad' but I think he just knows the figure of a dad? There is a photo of him in my parent's sitting room (as it's a photo of my dad on parade with my ex in the background) and DS, when asks, just says it's a man.

Now he tells me he doesn't want a dad, just mum It was really hard to begin with but it has gotten better. I just don't know how it will be in the future.

P.S - My ex has been absent for 10 months, so I guess it's easier for my kids not having a dad at all, compared to having a dad who pops in and out whenever he likes.

 

[modified]

P.S - My ex has been absent for 10 months, so I guess it's easier for my kids not having a dad at all, compared to having a dad who pops in and out whenever he likes.

This is what I told my husband the last time I asked him if he wanted to meet her - if he says no, I will not ask again and he must mean it. He can't come waltzing into her life a year, 2, 3, 4 years down the line and expect that to be okay. I will be fully honest with my daughter about her dad but I won't have him coming in and turning her world upside down.

My heart breaks for her. I didn't meet my dad until I was 19. I grew up so sad about the fact, despite knowing what a horrible man my father was/is, and was consumed with shame and despair about what was so wrong with me that my own father couldn't love me. My heart breaks.

 

[RaspberryK]

DS is coping pretty well really, he did wet the bed when dh left for a bit and sometimes he has a meltdown about wanting daddy but mostly just when he's tired.
It'd help if we had set days and times he saw him imo.
Xx

 

[baileybubs]

My ds was too young to know any different as he was only a few weeks old. My dd barely noticed as well though to be honest, she was 18 months old when he left and was 21 months old the last time she saw him. She never said dadda so never learnt to ask for him so I don't really know if she notices but she certainly doesn't miss him. My own dad is a big part of her life and my new BF sees her every weekend who she calls by his name, he is like a father to my kids now so perhaps it might be more noticeable to them if there was no prmoninent male figures in their lives.

I think kids are a lot more resilient than we give them credit for.

But I agree with other pp's that I will not have him in and out of their lives. If he decides he wants to make an effort then he has to be consistent or not at all. But to be honest it's not looking likely that he'll want to see them any time soon anyway coz he hasn't bothered asking for months now.

Modified I'm sorry for how bad you are feeling about it, I know I worry about my kids thinking they weren't good enough for their father but we know that's not the case. And it wasn't for you and your father. These men just cannot be responsible adults and cannot think for one second about how their actions affect their children.

 

[modified]

Oh, I definitely don't feel that way now! I haven't for a long time. Especially after finally meeting him and it being finalised that my mum was honest and he is not a nice person. It was when I was younger, pre-teen to mid-teens I'd say.

 

[babyv13]

my DD was 10 months when i split with FOB and he has her mon-thurs and i have her thurs-mon (so pretty much half and half). i'm really glad he sees her so much. he doesn't have a new partner yet that i know of but i don't think that will affect how much he sees DD.

HOWEVER. he also has an almost 5 year old daughter that he has never met, he's never been interested in meeting her and has never even called her by her name it's awful. the juxtaposition between how he is with that DD and our DD is crazy. i tried to push contact with him and his daughter at first, i thought he was horrible for not being interested but i couldn't force him to do it. i thought that after our DD was born he would feel differently and want to meet his other daughter, i asked him 'does it not make you think about her?' and he said 'no, it makes me think of her even less now that i have a real daughter' i am actually so ashamed every day that i was with someone like that, especially reading a few of the comments here where people have said they don't understand how women can be with men who leave their children - i was one of those women and i don't understand why and i hate myself for it! writing it down makes it even worse!

this was one of the many reasons i didn't want to be with him to be honest, but i'm not sure why it took so long for me to realise it and do something about it i'm sure your FOBs' (clairaye, raspberry k, baileybubs, not sure who else!) new partners will realise eventually. it's difficult to have any respect for someone who does things like that.

 

[modified]

That's horrendous!! What a disgusting man! How that poor girl will feel in the future

 

[baileybubs]

Oh my gosh it makes me wonder how they process things, how is his other daughter not a real daughter? How awful! But that's how I worry my ex will feel towards my kids if (more like when) he has more.

And babyv you aren't the only one, it's hard to see it when you are in a relationship and love someone. I've done it too. My ex husband had a son he didn't see when we met. He isn't the father of my kids but I speak to the girl he dated after we divorced (we have a unique bond in that we know what each other went through so strangely we are good friends) and she had twins to him, he never saw them ever. He then remarried and had 2 more kids, I then found out he got someone pregnant when we were married (taking the total up to 6 kids) and is now divorced from the second wife. I saw him recently and he was telling me how he'd walk over coals to see his girl and boy (from the previous marriage) but no mention of the twins or the son he had before he even met me (and apparently he denies even having the other boy with his one night stand when we were married). There are some awful people in the world!

 

[RaspberryK]

Shocking behaviour from all!
Well he said he'd sort out properly the days and times to have ds and he said but his gf has arranged all weekend every weekend to be with him now so it's difficult. I've said that's tough, it isn't good enough so he needs to spend a day every weekend with ds in particular if he can't do the whole weekend every other week.
The cheek of them!
Xx

 

[ClairAye]

Really!? His children come before his girlfriend. Shocking behavior.

 

[baileybubs]

It is awful raspberry, my ex does the same and it used to annoy me but I just ignore it all now. People keep telling me that he'll be the one who regrets it later on. I'm not sure if that's true but I have received the odd drunk message from him telling me he's sorry he's been a rubbish father and he'll try harder etc. He never does then try harder but somewhere deep down he knows he's doing wrong.

 

[RaspberryK]

He was supposed to speak with her to arrange seeing her around the kids and either he didn't bother or she talked him into seeing her all weekend anyway. And she's a mum of a 3/4 year old too ... it's hard to believe that she'd be like this but from what I can tell she does little of the childcare anyway.
Xx

 

[mzhwd]

Wow. I'm currently expecting and my husband whom I've been estranged from since finding out I was pregnant 3 months ago, says he wants to be apart of the kids life, but no longer married to me. I'm completely heart broken and blindsided by all of this. We're still pretty young both of us are 27 years old and this is our first child. I wish we could work it out, but honestly any man who leaves his pregnant wife idk if I can be with. I'm so lost in what to do and sad that this situation has me contemplating abortion.

 

[RaspberryK]

I'm sorry you're going through that xx

 

[mzhwd]

Thanks RaspberryK. Hopefully it'll get better.

I'm sorry you're going through that xx

 

[RaspberryK]

It will xx

 

[tallybee]

What a bunch of horrible losers. I am so sorry to read that you ladies and your lovely LOs are being treated so badly by these so called men! It makes me so angry.

My daughter is 9 and her so called father has not seen her since 2010. He made a horrible mess of things, with let downs and lies and no shows leading to no contact till he would get in touch making demands and being vile. I eventually told him no more. He has popped up a few times since making threats and trying to intimidate me but DD remembers and doesn't want to see him anyway.

On a positive note we met up with some of DD's half siblings, the other mum brought them to Scotland for a visit and it was fab. Just goes to show we don't need that arsehole to do right by our kids x

 

[baileybubs]

That's so true tallyb, my kids are perfectly happy without their useless father around. I have a feeling my ex will be very much like yours, my two are only little and it's already been 6 months since he saw them. He's got in contact this week saying he can't bare not seeing them any more and tried telling me he wanted them Wednesday and Thursday this week, well I work and they are in nursery so I said no, he has to have them on a day I'm not working, so if he lets us down (which I have no doubt he will) then at least I won't have to call in sick for work. So he's said he can't make it any other day but I'm not rearranging to suit him coz I gave him chance to choose his day months ago and he kept cancelling and I had no choice but to put them in nursery.

How do you guys cope if and when your exes try to see them? Do you let them choose when? He makes me feel like the bad guy and like I'm stopping him seeing them but I feel that he can't just come along after 6 months of not bothering and decide he wants to see them on a day they go to nursery.