Now I’m not saying this is the case for ALL men, because obviously there are always man exceptions. But just that in my experience, every single time I heard from a man “my ex wife/ex girlfriend is alienating me from the kids” or “she took the kids away from me and it’s not my fault, I want so desperately to see them!” had a VERY different side of the story. They have all blamed the woman for their lack of involvement and abandonment of their kids, painting her as the evil narcissist who victimized him and wanted to turn the kids against him.
In all cases I’ve heard, on the other side, either the man was lying or there have been extremely valid reasons for why he’s not in the kids’ lives. Some of the men just no longer want the responsibility of caring for young children or find their pregnant/post-partum wife no longer sexy, so they abandoned their family and left the responsibility solely on the woman. Some of the men have cheated on her, become abusive (physically or verbally), or were very minimally involved in supporting the kids/family. In one case (a distant cousin of mine), he claimed that his evil ex victimized him by alienating the kids…and it turned out that he actually just left her, moved to a different country, and found a new girlfriend🙄He claimed he was “trying so hard” to be in the kids’ lives, meanwhile he was doing nothing but having a blast with his new girlfriend (who who leached off of financially while he was unemployed), going on fun vacations, and barely even making any effort to be in their lives.
That’s why I will ALWAYS see it as a massive red flag when a man is absent in his kids’ lives but blames the woman for “alienating” him from them. While there may be some exceptions, in the majority of cases he’s probably full of sh*t and making up excuses for being a deadbeat father. And I will NEVER date a man who has some sob story excuse for why he’s not in his children’s lives.
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In general I don’t trust men who blame their exes for everything that ended the relationship and have a LONG string of exes. The common denominator is him. I bet all those women had similar issues with him.
Because you’re a smart lady!
It’s the same principle for when men call their exes crazy. It’s either extreme projection or he made her that way with his deplorable behavior.
It’s a lie pretty much 100% of the time.
Taking care of the kids is exhausting. A guy can count on his new girlfriend/wife to do the heavy lifting, but women can’t really count on her new dude to do all that.
Nearly every woman I know in this situation is burned out and desperate for he ex to pick up the kids. It’s heartbreaking when the kids are looking out the window waiting for Dad’s car, before they realize that he’s flaking on them again.
I know from personal experience that these same dads will tell me their ex-wives won’t let them see the kids.
My husband got upset with me because our son would only come to me if he needed anything. Somehow it was my fault.
Not once did it register with my husband that our son was terrified of him because of his verbal abuse and screaming about everything. Why would a toddler ask such a scary person for help.
Call them out. Ask them when their court date is. Because surely that’s the obvious step for someone who is desperate to see their kids.
I think there are women who don’t want the dad to spend time with the kids but the ones I have known like this have a good reason. And it’s usually that dad has done no parenting when they were together and she can’t trust him to keep the kids safe. So essentially a man child who needs supervision.
We are only going to change this ridiculous narrative that men have by calling them out and expecting more from them as a society
Agree.
I don’t trust men who have children, but are not involved in the day to days tasks of raising their children. Even if they aren’t blaming the ex.
Not taking care of and being a part of your kids lives is not attractive.
My ex husband tells everyone i “turned the kids against” him.
I said to his face I had no need to do so, because he was so good at it already.
Our kids literally testified against him in court and he still “doesn’t understand what happened”.
They absolutely weren’t close before we got divorced. The way he treated our kids was at least 85 percent of the reason we got divorced!
Like, our kids are adults now. They have cell phones, email addresses, they could literally walk to his house if they wanted to, he only lives a few blocks away! I literally couldn’t prevent them from contacting him if I wanted to, and why would I want to? If he was as good as dad as he claims, I’d have no reason to prevent it. Nor would I be able to, if they really wanted to reach out to him.
Not to mention that he hasnt contacted either of them since he moved out, 9 years ago. He has contacted me, to complain. But not them. We even ran into him at the doctor office and he didnt acknowledge his son sitting beside me.
Sorry this turned into a rant but it gets to me sometimes.
Men that actually care wouldn’t stand for alienation. You mean to tell me someone is keeping your most loved person in the world away from you and you’re just gonna roll over and take it? My friend’s baby momma tried that once and he immediately went through the courts to get primary custody once he detected something was off. Men that complain that courts too often favor women either don’t actually know about the child custody court system or don’t establish themselves as responsible parents in the eyes of the courts.
If a man wants a relationship with his kids he will have one, period. The courts are mostly all adopting 50/50 now
Me either. Especially when they say things like their Ex used the courts or whatever but then you see them a ok with breaking the law to do other things.
So you’ll ignore the law to get high but not tosee your kids? make it make sense
Even 1 rant about a “crazy ex” and I’m out. I see that as simply a man telling me that he can’t take accountability for whatever his side was, therefore making himself automatically someone I have no interest in. I have no time for men who don’t understand that their behavior was part of the outcome too. it’s so silly when they try to paint themselves as some perfect saint who was taken advantage of by some crazy woman, like come on buddy how stupid do you think I am?
I don’t trust men who complain about anything in a patriarchy.
My hypothesis: To tell one from the other, you need to ask them to tell you something about their kids. An involved dad will be able to tell you quite a lot – which relatives they look like, what their personality and interests are, or even just how he experinced the pregnancy and birth. Most (though admittedly not all) uninvolved dads won’t be able to answer these questions very convincingly.
One of my in laws likes to say that his ex keeps their daughter away from him and all that. The thing that really gets me though is him insisting that when she’s older and her mom doesn’t control her anymore she’ll want to have a relationship with him or some such nonsense like that. Like, no the hell she won’t.
Little girls remember when their fathers abandon them. Little girls remember all the people and things their dads picked over them. She’s not going to turn 18 and miraculously start calling him Dad when he’s been “first name” since she was old enough to talk. Hell, when she’s old enough to have a real adult conversation my money is going to be on it being about “you ran away, you chose drugs, you picked a whole new family over me. Why would I even want to know you?”
I know someone who had a kid at a young age with an ex who turned out to be somewhat unstable and not nearly as attentive as she should be to their daughter. Despite this, he worked very hard at a miserable job so he could overpay his child support, and takes care of her regularly and is an amazing father.
I can say I know one father totally blames his ex and he is entirely 100% at fault. However, I do have another friends whose baby mother did alienate their child from him. He was not able to see her and had very little recourse on the matter because the child was 13. He waited though and kept the door open and luckily she has walked back through.
There is no evidence that “parental alienation” is anywhere even remotely near a big enough issue to assume that’s what’s always or even usually happening in these situations… In fact, the man who coined that term is an abusive POS and the idea of “parental alienation” has resulted in family courts perpetuating the abuse of women and children in the name of the male ego. It’s disgusting.
90% of custody agreements are made outside of the courtroom, and when custody cases do go before a judge men actually have a BETTER chance of getting full custody. These men overwhelmingly do not ask for or genuinely want primary or even equal custody. That is why they don’t have it.
My child’s biological father tells everyone that I “keep them away from him.” I told him 7 years ago that if he wanted to see our child he would need to file for a parenting plan. Why? I was the primary caregiver- he NEVER agreed to have them or wanted to have them alone, if I was at work they were with my parents- and he was relentlessly stalking me (I had to move 3 times so that he’d stop driving past my house) and told me that the next time he picked our child up he would leave the state and I’d never see them again.
Did he go to the courthouse the next day and file? Nope! He just kept stalking me, kept harassing me (about me, not our child,) and still to this day has never filed or made any actual attempt to see them. This is the kind of dude who’s telling stories like the one you’re bringing up in this post.
99% of the time in the US if he was a good father who deserved custody of his children and he actually asked for and wanted it, he’d have it.