Guys that don’t fully step up for their kids (42M), (41F)

TLDR: my ex could do a lot more for his kids and it really put me off

I (41F) broke up with him (42M) after 2 years. We did not live together. A few reasons for the break up – messing with his anxiety meds, and lying about it and breaking promises (I asked him to stay on them as without them his mood is unstable and he’s snappy), and having wildly different parenting styles.

I have 2 kids (11F, 9M), solo single mum since the start (left my narc sociopath husband and I have PTSD from that relationship). Recent ex also has 2 kids, with different mums, is a part time dad (every other weekend) with a guilty parenting style.

Having had some time to reflect, I think the differing parenting styles were the biggest obstacle. But he just doesn’t see it. He loves his kids, they want for nothing financially, they have a nice every other weekend with him. But it doesn’t go much deeper than that. He doesn’t like to tell his kids off, get involved in their emotional lives, or make waves with their mothers (who are both lacking severely in my opinion). I get that he wants to keep the peace, but at the expense of your kids’ development and wellbeing??

For example, his daughter (11F) has only ever wanted to play football. He made excuses like he can only take her every other weekend so there’s no point. Her mother kept promising to find her a team but that never came to anything. The daughter is in the pub a LOT with her mother which I find wholly inappropriate for an 11 year old girl. He hates it too but says there’s nothing he can do. If it was my kid, I’d be picking her up from the pub and taking her home with me. Or speaking to the mother. Anyway, I made him take her football training on his weekends, which she has loved. But I had to push SO hard for her?

My daughter and his daughter were also struggling to get along, his daughter is quite insecure and clingy, tells little white lies for attention, which was annoying my daughter. I voiced this many times to try and get him to talk to his daughter, he wouldn’t. So my daughter suffered and built resentment, as did I. I feel his daughter would be more secure if he saw her more often 1-1, and I pushed hard for that too. He was so reluctant.

She is now in a proper team and very happy, gets that extra time with dad once a week, is making friends her own age, getting exercise, confidence, a sense of belonging- but he moans that it’s a 56 mile round trip! He hasn’t taken her to any clubs her whole life. I don’t even count the miles I do for my kids. But I’m happy that she is happy.

His son (6M) is very babied, lacks confidence, is scared of everything. He doesn’t do any extra curricular activities. Not allowed to play fight, not allowed to run. His mother cleans obsessively, so he knows about and worries about invisible germs. He is a covid kid and not socialised when he was small, he has struggled at school and with social skills like sharing and listening. I have tried to build his confidence, doing activities with all the kids together such as baking and crafts, to get him to join in and share and take turns. Encouraged him up the big playground slide, got him to hold bugs etc. ME, I did this, ex wasn’t bothered. His son improved so much by me doing this and encouraging him.

The kid struggles with his reading and is never ever helped with it by the ex or his own mother, I pushed and pushed ex to read to him, do bedtime stories instead of ipad in bed, HELP him, I even made a star chart, but I just got more and more excuses. ‘I could read to him more’, ‘his mum should be doing it’ … but she’s not. So step up??

The kid also thought that dinosaur bones fell from the sky. It broke me, is no one teaching this kid anything?

So this is just a snapshot, there’s so much more. I’ve read up on it a lot lately and seems like a lack of real parental care is a fairly common theme for break ups. I thought it was just me!

Perhaps where my own kids’ dad is mostly absent (and rightly so as highly abusive), I expect more from fathers that have the opportunity and means to be fully involved?

The stepparenting lines are so blurred.

In the end I think I just found his lack of deep emotional connection with his kids highly unattractive.

Would love to hear from others with similar experiences.

Thanks for reading x