Single Parents

If you were married...

What is your relationship with your XH like and what is their involvement with your DC(s)? Was your XH more/less involved when you were married? No particular reason for me asking, I'm just curious to see what the different situations are on this board.  

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Re: If you were married...

  • Still married, in limbo.

     He is more involved now than before. Not that he was not so involved before, but because he is on his own when he has the kids, he has to be more involved. We communicate a lot more now also. 

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  • We were never married but we lived together for 7 years.

    I spent one year single after he kicked us out, and then when I told him I was moving on, he freaked out and said he wanted his family back (read: not ME, his family).  It's 3 years since then now and our relationship is good.  He and my SO don't like each other, but ex and I are able to talk about whatever and we respect each other's lives.  He's got a gf and a new baby, and we've even babysat their baby overnight.  I'm happy with our relationship.

    He sucks at being involved though.  He works 5a-1p six to seven days a week, so he only wants to use his parenting time two overnights per month.  He never calls to talk to the kids, never asks to get them for dinner during the week or anything.  When we were together, DD was his pride and joy, and he was a good dad.  But since we split up, he sees his responsibility to the kids as purely financial, and that I am responsible for the parenting.  I had hoped he would be better at this, and he has the means to be better, but he continually chooses to not be involved.

    SS10 - SD9 - DD7 - DS5 - DS born 10/3/12
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  • Divorced since April 2010, seperated since January 2009. I left when DD was almost 6 month old. DB was not very involved before we left and he is even less involved now. He has not seen her since Christmas Eve and has not called to talk/ask about her since then either.

    I am sad that he is not involved, but I am glad to be rid of that headache.

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  • Volatile.

    Divorce finalized 3 weeks ago.  Since then, XH has tried to hold me in contempt of court for following the court order, gotten physical with me, trying to rip LO from my arms and screaming in my face while doing it, and I had to file a report for domestic assault and consider a no contact order and harrassment charges, and has continued to throw tantrums when he realizes I'm not playing his games and he's not always going to get his way.  (Holy run on sentence-sorry!)  He likes to threaten taking me back to court for all sorts of stuff.

    He's involved with LO for the horse & pony show of appearing to be father-of-the year.  He sees B 2 Saturday/Sundays a month and posts all sorts of pics and cheesy FB statuses during those times.  My friends find his antics laughable because they know he's a fraud and it's SO over the top it's sickening.  He likes to have attention to say the least.  As for actually being "involved" with LO?  He doesn't sit and play, interact, or help him discover and learn.  Instead, he likes to "do stuff" with him, activities that B gets nothing out of because he's too little - he just gets hauled along for the appearance.

    My lawyer thinks B is not his first priority, but has family pressures to take his visitation since it's newly finalized.  He likes to use B as a pawn in any way he can in order to get his way.  It will be interesting to see how the situation develops within the next year or two.  I hope the situation diffuses and we can be civil if I have to continue to deal with his abusive and ridiculous ways.

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  • You pretty much know my scenario already I think but I'll post anyways.

    For now, XH and I are civil.  He has supervised visitation twice a week for 1.5 hours at a time.  I work hard to keep it businesslike because he will take it too far, too in a hot minute if I would let him (hello trying to get me to go to the river with him and P, or when I asked him if he wanted anything else after he and P were done with a dinner that he brought over he said "just you" dry heaving followed immediately). 

    When we were married DS wasn't born yet but he was completely and totally uninvolved in my pregnancy to the point where he neglected me entirely.  I am not even sure he even felt P kick when I was PG.  He skipped several doctor's visits because he had been meeting someone for a Craiglist "casual encounter". 

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  • imageCPA04:

    for actually being "involved" with LO?  He doesn't sit and play, interact, or help him discover and learn.  Instead, he likes to "do stuff" with him, activities that B gets nothing out of because he's too little - he just gets hauled along for the appearance.

    Just another example of the "twin-like" behavior.  So similar it's scary.

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  • I filed for divorce when the girls were 3 months old. He was in/out for a few months after that.

    While we were together, I'd still do most of the work, on top of working full time. It was a burden for him to do much of anything. This is how I knew I could do everything on my own - because it would be less work than taking care of twins and a third "child".

    Now, he sees the girls maybe once or twice a month, whenever his mother is available. They stay with them at her house. So, basically she does the work now.  

    He never asks about the girls in between visits. He fails to see them on his weekly Wednesday visit, because working 40 hours a week AND seeing his children is just too much. We only text back & forth, and I speak mainly to his mother when I drop the girls off. Every now & then he'll send me a text asking how this baby is doing. You know, the one he has NOTHING to do with. My husband says he isn't over me, and probably will never be. He expected to be able to f* up and me put up with it. He never expected that I would do the exact opposite of that.  

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  • We were married and I left when DD had just turned 4 months old due to him being abusive towards me and DD.  We currently have no direct contact; there is a no contact order in place as a result of him being found guilty of violating the first OOP I had for me and DD and there is a second OOP in place for me and DD.

     Per the divorce decree, XH was awarded 2 hours of supervised visitation per week to be supervised by a court appointed agency.  He has seen DD for three visits since last September (once in June and twice in July).  He's currently taking me back to court and asking for joint custody, although I truly believe that he's only doing it to get back at me (he's a very revenge driven person) and drain me of my money via lawyer's fees (he represents himself so no fees for him). 

    When we were married XH wasn't really involved.  He would stay out/up until at least 4am every night and sleep until ~5pm the following day.  When I was on maternity leave she was 100% my responsibility.  When I went back to work XH didn't want to find a job and instead wanted to stay home with DD.  That lasted a whole week or so and then I had to put her in daycare because it was too stressful for him to deal with her.  Even with DD being in daycare it was still my responsiblity to take care of her when I got home from work and nurse her throughout the night. 

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  • imageDarthNBJenni:

    He never asks about the girls in between visits. He fails to see them on his weekly Wednesday visit, because working 40 hours a week AND seeing his children is just too much.

    Yep, I have one of those XH's too.

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  • I am going through a divorce now and STBXH is involved. He doesn't see A that much but he still sees her. We were married for 7 years and have been together for 14 :( He is not abusive and is a responsible parent and wants to be a part of A's life. (she's 19 months old) This is all very new to me as we've only been separated since June.

    Julie

    DD Anna Rose 1-30-10

  • Divorce won't be finalized until the end of the year, but we're pretty civilized.  He's a great dad, and is very invovled in DD's life.  We just attended her Kindergarten open house together.  We went through some rough sports in the past 1/2 year, but think we'll be able to co-parent effectively and stay friendly. 
  • My ex-husband whereabouts are unknown, which is awesome for me.  I haven't seen him in the flesh since December 1999 when I kicked him out of the house for good.  I went 8 years without speaking to him and then he contacted me claiming he changed and wanted me back.  Now mind you this man physcially, mentally, and verbally abused me.  We met in 1994, got married in 1995, and divorced (officially) in 2000.  He also married someone else some years after we got divorced and she had kicked him out too.

    He has never laid eyes on our 2nd daughter because I was pregnant at the time I threw him out.  (I hid my pregnancy during the divorce.)  Our eldest daughter refuses to talk to him because she was old enough to remember how he treated me.  I couldn't believe he thought I would even entertain the idea of taking him back.  Of course he went on and on about how he found God and changed....yeah right.  I knew exactly what buttons to push and it wasn't long before the real him showed it's ugly face.  That was back in 2008 and I haven't spoken to him since.

    His check gets garnished when he's sober enough (he's a drug addict) to work.  But the court ordered amount is about two trips to McDonalds for myself and my kids....seriously.  Anyway, suffice to say he and I will never co-parent.  And if he sobers up and becomes a repsonible adult maybe at some point he would be in his children's lives.  He'll have to go through the court for that  though because he's already proven to me he can't be trusted no matter what he says. 

    Edited to add:  My divorce decree grants me full legal and physical custody of my eldest daughter.  He can only have court-supervised visitation.  Big thanks to the Domestic Violence agency in Hawaii for getting me all of that!  My second daughter has a big blank next to "father's name" on her birth certificate.  And of course she is not listed in the divorce decree because I pretended not to be pregnant during the divorce proceedings.  However, my mom messed up my plan.  Due to her, my daughter's birth certificate says "Needs to be revised" because she turned in the birth certificate application at the hospital and answered "yes" that I had been married in the last 365 days.  I was pissed!  They came up to my hospital room and said that I needed to put my husband's name on the birth certificate and I flat out refused.  I told the woman "If you can figure out his name, you can put it on there."  I'm guessing she didn't. Wink

  • imageDarthNBJenni:

    I filed for divorce when the girls were 3 months old. He was in/out for a few months after that.

    While we were together, I'd still do most of the work, on top of working full time. It was a burden for him to do much of anything. This is how I knew I could do everything on my own - because it would be less work than taking care of twins and a third "child".

    Now, he sees the girls maybe once or twice a month, whenever his mother is available. They stay with them at her house. So, basically she does the work now.  

    He never asks about the girls in between visits. He fails to see them on his weekly Wednesday visit, because working 40 hours a week AND seeing his children is just too much. We only text back & forth, and I speak mainly to his mother when I drop the girls off. Every now & then he'll send me a text asking how this baby is doing. You know, the one he has NOTHING to do with. My husband says he isn't over me, and probably will never be. He expected to be able to f* up and me put up with it. He never expected that I would do the exact opposite of that.  

    Life is SO much easier without a man child to deal with!

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  • Still Married.... but separated since May. H always was involved when it came to her care (but only her care, not laundry, dishes, etc.) He is still involved, but he visits her at my house a few times a week, rarely takes her anywhere, and has never had her over night because he lives with his mother who is crazy, and we don't want B around her much.... He watches her when I have to work on weekends or nights, at my house. I wonder what it will be like if and when (leaning very hard towards when....) I tell him for sure I don't want to be with him... right now he still wants to be with me and B, but is doing nothing to show me that.... but that's a whole different story! I wonder if he will back off and be less involved with B when that happens. I hope not.
  • Xh and I have been divorced since dd was 2- she's 5 now. While we were married he was minimally involved but because he had to be. Such as picking her up from daycare etc but he didn't really interact much. When we first split he appeared to be making an effort- but not for the right reasons. As time has gone on he has become less and less involved. He's entitled to about 80-90 hrs per month and he takes about 4-7hrs. He does nothing fun with her and doesn't interact with her. She will even tell him that she doesn't want to do such and such but it doesn't matter. A big change has been since dd is old enough to "get"it. He sees that he has no relationship with him- she tells him she doesn't want to go, rushes off the phone, avoids questions etc. That would make some dads wake up and work harder. For him, it made him run farther away- like he no longer calls etc. As for getting along- we get along well when we have to but only because I have no expectations from him so I don't have to get mad/upset! Time has def helped things settle down.
    Kirsten DD 4-7-06
  • We've been legally separated for 11 months, and can file for divorce in Oct.  Hope to have that finalized by year's end.  He sees them less since he now lives 500 miles away for his job.  He comes for 1.5 days every 6 weeks on average.   We have a good co-parenting relationship for the most part.  I am a bit disappointed in him since the last time I communicated was Saturday night in the middle of the hurricane that we were under tornado warnings and there were two confirmed tornados and he hasn't called or texted since to see how we are.  I'd normally call at the kids bedtime so they could talk to him but last night I didn't and tonight we were out late.

    J1 1.19.07
    J2 11.17.08
  • I'm currently separated and in the process of divorce.  He was very involved in my life and his little nephews' lives (they are toddlers). We didn't have children, but I always told him he'd be a great dad someday based on his relationship with his nephews.

    During the last few months of our marriage, he freaked out about life and basically didn't want the house, the wife, kids. He said that lifestyle is not for him and he wants to discover what he wants in life (he's 40 years old and you'd think he'd know by now). Okay, whatever.

    We became separated and I discovered I was 2 months pregnant. He and I tried to get pregnant for 3 years when we were married. This was a planned pregnancy. 

    Well, he immediately wanted an abortion. I got emails, phone calls about it and he's sworn he doesn't want anything to do with the baby. He's said the baby and I will be on our own. He's even suggested the baby is not his and he wants a paternity test, which of course is not true. He just wants to make things harder and more complicated for me.

     I'm not sure if he'll change his mind later. This is will be his first child, his son.

     Either way, I'm prepared to raise our child on my own. 

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