Good dads are just people. We all hit a point where the only sane choice is to leave. I'd like to live in a world where it was more black and white. But it isn't.

We all deserve happiness.

I do believe it can happen.

DUPE

Yes they can with an EXTREME amount of effort and badly written law to back them, such as in my country. A lack of enough money to fight it in court as well as the excessively long time to be heard if you had the money.

My mother did this to my father when we were younger. She made it so difficult for him to see us that he eventually gave up trying.

The Kool-Aid she fed us was potent and convincing, so we totally bought into her "he abandoned you" bullshit. It wasn't until I was in college that he began writing to me and we slowly began to rebuild our relationship, but it certainly had fits and starts until I was married and had a child.

Medusa was hell bent on keeping my DH out of the skids' lives when she had custody. As most of you know, she did everything she could think of to limit his access, including hiding the skids and lying to the Court. It took more than a few trips to Family Court (and a new judge on the case) for the Court to finally see what was going on.

My DH never entertained walking away, but I certainly would have understood if he did and waited until the skids were older.

Some women will stop at nothing....

I am on the fence on this….

DH would NEVER abandon SS. But he did back off when SS was about 11ish because SS was getting sick and having stomach attacks due to the fighting over him, by BM and DH. And by backing off, I mean he quit MAKING SS come over NO MATTER WHAT, for visitation. He would only call a few times a week and it was just to say Hi, how are you and how is your week going. He stopped talking/fighting with BM over everything. It took about 2-3 months of this and SS decided on his own to start back up visitation for the normal days since he was seeing that DH and BM were not putting him in the middle all the time.

DH stopped most communication with BM and that helped tremendously. And it took pressure off of SS.

Yes. It goes both ways of course. But things happen and sometimes one parent is so disordered that they are truly willing to destroy their child rather than let them have a relationship with anyone else. Sometimes it's kinder to step away for a while.

DH showed up for every visitation. Flew across country to have door slammed in his face and have local police told him there was nothing they could do about her withholding - it was a civil matter and go file contempt charges. There was no forcing the kid to go.

When he was deployed he used his calls home to try to talk to SD. BM coached her to yell at him that he didn't love her because he wasn't there, only mommy loved her and to hang up on him. Even when they were still married, BM would punish SD for being excited when DH got home from work, for trying to go to him, for asking for him. Alienation started the day the kid was born - apparently pregnancy knocked a few screws loose.

And when you have a kid that's willing to lie to the court and won't report to anyone how bad BM is - there isn't any getting custody changed. DH got handed an "all parties agree" visitation order. Which meant visitation was when BM and SD felt like it. Which was never. After that, after all letters were ignored, email was ignored and phone calls were answered with Stay out of my life! At 15, 16, 17 there doesn't feel like there's much point. He tried at least once a month until she was 17. It just seemed to make her more angry. At some point, all you can do is wait and keep the door open.

Some people don't have the money to fight for custody changes, some people do and wind up in a worse situation. BM was charged with DV, a restraining order was issued to protect DH, she had her wrist slapped for failing to provide an address after 5 different moves out of state, wrist slap for withholding SD, nothing at all for not paying her portion of medical, etc. Every time DH went to court, he got screwed over. BM had essentially nothing happen to her for all the crap she pulled. It did not matter that she was psycho and willing to be violent in front of her kid. The verbal and mental abuse she pulled, the PA, the judges DH saw didn't care. The GAL didn't care, even after BM went totally bat on her. There was no way DH was going to get custody.

Sure, Either parent can make themselves so difficult to deal with that the other parent avoids interaction. That in turn can end up limiting the amount of time that the parent can spend with the children, especially when they are younger.

My DH's EX is a toxic piece of work. He didn't have the financial resources to "take her to court" and it's not that she was out and out abusive, but she would pull crap like scheduling them in things that would happen on the weekend which would make it hard for him to have his visitation. He lived a few hours away, so it wasn't possible for him either. She would also try to extort money at every turn. He would call to want to see the girls. "you can if you bring me money for gas"...etc..

It got easier when the girls were older and he could maintain more direct contact with them.

Sure. I think some BM's just aren't worth the years and years of problems they cause. I think some BM might even be extra difficult in the hopes the dad will run off so she can piece their kid into a new family with a new guy. You have to think if it's a one night stand with a woman who will do anything to give the dad minimal contact at best, it might be the best to just walk away and wait for this kid to come find him when he's old enough.

I know this is probably a terrible reference but Jenelle Evans on Teen Mom2 is a great example of a crazy BM. Now her first son's father isn't a prize but Andrew walked away from her and their son even with MTV trying to throw money at him. Before everyone thought he was a deadbeat for walking out on his son especially when Jenelle decided she didn't want to be a mom and gave custody to her mom instead of him coming back. Well here we are seven years later and Jenelle is on her third baby (6 pregnancy) with a third guy. She just got out of a custody battle with her second child's father. He fought her tooth and nail for any kind of custody and she gives him all kinds of hell. She gives him more hell for trying to be there but Andrew gets nothing for never being there. I guess sometimes it boils down to being there for the kid at the cost of drama/abuse or leaving the kid behind at the cost of a relationship with them.

Yes and it is not gender specific.

I think that a dad should be as involved in his child's life as possible. But, lets face it: BMs (and even BFs occasionally) do sometimes make it so difficult for a dad to be involved. Most BMs (ours in particular) will use the child to drive him away. She has poisoned my SDs so thoroughly that its going to take years to get SD10 to be okay and SD12 is completely lost to us.

My DH finally did give up on seeing SD12, as she wants nothing to do with him. She buys every word of BM's lies. And BM has no limits to what she will say or do to separate the girls from him. I mean she told SD10 to cut herself so that she would be sent back. I think that shows that she has no regard for the damage that she is inflicting.

DH has had to cut his loses with SD12 and it still eats at him every day. He will still occasionally try to contact her, but she has no qualms with calling him an abusive POS and hanging up on him. I don't blame him from withdrawing from her. I think everyone has a limit.

^^completely puzzled^^ I am sorry to read this.

Check out Dr. Childress youtube videos in case you have not.

Yes, it can happen.

A lot of these divorced dads have already been beat down pretty badly by the biased family court system, the divorce, and the marriage itself. Some just don't have the fortitude or the finances to keep fighting. And some, like my DH, decide that the personal risks are too great when weighed against their other responsibilities.

In my DH's situation, he was up against a mentally ill, high conflict BM who could not afford to lose custody of her youngest child/meal ticket. BM had access to free legal aide and an attorney whose strategy was to draw out and delay proceedings until DH was broke. BM also engaged in a campaign of character assassination, made false police reports that could have cost DH his career and put him in prison, and physically attacked neutral parties who tried to pick SD up for scheduled visitation. DH also had two other children to consider. He came to the conclusion that the war was lost, and didn't see his youngest for almost six years.

This is such a good discussion topic! Thank you, OP, for bringing it up!

This hits really close to home for me. BM is completely toxic and has mounted a smear campaign against DH that is all-consuming and awful, and although we know it's all about maintaining her control, it's really hard to live with. DH has been to court multiple times in the 4.5 years since he and BM separated, every time with her trying to reduce his access to the SKids because he doesn't just write checks and do as she says. He has told me many times that if it weren't for my support, he would have given up a long time ago.

I see the the same thing having happened to my dad, truth be told. He moved away when he and my mother separated. He was a poor excuse for a dad my entire childhood, but I can now see that he felt like he had to back off in order to deal with my mother's toxicity. It's not an excuse, but an explanation, at this point.

Several posters have mentioned the financial aspect of these issues, and the idea that s/he who has the money to fight wins, and I think that's where a lot of the truth is. In the case of our BM, we look at her constant court actions as her version of conspicuous consumption. She and her DH have "no money" because they're really busy spending it on frivolous court actions against DH and against her DH's XW which end up costing what has to be thousands and thousands of dollars on lawyers, only for them to have to pay more CS to his Xs and receive less CS from my DH. But they can feel good about "how hard they fight" for the kids' best interests. It's a farce.

Yes, a bad bm can drive a good bd away. I know there are many that will claim he loses his 'good' title if he gets driven away but having to live at the court house, constant conflict, pas does make it impossible at times for a bd to continue to be involved. It is like the story in the Bible where the wise magistrate is going to cut the baby in half over the 2 moms arguing it is her baby and give each 1/2. He realizes the real mom is the one that says , no i will let her have the baby to the nonmom. Unfortunately our magistrates are far from wise and bd sometimes has to walk away to keep the child (not to mention himself, his other kids, etc..,) from being destroyed.

Yes, it does happen. In DH's case, he was willing (and tried) to do everything possible to stay in SS (then 8)'s life even though it was discovered that SS wasn't biologically his. BM was always toxic, but her behavior and the PAS became so extreme, the loyalty bind so problematic for SS, that he ended up hospitalized for suicidal gestures. SS's psychiatrist recommended walking away for the sake of SS's well being. It was the most difficult, traumatic thing that DH has ever had to do, but he did it for SS. Of course we know that's not the story BM is giving the kid, I'm sure, but DH made sure SS knew that he loved him and the door will always be open. We're sure he'll never be in our lives again, but we have the written report from the psychiatrist with everything documented (BM's PAS, his recommendation to walk away) if SS ever wants to see it when he's older.

Sometimes the other parent is just too toxic.

Yes.

BM was (and still is...) so bad that it drove him to move far, far away from her.

I feel my DH is a good dad, still, though he was an extraordinary dad when we lived in the same town as skid, but BM ruined that. Literally.

Yes! 100% certain that crazy MIL is the reason that DH's dad walked away from them. And if it wasn't for DH not having his dad in his life? DH would have walked away from skids many years ago because of psycho BM drama. But nope, DH stuck it out because he didn't want to be like his father... and look where it got him? Nowhere. Skids are both fucked up... from 18 years of crappy BM "parenting" and other BM bull crap. Oh well, at least he knows he tried.

I think another factor is the relationship bio father and child have before the breakup. Dh was 18 when sd was born, bm moved out when she was 6 weeks old. He would only see her a few hours a week after that and says he never formed a bond. Then you throw in 10 years of court battles and fighting all the time. For sure the bm can drive him away. At some point you just can't fight anymore.