Some Men Walk Away From Their Children
I didn’t understand it until I married one
I hear my three boys chatting in the kitchen.
“Dad called,” says my son. “Big surprise there’s a game on.”
It’s been a year since I initiated the divorce. My kids are discussing the realization their father only looks for them when he needs someone to watch sports with.
I call my husband.
“Look,” I say. “One of our boys is away at college most of the year. One of them is seventeen and naturally becoming independent and looking for you less. But our youngest has just started his freshman year. He’s only fourteen and I know he misses seeing his dad.”
“I drive him to carpool,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “Because two mechanics have said my ten-year-old car is unsafe to drive. When I tell you I need a car, you tell me I am the one who wanted a divorce. I need to get my own car and I tell you I need a job to get a car and a car to get a job.”
My husband does not feel bad. He is unmoved our boys are troubled by his absence. The fact he lives just a few miles down the road and passes our street each day makes it more painful.
Nothing changes.
Throughout the five-year divorce, there will be no weeknight dinners. There will be no weekend overnights. He will show up to their athletic games and call every month or so to watch a game. My one son will spend a few weeks with him here and there as his father undermines my parenting.
After the divorce, the pattern ensues.
He does not look for our children. And he continues to be absent on holidays. Worse, he now makes plans for a few of them and then cancels on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and Father’ Day.
And he still lives within several miles.
Pre and post-divorce, the commute is five minutes.
Here’s where the story gets more hurtful. He now has a girlfriend. The man who is continually unavailable can drive forty minutes and spend every weekend with her. And cancel on our boys to spend holidays with her.
Compounding matters, he is self-employed with three months off per year. The guy who claims he’s a ‘busy man” has extreme flexibility and more time than the average person.
Just not for three boys who once thought he hung the moon.
It’s difficult for children to grasp this type of abandonment. Even young adults. My kids are now in their twenties. It doesn’t make it more digestible. When we were an intact family they believed their father couldn’t live without them.
It’s unnatural a father wouldn’t look for their children. Obviously, kids understand this. Especially since they love their parent enough to miss them. Only adding to the confusion and conflicting feelings.
It’s been eight years since I initiated the divorce, finalized it, and am free.
During that time, my children didn’t endure a typical divorce. There are plenty of parents who are lovingly present despite no longer being married. The connection to our babies is primal.
What my kids experienced was an emotional death.
The father they believed existed no longer does. He’s not the man they thought him to be. It’s a genuine and catastrophic loss. Every child, despite a divorce, deserves both of their parents. While the separation of a family is upsetting, kids can understand two parents who don’t get along.
It’s far harder to comprehend a disconnection from a person who is typically one of the two primary anchors in our lives. Our major source of love and support.
No one was more stunned than I was.
My husband had hurt, disappointed, and shocked me in too many ways to count. But no one could have ever convinced me he would walk away from our boys.
In his mind, he believes his job is done. There’s no talking about this with him so I don’t bother. He didn’t think his children deserved his time in high school and college.
In their twenties, he would deem them needy if anyone dare declare his absence.
He’s busy building his new life.
We weren’t actually a part of his old one, we just inhabited it for a time.
I never understood men who walked away from their own children. Until I divorced one who did. There’s something missing in an individual who is devoid of this attachment. In our case, it’s a diagnosed lack of empathy. For others, it may also be an empathy deficit, addiction, or something else.
They call it a ‘ghost dad.’
Some theorize this may happen because fathers feel unworthy or are avoiding emotion. As the child of a father who left and now the ex-wife of one who did, I don’t necessarily comprehensively buy that.
Though I do think it could be the exception, not the rule.
In cases where someone very young had a child and didn’t know how to re-enter their life. Or an individual who made mistakes and doesn’t know how to rectify them. The world is not black and white. And relationships certainly aren’t.
But these fall under the distinction of somewhat comprehensible.
If a mother isn’t preventing a divorced spouse from seeing their children, there are few reasons a father would do it. It’s not understandable. Not to an ex-wife.
And certainly not to loving children.
It’s a great loss.
And an emotional tragedy.
