absent fathers who choose to have little contact

Saw this advertised for Monday 27th on Channel 4 at 10pm called -I want my Dad back. Its about absent fathers who have chosen to have little or no contact with their children.
This is something my children experience, ex chosen not to see or contact our 16 yr old for 9 months now, seeing youngest for 2 or 3 hrs every week or three. I shall text the time to him, in the hope that he can understand how his behaviour has and will affect his children.
Also on the flip side, I know mothers can prevent absent fathers from having contact - for a variety of reasons, not something I have done.

I have posted this and sincerely hope not to cause anyone offense or pain and hoping it can offer some insight, and possibly for me an awareness for ex- although I now think he is so retarded emotionally it is unlikely sadly.

Daisygreen

my husband has little contact with his kids ..his choice not mine or theirs..two hours a week..no phone calls...e-mails.....every thing has been done to make contact easy..... never prevented him from seeing them..and yet he just does his two hour duty each week.....
i will watch with interest

daisygreen wrote:

retarded emotionally

It is sad. But adults who need parenting themselves make for lousy parents.

Did you divorce him?
My wife is divorcing me and it feels like I am being kicked out of the home and the family.
I love my children as much as any parent but because I am being kicked out it feels like I am no longer needed or wanted...

Moth, I loved him, he walked out on us, we'd been together for 18yrs, he got involved with someone 20 yrs younger, and had been for ? how long, I'd finished a year of intensive treatment for cancer 18months prior to him going. Yes I did divorce him, no choice other than that, he wouldn't talk to me let alone try relate.
Never feel that you are no longer wanted or needed by your children, its the relationship with the other parent which has gone.

My husband left to live with another woman nearly 4 months ago. She has a son, 9 and a daughter, 5.

Our sons are 16 and 14.

Husband is v. negative towards elder son and they used to row all the time. He now has little to do with him. Son said to me "Dad's only interested in his new family now".

He pops round once a week or so to pick things up and will chat to the boys if they happen to be in. They give him the impression they aren't bothered (but I think they are deeply hurt).

It's quite clear to them that he is choosing to spend nearly all his time with someone else and her children, and he's told neighbours how lovely it is to have a little girl in the family. He's even referred to them as "our children" meaning his and this other woman, in front of our 14 year old.

He will take the boys out to a rugby match or to play pool, which are of course things he likes and would do anyway. But he hasn't done anything to put himself out for them. I am coping with very moody 16-year-old who's dropped out of school, and a withdrawn 14 year old, while husband cheerfully tells me that every other weekend he and other woman have all Saturday to themselves as the children are with their father.

I would love it if he'd have my two for a weekend so I could get away - but they don't want to go to his new house and he refuses to come here.

Oh, and the icing on the cake is that new woman is ex-careers adviser of elder son, and her best friend is younger son's French teacher.

I can quite see how embarrassed and ashamed my sons feel about their Dad, but he's too loved up to see it. One day he is really going to miss them and they just won't want to know. He's never been any good at dealing with emotional stuff anyway.

Oh - and yesterday when he popped round because he thought they might like to go and watch him play rugby (yes, right, to stroke his ego in front of all the folk at the rugby club who know what he's done), he mentioned that he'd like a couple of paintings they'd done at primary school. I pointed out that the paintings belonged to our sons, not us!

I agree with Daisy,the relationship with the parent is not broken.
Just because my daughter,24 yrs,does not agree with her dad's behaviour he just cut contact completely with her and I know she is very hurt by it.By doing so he has put a lot of strain on his relationship with the younger one,18yrs,when she does not want to go out with him he blames me .I am the one who encourage them to maintain contact with him.
I was always puzzled when children were not very supportive of elderly parents but then we never know what kind of parents they were.
given a choice I have no doubt on whose bedside my children would be.
Sad for children ,parents should be there to protect and cushion their falls niot the one to inflick the pain.