When I was 16 I told my mom I didn’t think I wanted to have children. She broke down in tears, it was for her, the worst thing she could imagine for me and she wanted grandchildren. It was pretty much a done deal after that. It was never expected that I would have a career, I was always going to marry and have a family. God and the church insisted that that was what women did. It was a disaster. None of your questions Dr Phil would have helped me avoid this calamity. I was up for the lifetime commitment, believed I would do a good job, thought I was stable etc. I just had no insight into my own emotional make up at all or the impact of my early emotional baggage. I also had no idea of the amount of social and religious pressure I was under.

We are ok now but all the children have been in therapy and its a constant journey of picking up the pieces. I was not cut out to be a Mom and my kids would DEFINITELY be better off with their father if our relationship were in jeopardy.

We have only just seen this episode of Dr Phil in our country and I guess this is probably a very cold thread for those of you in the states.

I have been having a hard time dealing with my father and his bad choices. My dad is constantly lying about his actions. He puts his children in impossible situtations just to save himself embarassment or shame and is talking bad about me to my siblings to show them he is right. He has also attempted suicide twice (where I was responsible for his medical treatment), been in a motorcylce accident where he “claims” to have forgotten his past actions, and he is on marriage #5. The motorcylce accident made it worse because he expects us to forget all that has happened and suddenly see him as a father figure.
My problem is I can’t seem to emotionally detach myself from his problems. I am constantly thinking, “how can he do these things” and can’t seem to let it go. I know that there are others like me who have had to be a “parent” to their own parents and may also be struggling. Any advice or skills you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for listening and for your great work,

Audrey

My cousin is going through something very similiar. She too was a stay at home mom and her husband in the army. All of a sudden he wanted a divorce. She had to live with her mother which was not a good idea at all. I think her mother just didn’t want them living with her anymore so she practically kidnaps the boy takes him to hsi aunts who then takes him out of state to be with his dad. She got to see her son i think once every other month and her son was telling her how the babysitter spends the night and the babysitter spanks him. He finally married the baby sitter moved closer to my cousin but the man is a piece of garbage. There house is full of dog crap and roaches the boy keeps telling his mom that he wants to live with her and there is nothing she can do about it right now until she gets money for a lawer. I wish my husband could just beat the crap out of this guy but he doesn’t want to go to jail.

When we learned of the living situation, that “Kelly” was living with her stepfather, we decided that we needed to step in. We started having her come over, she was doing homework at our home, her grades started climbing, and she started opening up about everything that was going on in her life. We filed for full custody, and when that happened, all hell broke loose.

The mother decided that our filing was saying “she was a bad mother” so she all of a sudden started coming around and was involved in her daughters life. She took “Kelly” away for several months, in which we were not allowed to see her. She also convinced “Kelly” that we were trying to make her never see her mother again, so “Kelly” started lying about abuse that was happening in our home.

Now, “Kelly” has failed several semesters in high school, she has started taking drugs and drinking (which is readily available at her stepfather’s house). There are also rumors that she is sleeping around! We no longer see “Kelly” on a regular basis as her mother does not believe that it is important for her to see her father, she feeds lies into her daughter’s head.

Unfortunately, we no longer know what to do. There is so much stress in the house when “Kelly” comes over because of the issues she has caused (with the influence of her mother). “Kelly” would be better off if her mother did leave, she would no longer have a person who doesn’t know how to parent (she doesn’t care about the grades, drugs, drinking or sex…) She would have her father who would encourage her to be better than this, and she would become a positive person in society.

Now, we are deciding whether or not we should go through the court system again. If we file anything to protect “Kelly”, then we will loose her for several months again, if we don’t file and anything comes up later on, we will look bad for not trying to do anything. So we are weighing our options, for the time being, if she comes over and we have previous plans, then she is going to miss out because of her lack of planning.

He also had gotten a no contact order and it kept me from seeing my boys for four months. In court, he said I suffered from depression and since I was a stay at home mother and had never had a job, he was awarded temporary custody. On the date of our final hearing, my lawyer had never notified me and I did not show up. My ex husband won custody by default because I was not there that day.

It breaks my heart that I’m having to pay child support to him and I hear about all these things he can afford to spend money on and I never see my boys in decent clothing or even a haircut. What makes it worse is every other weekend when they are with me, they cry because they do not want to go back to their father’s house. They ask me why they can’t live with me. They were just babies when we divorced and now they are six and four. It’s still too soon for them to choose which parent to live with but there are no doubts in my mind that I would be the best fit parent for them. Their father works nearly two hours away and he leaves our children in the care of his girlfriend. If they are not at school, they are in day care until 6:00 in the evening even if he does not have to work he has them in day care. It makes me sick at how little time he spends with them. I probably spend more quality time with them on weekends than he does in a whole month.

I wish I had the money for an attorney so I can get them back where they belong. On top of that, he has recently told me he’s getting married in a few months and he’s deploying for the military for six months and he does not want my children staying with me while he’s gone. He wants them to stay with his new wife and that is not fair to me! I don’t know what to do about it. They told me they don’t want to stay with her while their daddy is gone.

I feel like I was born to be a mother and that was taken away from me. Some mothers have a natural nurturing ability and those are the ones who deserve their children. Others might be better off with their father but not if it’s a liar, cheater and manipulator!

Too many people take their children for granted. I just want the best for mine and someday hope to God they will come back to me.

<3

In her case she called social service to have us taken from our father.Thankfully my Dad had sisters and a mother who intervened to help. Otherwise my sisters and I would have ended up in foster care. My dad was wonderful and did all he could for us. I never knew my mother so don’t hate her but had the situation been reversed I am sure social service wouldn’t have tried to take us from her being the mother.

Many Dad’s have rose to the occasion when left with children to raise alone.They should be applauded. Moms who leave would have been poor parents most likely anyway as they would have resented their children.

There is also a difference between what my mother did walking out of our lives and what the divorced mother did. In all divorces involving children someone has to be the primary care giver. It should be who ever is best suited to do so. No one questions when fathers move out, pay support and have visitation with their children.
In a perfect world parents would stay together in a committed marriage and raise childen together. But our world is far from perfect. I can’t help but wonder how many women wished they could have been the visiting parent?

Personally I could never have left my children but then everyone is different. We shouldn’t be judging those women who do leave but still try to be part of their children’s live any more than we should condemn fathers who move out and pay child support.Their children will have a hard enough time with out others passing judgment on their divorced parents.