Reply to Why do some men check out of their kids' lives after divorce?

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Reply to "Why do some men check out of their kids' lives after divorce?"

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[quote=Anonymous]Both of my parents will agree that my father was not well suited for parenthood. My beautiful young mother was in love with her physician husband, and wanted the whole package of having children. He was pretty lukewarm on  it all, and my mother miscalculated by getting pregnant with #3 (that would be me) in a last-ditch effort to save the marriage. That didn’t work and my mother found herself a 30 year old single parent of 3 preschoolers. My father divorced our mother and moved to the other end of the country with the woman who would become his new wife. They never had children together.

My dad gave my mother their “starter house” and some reasonable alimony and child support. Once a year he’d come to visit us at home and the older kids saw him at his house once a year for a week or two. I had my harried single mom to myself then and ultimately did travel when i was about 8 or 9 to see Dad. My mother feels she was meant to be the mother of my brother, sister and me, and does admit she picked the wrong daddy. And he’s not been terrible, just not fully engaged by any measure.  He did help some with college and has presented for a couple of family crises, but has otherwise stayed distant.  He’s not a terrible grandfather. One weird, yet good thing is that he has guilt about my mother’s contribution to his medical degree and still pays his $1K per month alimony... years after his legal obligation has ended. This has given my mom extra security in retirement.[/quote]

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