A common theme here...

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-08-2004
A common theme here...
10
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 10:17am

I notice a common theme most of us with children have. After we separate/divorce, suddenly, many of our exs become fathers of the year! Why and how does that happen? Men that were previously cold, completely uninvolved, emotionally and/or absent, etc., want to be a huge part of their children's lives. I just don't get it. Is it that it took something so extreme to make them realize what they lost? Do they do it to look good during the divorce process?

My STBX was never a "bad" father, per se. He was just completely absent. I could count on one hand the amount of times we had dinner together as a family in a six-month period. And this was a man that got out of work at 5PM. I am glad that he has suddenly decided to be present and attentive toward our son, but where was all this before? I don't know...just contemplating the universe!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 11:34am
That's a good question that I wish I knew the answer to..... The only thing I'm happy about is that I don't have to deal with it on a daily.... hourly!.... basis any more, and he does appear to have "learned something", and is more involved now.... and that's a good thing!


Karen ~ wildlucky4me


Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2003
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 12:45pm
my ex was just the opposite. he was a involved dad, and at first he would visit his son but then ---- he just stopped. never thought he had to pay CS. never thought that he should show up for son's birthday.... first day of school..... graduations.... etc.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 1:09pm
Mine is a mixture of both. He was very involved, worked a lot, to provide for me to be home, and have nice things for the kids, dance classes, etc... then when we separated, he decided that *I* don't deserve anything, and why should he work harder than he "has" to... and left his 120K year job to work 32 hours a week for 12 bucks an hour... paying 125.00 a week for c/s for two kids... doesn't think he has to pay the ordered daycare costs, meds, etc. Still wants to be super-dad, fun times on the weekends, eat out all the time, buy new stuff (money he claims he doesn't have) but is working a cash under-the-table job to screw his kids out of child support. The kicker is, he *IS* superdad to them, because they don't get it... he would rather make it look like I am the one shorting them.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2005
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 2:38pm

Same deal here. Only to add alittle more how many exs also went the high and mighty holier than thou route? Mine sure did. I was the one involved in church and got him to go. He was even on church council until he didn't get re-elected to be on it. After that he stopped going at all.

When we seperated it took about six months then he "found himself" with God at a christian community. Ever since all I hear is that I belong to a dead church.(It's a traditional church) How I don't know God bla,bla,bla. I was a sunday school teacher for 7 years. It was this time last year that he was begging me to come back to him. Same time this year he has a brand new baby boy with the same woman he said would understand if I wanted to get back together with him.

Yet I'm the one who will go to hell because I'm the one who got the divorce. Yet he is the one who cheated on his first wife with her own sister. But I digress.

K;)

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-27-2005
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 3:01pm

Not only is my ex the "father of the year", he is boyfriend/fiance of the year to his new girlfriend. He treats her like a Goddess, while I was treated like a piece of crap while we were together. She refers to him as her "hero"...excuse me while I vomit.
He told me that us getting a divorce is the BEST thing that could have ever happened to him, because I was holding him back from living his full life. Um, ok.
And every time we talk he gives ME lectures on our daughter, how i'm not doing X,Y & Z right. Funny, considering the first year of her life she didn't even recognize him because he was home so little....he didn't know how to do anything for her (diapering, feeding, medicine giving, etc) while we were together- not he feels authorized to give ME advice? He also preaches to me about how I need to find a fulfilling relationship full of love & respect like he has found- and that i'm too bitter. Bitter because HE MADE ME THAT WAY! LOL

Lainie

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-02-2004
Thu, 01-19-2006 - 3:51pm

I don't get it at all...it really hurts that he could love me so little as to treat me with cruelty, then turn into SuperDad/Perfect Husband. I also kick myself for letting him treat me like crap for so long. I think part of it is for spite. My ex is very into "looking good". So while the world sees the wonderful Dr. Jekyll, I lived with the monster Mr. Hyde.

What really confounds me is this...I divorced him because he was abusive to me. The woman he married divorced her first husband because of abuse. She says she actually knew he physically hurt me and had a horrible temper before they married. Would any of you do this? I guess she's really desperate or deaf, dumb and blind.

Oh, and she got a much bigger diamond. Course he earned mucho more $$ by then.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-06-2005
Fri, 01-20-2006 - 1:30am

Oh I have the same issues. My husband was wonderful to everyone else but he claims I just irritate him and make him angry. He was also abusive to me and I kept it quiet and never told anyone.

People in town ask me all the time, he is so nice what is wrong with you. It's a fun life but I still will not let people know how he behaved.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-06-2005
Fri, 01-20-2006 - 1:36am

Oh sister you are so right. My husband works two jobs and could never make time to come home to have dinner, he worked 7 days a week ( by choice) and never made time to spend with our girls.

Now...he comes home to make dinner, goes to a movie once a week, and finds ways to spend time with them. I don't get it, why now, why can't he now leave work at 7 or 8 at night.

Some experts say this is normal because now they have to make an effort, before....yeah not so much!

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-27-2005
Fri, 01-20-2006 - 8:43am
When we were together, and had a newborn baby, he came home around midnight every night and worked 7 days a week. I whined & cried all the time about how he was never home at a decent "normal" hour and he would NEVER change his hours (he has his own company so this was totally by choice) and now that he is with his new fiance, he leaves work at 5:00 every day and won't work at all on weekends. Son of a b*&ch.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-06-2005
Wed, 01-25-2006 - 9:24pm

Yeah I understand. My husband had the option to spend time with us and always decided to work. He has his own business and works for his dad, it was always more important to push a little more to work until he was exhausted. During these last few months when we were together he worked 6 to 7 days a week.

I just don't get it why couldn't be there for us, why does it have to change after they leave us.

Very frustrating