Why Does My Ex-Husband's Relationship With Our Kids Always Depend On His Partner?
I’m certain he would’ve drifted away entirely if not for his own mom.
Everyone liked my ex-husband’s girlfriend Julie. I liked her because she was nice to my sons when they visited every second weekend. I liked that she had her own sweet daughter and understood co-parenting dynamics. I liked that she would give my kids her phone to call me at bedtime if they were stressed out. My sons liked her because she was funny and energetic and lived in a nice house with good air conditioning. My ex-husband obviously liked her. Crucially, he liked making her happy and showing that he could be a good father, a fun father, an engaging father, all of which made her very happy.
They dated for around 11 months and that was a golden time for all of us. I was able to work while they were gone without fear of last minute cancellations. My kids relaxed into their rhythm. They talked about Julie and her daughter a lot when they came home from visiting their dad at his house on Sunday nights. They told me about her Christmas plans for their blended family. She hoped to have everyone together the day after Christmas for sledding and gifts and homemade soup. It sounded wholesome. Sweet. Considerate.
It never happened.
My ex-husband and Julie broke things off. He didn’t talk about it, which was perfectly reasonable. He moved into his own apartment. He bought a leather jacket.
Most of all, he went back to being the kind of dad he was before Julie. Distracted. Half-hearted. Listless. The kids and I never talked about the shift, we just quietly mourned Julie and the part-time life that could have been and waited for his next relationship. We had been divorced for four years at this point, and Julie was girlfriend number five. I think we all hoped for another Julie and not another Amanda, Julie’s predecessor.
Amanda did not like any children but perhaps especially, she did not like mine. She did not like what they represented: her partner’s life before her. She wanted a fresh start with my ex-husband. She didn’t want him to be my ex-husband or a dad. He was fine with whatever Amanda wanted and so he stopped being their dad for a while. My sons spent almost every minute with me at home while Amanda and my ex made their excuses or sometimes simply said they were not really “feeling” a weekend with kids. Instead, they were feeling game night with friends on a Friday. Checking out the farmer’s market on Saturday. A lazy brunch in bed on a Sunday. Shopping for a new car somewhere in between. During their relationship, myy ex-husband once texted me, “Sorry, I’ll give it a shot with the kids next month. I’m sure they’re happy to just hang at home anyhow.”
The truth was, our kids were mostly happy to hang out at home. They were mostly unbothered by their dad’s shifting interest. Even I was mostly unbothered by it. I didn’t think to wonder why he was so happy to sit in the passenger seat of parenting and let whoever he happened to be dating take the wheel. Maybe it didn’t surprise me because I was always the driving parent when we were together. The parent who suggested he coach soccer or take over bath time or play outside with the kids while I made dinner. He’d say, “Sure sounds good,” and I tried not to notice that it never would have occurred to him to do any of these things himself. That he did not seem to have any strong feelings about how he might spend his time with our children either way.
When we separated, he became more invested simply because his mother insisted. She did not want to lose her relationship with her grandchildren and pushed him to stay close. Would he have simply drifted away from his kids without being nudged back by a woman in his life? Almost certainly.
Julie turned out to be an anomaly. A gift horse we looked in the mouth for too long. After their breakup, my ex-husband dated women who were either halfheartedly interested in my kids or not at all. I did not blame a single one of them. I didn’t even blame him for a long time.
I might not even blame him now. His sons are grown. They think of him as just okay when they think of him at all. They aren’t waiting to find out if he feels like being a dad this week or if he’d rather go to wing night with his girlfriend. No one is waiting for him for anything anymore. He has sadly become a moot point.
In the end, he spent so many years sitting in the passenger seat of fatherhood that he lost his driver’s licence. And no one is around to show him the way.