DH has pretty much walked away from SS15. and you know why? Because SS15 is the one who walked away first. DH tried for years to be a positive influence, to be a good father, to stress the importance of not doing drugs, drinking, having sex etc. But when the kid lives with BM who lets him do whatever he wants and claims he is "just being a normal kid" it just turned DH into the "bad guy" who didn't have to be listened to. To my knowledge, DH hasn't seen SS15 since March and that visit was pathetic to say the least... SS15 was SUPPOSED to be there to go hunting with DH. He did get up and go on Saturday morning, then slept until around 1 p.m. and then asked DH if he could go to a friends for a bit if BM would bring him back later. BM brought SS back around 10 p.m. STONED and SS never got up Sunday morning, literally slept all day Sunday and then asked DH to take him back to BMs around 3 or so. I mean what was the point of that? that is NOT a "relationship" and that is SS15 CHOOSING. DH is not going to force himself on a kid that doesn't WANT a relationship, so DH pays CS and calls once in a while to check in on him and that's about the extent of it.

What more can he possibly do?

Project much?

Your situation is very sad, but has NOTHING to do with the OP's situation. For you to compare them as the same is WRONG. For you to oversimplify and flat out RE-WRITE the situation as "walk away from the child because you do not like the mother" is also WRONG.

What exactly would you suggest, evil SM, since you have deemed yourself to be judge, jury, and executioner?
Put the rest of their life savings into court battles? Continue to keep the entire household in a toxic, stressful situation? Continue to stress the SS in the battle that HIS MOTHER started in her vicious PAS campaign?

For those of you out there who say it is NEVER OK to walk away in such a situation like this......you haven't been there, you haven't walked in their shoes, you have NO IDEA the stress and agony these people may be going through, as well as the pain of making such a decision.
This isn't some deadbeat Dad that doesn't want to make an effort, this is someone that has been put into the position of making a difficult decision.
Are you also bashing Tog or Ghost for their family decisions? They both have SS's that they have had to "let go". They fought the good fight, but it just isn't worth it in the end.

No one "wins" in these situations. The only thing you can do is make a decision that is best for the ENTIRE family. You cannot let one individual ruin your entire family.

It's a very tough subject, and god knows *I* don't know the right answer! I do suspect though that it's different depending on whether you're talking about a small child (under 10) or a teenager. A teen who's been PASed and pushes Dad out of his or her life... that seems a bit different to me than a 5 year old who just loves both his parents and doesn't understand why one's not there.

Really? So is it selfish, cowardice and heartless for a mother to give her child up for adoption? I mean, technically, she's walking away and abandoning her child. According to the "logic" you presented, then a birth mother who gives away her child shouldn't have gotten knocked up in the first place.

These men aren't walking away because they "don't like" the mother. They are walking away because they are getting emotionally and financially abused by a woman and a system that supports these women. Who is to say that this child (usually unwanted and unplanned) is worth the heartache? The kid's life will be destroyed by having a shit mom, so the dad is supposed to allow his life to be destroyed as well?

Again, you are placing all the blame on the father when in a lot of cases the mother is to blame. The courts are so pro-BM that fathers don't have a chance. You get a few days a month and have to deal with all that the psycho BMs do and yet it is still the father's fault. He's suppose to spend his entire life sucking up to kids that hate him because BM has been PASing the whole time. And in most cases, he has no chance of seeing the kids more. The COURTS don't allow it. The standard is EOWE with a few overnights. Maybe 25% if you're lucky. Yet, you blame the father that he isn't around. A lot of BMs don't want the fathers around. They do everything they can to make that happen. Where is your hate for them.

You say that the fathers shouldn't have chose to have a child with such crazy mothers. The crazy mothers shouldn't be crazy. They are responsible for these toxic situations.

You don't know everything about these types of situations.

If you are referring to the lady who was accused of molesting SS and other awful things - I can't blame these people. BM is toxic and crazy.
I mean is this guy not supposed to have a life or a wife because his ex is making it miserable for people who want to see the kids.

it sounded to me like they went in debt over custody battles, etc. there's only so much a person can do

I am so sorry for what you went through.

IMHO there are two types of men who walk away. There are the men who are just total pieces of shit, and those who are dealing with a psychotic woman who is constantly putting the kid in the middle.

Yes, these men should take more precautions as to who they have sex with. But a lot of people hide the crazy and are really good at it. The crazy often doesn't show until they have their claws in deep. Just as men should be more careful about with whom they're intimate, these women should reach out for help. They're not stupid. They know on some level that they have problems. I'll bet that if more of our bms sought professional help, our skids would be better off and everyone would have way less problems.

Walking away harms kids but so does being used as pawns.

If my dh was accused of a crime by bm... Especially child molestation, then he would have a choice to make. We have kids together and that would affect our life, because he would be labeled a child molester.

I love my kids and will protect them from crazy at all costs. I would not let my kids lose their dad because of false allegtions from an ex that would ever say such a thing.

And for the kid, what about the kid. The mom must have the kid believing that, how could it possibly be good for the kid.

It is not a question of him walking away. It sounds like he doesn't get a choice.

Everyone's situation is different. In SO's case, his ex wife went nuts after he moved on with BM2. So nuts in fact, that she did a bunch of stuff. Like pretend to be pregnant, accuse BM2 and her child from a previous relationship of child molestation (actually she convinced SS9 who was 5 at the time to say that), and created false memories in OSS and SS9's heads. Things like, "remember when Daddy was mean to us". PAS'ed the crap out of them. These kids now have so many issues, that sometimes I think they are beyond repair. Ex wife eventually lost custody and BM2 ended up leaving because there was too much anger, hurt, and newness over SO having custody of skids. She left with SS4 who was then 1.5 years old. So now, though SO didn't walk away from SS14 and SS9, there is still a child out there being raised without him. Who gets to determine which child is more special than the other? Does the 4 year old not deserve him as much because his mom isn't a crazy bitch?
To top it off, I myself have gotten to witness how crazy ex wife is. She has yet to start with me personally but this year alone she had SO locked up twice for saying that he is harassing her even though they have stopped talking since like last year. Over here, the police just automatically make the arrest "just in case". SO's job is in jeopardy, his emotional well being suffers. All because she cannot take that he is pursuing incarceration for her because she refuses to pay CS. Mind you, when she had custody, he paid her 300 weekly, but apparently, she is never working so she can't pay the 100 bucks she is mandated to pay weekly for the boys. Doesn't do much else for them either. It seems like the only thing she does have is a seething hatred for SO. Which is confusing because I saw Facebook and email messages where she basically starts telling him she loves and misses him after BM2 left, and he had to put her in her place telling her she is disrespecting his relationship (he was still trying to make it work with BM2).
In most situations, just because something is difficult, I wouldn't accept someone walking away. However, in SO's situation, I have even told him he should have walked away. It's so crazy that in the CO it states neither can move within 25 miles of their home. Again, what makes one child more special than the other? We are having our first child together, why can't we move to a bigger space? Because some ex wife can't get over the fact that ex H moved on?
It's gotten to the point where SO is beginning to realize that it seems like the cycle may repeat again, where he will be without one of his other children, as well as unhappy if he doesn't start making decisions that make more sense for him. He could lose his job, his freedom, and at the end the same kids he continues to fight for all because the person he married turned crazy.
And I don't say that lightly. The newest things occurring are that ex wife is no longer allowed to see skids unless its supervised visitation, which they suspended for now because she is supposed to get a psych evaluation which she keeps putting off. The court will not allow the visits to continue, not even unsupervised until she takes herself to a psychiatrist. Whether or not she's nuts, the police still have to follow protocol and make an arrest if she continues making allegations. I already told SO that I will not put myself, our unborn child, or my career at stake for his kids so if he is ever convicted, they will most likely have to go into the system. I'm not going to deal with her potentially turning her wrath on me.
Tell me again how he should continue to self sacrifice until he has nothing left. I think its bullshit and for the sake of my own child, now I will always definitely push him to find his happiness. If that means losing custody of first two skids, so be it. I told him that I will not put our child through seeing her dad get locked up because crazy ex wife is pissed that he has moved on. I didn't give him an ultimatum, I told him that I would not keep him from our daughter because coming from a single parent household, I know that I want my daughter to have what I didn't have and I think he is an amazing father. Guess what? He decided to hell with the CO, we're moving, and whatever consequences that brings, so be it. He didn't come to that decision lightly, but this is real life. The skids are old enough to understand what is going on. The other kids, SO, or whatever woman SO is with should not have to suffer because his ex wife is a certifiable bitch.

All of our situations and experiences are different. The exact details and extremes vary, so we cannot judge what someone else does based on our own situation, experience, and emotions.

For those who say you would leave your husband if he was at the end of his rope and made that choice, I hope you never have to eat those words. When all has been exhausted, to the point of giving up because nothing is working, why not hold the high conflict BM accountable? Why would you leave your husband, if you knew he had done all he could?

This isn't the movies. There is not an endless supply of money, or employers who are willing to give endless days off to go to court, or lawyers who show up on the doorstep, ready to fight pro bono for the cause. People have jobs to go to, bills to pay, other things in life to tend to, like their emotional and physical health.

It is incredibly naive to think that there is NEVER an acceptable reason for walking away.

Its interesting reading all the varied views on this subject. So many people are writing very black or white on the issue.

Each situation is unique, there is no black or white answer is all I got. At times, you need to let go, other times you need to fight till the end, and sometimes both answers make the situation worse.

Sometimes there is no answer.

Unfortunately, abandonment issues and feeling unloved are not special for CODs. Lots of kids have a parent who died, who got sick, who was abusive, who had addiction issues, who had a job that required working out of town a lot... I mean, who ever said life is like the movies, or life is fair, or a good life has no suffering? How immature is that?

I'm not knocking the OP's post, even though maybe it sounds like that. What I'm hoping to communicate is to say - look, even though you're an adult, carrying around childhood hurts like they matter now like they did then, you need to be able to see that not everyone has the same experiences as you. The development of rational thought suggests that after learning the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you), we can actually go beyond the ability to imagine that others wants and dreams and hopes are equal to yours and matter as much to them... but that THEIR wants and dreams and hopes are not necessarily mine.

In general, I think that when parents split up, the kid becomes a pawn. A good parent minimizes that.