My Husband Went to the Store and Never Came Home, Deserting His Two Kids

Yahoo Parenting ^ | February 16th, 2016 | Eden Strong

[Mariner]

I saw my ex-husband in court last week. It was the first time I had seen him in longer than I could remember; the exact date lost in an 8-inch-thick legal file of court proceedings that is currently lying on my desk. In fact, I could count on one hand the number of times I have seen him since I started that file four years ago.

Up until just a few days ago, I literally could not find my ex-husband.

But before he disappeared four years ago, I was a married, stay-at-home mom of a 3-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son. Then overnight my world turned upside down when my husband said he was going to the store and simply never returned.

Not only was my marriage over, but he left me with two very young children in a position where I was unable to instantaneously support us.

Quitting his job and leaving his work vehicle (his only car) in the parking lot of his employer, he turned off his phone, moved out of town, and became untraceable. His actions were not just an exaggerated statement that he no longer wanted our marriage, but it was a heartbreaking declaration that he also no longer wanted our kids.

And I’ve heard it all; the judgments that people love to throw my way. “Didn’t you see this coming,” and “what did you do to make him leave?” Or “this is why you never should not have been a stay-at-home mom without your own career,” and my favorite, “you had kids with him, you did this to yourself.”

[HiTech RedNeck]

The real her that he had to live with, and the public her that is complaining here, may not have been the same.

When what had been romances turn into grudges it can get exceedingly ugly, with evil and lies.

A question she doesn’t even seem to bother to answer is, why did she not try for a second husband?

[gaijin]

[AC86UT89]

Funny how every female today is a “strong and independent woman” - until her man walks out on her, and she suddenly becomes a delicate snowflake that needs an army of lawyers and child protective services to come to her rescue

[SkyDancer]

Works for women also. Twice I was asked to give up my career and get married. Did a lot thinking and chatting with friends. Not happening. I’m happy in what I do and there are men and women who are content not being married and all that it entails.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I feel bad for the kids though. Almost certainly they had no active role in splitting the marriage; they’re powerless and caught in between.

[onedoug]

Or homosexual.

[gaijin]

[gorush]

Consider that stolen.

[longtermmemmory]

every crackpot feminist activist keeps trying to come up with a “system to make men happy to pay child support”. It is identical to the principle of executions will continue until moral improves.

[SkyDancer]

Could be. Or maybe the guy was fed up. But to abandon his kids, he’s a coward.

[MeanWestTexan]

You don’t even have to get married or have sex to get dragged into this.

I was almost jailed and temporarily forced to pay child support to a woman I not only never slept with, but never met or even heard of.

She saw my picture in a magazine and decided that she wanted a rich daddy for her spawn and wrote my name into the birth certificate, getting my birth date from a Wikipedia entry.

I discovered her fraud when served with a subpoena for years of back child support, since she was on welfare.

It took probably north of $30K in legal fees and a DNA test to get out of it.

They argued that it was “too late” for me to contest custody despite having no interaction with the woman, the child, or having a clue that the lady had written my name down.

They lost in court, but it was touch-and-go. They even threatened me with prison.

I won basically because I had the means to fight it.

I lost, forever, the child support I paid during the lawsuit. It just vanished into the state coffers and they refused to pay me back. And apparently there is no legal recourse to get it back.

The event caused great public humiliation and great strain with my wife. (The newspapers only print you have an out-of-wedlock kid, never the finding that the kid is not yours.)

So, I can only imagine the pain of people actually caught in the system.

[SkyDancer]

Umm lady, how old is your oldest?

[Boogieman]

So the point of the piece is what? Because this one man is a deadbeat criminal evading the legal protections we put in place for these situations, we should all dole out money to provide for her kids?

[HiTech RedNeck]

This is why marriage was intended to be a God thing. This feminism business (or a masculism answer to it) yanks the institution out of God’s hands and it can only become a cynical, selfish game.

[humblegunner]

But to abandon his kids, he's a coward.

Maybe they ain't his kids and she's something worse than a coward.

Hey, I'm learning from the bloggers.. making stuff up is fun!

[Oldexpat]

I have nephew that is owed 8 years of child support by his x that has never paid a dime and he will not get any help collecting.

[FR_addict]

He should have been a man and supported his kids. No excuse!

[GoShow]

Boys listen to Tom Leykis .... Do not get married ever .

[RginTN]

Abandoning the babies makes him a real dirtbag.

I blame feminists who tell men they aren’t needed. Some men buy into to that crap

I blame secularists who dismiss the need for men to have character and trash men who have a moral compass.

[discostu]

But in the long run they’ll be better off. My dad bailed, sucked for a while, but eventually I realized that meant the rotten philandering child abandoning POS got less time to screw me up and that’s probably a good thing. It’s a long road to get there, 20 odd years for me, but in the end better off not raised by the kind of douche who’d abandon his kids.