Reader wonders why parents with visitation fade away
DEAR AMY: Please help me to understand why it seems so common that after a divorce, the parent with visitation will allow themselves to fade out of their children's lives.
In early 2009 I left my husband after repeated attempts to help him through his drug addiction. Our daughters were 11 and 13 at the time. For the first two years, he kept up his visitation schedule. Despite having as much access to them as he wanted, he stuck to the schedule for the most part and then faded away.
I know so many stories of others in the same situation, whether it's a father or the mother who steps out of their responsibilities. My girls are 18 and 20 now and they have learned that in their father's world, they don't matter. It hurts them deeply.
Our girls are busy but they would love to get a call from their father and feel a sense of importance to him. Messages or calls mostly go unanswered. When they are together for rare holiday occasions, he cannot relate to them and he seems too self-absorbed to really listen to them talk. The conversation is dominated by him and about him.
His girls are strong, intelligent and independent. He is either too self-absorbed or feels inadequate around them.
What are your thoughts as to why this happens so much? -- At A Loss
DEAR LOSS: I'm not aware that this happens as often as you seem to think it does. I also think that judging others based on your drug addict ex-husband's behavior is not fair to the scores of parents who try to be good parents under circumstances that are less than ideal.
A typical visitation schedule of one evening a week and every other weekend means that it can be very challenging for the noncustodial parent to develop a consistent and close relationship with children, especially as they get older and have lots of competing interests. Intimacy is built not only through special occasions, but sheer quantity time spent together performing the mundane tasks of life in a family -- going to the supermarket and school events, preparing dinner and cleaning up afterward. It is very challenging to build up an intimate family life on a visitation schedule.
It is also best for children if the custodial parent does everything possible to assist the non-custodial parent in building a relationship. Obviously, your ex-husband has done a very poor job, and I'm sorry that your children long for a relationship they can't have.
DEAR AMY: Two weeks ago my boyfriend broke up with me. He said he didn't love me like he used to. Right before he broke up with me we had this huge heart-to-heart about how we could both improve our relationship to make it stronger.
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