Lalalilylove wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:30 pm
Mamadrama wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:10 pm
I’m going to agree with the poster who said Ean was a mediocre guy, at best. I don’t know why we are celebrating men for doing the least minimal PARENTING. Why is the bar set this pathetically low?
There are much more validated reasons to leave someone other than cheating or abuse, she obviously didn’t feel loved or wanted because he just wasn’t that into her, it’s not hard to see that. I remember that engagement video after she had Nolan and her sister was there during it and how delighted and surprised Britney got because she was like finally! You can’t blame her for walking away for not feeling loved. Unless you lived in a loveless relationship you just can’t relate.
Frank is a POS and she’s damaged and she knows she’s destroyed her life without a way out, she knows she made a mistake out of maybe desperation, stupidity, excitement thinking someone wants you even with 3 kids.
If she’s reading on here let’s encourage her to leave him, for those kids sake, not hers. Frank seems abusive because he is abusive, if not physically at least emotionally and mentally. She doesn’t seem like a horrible person, she seems like a really lost and damaged person who needs lots of therapy to shake her back into reality. My sister was married to an abuser and had 2 kids with him, you’ve no idea how hard it is to pull someone out of this toxic prison, just thinking about it makes me cry.
How do we even know he is doing the “bare minimum”? Photos alone posted to his mother’s fb page show how happy and loved those kids are when they are with Ean... we don’t know what kind of dad he is now but he was a decent hard working dad when he was with Britney - she even showed him playing with the kids and shit. So tired of people assuming men are being praised for doing the bare minimum just because they are men. He works his ass off when they were together but he would get home late and still help with bedtime routines, setting up race tracks for Nolan, taking aria to swim classes. He was a good dad and I’m sure he still is, but the court ordered him less time because Britney is a stay at home mom and woman.
Everything you listed is literally the bare minimum lol. Anything less than that is being a shit parent. "His mom posts photos of the kids looking happy with him" is not evidence. My kids look super happy when they're with their dad. Its their extra fun no-rules, no-xbox limits time. He doesn't have to homeschool them either. I'm sure Ean loves his kids but that doesn't mean interacting with your kids and not ignoring them, coming in, putting your feet up, and "asking the old bird for a drink and to keep the kids quiet" is "above and beyond". "She even showed him playing with the kids and stuff" BARE MINIMUM to play with your own goddamn kids. I know white men have it sooooo hard but FFS, would we give Britney a pass if she just showed herself playing with her kids or taking Aria to a swim class that Ean set up for her, or showing a bedtime routine? I've seen people women reamed out here for not doing enough development/sensory play activities or taking them to the library enough, there is absolutely a double standard when building a race track for your son, playing with your kid, or taking them to a swim class (its not even like he came up with the swim class and booked it and then made a commitment to take her every week, he just drove her) is a good involved father not doing the bare minimum.
Secondly, I'm not sure if you've gone through a custody dispute in the last 10 years but that is NOT how it works in most places anymore. The courts are no longer heavily stacked toward mothers. I have several friends who are divorcees and as I mentioned, I am one myself and have been a single mom and I have seen some fathers who should honestly only be able to have supervised visitation or who absolutely should not get overnights because they are actively harmful to their kids get them because the court is so set on being fair. If he wanted 50/50 custody, he could have it. Thats the default they try to go for now. But a lot of men who are fairly involved in the way you mention Ean being are only comfortable being involved on the basis of the kids visiting for the weekend. Not having to deal with school, after school care, appointments, meal planning, communicating on every single issue with the other parent...etc. Even my ex, who literally beat me and threatened to kill me but who was an involved parent by your terms (he played with his kids! the kids love him! he occasionally dropped them off at an extracurricular if I was stuck doing something else!) has our kids more than Ean does.
Its also hard to understand the way that work and stress gets divided when you get divorced. When I got divorced, I was in nursing school full-time, working full-time + overtime to make sure I had enough to support the kids, my husband was a med student and only had to pay $100/mo in child support per kid which didn't even cover half of our youngest' child's monthly nursery school payment, and on top of being responsible for all the financial and emotional stress, I was the one who had to keep up with regular doctor/dentist appointments, extra curriculars, homework help, school meetings, iep meetings, therapy....etc etc while they went to him and had a fun time for the weekend and came back. I didn't play much with my kids TBH. Maybe if we were actually even slightly splitting some of the weight, I would have had time to do and not been crying in my car from exhaustion.