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Old 04-13-2021, 07:28 AM
 
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What causes parents to not love their children?

My son was told by his father this past weekend that he doesn’t love him and he favors his wife’s children from another relationship. My kids are my entire world and I love them unconditionally. I can’t comprehend what causes a parent to be this way.

Is it mental illness? I suspect he is bipolar and he is textbook narcissistic. Is it from having an unconventional upbringing? Is it unresolved anger towards the child’s mother? He left me for another woman but he still directs his anger towards me, like I made that choice.

I don’t get it... anyone been through being told by a parent that they don’t love you?
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Old 04-13-2021, 02:05 PM
 
Location: Vermont
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No, but I remember asking my mother once, when I was well into adulthood, whether she thought I'd turned out to be a good person. (She'd left my father years before, when I first started college. And both my parents were alcoholics.) And she said to me that she didn't know, because she didn't really know me. That broke my heart and even thinking about it now hurts. But she never said she didn't love me.

As to your question, were you married to the child's father? how old was the child when his father left you? How old is the child now? What is the father's unconventional upbringing?

If the father left when the child was young, perhaps he has no connection to base 'love' of the child on. Like my mother didn't know if I was actually a 'good person' because we have a very wide time gap in our relationship.

All that said, I think a father telling a son he doesn't love him is cruel....are you sure you have the whole story?
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Old 04-13-2021, 02:39 PM
 
Location: A Yankee in northeast TN
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My father treated one of my siblings pretty bad, he was always the scapegoat, the one who couldn't do anything right. Found out many years later my father suspected that my mom cheated on him and felt that my brother was probably the other man's child. Maybe your ex harbors suspicions of his own, however unfounded they might be
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Old 04-13-2021, 02:46 PM
 
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I never married him. Son was 3 or so when his father left. Child is 10 1/2 now.

The father was brought to this country by his father. His brother was left behind with the mother. Sons father rarely saw the mother. The brother was raised by the mother and rarely sees the father. To this day he has no relationship with his mother.

When son was little, his father said I could raise him while he was little and then he would take him when he got big. Of course I said no way... He has abused son physically in the past. He has a history of saying inappropriate things to our son.
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Old 04-13-2021, 02:49 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DubbleT View Post
My father treated one of my siblings pretty bad, he was always the scapegoat, the one who couldn't do anything right. Found out many years later my father suspected that my mom cheated on him and felt that my brother was probably the other man's child. Maybe your ex harbors suspicions of his own, however unfounded they might be
So he demanded DNA testing when I filed for child support years ago. Court ordered testing proved that he was the father.

Now he does harbor serious resentment that he has to pay me child support.
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Old 04-13-2021, 07:02 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LowonLuck View Post
So he demanded DNA testing when I filed for child support years ago. Court ordered testing proved that he was the father.

Now he does harbor serious resentment that he has to pay me child support.
Is that the same guy your daughter sees and meets and whose truck is in your name and you pay tags/insurance on?
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Old 04-13-2021, 08:41 PM
 
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Originally Posted by Threestep2 View Post
Is that the same guy your daughter sees and meets and whose truck is in your name and you pay tags/insurance on?
No. Truck is in my name. He pays tags and insurance on it. He won’t take my name off of it.... daughter now drives so she sees him weekly. Him and I aren’t on bad terms, but we don’t have to talk often.
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Old 04-13-2021, 09:52 PM
Status: "I'm turquoise happy!" (set 27 days ago)
 
Location: The New England part of Ohio
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I hate to generalize about men, but I will, because it seems to be true.

More than women, men appear to give their attention to the children who come from their current relationship. When a man has a new wife or partner, from death, divorce or breakup, it is the children from the latest relationship who seem to get the most attention. On every level.

The current wife is usually a part of this. At least in my case she was. She also interfered with the will, declaring my father "incompetent", when he realized what she was doing - alienating him from the children from his first marriage.
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Old 04-13-2021, 10:02 PM
 
Location: az
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I don't know if my father loved me or not but he was never interested in what I was doing growing up.

The only time he showed much interest was when I didn't do what he wanted. Ultimately, it didn't matter if he loved me or not because I grew up disliking him. I don't have any fond memories of us together. He passed away almost 30 years ago but today as I'm 63 years old I can look back and see he was an unhappy man. Why? I really don't know. All I know is he didn't care much for his three kids.
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Old 04-13-2021, 10:15 PM
 
Location: NE Mississippi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LowonLuck View Post
................I don’t get it... anyone been through being told by a parent that they don’t love you?
I have.
It's survivable. I left home when I was 17, joined the navy and spent the next 9 years with no real place to go.
That was long ago. I am now 75, been married 31 years (I WAS a little late getting married) and am happily retired.


What causes it? That answer varies for each individual, but I will say this with certainty: Behavior solves problems. Whatever problem Dad has is solved my rejecting his son. It may be a lousy solution, and you may not understand it, but it is his solution to his problem. Someday, Son will learn dad's actions really had nothing to with Son; it would have happened to whoever was standing in that spot when it happened.
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