I know I’ve compiled a considerable rap sheet full of sins, and hope I’ve taken my lumps and learned my lessons. I doubt I could successfully bury all trace of them where no SO would ever see any evidence. But if she couldn’t decide to accept that and be for me all the way, I’d hope she’d do us both a favor and get lost.
stpauler nailed it.
If she had given the kids up for adoption would you expect her to have any contact &/or send them money? If this is what the parties agreed to why should it matter if they are being raised properly & well taken care of?
There’s no way I’d consider kids with her, & if you’re looking for marriage & family, move on, but if not, enjoy the ride for as long as it works.
Well, for one thing the law says both parents have obligations to the children financially. This broad’s a deadbeat, same as if a guy did this.
And if the deal he struck with her, at the time, amounted to, “surrender all rights, have no contact and I won’t seek money!”, is she still a deadbeat?
There’s a ton of kids in the world who’s lives would be infinitely improved by having one parent take a hike, especially in divorce situations, I think. I think I could find my way to give a pass to someone self aware enough to take themselves out of the equation, knowing they suck. Might take a few years, of course:D.
Just keep in mind that you too are equally disposable. You and whatever your investment in the relationship with her becomes. Mull that over for awhile.
People can change over time and regret these choices. I raised my 2 sons alone with help from my family and later their mother wanted to reunite with them. An idea which I supported, but the sons were not interested. Now they are almost 30yrs old and have made some contact with her, but she lost too much of their formative years to catch up.
Your new girlfriend will probably take as much from you as you are willing to provide, for as long as you stay interesting enough, and then walk away unconcerned about your future too.
Look up narcissism and read. Just so you know.
She doesn’t get to surrender rights. No more than a Dad gets to walk out on his kids. The state doesn’t permit it unless 1) the child is given up for adoption and both parents sign away rights or 2) the other parent cannot be located or 3) parental rights are removed by the court.
And rights come with responsibilities. She retains responsibilities to these children whether she wants them or not. And maybe Dad isn’t following up, but that doesn’t absolve her of responsibility.
Now, perhaps dropping them a card once in a while would be destructive (though I’m hard pressed to see how) but I know more than one grown adult who has said “my Dad couldn’t take it any more and I haven’t seen him since I was ten - but he was NEVER late with a child support check.”
I’ve known a few of these women as well - and none of them were capable of having healthy relationships with anyone - narcissistic or other issues (in one case serious drug abuse)
Or one parent surrenders rights for a step-parent to adopt. That doesn’t sound like what happened here, it’s just a possible scenario you missed and so I thought I’d mention it.
I started a thread about this a while back.
My personal advice is “RUN!”
A woman placing a baby for adoption at birth is NOT the same as a person who had a child, participated in its upbringing for some years, and then walked away. :rolleyes:
From what I’ve seen, if one parent is that dysfunctional, the other one usually is too.
Anyone who works in family law will tell you that the worst custody disputes, whether the couple was ever married or not, are the ones where NEITHER parent should have custody. 
If it were me and I was looking at the long term, I’d be thinking ‘what happens if I get seriously ill and need someone to care for me?’ I’d have to believe that I’d see her ass walking away and her not looking back.
There are probably a few more, but our justice system really likes to see two parents having parental responsibilities where possible. Exceptions exist (single parents adopting - and of course, you can’t make a dead person responsible), but if they can tag two, they almost always will.
A word of advice that all men should remember: Beauty doesn’t last.
It would be one thing if she’d gotten therapy, made failed attempts to reconnect with the kids, and was paying child support (or putting it a savings account for the kids when they are older, if it’s the case that child support is unwanted). Then I’d say that she deserves another shot. But since it doesn’t seem as if she’d done any of these things, then I say she’s a wreck rather a work in progress. Maybe you can change her, but probably not.
For me, it’s not the lack of maternal feelings that throw up a red flag. It’s the absence of the appropriate actions. You don’t have to feel love to act responsibly.
I don’t even want kids, but this would be a deal breaker to me. As monstro indicates, it’s failure to behave appropriately and act responsibility. I’ll add that a complete absence of love, caring or giving any though for children that you’ve brought into this world is a sign of some sort of level of psychosis. Even though I don’t want kids, if I had them, I would love them and want to be a part of their lives and upbringing.
You say she’s beautiful. I hate to be cliche, but beauty is only skin deep. She sounds pretty ugly on the inside.
It seems to me that this is not a secret one should keep from the person you are dating for three months. It’s deception, pure and simple. Was it drugs? Was she abusive? What the heck happened that made her totally check out on her children? It might be hard to get a straight answer. I’m sure she feels defensive about it, and probably for good reason. Most non-custodial mothers probably have “their version” to spin on the reason they’re not raising their kids, and I would imagine that it doesn’t always mesh with the “actual version” of events.
She waited three months to tell you this to give you time to get hooked on her first, so you wouldn’t walk away right at the beginning. Sounds like it worked because you bring up that she’s a beautiful woman. And who says she loves her kids? No she doesn’t. If she loved them but didn’t think it would be best for her to raise them she would still be involved in some way…sending cards, or requesting pictures, or saving for their education…something. What worries me is that you even wonder if she’s a good person. No, she’s not.
If you’re thinking with your dick and like having a hot chick on your arm then have at it. If you want a toy, then go play. But don’t expect her to be there if you ever need anything. Don’t expect much of anything, really, like emotional intimacy or integrity or loyalty. I bet she’s already got somebody else in her sights if things with you don’t work out. And I’m wondering if, deep down, you already know that.
A friend of mine stayed with her father when her parents got divorced, because her mother decided to go to grad school, and would be moving to the town in another state, where she was accepted to school, and living in student housing, while the father was staying in the house the kids had grown up in, and they’d keep going to the same school. The mother sublet places in the summer where there was space for the kids, and they stayed with her, and she went and stayed with her ex and the kids (it was a pretty amicable divorce) for holidays. The kids visited her for a couple of long weekends.
After she finished school, she looked for a job in the state where her kids were, and found one where she was about a three-hour drive (instead of a seven hour drive, or a plane ride), but she remained the non-custodial parent-- she might have had joint legal custody, though.
So sometimes it’s a rational choice that benefits everyone.
It’s not wrong for a woman not to be the custodial parent after a divorce, and it’s not wrong for her not to want to be. It’s not wrong for a woman not to be a mother, or not to want to be.
I agree though, that it’s fishy that she isn’t providing anything financially, but without knowing the specifics, I don’t want to say that it’s wrong or evil. This could be a really unusual situation. Is the woman on disability, and the father wealthy? it could be that legally, her contribution is insignificant to him-- depending on just how the state figures support, her contribution could be something like $28/month, and her ex may not be interested in collecting it, or may have told her to forget it-- which legally, he isn’t supposed to do, but with people, including other women, not paying thousands of dollars every month, she wouldn’t be a priority. I don’t condone her not paying; I’m simply saying I can see situations where the father wouldn’t be interested in pursuing the matter.
FWIW, in the situation I described where the mother went back to school, she actually got alimony for a few years (three, IIRC, the time allotted for her to finish school), and during that time, wasn’t expected to pay anything toward the children. After that, she didn’t send money to the father; she set up a savings account for each one, and made monthly deposits, and so when each one turned 18, they had a pretty good college fund. This was back in the 70s (and I didn’t know about the financial arrangements at the time-- my friend told me about ten years after the fact).
Thank you for this, I think you’ve nailed it.
This is waving red flags and sounding sirens. My suggestion is to get a lot of gone between you and her.
It may be ethically “OK” on some level for a mother with few maternal feelings who feels she does not want to involve herself in her kid’s upbringing to break off her role as mother if they are being well taken care of otherwise. People come in all varieties and there is probably a slot on the bell curve for people like this.
The question is not morally judging her or her decisions at this point, the kids are being cared for and she hasn’t killed anyone or set fire to kittens. The real question is now that you know what you have in front of you, do you want to be involved with a woman who is wired that way?
She has (somewhat belatedly) laid her cards on the table about a part of who she is. No, it’s not the norm and most women would chew off their arms before they let you take their kids, and if you get involved there is strong possibility that the parts of her personality that let her walk away from her kids will come into play in her dealings with you. It’s inevitable. Your issue should be what’s going to happen if you become emotionally attached to her and having sex will tend to make that happen. For myself I would avoid an emotional entanglement with a person who has these personality traits.