Anyone care to give an opinion?

**outdoors** · 12th-January-2012

My daughter's won't forgive me for leaving their abusive mother.

After 28 years of marriage, my wife told me a year ago she no longer loved me and wanted me to leave. After months of trying to get her into counselling (she suffers from intermittent explosive disorder), and tired of years of being assaulted and belittled in front of our three daughters, I finally left. I was a hard-working and loving husband, with no issues with substance abuse or anything that would provoke such outbursts. Now I am starting a new life in a new relationship. When I mentioned this to one of my daughters, I was accused of moving on too soon. All three of my daughters, who grew up witnessing my wife's treatment of me and have begun to emulate it, now refuse to speak to me. How can I find closure?

My daughters won’t forgive me leaving their abusive mother - The Globe and Mail

**Martin E** · 12th-January-2012

The children usually want the parents to stay together no matter what. Personally, I can understand this man's predicament but his girls will perhaps understandably think he should have stuck around no matter what and they might have felt that by choosing to leave and move on he left them with the problematic mother rather than trying to stay with the family and do his bit to contain her. Men tend to move on faster than women and in a world that often treats men badly on divorce that's a good thing but again we can perhaops understand why the girls would see it differently. They would not want their dad to move on because they might see it as a threat to their relationship with him especially as they are still with the mother so his severing ties with her might increase their insecurity. As to whether the man moved on to a new woman too quickly is a matter for individual judgement and we are given no idea how long it was so I can't comment but since his daughters feel it is too quick they are demonstrating a need to be reassured that their dad loves them and is as committed to them as he ever was and that no other woman in his life is a threat to that.

**Dylan MacVillain** · 13th-January-2012

The one who initiates the divorce is the one who should leave. This automatic assumption that the husband should become a vagabond because the wife is itching to be a lesbian or whatever is absurd. You want to split up? Fine, grab your suitcase. There's the door. Bon voyage. What's more, in this particular family, the kids are grown, I assume. Sell the house. The wifey can rent a room.

**The Possible Human** · 13th-January-2012

The man moved on with his life after ending an abusive marriage. The fact that his daughters won't forgive him for leaving their mother is nothing new. They want their Dad's love, but only on their terms. If the man leaves the door open, his daughters will come around sooner or later. The daughters criticise their Dad for moving on too fast and finding a new woman, jealousy and possesiveness for sure. The man should act like a Dad and tells his girls that it's none of their business who he is seeing in a realtionship.

**felixblue** · 13th-January-2012

Mothers like that always turn the kids against the father.. If they are old enough to think for themselves, but still want to follow that crap.. Sod them.. Not worth the worry and stress..