Jed Diamond explores the dynamic of some dads who abandon their families because they feel abandoned themselves.
We were ecstatic. Our first child had recently been born and my wife and I were on top of the world. I took two weeks off from work so that I could bond with him and get to know this new arrival into our lives. We’d both wanted kids and talked about having a child, then adopting a child. We were well on the way to having the life we had always dreamed about having. But a dark presence took hold of us during the first year after our son’s birth that eventually destroyed our marriage. It seemed that my wife and son became a unit and I didn’t feel I had a place. In the weeks and months following the birth of our son, my wife and I drifted farther and farther apart. Without even realizing what was happening I became a disappearing Dad.
Male Postpartum Abandonment Syndrome (MPAS) and the Disappearing Dad
In her recently published book, Why Dads Leave: Insights & Resources for When Partners Become Parents, Meryn Callander describes the underlying process that drives this epidemic of disappearing Dads that is destroying so many families. The causes of this epidemic are often hidden, but Callander has uncovered the truth of what is going on. She describes six stages in the development of the Disappearing Dad Dynamic:
Stage 1: Disruption in the Mother-Infant Bond.
“A secure mother-infant bond, fundamental to all mammalian species,” says Callander, “is the foundation on which all future relationships are built.” But most of us grow up in families where these critical bonding experiences were absent:
* Un-medicated, intervention free, birth.
* Near-constant skin-to-skin contact between mother and child.
* Shared sleeping arrangement with infant close to mother and father.
* Recognition that babies are social beings who need connection with mother, father, siblings, and others.
Stage 2: Boys Grow Up Looking for the Mommy Connection They Never Had.
Most of us didn’t get enough love and nurture from our mothers who were influenced by a culture that taught the importance of “independence” and “self-sufficiency.” We also didn’t get enough from our fathers who often followed the patterns they grew up with and became emotionally absent early in our lives.
When we find “Ms. Right” we’re hoping, usually unconsciously, that she’ll nurture and love us like our Moms and Dads never did. If we’re lucky, we find someone to fit that bill and the early years of our married life are safe and satisfying.
Stage 3: The Baby Arrives and Dad Loses the Mommy Love He Has Spent a Life-Time Trying to Capture.
“Suddenly the baby takes center stage,” writes Callander, “needing far more time and energy than a single human being can provide. The result is that the poorly connected father once again feels left out in the cold.” Dad usually feels shame over the resurfacing of his long-buried needs. In his attempt to block out the feelings of loss and his shame over feeling competitive with his innocent newborn, he often withdraws into work, alcohol, internet pornography, or some other escape the seems to salve his wounded heart.
Stage 4: Mom Heals Some of Her Childhood Loss Through Loving Connection with Her Child.
Callander describes the positive changes that the mother often experiences. “Meanwhile his partner may be simultaneously healing her own similar unmet needs, by being bathed in a cocktail of love hormones from her physical connection of carrying the baby in her womb and breastfeeding—which no man can ever experience.”
She feels so wonderful being with the child that her husband’s irritability, anger, sadness, and withdrawal serve to make her distance herself even more from him and connect ever more closely with her child.
Stage 5: The More Successful the Mothering, the More the Dad Pulls Away.
Both mother and father do everything they can to help Mom make and maintain a good connection with the baby. But for Dad the more successful the connection, the greater loss he feels. Not only does he feel the loss of the love and affection his wife had previously given to him, but it stirs up feelings from the loss he felt growing up without enough love from his mother and father. And since these feelings are generally unconscious, he becomes more and more depressed, irritable, resentful, and withdrawn.
Stage 6: The More Dad Pulls Away, the More Mom Turns Her Attention to the Child and More Rejected Dad Feels….Until He Feels His Only Option is to Leave.
Callander calls the end result of these stages, Male Postpartum Abandonment Syndrome (MPAS). “MPAS is now in play, with neither partner understanding the origins, and both likely overwhelmed by the transition to parenthood. A common coping mechanism for him is to leave, either physically or emotionally.”
“While women are more likely to take the first step towards formal dissolution of the relationship,” says Callander, “it is usually the man’s earlier dissatisfaction—typically manifesting in emotional or physical absence more than her own, which predicts her taking that step.”
Only by understanding these, often hidden, stages of men’s withdrawal can we reverse the epidemic of the disappearing Dad. Learn more by visiting: http://whydadsleave.com/
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photo of sad man looking out window by Shutterstock.com
About Jed Diamond Ph.D
Im really not sure how I feel about this article. I understand how men can feel left out of the baby bonding time. Even the most successful mommys need time to regenerate. At these times, it is imperative the man assert his position as caregiver. Not only does this give bonding time with the father, but the wide gets a big of a break and is much less likely to talk baby talk to the husband after being baby-centric for extended period of time. That is just one idea, and there are dozens of others, but what that takes is open communication between spouses.
What I find disturbing in this article is the thought that a man looks for a wife who is nurturing similar to his own mother. Husbands and wives are supposed to serve each other. But when a relationship is such that a man feels so ignored he leaves the relationship, to me this speaks of a weak man. When a wife has primary care of a newborn, she does NOT need another child type person to care for, but a partner to help share the load. While everyone’s feelings are legitimate, it’s how you deal with them that determines the strength and durability of a relationship. When a woman has Postpartum Depression, there are medications, counseling and exercise for that. In the same vein, when a man is feeling abandoned, there is counseling, and men’s groups he can join.
Having been a postpartum survivor, the hardest step is realizing something is wrong. Communication to your partner, your doctor, your pastor and your friends is key. Reach out and be proactive as soon as something feels off. Then, maybe, the family won’t be left with members who disappear.
Lynette,
Your points are well taken. As you say the hardest step in getting help “is realizing something is wrong.” Too many men don’t recognize that we didn’t get enough love and support growing up and don’t recognize the loss until a baby is born. Just when you’re needed for support for Mom and child, you feel the loss overtaking you. Shame often increases and keeps a man from talking about his feelings. One of the purposes of the book was to get couples talking about these issues before the child is born so that both can recognize unmet needs from childhood and attend to them so that the baby can feel the love and support of both parents, without Dad feeling emotionally conflicted.
I wasn’t looking for a replacement for my mom when I met my wife. I was looking for a great partner, friend, lover, etc. And a great lover. Because I have a business partner and male friends and our marriages are ok with all those other relationships. But I’m not supposed to have any other lovers.
But thwart a guy’s sex drive and tell him all the other parts are supposed to be enough. Suck it up, man up, etc…. That’s going to work sometimes and sometimes not. Some of us, maybe that’s our strongest drive. I’m certainly not advocating men leaving their families. But, people make all sorts of apologies for what women go through. They’re allowed to have needs. Men, not so much. We just “want” sex.
And apparently that’s got something to do with my mom taking meds at birth and putting me in a crib!?
Maybe, You’re right. Often men’s needs are neglected when a woman and child need us. I don’t know about you, but I always was taught that other’s needs came first. So, I pushed my own needs down. I wish I had known more about why dad’s disappear and why mom’s often disconnect from their husbands when the first child is born. I don’t know that would have saved my marriage. But this kind of information would have helped, had I had the courage to seek it out and take heed of the warnings. And “mom taking meds at birth and putting me in a crib,” that certainly would impact you has it has so many children.
“Un-medicated, intervention free, birth”
If women don’t go wanna go through extreme physical suffering it’s their fault if their kids do bad things when they grow up? Being self sufficient means emotionally neglecing your children? Being self sufficient means not being dependant on others; it doesn’t mean neglecting those who are dependant on you.
This article is just a psudoscientific attempt to blame women for men’s transressions. Even if your mommy didn’t spend every single minute with you, you’re a grown man now and you know that abandoning your family is wrong. There is no excuse for doing something that heartless.
The “intervention free birth” raised a huge red flag for me, too – and makes me wonder how much of the rest of the ‘process’ is speculative, evidence-free twaddle.
Natasha, This is not meant to excuse men who leave their families, its to shine light on a phenomenon that occurs too often. The more we understand why we do what we do, the better able we are to be the kind of men we want to be, for ourselves, our wives, and our children.
Natasha and Nick, The fact that the mother/child bond works best when mothers have as natural a birth process as possible, doesn’t suggest that women are wrong if they choose to take drugs or need other kinds of intervention. Everyone has to make their own choices about the kind of birth that is right for them and their baby. And everyone makes the best choice, given what they know.
Do you have any evidence for your assertion that “the mother/child bond works best when mothers have as natural a birth process as possible”? Because when you’re suggesting something that results in a great deal of pain at a minimum, and a risk of injury or death at worst, you had better have some damn good evidence to show for it.
To the best of my knowledge, there’s nothing showing any correlation between the degree of bonding between mother and baby and the use or otherwise of analgesics or other interventions during birth. But I’m quite prepared to be enlightened.
“The causes of this epidemic are often hidden, but Callander has uncovered the truth of what is going on.”
Wow, a single researcher has discovered the ultimate truth behind the behaviour of the majority of human males in western society who leave their families after the birth of a child! She must be a real genius if she has single-handedly solved this mystery once and for all, nevermind the myriad of social and biological factors at play.
Seriously though, this is not journalism. This is an advertisement.
Not to jump on the bashing bandwagon, because I do think the author shares a valid point that some (many?) men may experience, but I have to point out that there are probably a lot more widespread reasons why dads leave (or, “couples break up,” to avoid blame):
1. The man didn’t want the baby in the first place, but may have been coerced/guilt-tripped into it by the whole “abortion is murder” belief (either his or his partner’s).
2. He, like many, many others, doesn’t make enough money to really support a kid the way he thinks is best, so, feeling like an utter failure at his “ultimate purpose” (i.e., breadwinning), runs away from the whole situation in shame.
3. The completely, utterly overwhelming stress of a newborn just gets to be too much. An infant requires a lot more care than even two people can provide, and current parenting fads add even more expectations on top of that. It’s too much for a lot of people to handle.
4. He’s just a selfish prick. Sorry to offend anyone, but sometimes people are just assholes.
I feel I have some experience with this, having grown up in a depressed part of the country where the disappearing dad was an epidemic: http://goodmenproject.com/divorce/an-open-letter-to-gen-x-dads/
As the author of Why Dads Leave, I appreciate your taking the time to participate in the controversy raised by Jed’s article—and certainly by the book itself. While I am unable to respond fully, here, to the very legitimate issues and questions raised, perhaps the following will clarify a few things.
“Why Men Leave” is an exploration of the many dynamics—personal, interpersonal, social and cultural–underlying why so many well-intentioned and committed fathers subsequently leave their partners and children—physically AND/OR emotionally—in the early years after the birth of a child.
Most of us are unprepared—before a baby arrives—for the changes in lifestyle that will be demanded of us. We are even less able to appreciate the changes that will occur within us as we become mother/father, and between us as we assume these roles. While most couples approach parenthood imagining a new baby will bring them closer together, initially at least, a child tends to push them apart.
When we have an understanding of the factors that can cause marital strain during this period, and recognize that this transition time affords us a unique window of growth both individually and as a couple, we are better equipped to grow together, rather than apart.
As one reader commented, everyone’s feelings are legitimate, it’s how we deal with them that determines the health of a relationship. There is no intention here to shame nor blame. Adults crave and thrive on connection just as infants and children do. As is stated in this book, it is neither fair nor helpful to minimize a man’s needs, to shame him as a “needy, greedy” child—nor to label him as a guy who only wants sex.
Research shows that both our ability to develop and sustain healthy relationships, and our parenting style, is deeply influenced by the parenting we received as children. However, what is most important is not the parenting we received, but our ability to reflect back on our childhood experiences and make sense of them, and consciously decide those values and patterns we want to pass on to our children, and those we want to leave behind.
Parents today face unprecedented challenges. Many mothers feel isolated, dads feel superfluous, and both feel incompetent—even when they are far from it. Parents do best when they are supported—by their community, and by economic and social policies that value the art and science of parenting.
This book carries the voices and research of international leaders in the related fields, as well as the voices of men and women who have struggled with—and those who have surmounted—the issues addressed here.
As Pam Leo, author of Connection Parenting reminds us, we will never become perfect parents who raise perfect children, but we can learn how to make it better for our children, for us, and for our world. My hope is that Why Dads Leave will offer insights and resources toward that end, and encourage further dialogue and research.
Its unfortunate that the initial comments closed the door on this issue. I read the piece and wanted to comment. After reading the opening comments I felt there was little point, it seems that vitriol towards fathers has more traction.
I thought I’d highlight some personal experience.
After the choice to parent my partner miscarried more than once. Painful, as a man powerless, but not to keep trying. Complications of a fibroid I eventually named Phylis the fibroid.
Saturday morning on the bathroom floor crying because of blood only to find out later that the baby is still there.
Happy again and hopeful, lets play it safe wait for cues from preggo and go from there. Psychology is important lets stay happy.
Partner tells me she fell down the stairs but says she’s ok, should we go to the doctor she says no. Hmm.
She talks of home birth but its a shit hole and far from clean. She has cats that don’t always use the litter box. Which reminds me cat box’s can transmit encephalitis. Don’t touch them. Maybe the cats shouldn’t be on the top floor if you birth there. Who am I to take such measures.
Prenatal classes I arrive ten minutes late trying to find parking. I’m a thoughtless undependable prick with the wrong priorities. Particularly enjoy the discussions of scheduled caesarian delivery over unexpected natural birth. (not)
Initial meetings with midwife, should be private to build re-pore I’m not needed. When I later say I would like to go I get the cold shoulder from the midwife.
Partners facial expressions turn to looks of contempt but only when she looks at me. Pregnancy is tough don’t take it personal.
There’s no discussion about maternity leave, I’m self employed do you want me to stay home with you or not. No response while she thinks about it and no response at any point.
Delivery is getting close lets get a service in to disinfect the upper floor. No you don’t want other people in our home. I’ll do it myself two and a half days no problem. Your yelling at me because I set the bed up in another room so I could disinfect the main room for delivery. It put you off, sorry for being inconsiderate.
You think your water broke, call the midwife, she’s on holiday they’re giving you another midwife! She says we have to go to the hospital. Induce labor. She’s new at this only on the job for a year?
Your inducing labor a warm bath will help while the injection takes effect. It’s ten hours later and nothings happening didn’t the doctor say it might be a high water leak. Why would you induce labor and not break her water.
Your injecting her with a massive amount of antibiotics because you don’t know if she has been inoculated for Hepatitis. Will it affect the baby?
This is a learning hospital the midwife has never done an episiotemy she cut the wrong way but a stitch or two will fix it. There’s complications the placenta won’t come out she needs her womb scraped. There’s a large loss of blood she will be in recovery for most of the day.
I’ll just sit outside in tears by myself, let me know when she’s out of danger. You want to go home, you don’t like the nurse? You just left the recovery room.
Maybe your stressed out maybe that’s why it’s hard to breastfeed, relax it isn’t life or death it will come, it’s not the end of the world even if you don’t breastfeed. I’m not supportive I’m insensitive, how could I be so uncaring? Really? Sorry I’ll leave you two alone it might be less stressful for you. Why don’t you just turn on the TV relax with the baby in the chair.
Your friend said that stress affects breastfeeding you should just relax don’t try to push it.That was thoughtful of her, maybe she’s right. It’s good to have someone to talk to isn’t it.
Your iron level is at 7 and it should be at 30, it can even effect your memory. I’ll go get the supplement right now. This is liquid supplement, best on the market. Did you take your iron supplements today? You think I’m trying to control your life? Really with iron supplements.
Toilet training doesn’t have to be complicated, every 15 minutes ask him if he has to go. If he says yes take him if he isn’t sure take him if he says no, believe him. The main thing is to be consistent with the same approach. Eventually he will do it himself. Your letting him run around with no diaper and leaving the pottie where he can see it?
He’s three years old he really shouldn’t be sleeping with us at this point. He’s starting to develop self identity and breast feeding and sleeping in our bed will slow that process. I’m needy, I think it’s all about me. Sorry I’ll sleep in the basement.
You want to end the relationship? OK!
It’s tough being an asshole, especially when it only cuts one way. It’s an important issue, addressing it could contribute to bringing some fathers back into a dialogue. But unless you experience it yourself why would you believe in fairies, princesses and invisible gods. Just believe in mom and everything will be fine …really, just ask her kids.
Huh? Precisely what point are you trying to make?
Of course I cannot respond for Keith and the point that he wanted to make, but I greatly admire his courage, and respect both his willingness to be so vulnerable and his taking the time to articulate his experience. I wanted to say then and there when I first read his comment, and I didn’t at the time, how deeply touched I was by the authenticity and depth of his sharing. Oh, the anguish, I know it well. As author of Why Dads Leave: Insights and Resources for When Partners Become Parents, I have heard variations on this so many times. Keith’s story is, sadly, one of so many. Given some of the responses to Jed’s review of my book, printed above, perhaps this alone is the point that Keith is wanting to make—or one that may be taken from it.
From almost two decades of talking with individuals and couples struggling with the issues Jed addresses in his article, I know that it is vitally important that stories like Keith’s be spoken and be heard. It is only as men—and women–begin to recognize and dialogue about this, we can better comprehend the reality of this dynamic. Understanding and reframing these experiences so that there is no shame and no blame, engenders compassion and connection, rather than judgment and rejection. This is important not only so that those who find themselves struggling with these issues may recognize what is happening and seek counsel, but also so that those around them can better understand and support them. Again, I applaud this man’s courage and willingness to share, so that others—who are willing and able—may better understand.
Keith,
Thanks for sharing the truth of your experience. So often men are asked to “tell me how you feel. I want to know what’s going on inside you.” But when they do, they are shamed and blamed and sometimes battered emotionally or physically. Let’s face it, it isn’t easy being a good husband (or wife). I’ve been married three times (and just now learning how to get it right with wife #3). Its also not easy being a parent and step parent. I had 2 children from my first marriage and my wife (also married twice before) had three children. Its been a struggle, but we’re still learning to love and to grow and to change.
May we all be more compassionate with ourselves, our partners, and all of those who seek to learn more about “the crisis of the disappearing dad.”