Did your Ex bail on attachment parenting?

[greenbanana]

I'm not divorced but I've been thinking about this lately because of a friend's situation. She and her husband were both initially keen on AP (co-sleeping and breastfeeding till age 4+, homeschooling, etc.) but as time went on, he began to resent sharing his bed and waking hours to this extent with the kids. He spent more and more time outside of the home to support the family while she withdrew from the workforce and approached parenting as a vocation and an artform. Their marriage disintegrated and now she is forced to sleep apart from her kids (for the first time) when they stay at his new apartment. Now she is worried he will insist that the kids attend school. How common is this for APs?

[simplemama32]

There were other issues involved, but I will say that my stbx is not the father I had hoped for and expected for our child. Some of that was due to our differing beliefs on parenting, and some of it was just him.

[Halfasianmomma]

I sort of stumbled on AP due to circumstances (we were poor, we had no room for a crib, lived on the 3rd floor of a walk-up, etc) and *Back then* my XH was supposedly "all for AP". He told me he slept with his son till age 4 or 5, and had pushed DSS' mother to breastfeed but she refused etc etc. So when DD was born, I started nursing on demand, cloth diapering, cosleeping, and babywearing. XH wasn't super involved but he supported me somewhat.

Eventually though, he took issue with extended bfing and used that as an excuse to start arguments. Eventually, he wanted DD to sleep on her own because he "wanted his wife back". He categorically refused to wear DD even though he's way taller and stronger than me.

Anyhow, the long and short of it is that my "parenting ways" were a huge point of contention between XH and I, and I was also deathly afraid of how he'd parent her after we split. My saving grace was that my XH was too afraid/lazy to show up in court and I was granted custody by default. Now I don't need to worry about anyone arguing with my AP ways.

[indiefolklore]

Originally Posted by simplemama32

There were other issues involved, but I will say that my stbx is not the father I had hoped for and expected for our child. Some of that was due to our differing beliefs on parenting, and some of it was just him.

Same here. It was hard enough try to parent with him, at first he was all for everything and then it became- i'm the man, i'm the father, i'm in charge- regardless of the fact that he rarely spent time with him and had an old school way of expecting how a 2 year old should 'act'.

We are separated at my request and have been for 3 months but i will not be able to move out for 3 more weeks. Since the split he has become increasingly anti- whatever i am trying to do with our son (AP, positive dicipline, etc) and i fear that it will just increase as time goes on which makes me extremely sad because i wanted such a united front (together or not) on how we would raise DS. He had assured me that he would always back me up...since i am the one who has much more experience with children (oldest of cousins and siblings, nanny, volunteer work with children) and i read/research like crazy. But now he is just acting out and my DS will probably be very confused growing up with the different approaches if this continues.

I've even had other single mothers who had the guy drop out early in the kids life tell me that they don't envy my situation one bit, because even though financially they struggle...they don't have everything else a constant battle with an ex. They are able to raise their child how they would like to and do not have to compromise. It just really sucks because my parenting style is out of love and respect...his is just about control.

When thinking about all of this it makes me question, i thought i was leaving to make life better for DS but could it be possible that i could make it would by subjecting him to even more chaos if his father gets ugly?

(sorry, i rambled for a bit- i'm new to all of this and don't have friends to vent to)