One man is facing harsh truths from a friend after lamenting that his children don’t spend time with him.

It sounds like his his lack of involvement has really distanced them!

Now, with his wife gone, he’s feeling the void he unknowingly created. When a friend points out the obvious, it doesn’t go over well.

Read on for the story!

AITA For Telling Friend I Understand Where His Kids Are Coming From?

My friend and I are both older in life, though I am childless.

He has two daughters and a son, all late teens/early twenties.

We went out for lunch the other day and he made a comment about how ungrateful his kids are because they don’t spend time with him after everything he did to raise them, especially now that his wife has passed.

I told him that while I understood how hurt he must feel but that this is a result of his own actions, which he had been warned of.

Ba-ba-ba-burrrrn.

For the record, he was around when the children were growing up but he wasn’t the most involved parent.

He got up, went to work before everyone else woke up, came home before everyone else and indulged in his hobbies, saw the family for a few minutes and went to bed every day.

His wife did most of the parenting, from feeding them, to taking them to school and attending all activities.

She made a point of getting to know all of their friends and learn all of their hobbies, while he did not.

She took care of every injury and sickness, never getting a break for herself while he made it clear that he was his top priority.

He very rarely played with the children directly when they were much younger.

He always said they needed to learn the importance of independent play and to not rely on him for entertainment.

That doesn’t seem right.

He would ignore them asking to spend time with him and very rarely went out of his way to do anything the family would’ve enjoyed.

In his words, he didn’t want to “spoil them” and he was “helping them balance their lives.”

I had mentioned to him numerous times before that this didn’t seem like it would have any positive effects on them, but he didn’t believe me.

He said they just needed to share his exact hobbies if they wanted to do something together.

As someone who grew up with a family like that, I realized that it would most likely just teach the children their father didn’t want anything to do with them and they would stop seeking his attention.

As they got older, they did just that and their mom and I eventually stopped trying to get him to be more involved.

He considered them spending time with their mom as spending time with him by extension, so he didn’t realize what he was losing until she was gone.

It just keeps getting worse and worse.

Now that she’s dead, they have no reason to reach out anymore and have their own lives elsewhere.

They keep in touch with me as I’ve always been like an uncle to them and tried to fill in for their dad, but I’m not a total replacement.

After our conversation, he left the restaurant quickly and sent me multiple messages calling me an AH, demanding I cut contact with his kids to teach them a lesson for disrespecting him.

Yikes.

I don’t think I’m in the wrong here but another mutual friend says I’m an AH for not being more supportive of him while he deals with this and losing his wife. AITA?

Edit: I added this in the comments too, but he was not the main provider in the family – his wife worked full time 6 days a week and he only worked a few hours a handful of days each week.

He didn’t contribute much around the house either; he literally meant that him and his hobbies/entertainment were most important to him. It wasn’t like he was buying their affection.

While the mutual friend sided with the grieving father, many believe that facing the consequences of his past choices might be the wake-up call he needs.

Reddit is on fire for this one.

This person says the dad can’t have his cake and eat it too.

And this commenter says he’s way too late to the caring game.

This Redditor has a dad just like this, and wasn’t a fan.

Looks like this dad’s been living life on ‘do not disturb’ mode, and now he’s shocked no one’s calling.

It’s a tale as old as time.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.