Don't think that you're getting out of stuffing your children up - as a parent, that's a responsibility you need to keep, whether you are with the father or not.

FWIW, one of the ways my parents stuffed me up was my father being in and out of my life constantly, sometimes living with us sometimes not (work - 4-5m away with no visits and very rare phone calls, 3m home), and my mother whinging to me that she hated him and wanted to divorce him periodically, but never telling him that. I'd have been less stuffed up without that. If they were doing that and divorced it would have made a lot more sense.