AIBU to wonder why women still accept unequal relationships?

No-one has those powers when they have the first child.

And powers are not needed with any subsequent children, just common sense.

He's not going to suddenly go from being a shit partner and father of one, to an amazing partner and father of two.

She is and she is also assuming we have god-like mind reading and clairvoyant powers to see how a man will become.

Explain please how that happens? To put yourself in the position of no choice?

I’d like to hear what you imagine it might be like,

It’s a complex thing and I think it requires empathy rather than judgement to get close to the heart of it.

Spot on.

Women most often endure and survive such unequal relationships because we have no choice. That is a far cry from accepting an unequal or abusive relationship. And it’s not the women that are creating the perception such relationships are normal, it’s the men who are creating the perception and enforcing it with coercion and physical force.

My partner is a good man, a good dad and does more than his fair share (although neither of us are particularly fastidious or house-proud tbh).
My dad was the opposite. My mum eventually divorced him but I suppose she “accepted” his behaviour for a long time. She even worked and earned all of the money while he was on the dole.
I can’t speak for her but I would some of the reasons she didn’t kick him out sooner were that she married too young and we didn’t actually have divorce here at the time (Ireland), she loved him, she had all sorts of issues around relationships from her upbringing and undiagnosed mh problems including EUPD.
It was hard for her to accept the reality of what her life was like versus what she had sworn it was going to be (ie different to her parents’). She was always going on about being a feminist and equality. My dad cleaned the house to be fair to him and was supposed to be a sahp which was very unusual at the time. He was an alcoholic though and so what actually happened was she worked full time and us kids took care of ourselves while he drank and stayed in bed or pissed off to the pub then forgot to collect us from school or left us locked out of the house or at home alone for hours on end.
He was also physically abusive to my mum and my older sister though.
I don’t know if this discussion is only about men who do less than their fair share and not ones who are emotionally or physically abusive but I can imagine some of the reasons why women “accept” “lesser” bad behaviour from men probably stem from similar things, just not as extreme. It’s a complex thing and I think it requires empathy rather than judgement to get close to the heart of it.
One thing I will say is that I have always thought that my partner being a good partner and dad is probably largely down to the fact that he had a good dad because I can see how he imitates his dad’s behaviour.

No.

@Tigger1895 Are you not blaming women for taking what’s on offer, out of desperation?

Some single women get to 30ish and start to panic that they'll never have kids, so they grab the first guy they can.
I've seen it so many times.

Are you not blaming women for taking what’s on offer, out of desperation?

He didn't opt out- men often don't get invited to the same WhatsApp groups. They just don't do things in the same way. He had a kid before anyone had WhatsApp so I guess got off to a different start but he certainly did plenty of play dates and children's parties and is still a big giver of lifts t her friends so he perhaps maintains DD's social life in other ways. I hadn't thought about it like that. Thanks KevinsSignatureShortdeads for reframing that for me.

I think having kids around makes this extra difficult for women to make changes - It's easy to say stop picking up all the slack but the kids will be the ones to suffer if things get left.

My DH is great in lots of ways but can be a bit lazy - I don't want the kids to say, sleep in an unmade bed cos his standards of "it's fine with just a loose sheet chucked on top" means he wouldn't put the clean covers on. I end up doing it cos I don't think it's fair on them.

Obviously a "minor" example but it does end up snowballing to bigger things quite easily

I agree, but it's easier to push back and question these views when they are not ingrained from a young age; I grew up with old fashioned parents who expected me & my sisters to marry, settle down, and provide care for them in their old age. When your peers and friends & family have the same views, and your value is reliant on being a wife and mother, and you have little confidence and low self esteem, it's hard to step outside of what's expected of you. I grew up in the 70s and this was widely accepted in the small rural area I grew up in.

I'm glad to say I was the last to get married, and lived on my own and supported myself first, and my confidence grew and I realised you don't have to live the life your parents expect.

Valued by whom? Judged by whom?

I experienced the same but frankly I held the people valuing that and judging me in contempt. I didn't welcome them into my social circle, or I distanced myself from them as much as possible. My own self-worth was never dependent on those things and I thought the people who cared about them were basic, conservative and shallow.

I can't emphasis how much finding a social circle where the default is to push back against traditional societal norms has enabled me - and my friends - to live lives largely free from the bullshit I'm reading about in this thread.

I agree with @Itchthescratch that there aren't enough 'good' men to go around (decent, responsible, mature men that are willing to commit to one woman and children in the way that most women would like), and that men are wired differently to women.

I loved xh in the way I thought would make him feel loved. In fact, it was a- how I would've felt loved (not him), and b- adoring him made him respect me less.

I think most men are more self-serving and opportinistic, so if they get the chance for a lazy life they'll take it. But the trouble is, it dosn't satisfy them deep down because they're not being productive, feeling like "the man".

That's what made xh leave I think. I had no idea. I thought all differences were stereotypes and not true. Especially of a young sensitive intelligent introvert like him. But I was wrong.

Accepting it is the women’s fault though. There’s absolutely no reason that badly behaving men are for the most part are in relationships where they are looked after by their significant other like they are child, other than women allowing it.

When I realised my partner was a cocklodger spending more time gaming than looking for a job while I was studying at university and working to pay all the bills, I didn’t care how much I loved him - I was not sticking around.

I now have a husband who does at least 50% of the housework (probably more, but I bring in more money) in a true partnership. We’d be having a serious chat if this moved.

Because overall we still live in a misogynistic, men-are-more-important society; in my experience women are only valued if they are married/have children, and judged on their looks and whether they are caring & nurturing. This is my experience and it sucks, but I certainly remember as a 20 something being pressured to find a man, settle down and have kids.

I hope things change and get better, but it certainly seems like we're going backwards, with so much violence against women and the paltry sentences ( if a case gets thst far) for perpetrators.
Men often behave badly in relationships and women are expected to put up with it.

There aren't enough 'good' men to go around. I mean decent, responsible, mature men that are willing to commit to one woman and children in the way that most women would like. This is the sad truth. If every woman held out for this then lots more women would be single and also child free when actually they want families.

I think men are naturally wired differently to women. The biological urge for example to settle down and have children is much stronger in lots of women than it is in lots of men. Not always and there are always exceptions, but generally I think this is true and this is what drives the shortage of decent life partners for women. Lots of men would be content with a very different type of life and I do sometimes wonder if that is necessarily wrong. They have been the victim of traditional expectations for decades too. The release from these expectations has had an obvious impact on women's autonomy and r
ability to choose the life they want, but it's often less considered that men have had a similar emancipation. For many this looks like living a more obviously less committed life whereas before they were in relationships that they often wouldn't have chosen with children they wouldn't have chosen doing the bare minimum and getting through it.

@Cheese55 Oh yes - we've heard of the patriarchy. And some of us are standing up and fighting against it rather than just accepting it. And yes, we're still very much in the minority.
What percentage of women in the UK, for example, still become Mrs and/or Hisname upon marriage?
Surveys and deed poll records indicate that roughly 85% to 90% of British women still change their surname upon getting married.
I imagine even more become a Mrs.

You've heard of self esteem right? You've heard of the patriarchy? You've heard of social conditioning? Use critical thinking skills

@Mygiddyvalentine Assuming, within this "equal" marriage, you also work in a good job?

Yep. It’s the WhatsApp network and knowing the mums that means I know about things or can ask about things relevant to our kids. It’s a mum network. So I get the party invites sent to me, it’s how I found a ballet place that we can make work, it’s how I found various sports places our kids train at, extra school holidays activities, play dates and gatherings. The kids would miss out on a lot if I didn’t proactively chat to mums.

Children of a certain age need their parents to be tuned in to WhatsApp groups and knowing who their friends are so that they can maintain a social life. If we all just opted out like this, it could be to the detriment of your child and it sounds like you facilitated this until your children were old enough to do it themselves (at which point, it’s easy to look back and look at how “uptight” you were compared to “super chill” DH. No, he just opted out).

Because it is a social norm that men (on average) do less than their fair share around the house and in parenting and pushing back against a social norm is tiring especially at exceptionally stressful times like when you've just had a baby.

I've been fighting that social norm for over a decade now and backsliding often happens despite my efforts.

Frankly, it's meant me moving towards DH's lower standards in a lot of areas.

I could afford to leave if I wanted and sometimes I think about it. Normally after I've been away for the weekend with a woman friend!