to beg women with lazy sexist arsehole DHs not to have more DCs with them

[BeeInYourBonnet]

Apologies as I'm sure this must have been done before, but some of the threads recently have been SO depressing. I've been on MN 8 years, and it never ceases to amaze me what total fucking arseholes some women are married to. These manchilds are pathetic.

I want to cry when I read that some poor woman is pg with no 3, 4 or 5, and admits that her DH has never helped with a single night wake-up, has hardly changed a nappy, provides no support emotionally or practically, is financially abusive, the list goes on....

I know its more complicated than this, but I just want to scream 'stop having DCs with these complete bastards' 'stop showing them that's its OK to check out of family life'

I don't get these men at all. My father was the one who did all the cooking, half the cleaning and the vast bulk of the childcare, because he worked shift patterns.

My husband works twelve-hour days, and yet still pitches in at night with our newborn (he insists) and is full-on with wanting to help out at weekends.

The Peter Pan threads are mystifying and depressing to me.

I don't think men do this for a whole host of reasons. They do it to control and because they feel entiltled to.

And it is that entitlement that needs to be challenged and removed.

Sorry Nom but that's still bollocks with your assumptions

Should we all give our bona fides then? Because I grew up working class, been in abusive relationships, been raped, have never had any real money, lead a pretty unconventional life, etc.

I still think it's bullshit that so many women have to put up with twat partners. Seriously, you think the answer is to have your kids and then kick him to the kerb when you're done? Okay sure, why not saddle your kids with a lazy feckless father, who by the way you still have to deal with for the rest of your kids' lives. Stellar plan.

Or maybe we could educate men not to be such assholes and women not to put up with them. If that's nothing but a MC dream then god help us, it's like feminism never happened.

'And it is that entitlement that needs to be challenged and removed.'

By whom though scallops? Schools can't change things in isolation of RL circumstances.

It isn't taught in schools because the experiences of (largely) women and girls are still seen as secondary and unimportant to the (largely) male-dominated government who decides on these things.

IMO if you took out all the women, in all levels of society, who are in these relationships- holding down jobs while doing childcare, all the housework, no money, being taken advantage of as basically free labour and sex on tap- if all those women disappeared tomorrow, things would start to collapse fairly quickly and there would be a lot of pissed off blokes, some of whom happen to set the curriculum

Having children with multiple men is frowned upon by many people and marks you out as a 'chav'. So if you'd like to have several children, is that better or worse than having all your children with one abusive partner?

I agree that schools should definitely include some kind of assertiveness training for girls.

OK so they can't do it all by themselves. So? What? We shouldn't even try?

I don't think any of us are suggesting this in isolation to other forms of communication at other levels, but pretty much every child goes through school and it is a ay to get the message out to all those children.

I don't think this thread is victim-blaming - it is an attempt to work out some of the thinking most of us suffer from when you read yet another post from a woman having a shit life in a shit relationship. In that situation it is easy to type, as so many do, 'why did you have kids with him then?' - that is victim-blaming. This is maybe not the best-worded OP in the world but I think it is coming from a good place: how can we help women to protect themselves from this sort of relationship, how can we educate girls and boys to do and expect better, how can we stop internalising this shit and put the focus back to where it should be (I'd say that's our partriarchial society, others may disagree).

Oh and nomnom - you are so wide of the mark with your generalisations...

I agree that we can't just wait for men to change things.

It is of course unfair that the onus is on the victims to change the structures of society and power, but it's always that way. The non-victims have no incentive to change.

Absolutely agree Karma with your post of 12:01. It's bloody sad that women are held in such little value yet provide so much value.

"I don't know why human rights is so easy to discuss in the abstract and so inflammatory when it comes to RL experiences and expectations."

Because men don't want to give up their privilege, talking about it makes them angry, and women who who are in patriarchy's good books don't want to give up their second hand privilege that they derive from this because women have nothing equivalent to offer them

"The non-victims have no incentive to change." They would if they were criminalised, shunned, shamed etc. But they aren't.

I agree dreamingbohemian.

Dreamingbohemian, I see where Nomnomnom is coming from. Talking about who should and shouldn't have children is really dangerous. I wouldn't have any if I had waited to get married or buy a house for instance. That would be awful, I would hate not to have my dcs

I agree entirely with nomnomnom.

"Talking about who should and shouldn't have children is really dangerous." Agree. And there is always a level of misogyny there.

I think it's rarely that easy.

Most relationships don't start out with an abusive/dysfunctional dynamic. If they did, most people would walk away fairly early. There will always be some individuals of either gender who are so damaged they don't end things or are actively drawn to unhealthy relationships, but they are a minority. Most people have some level of self-preservation and a desire to love and be loved in return.

How many of you mystified by this situation would have left your DP/DH when on maternity leave with say a 3-month-old child in tow?

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that having DC is what changes a once-normal relationship into something that becomes unhealthy. A child sows the seeds for imbalance. At the same time, there is no time at which a woman is more vulnerable and more inclined to do "whatever it takes" to maintain her family unit. By the time the child is a little older and she's in a position to start redressing the balance, she has become numbed to the unfairness because she's had to become so in order to stand living with that vulnerability.

When a woman goes on maternity leave she is homebound much more so than her DP/DH. IT becomes somehow natural that she does a little bit more of the cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc. Just because she's there and it needed doing and DH was out at work... And that's how it starts.

As the demands on these women build, they rise to meet them - it is a myth to think that women in abusive/unhealthy relationships are downtrodden mice; quite often they are above average levels of capability and determination because they've developed the mindset of believing that if they just try harder they can achieve x, y, z. You'd be amazed at the number of high-flying career women who have admitted being in abusive relationships.

And while I would question a man who neither sees nor pays for previous DC, you only have to see the number of posters on MN who will talk about XWs from hell who prevent their DP/DH from seeing the DC, etc. That's no different from in RL. We simply don't have a cultural backdrop in which it is considered unforgiveable for men to walk away from their children with the same degree of vitriol aimed at women who do the same.

Like I say, it's not that easy.

I think being choosy about the father is a bit more important than waiting to buy a house. In fact AI would be a better route if you want a kid.

'They would if they were criminalised, shunned, shamed etc. But they aren't.'

I agree. Abusive behaviour should be unacceptable, should be challenged and should not be tolerated within a relationship. But it is.
Physical violence against a partner is becoming slowly less tolerated, but EA and lazyarseholeness is still the norm for far too many women.
But if you say 'Why are you accepting this, why is it ok from your partner, your sons, it really isn't ?' that's victim blaming.
You can't criminalise something without proof or evidence.
You can't shame someone if you stay silent about their behaviour.

Oh and fwiw I had another child with a man who had been a complete arse during my first pregnancy and did nothing after ds was born. I wanted another child and sibling for ds, I wanted them to have the same father, there was an element of hoping he'd be different this time. He wasn't but at least I have my amazing dd.

Even my most judgemental friend told me he couldn't argue with my reasoning.

"You can't shame someone if you stay silent about their behaviour." I agree completely. Yet the OP and the whole premise of this thread was incredibly silent about men's behaviour, instead choosing to focus on women's behaviour. It is men's abusive behaviour that is the problem.

Dusk but it's not saying a woman should not have children, full stop. Everyone has the right to have children. But it's depressing that so many women exercise this right with men who are useless arseholes. How can we change that side of the equation?

I find it interesting that people are assuming that the opposite of not having kids with a jerk is not having a kids at all. When really the opposite should be having kids with a nice guy. (Or more than one nice guy. Or a nice woman. Those details don't matter as much as the essential decency of the partner(s).)

Maybe there aren't enough nice guys to go around. Or maybe social norms are blinding us to them. I don't know.

But I do think this is the ideal we should instill in women -- to not settle for jerks.

But you aren't saying 'why are you accepting this?' you're saying 'you don't have to accept this, this is not acceptable behaviour'. That's surely the difference between victim blaming and stating that women can have control over their lives and make their own choices?

It's awful really. It's 2014, and vast swathes of the population still think abuse only exists when it involves a black eye and bruises. And so it goes on, unchallenged.

Does anyone have any ideas of ways in which to raise this topic with your children? (apart from compulsory MN of course ) I have a DD aged 6, and I know she'll be practically a teenager before I know it- I'm hoping to keep lines of communication open & explain to her what is normal in a relationship, and hopefully she'll have the confidence and self esteem to end things if she ever finds herself with a twat.

Although my dp is not abusive or violent or anything like that, he is massively immature, so I have decided to only have one (I think) as I don't think I can do all the emotional things on my own. If he changes or seems to come into his own when dd is older,maybe I will have more, but right now it seems daft