AIBU to wonder why awful men get lovely women?

[MaiaRindell]

I work with three horrible men. One is a misogynistic bully and two are complete sleazeballs who try it on with everyone. All three of them have really lovely, loving supportive wives/girlfriends. I am good friends with one of these women. Her husband had an affair with someone in the office when she was pregnant which she knows about. In the end, she stayed with him and now feels sorry for his low self esteem which she thinks led to the affair. She also thinks women see this and take advantage of him. I've tried to gently tell her how he is, but she just blames the women.
The other women are very nice too. Can these men be so different in private? I really am confused.

Some lovely people have a poor taste in life-partners, or poor self-esteem, or are a bit deluded. Sad but there you go.

@MyYoniFromHull Hugely interesting article thank you for sharing

I know DP has to be a bit of an arsehole at work to get deadlines achieved. At home he is 98% sweetheart. So maybe the same can be said for your work colleagues.

Lots of woman have an unhealthy, romanticised view of relationships and buy into this 'love conquers all' idea where they can win their arse of a partner over if they give him great sex, his favourite meal etc. In reality you're largely presented with the end product when dating. If he's grumpy and sexist at 22 he's not likely to be wildly different at 32, 42.

I think it’s because often “lovely” women have been brought up by their parents with that as a prime goal for being a woman - being lovely, pretty, nice, loyal, forgiving and usually submissive. So many women I know are brought up with this idea and also the belief that all men will cheat eventually so accept it and move on. It’s horrible and a “lovely” woman I know has just married a worthless, abusive loser because her mother has drilled it into her since birth that she has no worth without a man, no matter how awful he is. It’s an awful thing for women to be raised like that.

Because lovely women look for the best in people and don't see the arsehole tendencies until they're enmeshed in the relationship and leaving is complicated?

Also I assume at least some of them have low expectations of their own relationships due to growing up with awful dads and unhappy mums.

I am not particularly lovely and have ended up with a lovely man, so just reversing my own experience here.

To be very honest (and I know I'll get called a manhater for saying this, but so be it) as I've gotten older I've really started to wonder why any woman is ever with any man. I know so many amazing women - they are just all round fantastic people - kind, intelligent, strong, motivated, ambitious, caring hardworking- and so many crashingly mediocre men who aren't necessarily arseholes, but who are self-centred, whiny, prone to mood swings, lazy, self-pitying and generally not good partners or very good parents. Both of my best friends - both truly amazing women - are married to decidedly mediocre men. What really gets me is that they feel guilty about the fact that they are no longer attracted to them, when I think I would struggle to even look at them never mind touch them because they are such huge manbabies. Why should they feel anything for men who can't manage to take care of two children alone for three hours on a weekend? Who wants a partner that is so useless?

Interestingly a friend of mine was the epitome of mediocre man - incredibly lazy and moody, prone to smoking weed - up until his daughter turned 1, his wife went back to work and he had to become a SAHD. He saw for himself how useless he'd been and to give him enormous credit, he gave himself a massive boot up the arse and changed entirely. He now says he himself can't understand why his wife stayed with him!

As for why women do go for such pointless men, I think it's 100% socialisation. It's worth remembering that 100 years ago women couldn't access education, couldn't have a profession, couldn't really get any jobs except poorly paid ones, had no rights to their own children, had no property rights, couldn't borrow money, couldn't stand for election and couldn't vote. The only way they could really participate in adult life was as a married woman so not marrying was seen as a disaster - your goals as a woman was to secure a man and not lose him under any circumstances or you could be ruined. Even though that's no longer the case, it takes a long time for such an entrenched mindset to die out.

A consequence of that situation is that the standards of behaviour we have for men are hideously low. Even in 2018 there are women posting on mumsnet that their abusive partner is a 'great dad,' not recognising that an abusive person is a shit dad because we should at least expect a good parent to treat the child's other parent with respect. The fact that women think a person who spits at them and shoves them is a good parent says it all I think.