To think that lots of men think this way

[Flynnshine]

Recently a good friend of my partners has split from his wife of 15 years, they have two young children between 10 and 13.
The husband has decided he isn't happy and wants to end the relationship.

Last week he came over to our house in the evening and I left him and my husband chatting in the living room. I wasn't eavesdropping but I was only in the next room so could hear their conversation. Basically the husband has been planning this split for a while, 6 months before he announced he wanted to end things he sold their beautiful big house and they moved into their much smaller starter home which they had out on rent - they moved the kids out of their private school education and into a state school local to their new home.

They've always had a very comfortable life, beautiful house, nice cars and very fancy holidays a few times a year. They both had good jobs when they first met but when the children came along the wife stopped work and dedicated her life to them. They've done amazingly well at school, both top of their classes, sporty and do two sports for their local borough. They are polite and thoughtful and genuinely lovely children.

The conversation I overheard was the husband complaining that even though the wife hasn't paid towards the mortgage for over 10 years she will still be entitled to half of what the house is worth - he seemed bitter and angry and said he'd been hiding money for ages so she wouldn't get anything when they divorce. He's even planning on quitting his job and becoming self employed so he can fudge his earnings so his maintenance payments could be less. My husband was agreeing with him, I don't know if just to placate him or if that's really how he feels!

This man honestly thinks that because he has been working and paying a mortgage that his worth is so much more. He thinks he has enabled her to not work for over 10 years and that she has been having a jolly all that time. It's like he gives zero shits that he has two wonderful children that he has never had to lift a finger for and she has given her all to those children while he reaps the rewards of that.

Do all men deep down think like this, even if they won't openly admit it? Is money really the be all and end all of everything!?

Millionscarletroses- I don’t believe most men are inherently crap at domestic chores, cooking and doing the day to day care of kids. It’s not rocket science! I wonder whether it’s a case of some men wanting to believe they’re not capable.

We’re in our 50s, so hardly the younger generation, yet we still managed to divvy things up equally. After all, no one is born knowing how to cook, clean or change a nappy! In fact when our dc1 was born, I think dh and I were equally inexperienced at looking after a baby! And as far as domestic stuff is concerned- honestly, it’s not difficult. Some of it is a bit mind numbing and repetitive but really running a home is just what adults do.

Tell the wife to hurry up and start financial proceedings before he has a chance to hide too much. A court order can ensure that he has to provide financial history for at least 12 months and if there are grounds for doubt, you can get longer. Unfortunately there are people who feel that one partner is worth nothing. I have always worked, and earned a decent salary, yet my STBExH still thinks I am not entitled to anything and if he could get away with it, he wouldn't even pay child maintenance for his three small children. If this is the H's view, then she is probably in for a challenging divorce unfortunately (in my limited experience) :(

@MillionScarletRoses oh what absolute tosh! Do you think if you died tomorrow your husband would starve to death in a dirt ridden hovel? Of course not, don't blame your generation, you yourself have been enabling it! And the sad thing is your children too may well replicate these behaviours and expectations and the cycle continues! My DH and I both grew up in homes where both parents worked and both parents dug in at home, perhaps they were ahead of the curve at that time, I don't know but the result? We and our siblings replicate exactly the same way of living. That is not a coincidence (considering there are 6 of us in total, not including partners).

So a woman who WOH FT will end up doing it all, at work and at home

Only if you put up with that behaviour or choose a partner that's lazy.

Mine does everything I do, only fair we split everything as we both work. He doesn't get to opt out of house stuff or parenting as he's male and I don't opt out of working as I'm female. Hopefully our children will expect it of their partners too as have seen it's easily achievable.

I'm sure my husband thinks like this.

When I met him I lived in my own house, fair enough with a mortgage. We bought a bigger place together and as my house had gone up in value I was able to contribute 42k to the deposit in the new house and husband contributed 30k.

By then we had a small baby and I only worked part time for years. So he paid all the direct debits inc mortgage while I paid for groceries and clothes/expenses for dd. Part of the reason I had to be part time was because his job involves fairly frequent oversees travel with minimal (a day or 2) notice and my job is shift work.

He has frequently referred to the house as "my house because I pay the bloody mortgage".

The 'traditional' set up was always dependent on unpaid labour from women, and it's always been devalued in order to avoid paying for it.

@NicoAndTheNiners sounds like the OP was right to ask the question reading a lot of these responses!

Oh another all men are bastards thread, love them.

For gods sake just because your OH friend and your OH are wankers, not all men are!

Nope, not all men think like this, but most bastards do.

I would speak to the wife and tell her about the money being hidden and offer to tell her solicitor too.

Men are quite happy to have the benefits of a stay at home wife until a divorce happens...

If women are working then doing all the childcare and domestic chores. I have to say wtf are they doing? Most of the couples I know split all this. There are occasional ones though who seem to have the women do everything whilst they keep their saturdays for golf. But quite frankly I have little sympathy for the women. When the baby was born they’ve let their partners have golf saturdays, done all the drop offs and pick ups, DH refusing to be left alone with the baby etc when what they should have done is say, I don’t fucking think so mate... handed them the nappy bag on Saturday morning and gone to the spa. Instead they’ve just gone on to have more kids.

But I’ve seen so many women seeking out high earning men so they don’t need to work. They see a baby as the key to being a lady what lunches. I mean if your kids are at school all week. What do you actually do over and above what families where both parents work do?

I agree with that Hubanmao. There does need to be a serious look at why men (and women) are reluctant to share parental leave and also around the different pressures workplaces may put on men not to do this. There needs to be a huge shift in attitudes to the balance of child rearing and household contributions

Hubanmao, logic tells me men shouldn’t be inherently incapable of looking after a family/running a house. But it happens so for some mystical reason. We also were just as inexperienced when we moved in together. I was raised with aspirations to study and build a career which I did before I got married. Couldn’t cook, didn’t know how to do laundry etc.

But it was important to me, especially when kids came along and dining at restaurants a few times a week proved impossible. I learned to cook. My DH never did. He is simply not interested/ happy with a ready meal. That includes for the kids, too. While I would take some thought and time to feed the family a good healthy meal.

Same with keeping a house. Same with bringing up kids. Doesn’t even THINK about half the stuff, let alone do it. Have you read the research into men’s attitudes towards housekeeping/ childcare? Majority of men state they do their ‘fair share’, while when the researchers actually measured the tangible tasks the wives and husbands did, the BEST of the husbands did 20%!!! This is not half, this is not fair sharing by a far cry. (They didn’t measure the mental load at all due to it not being as easily quantifiable). ALL 100% of surveyed men were convinced they pulled their weight at home. This is the real life women have to deal with.

I’m with you OP. The thing you relinquish more than anything as a sahp is power. For your friend’s husband to be trying so hard to swindle his way out of maintaining his own children is rotten. She is not getting ‘his’ money, she is getting a share of ‘their’ money and he will be paying a percentage of his income to maintain ’their’ children.

What we can take from this thread is that some men are bastards and so are some women. And plenty of men and women are not!

A man who tries to control what his wife does, who sees it has his right to play the hot shot important working man and refuses to take an active role in parenting and domestic chores is a twat.

Equally, a woman who exerts control by refusing to let her husband take an equal role in childcare from the outset, who sees it as her right to not have to earn, or to only work much fewer hours and believes it’s her husbands responsibility to provide, is a twat.

It’s just ignorant to claim that men (or women) as a group are wrong’uns.

Some of them appear to have agreed to it when the kids were babies but resent it when kids become school aged.

Once the grunt work of running around after toddlers is over with Quelle surprise.

He said tax credits should cover us (please note he was on a six figure salary at the time). Eventually, he left his job

And yet its the single mums who get called scroungers.

I am told older demographics are even worse.

Not in my experience or that of @Graphista

DH will be 70 in just over a years time and ive never experienced these attitudes with him.

I agree with

userschmoozer

He has also conveniently forgotten the fact that his wife enabled his career and life.

Well said x

‘Tell the wife to hurry up and start financial proceedings before he has a chance to hide too much. A court order can ensure that he has to provide financial history for at least 12 months and if there are grounds for doubt, you can get longer. ’

Good advice.

Evil protagonist (male or not) may have been his assets around but there will be a trail right now of disposing of old assets into new ones. There is always a loose thread somewhere yearning to be tugged. Always.

Encourage your friend to get forensically involved in paperwork kept at home, financial company mailshots, bank statements act. TAKE COPIES to share with solicitor. Go through online browser histories, take screen shots & email to self, making sure to delete trail. Unless people are scrupulous about opting out of mailshots, once lumps sums are available to invest it’s every mailshots manager for themselves to capture that spare cash.

I have forgotten the name of the OP & thread from a few months ago. It could be a a MN Classic. From a modest start it grew into a MN collective knowledge bank about finding assets hidden by bastards. If other MNrs can find the post, please post here.
Point your friend towards .

Flynn, please encourage yr friend to read the thread.

My husband is almost 50 - it's got nothing to do with age - it's all about education and not the book type. We can teach our children how to do chores, why not our husbands? Who needs to be sh$t hot housekeepers? I for one can't tell the difference between hoovering and sh%t hot hoovering - I just need it done and the washing machine does the laundry etc - if they don't know how - tell them - same for cooking. And carers - really dad's don't know how to care for their children? Seriously do you know stone age dad's or something. Every dad I know is equal to his wife in terms of being able to care for their kids. Your male circle sounds quite sad to be honest if they're so incompetent as you say. A woman who works will only do it all if that's what she accepts! And we're in danger of passing on these incompetences as you call them- if kids boys especially do not see their fathers sharing their responsibilities and girls grow up expecting it from their future partners as their father has set the example. Communism only works well within the family - every one gets treated the same regardless of who they are. This tacit acceptance of men being crap at everything household related and only able to go out and be successful because he has his little SAHW behind him needs to be binned.....

It beats me when people act like they can read their husband/partners mind. I see comments like "my husband doesn't think like that, my husband would never agree to that, my husband would never keep such a friend" and I can't help but laugh. Like really. I bet this woman thought she had the perfect husband and perfect life until he turned on her. Maybe all men think like that, maybe not, but you certainly don't know what your husband thinks. you're not a mind reader.

MillionScarletRoses

Yes this!

It seems some men just can't think! Why is that? We need to be maybe looking at how they were brought up, conditioned. Because its just true for the majority. I've friends which have wall charts of the weeks activities, (For the kids). But they (tinkly laugh) it's actually fo their husbands!! Yet their husbands want them working the same hours as them, BUT also doing all the rest ( meal planning, shopping, kids clothes, activities ) ETC Etc

I agree with that Hubanmao. There does need to be a serious look at why men (and women) are reluctant to share parental leave and also around the different pressures workplaces may put on men not to do this. There needs to be a huge shift in attitudes to the balance of child rearing and household contributions

There is a body of research on this already as in Scandi countries men were given equal extended parental leave yonks ago. However, surprise surprise they still aren’t rushing to take it or reduce their work to PT hours. You know why, it disadvantages them. Men aren’t stupid. They don’t want to do unpaid work at home which is harder than PAID work outside of home. They don’t want their careers to stall or take a hit. They don’t want to do exhausing childrearing labour. Somebody else can do all this sh£& for free. While they can keep their earning power, their professional status while having the comforts and the beautiful children somebody else worked hard to make a reality for them.

They don’t know it’s hard work because they have never done all of it in full like women.

Can i just point out its not just the care of children. Many men expect their wives to care for their (the husbands) elderly parents too.

There are a hell of a lot of SAHMs and wives working part time who are also caring for elderly in laws because its seen as women"s work.

But in most cases it's a choice - unless it's not financially viable then it's a choice and that's what needs to change - women need to see themselves in careers after they have kids as well as before! Life doesn't stop when you have kids just because you're a woman. And what about women who do work and are always made feel guilty?

AnnoyedinJanuary

Absolutely But what workplace would support this? Most of the time with young kids it's about survival. Man can earn more ( due to all sorts of wrong reason - yes) But it's the fact. So woman stays at home, if not for at least a bit ( maternity) Due to original (wrong reasons) Woman can't progress as well , get promotion etc etc. Somehow , Money wins. Man becomes breadwinner.
Man decides it's not for him and fucks off. Everyone blames woman for not working and earning her own money.
I feel we are still very much in the dark ages...sigh