AIBU pregnancy with an unsuitable man ALL over this site

[SiriusBlack94]

It amazes me that EVERY day there are multiple posts with...

My DH is so lazy —— I’m 30 weeks pregnant
My DH is a narcissist how can I leave him —- I have a baby on the way
I don’t love my DH anymore - but I’m 28 weeks pregnant
DH drinking all the time/doing drugs/ controlling/ doesn’t help around the house —- but I’m pregnant.

Like seriously. Why are women so casual about getting pregnant with men that aren’t suited to them or who they aren’t in a loving relationship with. I know in some cases a man can turn abusive during pregnancy but in the majority of cases it’s things like ‘my DH drinks 4 times a week’ or ‘my DH never helps around the house’ which you would’ve KNOWN but still got pregnant.

I just don’t understand it and they are then tying themselves with often multiple children to these men.

Glad about that not gals.

OK @SiriusBlack94

If these huge numbers of women are "ALL over the site" from your title please point us to the threads where the women knew in advance that the father was a gold plated shit and knowingly had a child with them.

As opposed to threads where outsiders see the signs with hindsight and therefore pronounce that "she should have known".

@Lillygolightly great post. It is a huge storm of disadvantages for women.

Yes rent paid for by the state, is it true that if you ur under 25 you can’t get a council home paid for? In my day it was easier to get a council house if you were pregnant and this was the case for years so it wasn’t a deterrent then and they still get a DWP income.

Oh and we have to do all the above before our fertility runs out!

Don’t any of you think that lots of people lie on the internet about lots of stuff? How many threads get posted here where a woman goes on about how useless her partner is but how do we really know that they didn’t know beforehand, they’re hardly likely to admit it!

Before they got pregnant I mean, it’s that old ‘he will change for me and our relationship’!

Summatsummit
There's a limit what can be achieved through a packed PSHE programme.

Any time there is a social issue, the response is put it in schools. We cover everything from esafety, online grooming, peer to peer indecent images of children (you'd be amazed how normalised sexting and explicit images are), healthy eating, careers, homophobia, teen mental health z eating disorders, managing emotions and conflict, healthy and unhealthy relationships, racism, extremist ideologies, bullying, politics, voting and democracy, financial awareness and more.

Everyone has a part to play in social issues. Parents have a responsibility to raise their children to respect their partners, to pull their weight in the house so children see both parents being responsible adults. Men have a responsibility to be good fathers. Women have a responsibility to be good mothers. Both should have standards in relationships and consider who they have children with.

Oh and we have to do all the above before our fertility runs out!

Sport, I disagree. The welfare of any.pitential child should always come before your desire to have children.

If you can't provide a stable home for that child then no matter how much you may want a baby you should put their needs above your own. It is utterly selfish to have a child when you can't provide a secure and living home for it.

Actually most of the posts don't reference a dear HUSBAND - tends to be more PARTNER/boyfriend/"baby daddy" (cringe) and then they wonder why it all falls apart

BabyDaddy is surely an expression said by teens?

There was a thread like this not so long ago that was deleted. Apparently it’s ‘not in the spirit’ to point out that women have some responsibility when picking a partner.

And no, this doesn’t refer to any of the women whose partners left them for other women, turned into abusive arseholes post-pregnancy, because also these posts are littered with women being offended when their circumstances are not what the OP is about. There’s at least one on here already.

This is about women having babies with men they know are complete arseholes well before birth.

Pregnancies shouldn’t be considered ‘unplanned’ when neither party is using contraception.

I don’t really care. A man is just a sperm donor.
It’s nice to have the father be a partner/husband that loves and respect you, pulls his weight, but not necessary. If a woman wants a baby, she doesn’t have to find a “suitable” husband material type man first. She could literally try her entire life and not find one.

I worry about this so much with my SIL. Her partner is incredibly lazy and does no housework. He spends most of his time outside of work gaming. He also gets made redundant more than the average. He fails to transfer her money for bills reliably so her credit rating has been affected.

She has very low self esteem and just can't see the issues even though DH and I have tried to talk to her. I dread the day she gets pregnant :(

"He beats the ever-loving daylights out of me, but he's a great dad!!!"

Seriously though - there just aren't enough decent men. I don't blame women for trying to make it work.

@Lillygolightly and we have to have a pension as well!

I was lucky I had a running away fund, because I literally did walk away with a rucksack and two toddlers, pulled the door shut behind me. He was not the kind of man you could take to court.

But I learnt a lot. I changed so much. Out of pain comes growth. And I did grow and I did learn and now I'm independent and dare I say it, wise, and yet I have a lot more empathy than the posters who ask this type of question. So I'm going to put it out there that as @Lillygolightly says, so much is expected of women. I have lived my life and I've come out of it with growth and I'm content and financially independent, optimistic, empathetic. I have good relationships with my children unlike my married parents who were each a good spouse to the other but somehow messed up the parenting part.

I'm going to dare to say that these things happen and there is recovery. It's not easy because when children are young, options are greatly reduced. But it is not necessarily ALL bad forever. So, you've had a child with a dickhead. Join the club. Many of us have done that and it galvanised us. I was very passive before I realised that I had to rescue myself.

I'm in a much better place now than if I'd just married some averagely decent man. I had children with a completely selfish and completely controlling man and I had to see it. I had to leave. And I am thankful now it was as bad as it was.

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted and marriage does what exactly? Because plenty of men become abusing on their wedding night.

I agree women shouldn’t have babies with men they’ve known for a short amount of time - but if my sister, who’s been with her partner for ten years was to marry him what would change?

I don’t know why it’s not in the spirit to admit that women aren’t perfect either and don’t make the right choices all of the time, neither do men but as women get pregnant and are ultimately left holding the baby then it’s down to the woman to protect herself.

Personally (and this is another thread) when it comes to contraception then it’s down to the 2 of you but once unprotected sex has taken place then only the woman can stop herself from falling pregnant by getting the MAP that you get 3 days to take and it’s free in some places (unsure if it’s free everywhere) so there’s no excuse, now I’ll be hit with ‘but I was on the pill when I fell pregnant’ and whilst this happens then more often that not it’s down to not using anything but women won’t admit it!

It really isn't. In the situation OP describes, she is simply encouraging women to control their own destiny and end relationships with absolute dead beats. Women are more than capable of reading, processing and reacting to warning signs. I absolutely hate this mindset where women are weak, feeble creatures and it's entirely a man's fault why the relationship is shite.

In order to be able to read those signs you have to have been raised in a family with a healthy dynamic. I wasn't. My parents were lovely to me and DBro, but they had their own dysfunctional behaviour that I grew up thinking was normal. My parents weren't abusive or toxic in a nasty sense, they just didn't have a clue. I did have a lot of love, though.

When I met my ex, I was a clueless late teen. There's no way I had the skills to be able to realise at the time that this man wasn't a peach but a wanker. It took me 30 years to get out of that relationship, and while I now have those skills and have my shit together, for years I was stuck in the mindset that you have to work hard at a relationship, that men are generally useless, etc.

I can see now that there were red flags from the start, but at the time, I simply had no idea. I did have DC with ex, and now that we are a family of 3, I am teaching them the relationship skills I lacked when young. I've also read plenty of threads on the Relationships board, including those stickied at the top. I've dropped examples from there into conversations with my DC. It must work, as DD dropped a bf who was showing red flags, without me needing to gently raise it with her, which I would have done if necessary.

So really, I think
a) We need to be teaching young women what a healthy relationship looks like, because if they come from a dysfunctional background they won't necessarily know.
b) We need to be raising boys to be decent men, who have healthy relationships.
c) We need to be countering the toxic ideas still prevalent in society that relationships are always hard work and that men simply can't be expected to be decent blokes. Wifework should simply not exist, it should be teamwork.

Mostly think it’s shit that a woman is blamed for choosing a shit partner rather than the partner being blamed for being a shit partner.

Yes but shit partners can’t change, naive women can,

I’ve noticed more and more fake stories on here. I tend to take most with a pinch of salt.

For all of you women who are saying you don't get it, or "This would NEVER be me", believe me, it could be any of us.

Sometimes it's scarier to think of going it alone than with an "unsuitable" man.

Sometimes you end up being cheated on when it was the last thing in the world you expected of your partner.

One thing I've learned in just 29 years on the planet is that nothing is sacred, and even your perfect man and perfect relationship could blow up in your face at any time. NOBODY is immune to cheating or being a dick in the right circumstances, I'm afraid.

Also, I think a lot of people on here embellish the truth just to make sure they're not ruled to be unreasonable.

So basically, if you think you have the perfect relationship right now, stop talking nonsense about other people's, and enjoy it. Realistically, you don't know how long it will last.

There isn't really a candy shop of casual sex possibilities
There is a lot of porn which makes men feel entitled to a candy shop of casual sex possibilities

What amazes me on here is, ‘my dh shouts, sulks, is a lazy git, throws things, didn’t come home last night....’

‘But he’s a great dad!’

Such very low expectations of what ‘great’ is.