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.

*@HaggardMumofToddler ha! instead of TELLING your daughter what to do which is what my mother did, you'd be better off telling your daughter to listen to her own voice, identify what it is that she wants to do, identify what it is that makes her feel good, content, at peace.

Telling her x,y,z is exactly what my mother did and I had committed that most heinous of crimes on mumsnet and had children with an arsehole.**

You are projecting and have misunderstood my comment. I will absolutely be there for my daughter no matter what but I will always try to guide her whenever I can. My Mum never told me I was good enough or deserved more and she had horrible partners herself, I had several horrible boyfriends and I’m very lucky that I found my lovely husband.

Choosing the father/mother of your children is absolutely the most important decision in life.

@53rdWay that can be the case sometimes but my mother was controlling and yet my father was very gentle and never took advantage of anybody. I think it was a shock to me that men could be so awful. And yet because I'd been raised to do what my mother told me, told what I wanted, told what I thought, I met a controlling man and it resonated and click we were together. A perfect fit. I was the giver and he was the taker. We went together perfectly, like two jigsaw pieces. OUr wounds the same, presenting very differently.

My brother, my uncles, my brother, my cousins they never got drunk or abusive or bullied their wives or demonstrated hideous displays of bad temper or jealousy.

I never witnessed that. So it's not wholly accurate to say that this common occurrence is due to women having a low bar.

I actually had a fairly high expectation starting out but because I people pleased like I'd be trained to, good men were repelled. It all felt too stressful trying to ''hold on to'' the good men. I bored them. I wasn't a challenge or something. I don't know exactly.

It is all so much more complex than the people judging seem willing to try to understand.

I don't judge people for not getting it though. I didn't get it either.

But like, when it's explained to you, start getting it then!!

I will admit I had a baby to a feckless fucker but I was 19 when I got with him and 20 when I fell pregnant so young and naive and I’ll admit it but I’m 38 now and so I wouldn’t dream of having a child to a guy like this because I now know better.

My mum was over the moon when I fell pregnant because she so wanted to be a grandma and she knew what a dick my boyfriend could be but she was selfish and thought of her want for a grandchild over my bad boyfriend...long story short..on the day my waters broke my partner went to the pub after work and switched off his phone knowing full well I was home alone with broken waters and we planned baby, I didn’t set out to trap him or anything and he was 27 and had a baby who the ‘bitchy ex doesn’t let me see’ and I fell for it, but my mother should have told me the truth about men that trot that crap out, I was naive and I admit it.

Theyearoftgedog has described exactly the circumstances I've been trying to explain.

But posters are still adamant women should just make better choices rather than consider the childhood dynamics behind their choices. Why can some posters not except women need support and empathy no matter how long it takes them to wake up to their situation?

Yes, but this is a separate thread on it, not a thread trying to help anyone.

I’m talking about the pp who say “oh you always get shouted down for suggesting on here that someone shouldn’t have had children with their useless bloke!”

@TheYearOfTheDog I actually think my mother had a similar mother to you, her father was great but my grandma put my mum down a lot, she does the same to me and I don’t with my daughter, I stopped that cycle.

Some women also think that they will change the man and that he won’t treat them like crap

I agree with this. It's one of the biggest mistakes women make. Thinking that they can change a man.

He's shown you who he is...why do you think after him having multiple kids with different women, or never being able to hold a job down, or being a 24/7 gamer...that you have the magic powers to change him.

It's delusion.

So if woman make choices based on their childhoods then why can’t the same be applied to men that are useless?

@nanny0gg

A woman is not less worthy of sympathy or support because it took her 10 years and three kids to realise she's being abused. Threads like this imply she is.

No, they don't.

It's about making choices at the beginning not 10 years into the realisation.

I don't understand your comment no they don't. You're saying they don't deserve sympathy and support?

@WorldsOnFire

I wouldn't say that your situation fitted the OP at all.

And I also think yours is fixable.

@nanny0gg

Sorry I realise what you meant now. I disagree, threads like these blame victims. The whole premise of this thread is why do women marry/have kids with these men, they should have made better choices without taking into account the background of many of these women. I don't think that can be considered empathetic or supportive.

What was expected of you as a child is just SO linked to what feels right when you're an adult.

That’s a very good way of expressing it, thank you

So if a capable women chooses to have kids to an unsuitable man then that’s not her fault?

Woman I mean

There's huge pressure on women to settle down and have children. It's in almost every aspect of our lives, from the earliest movies to how our families talk to us about relationships. Frozen was the first Disney movie for kids that doesn't promote that. Maybe with more examples like that we'll see a change, but currently all of us were brought up saturated with the message that we will have kids. I am the first women in my entire extended family to work full time throughout my child's life. Even my much younger cousins go part time or stay home once they've had kids. So that's another generation where the expectation is that women will do the childcare etc it's hard to break these patterns and if you're in a relationship and want children, it's easy to accept a low standard.

Then there's the whole guilt trip about being judgemental if you break up with someone because they have a few flaws. Women need to hear stronger messages about being judgemental before having kids, but that's almost never heard of.

I've noticed this exact same thing OP, and wondered the exact same as you.

I hear you OP

I have been saying on another thread, we have gone backwards in that it's socially seen as bad for a woman to be single and childfree.

re unplanned pregnancies, I thought that stat came from the US? Because I remember Obama saying - and I can't find a clip so maybe i dreamed it! - "people need to stop having children they can't afford and can't look after". That was probably linked up to making contraception free over there.

I used to feel like wearing a T shirt that said "contraception is free". But increasingly I think perhaps the number of "unplanned" pregnancies aren't actually unplanned.

I am often told that it must be terribly hard to be single. No. It's 100x easier than being in a relationship.

From the OP, caps mine:

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.

That’s why people are still pointing out that men changing behaviour happens, because yes the OP mentioned it, but also minimised it.

Things change when you get pregnant though and things that didn't bother you before start to matter.

When DH and I met he went out most evenings, which was fine with me because so did I and 9 times out of 10 we were out together (friends long before we started dating) when we decided to have a baby I just assumed he would stop going out every night, I spent a lot of my pregnancy pissed off with him drinking and never being home. (He did in fairness sort himself out by the time baby arrived, just his lifestyle didn't change at the start of pregnancy like mine had to)

Many pregnancies are unplanned.
Abuse often starts or escalates during a pregnancy.
Women are not expected to put up with the same shit they were in the past so are more likely to ask for advice or support.

There’s a few reasons.

@annelovesgilbert I'll have my nose back whenever suits 😂

rosajosephine

So if the feckless or abusive man was raised by feckless or abusive parents it isn't his fault either is it, because that's his normal too. Is that what you are saying?

And these parents are now just perpetuating that cycle by continuing to bring children into awful situations, so in 20 years these children will be having children with useless men or becoming useless men themselves and so it will continue.

I think a lot of men have not updated their operating systems, they still think that women need men, they still think they have leverage over us, we can do everything for ourselves we don't need men
Men still want to feel powerful and dominant and so they need a compliant woman to make them feel like a man.
We don't need men but they tried to trick us into feeling as if we do need them

Ridiculous & very naive post.

@inappropriatewoman

So if a capable women chooses to have kids to an unsuitable man then that’s not her fault?*
*
Not sure if this is aimed at me... Fault isn't a word I'd choose to you in this scenario. I've explained multiple times on the thread about my views on childhood trauma/poor relationship dynamics and how they often result in poor choices of partner.

Threads like this often pop up on mumsnet with posters shocked by the amount of women having children with feckless or abusive men. There is always a massive amount of judgment in them. Every woman I know in this kind of situation is massively messed up from her childhood. I don't think it's her fault no.