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.

Rose which post is ridiculous and naive please?

‘my DH never helps around the house’ is definitely the kind of thing that can seem minor before you have children. Or easier to minimise anyway. There’s less of it and you have more time, and clearly a lot of women don’t expect men to do it anyway - how many tines do you hear “men just don’t see mess” or “he’s not very good at it so it’s quicker if I do it myself” on here?

But then the first baby comes along, and the ‘housework’ triples, and he still isn’t doing it because he always saw it as HER job that he just ‘helps’ with when he’s feeling generous. He hasn’t changed, she just didn’t see it for what it was before.

Well if a woman has had a crappy home life and then chooses bad men over it like most of this thread suggests then why can’t the same be said for men? Maybe they had useless dads which is why they’re useless.

I’ve had 2 violent relationships and these men had dads that battered their mums and so it’s more than likely than this is why these men turn out the same and especially if the mother doesn’t get out of this situation before a child is of a certain age, it’s all learned behaviour and if we are saying this is the reasons women choose unsuitable partners then it’s not fai to not use the same reason for why a man is unsuitable, iyswim.

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.

So they choose to bring more children into the world, to be as equally messed up from their childhood?

As adults we need to accept responsibility for our own lives. We can't just keep living as perpetual victims, accepting no responsibility.

I bet there are very few abusive men who didn't have fucked up childhoods. Do you excuse these men for what they do in adulthood as a result of their upbringing? After all, if women can't help but replicate their childhoods in their adult relationships then nor can men.

So rosajosephine apply the same rule to men then!

I was married to an arsehole man. I got pregnant because I wanted a baby. I don’t think I quite grasped the breadth of his uselessness and abusiveness for years after my DC was born, not until years after I’d left him actually. It was just my normal, so every action I took proceeded on that basis.

I freely admit I procreated with an awful specimen of humanity and both my DC and me are living with the consequences, but it’s not as easy as to say I shouldn’t have been so stupid. There’s a world of difference between not having DC and having DC, when you have none you can’t realistically imagine what it’s like to have them. Having DC changed me as a person while my XH went on being himself. I suppose in some ways I expected it to have changed him too, but then not ever having looked after DC before I suppose I was ignorant to how much he would have needed to.

My XH always said he wanted DC so in my naivety I assumed he’d be a decent father. Even after I’d left him and he’d proved he was a shit father he maintained he wanted more DC although thankfully that hasn’t happened.

When I was young I was told by my DM that I would grow up, get married and have DC, and that was it. Also my family are quite disfunctional so my expectations for a relationship were skewed. Not only was I not shown what good healthy relationships looked like, I was never presented any other options than having a similarly disfunctional family of my own.

I do agree with OP that it’s annoying when you see thread after thread where women are knowingly getting PG with scummy men, and sometimes it’s so glairingly obvious to outsiders that it’s a terrible decision, sometimes it’s obvious to the women herself, but if life was that straight forward and we’d all been brought up to expect healthy, loving, equal relationships it just wouldn’t happen.

I think it’s easy to judge, but until you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes it’s unhelpful to make blanket statements about how stupid women are. And yes, I have written harshly worded posts to women who are just about to launch themselves into bad situations, but I have the benefit of experience, and just maybe a good verbal shaking might make them think. There’s a difference however between a harshly worded post about reality and the consequences of their actions written from a place of experience and genuine concern, and an outright condemnation of someone for being a fool.

Some women are just fools though, of that I have no doubt. There’s such a wide range of human behaviour that it can’t possibly not be the case, but the consequences always come down on the head of the woman and the DC and the bastardly men they procreate with seem to come off unscathed.

I thought my man would change when I was pregnant but in my defence I was 20 and unworldly, but I admit I didn’t make the best choice, I wasn’t abused as a child or anything.

@Softleftpowerstance

It wasn't lack of commitment to the relationship, it was a practical choice. He was in a job which paid over the odds for the role while he finished a course to change career path. It made sense to stay in that job while he finished his studies, yet would have had to taxi two towns away to get there in time for his shift from my house, so he stayed ad his DMs for the three days a week he was on shift where he could walk to work.

The money saved contributed to the deposit subsequently put down on the house purchased shortly after, so we have much more security and have it sooner than if he'd moved in with me earlier. It may seem unusual, but it made good sense for our circumstances.

Unfortunately a lot of men wait until a woman is pregnant to show their true colours.

My midwife told me during one of my appointments that most domestic violence starts during pregnancy and showed me where to tick in my blue book of it happened to me. Luckily my DH isn't an arsehole but so many men secretly are.

Emotionally manipulative abusive women bashing twats tend to also be two faced fuckwits. Everything about anyone's behaviour gets more noticeable under pressure. Pregnancy. Imending massive life changes are pressure. Massive pressure. Also. Tidying up after two adults isn't really that different to a normal effort of a single person as it doesn't need more often, just more quantity.
But thanks for another thread blaming women for the useless men in their lives

It’s the men that show their true colours before pregnancy which is what the OP means!

"When I was young I was told by my DM that I would grow up, get married and have DC, and that was it"

but this is the case for so many women, we don't automatically just go along with it!

Surely that type of thing where a woman is meant to get married and have kids is very old fashioned?

and...what happened to personal responsibility for adults?

someone upthread mentioned not noticing men being crap round the house before pregnancy.

surely as soon as you see it, you run for the hills?

I doubt the OP will be back but her judgemental naivety is

Plenty of people have one child, find their relationship isn’t perfect and chose to try to improve it because they want to work at building a good life for the child and themselves. Only when baby 2 comes along does it really go down hill.

As for age and time, I was in my 40s when ds was born. I’d been with ex for 7 years. I had a career, my own home & pension. I would regard myself as cautious. I sold my house after ds was born, but dp knew the deposit was in my account. It took him 11 weeks to try to borrow £200,000 to give to another woman.
When I said no, he launched a 24/7 campaign that would have broken most people. I got out with ds, but my mental health was good, I had the support of family and I’m reasonably confident.

If I hadn’t, I would have gone under. There are some really dishonest manipulative people out there. Certainly some women could be more cautious but sometimes shit just happens.

Not much more work 2 adults. Women might shrug it off/ barely notice. Particular where those men are still pretending to function. But then act like a displaced child and act out that their partner can be so attached to a child. They act out. Then they get nasty.

• I should add, you see it before you're pregnant, you'll see it while you're dating.

Fucking run. Unless you want to date someone who isn't a proper adult. Which may later become, having a child with a child...it's not rocket science.

My stbxh was fine before I got pregnant, he certainly showed his true colours after I'd had our son

**It ties in with a lot of women who seem absolutely shocked about the harsh realities of having and raising kids.
'No one told me how hard it is!'

They just don't see it coming. The don't see it because they've been fed the narrative that having children is life's greatest purpose and joy, and they don't have the gumption to question it.**

This is very true. But like a PP has said- this is starting to change with movies like a Frozen not focusing on the fairytale family. Social media is also becoming more realistic. Education is better around contraception and abusive relationships. We have more equal opportunities for working mothers.

Maybe I am being optimistic as not much can make up for a bad childhood but I’d like to think that times are changing.

It's not just abusive men who change during pregnancy. It's a time when your life changes massively. It's a time when you have to step up and become a grown-up. Men who cope with charm and fun, can suddenly find themselves lacking.

And partly, their stories are all over this site because society doesn't want to hear it. Once you're pregnant, the pressure becomes to maintain the status quo, to put up and shut up. MN is one of the few places, pregnant women can come and say 'is this awful? is it my hormones? how can I fix it?'

But if you're reading those threads then you know that most of them say their partners have changed during pregnancy or have failed to step up to the challenge. You can't blame women for not being mindreaders. But, hopefully, posters on here (and their partners) are teaching their sons to be responsible men and fathers who pull their weight. It's the only slight hope we have of changing it.

A lot of the responses are ppl that just don't seem to accept their responsibility in all this.

Nobody is saying that men shouldn't be held accountable to be decent fathers, but if you see the signs that the man isn't husband or long term partner material, then why stay with him?

There are women who are happy to do all the housework...who are happy to change every single nappy...but if you aren't one of them, then common sense says to stop procreating with a no good waste of space.

Now nobody is perfect... this isn't about men who aren't great around the house....it's those who are all round useless.

Some men are crap with housework, but at least they are the main earner...they pay all the bills...or they do some bathtimes and bedtimes....they do bring something to the table....

It's the number of abusive men...chronically unemployed...that you have to question the decision to remain with, talk less of get pregnant by.

There was a recent thread of a woman who was either late 20s or early 30s...she was questioning whether to break off her wedding...(deposits all paid...guests invited), as she met this man in Uni...but he had never had a stable job and she was carrying him throughout.

It's not difficult to foresee that the parenting would all fall in her.

I think she was going to call off the wedding with the MN responses...but many in her position still go ahead.

The sooner women accept responsibility for poor choices, the sooner they can make better choices.

Honestly, I don't get it either in most cases (leaving aside women conditioned by abuse).

I knew mines was a bit of a dick but still I got pregnant...thought he would be a good dad though how very naive and maybe I’m using age as an excuse, I thought that I was giving him another baby to replace the one he ‘lost’