Or are shit men shit from the start?

[Animallover87]

So many threads here about appalling husbands...

Were they always like that or did they reveal their true colours after marriage/DC when it was "too late?"

I think the red flags are there but can often be ignored for any number of reasons. A common one is the assumption by a woman, often supported by what the man says, that things will change when children come along or whatever.... but of course, they don't.

But I don't think the really really bad behaviour comes out until these men are entrenched and comfortable. And I think that's often why certain women seem to land up in these sorts of relationships more often - these men are either dumped early by women who spot the red flags OR, if they're twats due to socialisation and just not thinking, a relationship where they have the space and opportunity to learn because she doesn't take their shit nips things in the bud early.

There's a huge range of behaviour between full blown abuse and ideal partner and I do believe that the vast bulk of men fit somewhere in the middle. It's not even their fault - they've been brought up their whole lives to think they are the centre of the universe and it's a huge adjust meant for them to learn that's not the case. Having just experienced an extraordinarily odd situation with a bunch of boys at DS' school, I'm not that optimistic that anything is changing sadly.

The man you meet is the man you marry. Too many women think that they'll change or it will get better. It won't. Don't settle.

I think most of them are very good at putting their best foot forward in the "courting" phase and reveal their true colours when their feet are under the table.

In an awful lot of cases I don't think they are being maliciously "shit", they are repeating the patterns they saw in their parents and subconsciously assume that being in a relationship is basically a ticket to having a woman look after you, manage your domestic stuff and in some cases support you financially as well because that's how it was with their parents.

I'm not defending this behaviour, I think its the scourge of our society and I hate it. But society doesn't do enough to disabuse men of the idea that this is OK.

And because women usually are socialised not to lay down the boundaries in the "courtship" phase or the relationship, by the time they realise what's happened they are trapped with a baby/marriage/mortgage and its too late.

I think there are broadly two very different categories:

The serial hardcore misogynist, insecure abuser who has a script of initial charm and love bombing followed by incremental increases in control and isolation to undermine their and dominate their partner.

The man who is unaware he is selfish because he doesn’t have children and all that’s required to be a good bloke is to stand your round, hang out with your mates regularly, be a good laugh, buy your mum a card three times a year, keep a job. Then you fall in love and get to do fun stuff with with your gf too, you have exciting sex, get pissed together, but you both still go out with mates/ colleagues. You can go the gym after work, you both have a bit of disposable cash. It’s fucking brilliant! You are loving to your gf/ wife because it’s all good. There’s not a huge amount of washing and housework to do as there’s just the two of you, she probably does more than her fair share of the heavier housework like hoovering and mopping because honestly, it just doesn’t occur to you and she seems happy to do it, she’s more into decor and nesting and that since you bought the flat together.

You have a baby and all of a sudden you’re getting dragged into all kinds of shit. You can’t remember your mum making such a fuss. All you want to do is keep up your footy like your mates, it’s good for you and if you don’t train the odd night you are going let the team down. What’s the point in two of you sitting around the house staring at the baby. Life has changed for the worst and instead of seeing how much more it’s changed for your partner, how knackered she is, you fight for your own lifestyle and freedoms. She’s on mat leave ffs! She’s got all day with nothing to do but look after the baby, does she have to be such a martyr about doing the odd bit of housework around it?
You’re not a bastard, you don’t abuse her, you just use avoidance for the most part and keep doing what you want to do. When she throws a hussy fit you do a bit more for a while to get her off your back and show her how easy it is and no big deal.

Four years on and relative incompetence is your best friend. It started innocently enough, of course the baby settled quickest for his mum, you could swear your wife was secretly quite chuffed. Now there’s no way you could get them both up and off to school and the minder with the right stuff in a morning, it’s chaos. When you do give her a lie-in she gets up anyway, blaming noise and Buddy sneaking in for cuddle. All your fault apparently…

You’re not a bad bloke and everyone else thinks you’re a good dad. You love the kids and they love you. She doesn’t seem to realise she could have it a lot worse. She’s now earning 60% of what you are so if you can’t do your job properly you are both fucked. What does she want? To be honest she’s the one who’s changed, not you, and not for the better.

I think the second type of bloke is often genuinely oblivious. Useless twat.

@LightDrizzle

Your second category is absolutely spot on.

And what's terrifying about this is how common these sorts of men are and how many "good" men basically fit into this category. I'd hazard a guess that well over half of the men in this country, even the "progressive" ones who think they are feminists etc, basically become like this after they've had kids.

Genius. Should be emailed to all engaged couples

Why are you blaming women for men’s shit behaviour? Surely the question should be why do so many men think it acceptable to leave the grunt work of family life to their wife/partner?

OMG @LightDrizzle

Exactly!

No-one’s doing that. People are asking why women choose shit men.

I think often they believe that all it’s going to take is the live of a good woman to turn them round.

Of course, you have to be a fool to believe this, but there are many foolish women.

“If I look at the choices some of my friends have made, I’d say the bad ones have been shit from the start. It’s tough when you see someone you care about smitten by someone who’s clearly awful, but it seems to keep happening.”

^Yes, this is my experience too

No one is doing this. We are asking why so many of them are allowed to fly under the radar.

Yes, you just don't see it through the rose tinted glasses.

A hundred-and-some years of developmental psychology trashed in one sentence.

This is the kind of reasoned, measured, informed insight we keep coming back for.

To be fair, not all shit people had shit parents. And not everyone who had shit parents is a shit person. But the correlation between being a shit person and having shit parents is sufficiently strong that if we could break that cycle there'd be a lot fewer shit people of both sexes about for us to marry.

howtomoveforwards I don't see women being blamed for men's behaviour directly, and those saying parents have generally been disagreed with. But there are a lot of women who put up with shit, ignore the signs then wonder why they get treated badly. We need to bring up daughters to aim higher than these losers..
Disclaimer..applies to boys/ men too..arseholes need to be left to their own misery regardless of sex..

Lust plays a part as well, you fancy the pants off the bloke, he's great in bed and you don't want to admit even to yourself that he's not life partner material.

Relationships are a bit like jobs & working. You show off your best side at the interview, behave yourself through probation & are very polite to everyone, and then, once settled in, the real you starts to emerge which could go either way. Then the big stressful project comes along and the gloves are off. Some excel and are everything you wanted and some turn out to be a narcissistic bullying nightmare..

I wouldn’t disagree with that

but some children are spoilt it’s not bad parenting just over indulging parenting plus the expectations on men that allow men to make excuses and allow women to make excuses for selfish behaviour. My extremely abusive step father was spoilt not extremely but there is nothing else that is known about that made him such a cruel person. His brother died as a baby of course this has a huge impact on the family and possible played out in his he was treated which we can all empathise with. I have come across a few men like this (not as extreme) who have been spoilt carry on acting like spoilt children as adults

and many of us have parents that are irresponsible, neglectful etc we are not them we live in a time when thankfully we are not written off as being unworthy people as we are damaged

my grandparents were absolutely lovely my mother is a cold, manipulative and totally self absorbed yet her sister isn’t like that

Excellent post @LightDrizzle!

This is one of the best posts i've ever seen on here. Perfectly captured the early red flags and the way of thinking that is wide spread in society which is a man who kicks a ball around for his kids for 20 minutes at the weekend, goes to work (like everyone has to?????) and occasionally takes the bins out is a 'great dad'

Yes @LightDrizzle excellent summary 👏

@KILM

Agree. But the problem is that the “early red flags” (and you are right that they are red flags) are basically impossible to pick out in normal male pack behaviour.

This is why it enrages me when people tip up on here and say it’s down to women to choose a man more carefully (the “my Nigel wouldn’t do that” tendency).

They basically all present like this to start with, if they are straight. And short of avoiding the screamingly obvious abusers (the category 1 in @LightDrizzle’s post) there’s not much you can do to safeguard yourself from this.

All you can do is make sure you don’t stop work.

I think in any relationship, there comes a tipping point where you stop treating one another with respect, and after that there's a rapid downward spiral. This can be a friendship or a family connection too.

I'd say all were shit to start with, a small number of genuinely abusive men will be able to hide it long enough until a partner is trapped, the rest will be obviously shit but their partners don't or won't see it until it's too late.

Thankfully I've never dated (or married) a shit man, hold your bar high and prosper and all that.

I think it does come down to positive male influences in my life growing up, my dad was a fantastic husband and father, I always knew I'd want to marry someone like him and made damn sure every man I dated held up to that standard.

@LightDrizzle has a point in that all too often people marry their fun partner and expect him to turn into dad when the children come along. Some do, some see it as you wanted children I'll get on with my life now.

It was my bf who first brought up children, he actually wanted to be dad and has been a great dad and partner. It's really something that needs to be discussed and thought about first. If you can't tell if he's serious or just agreeing with you probably means you don't know him well enough.

@alphapie all are shit? Does that include your dad? You've never dated a shit man so have you dated, after all he would have been shit.

@FangsForTheMemory there's something wrong with your relationships if you've found that you stop treating each other with respect. 30 plus years in and we still love and respect each other.

It takes two to tango though !
A shit man
And woman who embraces the shit behaviour

And all the shitty behaviour was there from the start. Red flags from the start .some people choose to overlook this. Or they are blinded by "love"/being overly naive.

Butttt I do believe some men ramp up their level of shit when they get married yes... but then why stay married..