To wonder why so many women put up with this shit

[Stylishkidintheriot]

www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/15/how-to-achieve-an-equal-split-of-household-chores-kate-mangino#comment-158160830

I don’t get it: I really don’t. Not in this day and age.

if a man isn’t pulling his weight, why the fuck would you stay in a relationship or have children with him?

This is us. Not the covid part as DH never worked from home, but the rest of it. Then throw in a job that required a lot of relocations and suddenly he is earning a lot more and to be fair, working a lot more with a ridiculous amount of stress.
The one saving grace is when not working he pulls his weight totally, so I know holidays and retirement will be fine. But it's a big problem now as his earnings have dropped and I need to be working.

I don't understand it at all. I never have. I do think a huge part of it is that being with a man is somehow still seen as the single biggest achievement for a woman. Any old man will do. Doesn't matter if he has absolutely no respect for you whatsoever, any man is better than no man. That is still the attitude for a great many women and they pass that to their daughters.

It's often the case that a man will not reveal the extent of his misogyny (laziness, unwillingness to lift a finger because the drudgery is women's work) until way down the line into the relationship, by which time the woman is sucked into cognitive dissonance where she convinces herself in many ways that her man is "lovely, funny, the best dad in the world", but sitting before her is actual useless tool who she'd be better off without.

How often do we read a thread on here where the woman has two DC with another on the way, bemoaning how her DP hasn't come home at 3am, or sleeps off his hangover until Sunday pm, opts out of family life, rendering himself useless to contribute to childcare or house (not help ffs, do some heavy lifting and contribute!!).

The frustration is them trying to get support of MNers to "close the stable door after the horse has bolted" - MN are a talented lot, but we aren't bloody miracle-workers

There's just been an interesting discussion on lbc around some research that was publicised recently suggesting more men are lonely as women prefer to stay single rather than be with someone emotionally unavailable. Well worth a listen!

It's mostly this, I think. It's so depressing. Being single and childfree by choice I get asked often, "aren't you lonely?"

Not ever enough to put up with this crap. I also don't understand the women, who keep having kids with these men. Surely you knew from the first how shit he is.

From looking at the families I know, I think often it's the woman who wants a baby, or to add to the family. The man is less sure, or worried about the practicalities. By the time the woman has talked the man round, it's too difficult to then say 'oh and you'll be fkn knackered for ten years because that's what family life is like'. He expects that because she was so keen to have them, she'll do the bulk of the work.

I'm a big fan of observing people when they show you who they are. They won't try harder with a second or third child, or a puppy.

What a naive and ignorant post. Firstly the list of household chores grows and legs once you have children. Doing a 50/50 split it very little comparatively when it’s two working adults compare to a family. Is the woman supposed to be psychic and know what the man will or won’t do when they have children? Secondly how many women have become financially dependent to any degree on their partner. Even if they could afford to chuck him out how many mothers would sacrifice their children growing up in a nice home with nice holidays etc for a life of just getting by over the sake of chores? Many woman do leave once their children are up & out over matters like this but it’s ridiculous that you really can’t stretch your mind far enough to understand why many don’t at the time.

But how can it not be noticeable before you have children? We don’t have children but there’s still cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, bedsheet changing, kitchen and bathroom cleaning, vacuuming, surface wiping, dishwashing, car maintenance and mending broken shit to be done. I’d notice pretty damn quickly if I was doing much more of it than than DP. When you have children things might get dirtier more quickly and then obviously you have wiping shitty asses to add to the list; but you can only “not notice” you’re doing everything if you’re willfully ignoring it or somehow believe it’s your job to be doing it in the first place.

@WitchesSpells

People don't change that much.

So yeah, it should be clear what kind of man and parent they'll be post kids.

Some do hide it but most are pretty blatant.

Women just seem to ignore it.

They certainly know after kid 1 so why have 2 or 3 more?

And why become financially dependent on someone like that?

Its not just for the sake of chores.

Its for not accepting being treated as a skivvy and for not teaching your kids Its acceptable

Exactly. While some man change, many posters bemoaning ahving to do it all here armit he was always "not great with cleaning or things like washing machines"...

Damn the typos

My DH comes from a very traditional family where the women do the housework. Thankfully he is not ike that at all (I wouldn't have married him if he was).

Admittedly I do most of the cooking and laundry but he does most of the shopping, the hoovering, cleans the bathrooms, does the ironing and best of all polishes the cutlery every week (inherited silverware which we refuse to keep for best). We split the DIY and gardening.

He was a brilliant and hands on Dad when the DC were small too.

My aunt used to say "Never marry a man until you've seen him clean the toilet and scrub the kitchen floor." She was well ahead of her time and stood no nonsense.

It really wearies me that this question is always phrased so smugly. Like if all these daft, desperate, deluded women just stopped 'putting up with it', misogyny, patriarchy, etc would be a thing of the past.

Desperation

Poor self esteem

@NewBlueGoo

How will keeping putting up with it help?

@WitchesSpells

Yep, the insults calling other women "stupid" really rankle with me and the refusal to accept most people dont have the perfect home life.
No, DH wasn't a chore dodger before children and we were together for many years before having a family, he wasnt brought up to be one either. A combination of circumstances meant I ended up in the position of (mainly) SAHM. He works long hours in a stressful job that he hates - I'm sure he didn't plan doing that either.
Do I leave him? He's my best friend, I love him, we get on great, he pulls his weight when not working (he was fab during 6mths out out of work). We would all end up financially worse off, I'd still end up doing all the housework, I'd be lonely and would need to work all hours to support myself. My child would be heartbroken.
It's not that simple.

Not ever enough to put up with this crap. I also don't understand the women, who keep having kids with these men. Surely you knew from the first how shit he is

It is the kids I feel sorry for. You aren't allowed to say that on MN because you get jumped for "victim blaming" but I do wonder why anybody would continue to breed with some of the specimens you read about on here. Yet they do and are encouraged to do so. Go for it hun, you won't regret baby no. 4. Okaaaaaaaay.....

I've noticed that in het couples where both parties are highly fastidious and organised, the load is shared more evenly regardless of anyone's working pattern or earning potential - because everyone is intrinsically motivated to keep things the way they need them in order to feel calm and OK.

When both parties are a bit less bothered about mess and a bit of chaos, the person who does the shitwork is normally the person who knows they will be judged by friends and family if things don't get done (i.e. the woman).

But how can it not be noticeable before you have children?

We just did stuff together. But after children I stopped working for a while, so I took on more of the housework. Then I preferred to get it done in the week so we could have family time and go out at the weekends. We had to relocate often for his job, so we had no family help with childcare. DH was made redundant, took a stressful long hours stop gap job that he's never been able to get out of and is just knackered all the time.

@Topgub how will casting aspersions on women's intelligence / strength of character help?

The idea that people are only shits because the people around them 'put up with it' is really un-nuanced. Those Afghan women should really put their foot down and insist the Taliban behave reasonably. Or leave! There are plenty of nice regimes around if you have the gumption and self-worth not to settle.

My husband does so much round the house. Hoovering, cleaning, washing, the beds. You name if he does it. I stick to the cooking mainly. Works for us as it’s 50/50.

I have no idea why he’s so domesticated. Working class backgrounds and his mum once told me “a woman’s work is never done” erm I think you’ll find it is. Maybe my husband just knew he wasn’t going to be able to the take the piss. My friends husbands are all manbabies.

@NewBlueGoo

I dont think it's comparable to the taliban

But nothing will change unless women demand change. Men aren't only shits because women put up with it.

But its a big part of the reason.

You can't compare shit english man with Taliban rule ffs.

When I said English, I mean the ones doscussed here since it's predominantly English people here. Not that all English man are shit😁

Of course it's not comparable, but you also can't say that women are 'putting up with it' - as though this is yet another bit of emotional labour women are responsible for: policing the lazy men in their lives / ensuring they only procreate with a perfect specimen of equitable masculinity like my Tarquin.

I don't disagree that it's shit. I do despair of the internalised misogyny that leads women to (seemingly gleefully and very smugly) hold other women responsible for the failings of their partners, or criticise them for not breaking up a family and potentially putting themselves in penury because Tarquin doesn't do exactly half of the washing up.