How to spot the shite fathers early on?

[StellaStacey]

I'm newly single in my late 20s. I want to think about settling down and starting a family with someone.

I see so many of the same sort of posts on here about women having children with their partners and the father not being a parent at all or doing any household chores whatsoever. The man insisting he has a right to undisrupted sleep because he works a paid job and has zero appreciation to the hard work and exhaustion that goes into raising a child. I seriously at points consider staying childless because I don't think I can cope with this kind of setup and want to avoid it at all costs, not only because of how physically exhausting it must be but the mental torment of a partner completely disrespecting and think so little of you as the mother of their child. I know I would never get over the resentment. I read some of the posts on here and I want to scream at these men who are driving their partners to such breaking point for being completely and utterly useless. My god you are heros and extremely resilient if you have been in this situation.

As I jump onto the dating scene again I wanted to ask, are these useless twats easy to spot early on? Are there warning signs? If you ended up in this situation was it obvious looking back that it would be like that but you were love blind to the signs? What are the red flags? Did your DP completely change when a baby came along or did they always have these tendencies to avoid all responsibility?

My exH was really keen to have kids, and is still a loving, affectionate father.

he is also a complete, selfish arse who refuses to take on any of the work of parenting.

it’s less about how they are with kids, and more about how they treat women in their life.

here are the red flags I actually noticed, but ignored:

the way he treats his mother.
his aversion to housework and his messy, chaotic flatshare.
can he say sorry and own his mistakes?
does he compromise?
does he think about your preferences when planning his free time?

How does he treat his ‘enemies’? ( ex girlfriends/ annoying colleagues/ people who disagree with him on Twitter)

Treating his mother well is very very different to pandering to his mother, particularly if she is a strong character. She will not like you whoever you are, and will likely be just as demanding or more demanding of his time/effort and energy when your babies arrive. She will still expect him to do her bidding and run around her regardless of what is happening in your lives.

The one that was very telling to me, does he take responsibility for his past mistakes in relationships? And how he speaks about his exes, if he is respectful that is a good sign of emotional integrity and maturity.
Even if difficulties were present in his past relationship, he is able to take his side of the blame, and learn from it. This shows he will be willing to be flexible and open, and that he is a man that will take future responsibilities seriously.

Not convinced you can tell this by all the things posted above. We all know men who are 'perfect' on paper then turn out to be crap once children come along.

I think the answer is to look for the attributes listed on this thread but to be very clear how you will run things and be selfish. Protect yourself by always being in a position to leave. Have your own money and independence. I don't know if it's a coincidence but the friends that seem to have navigated this best just expected the men to step up and took no crap. Even if they were working they expected them to do some night feeds. If the man doesn't step up stop doing their washing and cooking their meals and completely focus on yourself and your baby. I think there's too much pressure still for women to be expected to 'remember your partner' when the reality no one is really remembering them.

THIS 💯💯💯. most women dont mind doing the bulk of housework pre kids. It becomes untenable after kids because house chores magnify 100 fold after kids. Men refuse to see this because they just dont want to do more because its boring and tedious AF!

Nrtft but I think it comes down to views on gender roles. I'm married (25+ years now) and we discussed early on what our understandings of gender roles were. I'm passionately of the view that there is no difference between men and women in terms of ability to do anything other than bear and feed children. So my expectation was always that everything else would be 50/50 in terms of stuff at home (cleaning, cooking, mowing the lawn, ironing etc) and when we had children. He had a family that was a bit ahead of its time and his mum was pretty feminist too.
So that's how it worked. We both worked 60% when we had children and looked after them the rest of the time. We both got weekends away on our own. We still manage things 50/50 though we have certain jobs we each prefer so I've never mown the lawn and he's never cleaned the hob unless he's made a spectacular mess...
I knew early on he'd be like that.
But I meet so many women now who accept such low standards from men because they think that any man is better than none - or they actually believe there to be defined gender roles. On the counter side, I see too many women who infantilise their partners, "don't trust" then with their children, feel that mothers are always better with children etc etc which can lead to men giving up or worrying they will get something wrong. My DH want as good as me at doing my dd's hair nor at picking out outfits that looked good (he's not great at doing that himself) but I didn't care - he's not me.
My young adult children I hope have learned to look for similar to us in their partners. They literally view us both equally and will talk to either of us about any of their issues etc.

Most of these are lived experiences of what is a good vs bad partner while you are coupled up (not before you decide to date). Unfortunately, there are numerous cases of fantastic partners that turn out to be shit parents. Having a baby is also a stress point during which formerly good partners start being abusive partners.

I would avoid anyone who:
(…..)
is a porn consumer

This is seriously immortant addition.
Porn/ sex work etc. are so misogynistic that no one who uses or supports these things can be pro-women in any shape or form.

I think the key things are (1) selfishness and (2) laziness. Those can show in lots of different ways before children. But basically if you have someone who prefers to always put himself first, or thinks he is entitled to, and someone who is lazy you have a pretty good chance of ending up with a poor partner for having children (btw, not all bad coparents are bad fathers. They are just a pain in the ass for the other parent).

I would say it’s almost impossible to avoid.

But avoid men who already have kids. It sounds really nasty, but you just need to read the step parenting boards on here to realise that the situation makes life a lot harder.

I think if he does nothing around the house before a baby he won't suddenly step up when the baby's here. Avoid lazy men they won't change.

Mainstream liberal feminism is so anti-women it’s not even funny.

Male feminists are known to be walking red flags.

She will probably have to have ivf then ! Even if they say they don't use it they are most likely lying about it

I think the number one thing is do you feel comfortable talking to him? A lot of threads posted here would have been greatly helped if the couple had just spoken to each other! If you feel comfortable to voice what you need from him, and know it won't turn into an argument, it's half the battle!

@youarntaguest You said "Even if they say they don't use it they are most likely lying about it"

Not all men are lying testosterone-filled satyrs 'whacking the bishop' in the lavvy while looking at porn.

So I think this comment is disrespectful to a lot of men.

If they have had childhood trauma (in my DP's case, extreme neglect), that they have had counselling or would be willing to go through counselling.

My DP went off the rails unexpectedly when my DD was born (claimed to have put everything behind him, refused counselling, even when I told him that having a baby can bring up lots of issues from childhood).

I was basically left to it and he turned to the bottle. We've had lengthly discussions about it and now my DD is 11 months he's finally got his drinking back under control and can interact with her properly. But it was a VERY difficult period of time for me.

My DH explicitly didn't want children, and wouldn't have passed a number of the tests PPs have put forward, but he agreed to go ahead and ttc. I was anxious about how he would react, but once DD was born he absolutely adored her and really stepped up to the plate with looking after her, despite having a super-demanding job. I suppose you can never quite tell. He was always lovely to his Mum.

Loads of women seem to pick a fairly low quality male, reproduce and then whine that 'I thought he'd change!'. If you ever find yourself thinking that phrase about some bloke that's your sign-dump him.

This thread is going to end up in that rag for scum Daily Mail, isn't it 🤢

Agree with this

My DH wouldn't pass the 'good relationship with his mother' test

As he is NC and hasn't spoken to her since he left home at 15.

But he is never nasty about her, he never badmouths her or is demanding to her - despite the years of abuse she inflicted on him

He is still respectful of her as his mother, just chooses for his own mental well-being to not have her in his life

Was a big Green flag when we were dating actually

If you know the relationship is inherently unstable why invest any time in the relationship? Utterly pointless.
You are either committed or not.
Dp and I have had conversations on expectations on what happens if, career-hobbies-children-friendships., and how we avoid conflicts of interest. We're pretty much aligned thank goodness. My ex-wife and I weren't.

Don't think you can definitely spot a good one. But I think there are lots of flags to help you avoid some of the bad ones:

• anyone who is too into their hobbies. Excessive gaming, spending multiple evenings on 'their music', lots of football practices and matches a week etc etc.
• anyone whose friends don't in large proportion have children in settled relationships.
• anyone who doesn't seem to have a sense of duty and obligation, reciprocity etc. you just can't raise children without this
• having a child is a huge, life changing thing and the greatest responsibility any of us will have. So a man being casual about contraception (whoever is taking it in the relationship) would be a huge red flag for me. Either you are ready for kids and you both want one and agree it and go for it, or you're not and you protect yourselves accordingly. A man who isn't very bothered about doing this would make me think he just hasn't thought about babies with the right sense of responsibility. Possibly an unpopular opinion.

Looking back there were huge red signs, glaring!

We had a 6 month old and had both been looking forward to a New Year’s Eve fancy dress party. Grandparents roped into babysitting etc. Two days before, I came down with raging tonsillitis and was so poorly. He screamed in my face that I was ‘deliberately ruining his night out’ and stormed off for two days, leaving me with a baby. My friend came over on NYE with a Chinese to keep me company. My DH now wouldn’t dream of doing that. He once cancelled something he’d been longing to go to for about a year when I was rushed to hospital.

Also, look at their financial history. If they come to you with debts, those debts will soon be your debts. My ex-husband was up to his eye balls in debt when we met and kept consolidating his loans over and over. I was basically living on £40 a month tax credits even though I worked 20 hours a week, it was pathetic.

A bloke who has been previously engaged before, especially at a young age. This isn’t 100% a bad thing but if you can’t get a straight answer about why they split or you just plain don’t believe them, then run for the hills.

Avoid mega football fans and people who's hobby overtakes their life. To be fair my DH wasn't very good with DD until about the age of 3. She's 9 now and he's been taking her on snowboarding holidays alone since the age of 6. He does a lot more some people aren't very good with very young children. We definitely do 50 percent of the load nowadays.

How does he think finances should work for a couple? Run a mile from anyone who insists on 50-50 when the 2 people earn significantly different amounts and who won’t have a joint account. I know it works for some couples but generally it’s a bit of a red flag.

Also run a mile from anyone who thinks that a mother on mat leave should still be contributing 50-50 (using savings) and that all baby costs should be paid by the woman.