‘Why did you have a baby with him?’

[Iftheydonlygetashifton]

Inspired by the numerous threads on MN where the OP is in a very tough situation with kids and an abusive partner, and the responses run ‘why on Earth did you choose to have children with him? You were with him for 3 years before children’ … etc etc. My thoughts are:

a) the OP isn’t omniscient;
b) many relationships change after having kids. Often having kids exposes men to be man-children. Hence, all the single mums out there and the many fewer single dads. And the mental burden disproportionately borne by women in hetero relationships even if both do paid work FT, etc.
c) Give the OP a break.

YABU - people don’t change substantially after having kids therefore it’s on the OP if they chose a wrong un.
YANBU - people can change after kids, relationships deteriorate, we should lay off a pile-on and give practical advice and moral support.

thanks

Great point above
“single biggest thing that will affect your whole life is your choice of life partner/father of your kids”

I agree with other posts saying that it's really a warning to the whole readership of the thread.
However I think sometimes, when it's done as a sort of question within a question to the OP, it helps give advice because it helps understand where the relationship started, but some of the time I think - yeah, we're all thinking it, but did you need to say it?

What does annoy me is when someone starts a thread on it out of frustration and everyone leaps in going 'well I didn't have a crystal ball!' 'People change!!'
Those are the the circumstances we're talking about though are they!
And to dismiss these concerns as 'well you can't possibly know' is failing future generations of women - yes, sometimes they are great then turn horrible, however lots of times there are red flags and behaviours that we as women are taught to swallow when actually they should make us stop and think 'do I really want my child to have to put up with this man as a dad for the rest of their life?'

It's the mens fault they are shit, but women ultimately have the power (In most cases) of choosing their child's dad, so surely we should be encouraging informed decision making, and more importantly looking in depth at the reasons why women don't or can't make informed decisions??? How else are we going to work together as a society to help women and their actual or potential children if we don't acknowledge the reality that shit decision making goes on, let's look at why that happens and HELP, rather than cast blame.

It's normally the subsequent children that people are puzzled about, not the first one.

And also, the question doesn't tend to come from people blaming everything on the woman, but thinking they do need to take some responsibility for themselves.

This . Many people say they did not know until afterwards.

I know examples of many friends where their husbands (now ex) were charming and thoughtful, but changed after one or even two pregnancies. Years later, and only with the help of hindsight, some realise tiny red flags or signs, but in isolation, and not enough to end the relationship for.

YANBU. I enjoy reading a lot of threads on MN but the cuntery is out of this world. I started calling it out/doing it back but cba it keep it up. There’s no point. It won’t change, full of judgemental vipers with fuck all in the way of lateral thinking.

Those of us with half a brain cell just need to rise above.

I think it's really not black and white- my first H was fine until we had the second one and then suddenly felt that he wanted to be not around as much as he found it a bit overwhelming- hence weekends at football or 2 or 3 times down the pub in the week etc.

My second H, not like this but did get easily stressed even with 1- so I stuck at just the 1.

What I don't understand is the women who know their partner is a lazy cocklodger or a cheating arse or violent and yet carry on getting pregnant regardless.

It's just not a helpful comment. I know why people say it but what are they going to do? Return baby to sender?

I don't know OP. Clearly lots of men turn abusive, or at least show their true lazy / selfish side after having kids and in these cases I agree it's unfair to ask.

But equally there are often threads where the OP gives quite a lot of detail and includes facts like they have always done 100% of the housework as their husband considers it 'not their job' and is now a SAHP with 4 kids and is finding it tricky that their husband does nothing...and you just wonder why they did this to themselves.

No it's probably not always helpful to ask. But on some threads it's quite difficult not to

Sadly, from a few women I've known, they just desperately want someone to love them and a hope of the 'normal' family life they've dreamt of, particularly if they are from a difficult or abusive background. The red flags could be flapping in their faces (and often are) but they will ignore them in the hope that it will work out. It doesn't. A friend of mine is in this situation at the moment and - surprise, surprise - she's pregnant to yet another dodgy guy.

I can absolutely believe that some men do appear to change when their partner becomes pregnant but the signs are almost always there, however subtle. But not only do you need to want to see them, you've got to recognise them in the first place.

But once it's happened I struggle to understand why women go back for more (always assuming that there's no sexual coercion/rape) - if things are shit with one child and it's going to be hard to leave/go back to work to get some financial independence/find any sort of freedom, why have more? I've read so many posts here from women whose partners have turned out to be awful, where the posts end "...and to complicate things, I'm six months pregnant with our second". Why do that to yourself?

Unfortunately there are some women out there who put more effort into choosing what outfit to wear than choosing who to father their child.
Depressing.

This, it’s when the woman has been complaining about her arsehole partner and drops in that she’s expecting No 3…….

YANBU. It's well known that one of the most common time for DV to start is when the woman is pregnant - that's partly why the midwife usually wants to talk to the mother on her own without the father being there. It's really, depressingly, common. The womens refuge near us is always after maternity clothes.

"Why did you have a baby with him?" is goady and unhelpful for the reasons already described, although I do think its often a good way to make a societal point that women are under so much pressure to marry and have kids with anyone that they lose sight of their own best interests. As documented extensively, its impossible to tell for sure what a man is going to be like as a father until he's a father: there's no bar code that you scan.

"Why did you have another baby with him?" is perfectly legitimate.

Everyone will give a poster the benefit of the doubt if she's had a kid with someone: that man may have presented very well before having kids and have completely turned on a dime once he'd had them. But anyone who goes on to have a second (and sometimes third and fourth) child with such a man really does deserve a stern talking to.

You forgot number 4

I’d rather have this man( even though I know he’s not really that great) than be alone.

Many people also don't appreciate that if you've grown up without great role models, you often miss major red flags.

Coming from a traditional family in another country, the expectations of men were often rock bottom. Any time I hinted anything to women in my family, they'd say how he lucky I was that he really loved me and was faithful, unlike so many men, and how all men have a temper and expect certain duties from their wives, and how very hard my life would be if I split (even though I was the higher earner). Stupid as it may sound, I thought that behind the scenes, some version of this was normal, and that my mum was right and I was being over-sensitive and demanding to expect differently.

Many people also don't appreciate that if you've grown up without great role models, you often miss major red flags.

This is so true.

Someone above mentioned domestic violence in pregnancy being common. Also in my experience are affairs, working in large offices I have seen this multiple times. Also men confiding in me ‘why does she want a a baby/another baby?’

One child I could understand but there are women who find out who their dp is after the first child and go on to have a second and a third and are still surprised that they useless assholes. That's what gets me, how could they think subsequent children would change the situation

I don't think I've seen an OP asked this question if she hasn't made it abundantly clear that he was a waste of space before children arrived and has only got worse since.

I may have missed some posters being arseholes but in the majority of cases where the OP reports a sudden change in their partner when they become pregnant they receive nothing but support. Ditto women who find themselves in such abusive relationships that they have little to no say over anything including whether they have children.

Whilst unhelpful remarks may be too late for the OP they may help another woman spot red flags and reconsider her relationship before she ties herself to a rubbish partner by having children. Red flags nearly always exist but women are not trained to spot them or ignore them, I speak from experience.

Women change too. Those who are abused might make bad judgements when choosing a partner, often because they have been taught by those around them that abusive behaviours are acceptable. When a woman starts to realise that they don’t deserve to be with an asshole they need help building their self esteem. They don’t need to be told it’s their fault for choosing an abusive partner.

Books and movies don't help either - especially for girls like me, growing up without positive relationship examples in my family. We read Twilight as teens and thought it was cute that he broke in to watch her sleep 😨 and far too many scripts make male actors punch walls to show manly emotion, before having loving reconciliations.

I think there is a level of exasperation when you read threads like that. Of course nothing is black and white but most of the time I think it is a fair enough question and one that the OP should probably consider as a means of understanding how they got into their situation and also how they might get out of it. When kids are involved they need to be thought of first, that’s not to say a parent / mother doesn’t matter, far from it, but it is often the children who will suffer long term because one parent is causing misery to the whole family.

Thinking about the 3 women I know who chose dogshit fathers, the signs were there. It was obvious to everyone else, just not to them. Why is that?

Depends what the OP's problem actually is. If it's a "marriage gone stale, don't feel attracted to each other" one then it's a positive thing to ask - presumably at one point they loved each other to marry and have kids together, so getting back to that has to be a starting point. (Of course it often emerges sometimes that actually, they'd never loved their partner or been attracted to him.)

Abso,utely. Things like filling the heroine’s hotel room or house with flowers, or whisking her off on a surprise trip to Venice are depicted as romantic whereas IRL they are narcissistic and creepy.