‘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

That's exactly what has happened to a couple of women I know. Perfect partner/husband until the children arrived.

Actually domestic violence is known to start in pregnancy and escalate afterwards.

so it is entirely possible there were no signs before kids.

ExP changed dramatically after the birth of DC2. He did have a breakdown with his mental health and losing his job at the same time etc, he was not abusive nor violent before that. When he lost his job he hit the drink heavily. He became angrier and angrier and then the violence started. I was on MN at the time oh so very many years ago and asked for advice and got told I was outright lying that he’d never been abusive previously. It hasn’t changed in more than a decade since.

It’s not a way of reminding women not to have children with pricks, it’s a way of feeling superior that you “chose better” and are “worth more” because of it. It’s also a way to put down and keep down women who are experiencing abuse. I stayed for far longer than I should have because stupid little girls on the internet who didn’t have a brain cell between them made me feel like it was my own fault and I deserved it.

Totally agree with this. It's not the right time to ask and is completely pointless.

I think we all know someone who stayed with a partner for poor reasons. E.g. -to avoid loneliness -for ease -age/life stage

You want to tell them they shouldn't stay with their partner, that they deserve/can get better etc but it's not always as easy as that.

So when people come on here saying "He was always a bit shit but now we've had a kid he's more shit" We will ask why they had a baby together.

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

Ive said this on previous threads - it’s the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Realistically having one child with someone means you already feel ‘tied in’, many women (not all I absolutely concur) want more than one child and it just seems simpler to have another with the same person as ‘you’re in the situation now anyway’. Plus you get judged as a woman anyway, have a child and split, have more children by another man, stay and have more by the same feckless idiot, all leads to judgement. Leave and risk never having another child, or one that’s not having the same opportunities or parental relationships as the next one, it’s a horribly tough decision to make.

As for why women don’t catch on enough before having children as to how useless a man can become, I think many women are still conditioned to believe that simply having a man willing to marry them and pay the bills is a ‘win’, there is still a huge expectation of women being the primary carers and house administrators. Hell, even some of the more smug women on this forum who scoff at those who’ve recognised their husbands as useless are actually living with fairly useless men themselves. You recognise them by their outcries of ‘my man is great, he does everything that needs doing that’s why I married him!…. Of course I have to tell him everything that needs doing first, but that’s totally normal….’.

It is known that some men turn abusive after a woman has become pregnant and had kids.

However, the comment you mention is usually on a post where OP describes their partner as always behaving a certain way, or there were clear signs, and then decides to just go ahead and have kids anyway. I've certainly see it happen with friends, even had one friend who almost seemed shocked at how her DH didn't step up after having a baby, yet had always complained about him and how lazy he was.

As PP mentioned, the comment isn't really intended to the OP... it's too late for the OP. More a warning to everyone reading... just seriously think before you have kids with a man.

Its because they don't have the knowledge to offer any practical advice or the emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills to offer support; yet somehow feel compelled to insert themselves onto a thread they have nothing of value to contribute to.

I agree. I didn't know my husband would become an alcoholic after we had a child. He drank in what I thought was a 'normal' manner before. The pressure of becoming a father brought out deep issues with his own upbringing that I had no clue about. He developed depression, started drinking frequently to self medicate and it was a downward spiral from there. Neither of us could have predicted it.
For this, and many other unrelated reasons we only have one child.
So if someone said 'you knew what he was like' to me I'd be very annoyed, because I absolutely didn't.

Oh, yeah. That old chestnut.

You're not wrong, OP. Tedious, repetitious, and shows a complete want of understanding as to how patterns of abuse begin and escalate. Abusers rarely show their hand at first, and pregnancy is a well-documented trigger.

I'm sure this is knowledge nobody in their right mind would want to gain by experience.

@Whatswhatwhichiswhich I totally agree. My exH was a different person after DC2. The red flags simply hadn't been there.

This comment is intended to criticise a woman probably one who is in a difficult place. It’s basically ‘how you could you have been so stupid’. Very mean and unhelpful.

I really don’t understand how people on the internet feel that it is okay to kick at others and cause upset. It’s weird, they must be very sad in their own lives.

@TheBarbieEffect That is really not the case. Many men are fine when the attention is all on them , sexlife is good and life is nice meals, dates and sunny holidays- children totally change the dynamic for many as does less money and if sex drops off( and very often does with kids) holidays become an enormous compromise for many or unaffordable, more help is expected at home, they can't just expect to bugger off cycling for 4 hours on their own - plenty of men of all income levels turn into unpleasant petulant arses- sometimes it's not the 1st child that is the turning point it can be the 2nd or even 3rd -

I don't think these men hide their behaviour before pregnancy.

I do think the women in these situations are attracted to these characteristics and have a case of selective blindness in some cases, and perhaps regret when their brain shifts to realise the child's needs trump theirs.

I think in a lot of cases, the pregnancy is unplanned. Or the couple have been careless because the woman hates hormonal bc and the bloke is moany about using protection, so she tries to use natural bc, and at some point it fails (of course).

Not all women are mentally able to undergo an abortion (yes, I know some will say 'shouldn't have unsafe sex then', but it happens).

And they try to make the best of it with an inadequate and unsuitable partner who isn't ready or particularly willing to be a father, and because she feels that she's 'made her bed', they may marry or have other kids together. And at some point with the natural stresses of parenthood, it all falls apart.

That is my take on it anyway.

Perhaps no obvious signs, but it’s very hard to wear a mask for years without it ever slipping.

Since the 1980s in the uk it has been assumed that if a relationship goes pearshaped
A) women can work and earn enough to support their children
B) there is a state safety net if times get tough

In addition not all women can assume a perfect partner will ever turn up (as did Charlotte Lucas in pride and prejudice ) so if they want children they have to make the best of it.

The huge housing cost now reduces the number jobs women can have which will support their children. Also it appears that nowadays people are happy for families to starve and be exploited.

Sensible people have responded and already are having fewer children now so there will be fewer sensible offspring to look after the country in future

I don’t think many men do change once their partner gets pregnant. And that’s the problem.

You can have a couple rubbing along for years where in essence, she is carrying the partnership. It works. Both seem happy.

When a woman has a baby, she can’t hold up both sides of the relationship anymore. Many men continue to think things will continue as before and cannot grasp that their previous ‘superwoman’ partner is no longer such.

In the past, when he ‘forgot’ to put the bins out, she would quietly do it. He does it 50% of the time so it’s not too bad. But now, the man not only needs to be 100% on everything that is his responsibility, he also needs to take on extra work with the baby too! When his partner reminds him about the bins, she’s suddenly become a nag! She didn’t used to nag about the bins -what’s going on? She’s changed since having the baby.

It’s often the women that change and I honestly think many men have no clue due to vasts amount of entitlement, that they have been coasting in their relationship for many years. Depending on the guy, he will either up his game quickly, become passive aggressive, sulk and ignore his partner, or become violent and aggressive.

I just have no idea hoe that comment is ever supposed to be helpful. The poster has come on asking questions or for advice.

This is the singularly least helpful thing you can say in that situation. The kids are here already and you can’t put them back.

It is far more helpful to keep any judgement to yourself and offer something constructive that will help with the here and now. It doesn’t offer any more of a warning shot to other parents to be than what they can already read with their own eyes either, so it’s only ever judgemental to say it.

Even if it’s a situation where all the signs were there (and I agree that’s not always the case), I still think it’s a really unhelpful response, akin to the ‘well, what you should have done is [the opposite of what you actually did]…’
When people are asking for help about the situation they’re in now, there’s little use in berating them for getting into that situation in the first place (which is how I always read those comments, although I accept it might not always be how they’re meant).

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

This. From what I see, it’s usually not said when OP says he didn’t show any flags until AFTER kids so they have encountered something genuinely unexpected. It’s when they say, he turned this way after our first and now I’ve had our third I’m just done. Or, he was a lazy, inconsiderate arsehole but I expected him to step up and change if we had kids so I had one (noting not including rape etc obviously). It’s those situations where posters question why there was no personal responsibility taken.

But equally many women marry and then have kids with men who from the start of the relationship were lazy, immature and in some cases already abusive or had already had kids with other women and failed to step up as a father with them.

So it can be a very valid question.

Thinking that a man is suddenly going to change for the best because he becomes a father is very naive and a risky strategy.

It is not about victim blaming, it is about pointing out that women should not ignore signs that the guy might not be the best father material and compromise their standards simply because they really want kids/a relationship...

There's a whole bunch of other reasons why women have kids with partners who are less than ideal:

• Sunk costs fallacy
• Their empathy makes them feel responsible for their partner and the issues in the relationship
• Fear of being lonely/not believing they can do better
• Because the good times are great, and they hang onto that potential
• Social pressures/fear of being seen as a failure when a relationship ends
• How relationships were modeled to them in their family of origin
• Lack of external support from friends/family

The real issue here is why we blame women for their own abuse at the hands of men.

I think a person's childhood can leave them with very low expectations and low self esteem, so they put up with crap and don't realise they could do better. I had a couple of boyfriends who I put up with crap from and was just lucky to end up with a lovely one really. Not lucky he died young but at least I had nearly 20 years with him. I'd now rather be single than put up with crap, but only because he raised my expectations

YABU. Nobody is an angel before kids/marriage and then radically turns into the devil.

The signs are there. If people choose not to read them that’s up to them.

I’m autistic, I could not read the signs if they’d been in huge neon letters above his head. It took me over twenty years to get away.