To wonder what on earth some MNetters ever saw in these men?

[gothicomedy]

I'm not talking about abusive and controlling bullies, who are cunning and well able to hide their true personalities before gaslighting women and separating them from friends and families.
But there are so many threads on here about spoilt, childish, selfish, lazy, prima donna partners and husbands sulking over this, that and everything, refusing to help with the children etc etc Surely they would always have been like this and didn't just change personality as soon as they got married or children entered the picture? Why on earth would anyone want to share their lives and take on huge joint responsibilities with these men? Some of the threads on here make for really depressing reads.

These cannot be the same men Dolly begged Jolene not to take

Maybe they aren't as good at weeding them out as you obviously are.

They don't start out that way. And then when they start behaving like that its slow and you don't realise, or you can't believe it could be deliberate or you blame yourself and you try to be better so they stop.
It's like the story of if you put a frog in water and slowly heat it up to boiling the frog doesn't realise its being boiled alive.

One really clear thing I remember about how.they DO just change. ExDH had never left the seat up though out 7+ years together. He suddenly started doing it when I was heavily pregnant, honestly I think he'd put it up even when he didn't use it. Just to make life that bit more difficult for me.

I found my DH changed. When we met/married he would do DIY gladly and his share of housework. Kids came along and I had no choice but to be a SAHM, so I did everything as he worked shifts/away. Fast forward to retirement and he gets up late, only does absolutely necessary DIY, does very minimal housework, and I still work PT. Any requests for ‘help’ are met with looks like I’m nagging him.
He has changed, become lazy.

I find this kind of thread really offensive actually. Noone deliberate sets out to build their life with a lazy selfish manchild of course. But as pp said, it happens very gradually. Maybe they only change after a baby appears, or their slightly lazy tendencies weren't really a problem or that noticeable when you're both simply adults looking after yourselves and both out at work. Once your lives are enmeshed with mortgage, babies, joint loans or debts the possibility of leaving when you may working part time or on mat leave, maybe with no family support is a huge hurdle.
Or yeah, maybe loads of mumsnetters are just waaay stupider than you OP. 🙄

Because for the many many women with low self esteem who have been socially conditioned to believe it, having a man, absolutely any man, means they've 'won'.

Also, if their own parents were part of the millions of 'we must stay together for the sake of the kids' brigade, then they won't have had a decent relationship model. So simply don't realise how crap these men are.

I think if you're a twenty year old woman who knows how to spot and drop red flags, then you are very privileged indeed.

They don't start out that way. And then when they start behaving like that its slow and you don't realise, or you can't believe it could be deliberate or you blame yourself and you try to be better so they stop.

This is untrue, I reckon, as much of the time as it is. My eldest brother is a bit of a twat. Believes in men’s and women’s roles and that men shouldn’t cook, clean, look after children etc. He’s believed this ever since he met his partner when they were 17, it’s never been a secret to her. He was content when she said she didn’t want to work after leaving school at 18. And let’s be honest, she probably thought she was getting an excellent deal at that point: when there are just two of you, staying home and keeping house isn’t exactly hard work.

Now that they have a baby and he continues to not lift a finger, because he sees earning money as his job and everything else as hers, she’s realising that it’s a gilded cage and is unhappy. But she can’t claim that she didn’t know or didn’t realise her life would end up like this - she was just happy to overlook his behaviour whilst it broadly worked well for her.

That doesn’t explain the common themes of women bending over backwards for unemployed, lazy, gamer, housework allergic boyfriend who already has kids he doesn’t see or pay for and oops she’s pregnant, or yay she’s pregnant and she lives in hope he’ll change. He won’t. They don’t. Ever. And the writing was on the wall from day one but she thought she could turn him into a decent specimen.

Surely they would always have been like this and didn't just change personality as soon as they got married or children entered the picture?

Maybe look at your own naivety before you start on superiority over people and victim blaming.

Many women grow up being taught that they are not important, and that they ‘need’ a man. Both from their families and our sexist society. Many men do very much change once they feel they have a woman trapped or under their control.

Look around you, listen, don’t be so judgey.

In my experience it’s having kids that does it. I think my ex had some very entrenched misogynistic ideas from his upbringing that only appeared once we had DC and I was the part time lower-earning partner. All of a sudden his views were more important, he could criticise what I spent or have the final say in things because it was ‘his’ money, he could stay out late after work and I was expected to take care of the kids.

If you had asked him what his views on parenting/ domestic chores were before we had kids I don’t think he would have voiced any of it. Pre-kids we did all the housework equally!

This. It’s really sad. There was a recent interview with Simone Biles the gymnast and her husband where he said some questionable things which indicated he was trying to neg Biles and that she was the lucky one to be with him etc .

He has received criticism on it from many corners but one of the insults reserved for women who criticised him is they must be “bitter and single”.

It’s sad in this day and age that many people think a married woman is necessarily better off, no matter how disrespectful, unloving or useless the man may be.

I do think some men change but I believe some men show women who they are early on and they choose to accept it. Every situation is different.

I think posts like this are really unreasonable. Often the OP has no lived experience of a bad relationship, and has based their 'knowledge' on the experience of MN posters looking for support.
No lived experience doesn't necessarily mean good judgement, you might just have got lucky with your partner. Judging others who didn't is offensive and says a lot about your character.
Of course, no one deliberately picks a terrible person to spend their life with. People can and do change, particularly when kids come along. In fact, it's necessary to change your lifestyle in order to look after children, so sometimes the opposite is true; one parent adapts and the other doesn't.
Often though the signs are there with hindsight, but it's never as obvious as you might think. No one shows their true colours at the start of a relationship, however good or bad.

Yes , some men do change , for the worse, once they marry or have kids.

OPs talking about the ones that already displayed ' bad behaviour " going to the pub all the time, doing their hobby all the time , being very messy etc.

Why do women think this behaviour is going to miraculously change ?

Is it the men "promise" and are believed.

I also believe it’s a women’s (collectively) self esteem issue. I believe that men do change (for the worse usually) but more importantly I think that women have been led to believe that we are worth so much less than men that when we are ‘blessed’ with any man’s attention we should not let them go for fear of never getting it again. It has taken me a long time to realise that actually I am better than most men in most ways and I know that a lot of women have not realised this yet and believe that they must hold onto any man who shows them interest at any cost.

Women are conditioned to think that life is better with a man in it. It starts from a very young age with Disney and fairytales and romantic movies, and therefore we’re praised when we bag ourselves a man.
It takes a really significant amount of time being single to really get to know yourself , and to build your inner strength and self esteem to a point where it’s really difficult to find a man who’d improve your life rather than deplete it, because he’d have to be a God.
Not many women have such periods of being single, because when we do society starts with the crazy cat lady comparisons, people start trying to fix you up, etc.

@gothicomedy has it ever occurred to you to wonder why on earth 'these men' behave the way they do? Or do you prefer to have a go at the women?

There is also a degree of selection bias. No one posts repeatedly about the great times they are having.
I also wonder - not specifically in these threads but in general as what the other side of the story would be

Please tell us all how women can avoid lazy and selfish men who won't look after their own child until...you know...the child is actually born?

So many of the shit partner threads have the op saying they thought he would change once they were married / had a child etc. So the women expected growth.

What are they doing before the child is born? How responsible are they generally? Do they live alone? What is their home like? Do they outsource jobs or do they do them? Are they capable adults?

and has anyone had a conversation about children / careers / leave? What was said then? Did he have ideas for not limiting the woman's career / pension?

Apologies. I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was also thinking of people I know who married men who all their friends and family could see were selfish spoiled jerks, but who just could not see this very obvious side of them for some reason. Then, several months or a couple of years into the marriage the scales suddenly disappear from their eyes and they realise what a bloody loser they're married to.
I have one friend whose sisters literally begged her not to marry her fiance, but she just wouldn't listen. She is now constantly complaining about how lazy and derogatory he is, how he encourages the children to disobey her and how feckless he is with money. All these things were pointed out to her over and over before she married him. She actually told one sister she was 'just jealous' because she didn't have a 'man of her own'.

I think it is because people project their ideal partner onto their actual partner and it sometimes takes a while for them to realise the truth. Men used to do it to me and got rather angry and resentful when the reality dawned on them. It was very annoying to deal with as I never pretended to be something I wasn’t. I think it was because I had a certain look that men wanted as a girlfriend/wife, so they just imagined I had the personality that matched their ideal. Luckily my husband knows what I am like and still likes me!

My exH liked me when we got together. We shared everything, did loads together, went on adventures. He embarked upon ACCA training and would be studying hard which took the whole ten years. I was happy to do everything and sort out the babies etc to facilitate this, because there was a good end goal. Somehow, it never went back to the sharing. He didn’t do anything with the new found qualification whilst we were married. Well he did, once I divorced him and now suddenly is successful because he needed a kick up the arse. He’s doing all the things I begged him to do to try and save our marriage. Frankly it’s like a kick in the teeth. But I have no weight of resentment any more. Lucky new girlfriend now who gets all the benefits. I have trained him well for her. Yippee.
(I am on the cusp of real love so don’t think I’m sitting here lonely!)
How could I have seen this coming 25 years ago? It was a different version of him.

@SusanKennedyshouldLTB loads of women post on here saying that their partner absolutely was fine pre children, or if they were a bit lazy and selfish, so was the woman..being double income no kids is a great lifestyle. You can game or cycle or go to the gym 5 days a week. Hypothetical conversations about how things will change are easy and for whatever reason, probably the enforced changes during pregnancy these changes come more easily to the woman. It's wrong to blame woman for assuming their partner, with whom they have chosen to settle down with, won't change and adapt as they are. How about we blame the men for not stepping up?