Would you want your DDs to marry someone like your DH?

[Anglophone]

I love DH to bits but since have DD (14 months) he - like many it seems on here - has shown a shit side. I know that first year or so of having children is full of stress, over tiredness etc. but there have been a few occasions where honestly, he has lost every inch of respect he has gained as a pretty amazing husband over the last 10 years.

We have thankfully resolved most of these issues and he is being infinitely better with DD and with me. Although in the back of my mind I still resent the period where he wasn’t a supportive husband and the times he wasn’t the best father.

It got me thinking, honestly, deep down I’d never tell DD to marry someone like DH. I want better for her. The best in fact.

I am wondering if other women feel the same, not being super ‘unhappy’ with their husbands and definitely not unhappy enough to leave but wouldn’t want their daughters (or sons!) to marry someone like them in an ideal world.

Gd forbid mine marry someone like their dad.. on the other hand they should be so lucky to end up with someone like my dh, their stepdad.

oh my god that is what I wish for all of my children - not just my daughters. That they marry a person like their father (in fairness he would say the same about me).

We are 30 years married and he is the best person I know. Yeah he can drive me nuts sometimes but my god do I have a man who knows how to be an adult and who respects women.

Funnily enough when we met he quoted a line from PJ Wodehouse and I capped it - I think that was when we looked at each other and thought ok this could be something. I read PJ Wodehouse because of my dad. My husband is very different from my dad but he has exactly the same integrity and values and sense of humour.

Yes, absolutely.

All very interesting though from a bloke's viewpoint, I can't really see any conclusion to this (and I know that's also a very male trait - wanting a conclusion). Still, seems more recommendations against marriage than for. My own DDs - one is very pro marriage and the other not really bothered.

Absolutely, yes! DSD is marrying someone like her dad later this year. FSIL is absolutely lovely, like DH.

ETA @DilemmaDelilah sorry I've no idea why it quoted you. Tried to delete the quote but it won't let me.

Such a good question.

My dh is very engaged with the kids, knows their routine and likes/dislikes etc and is with them a lot. However, I know that both the older kids (8 and 4, youngest is 1) feel unheard, and they are often really dysregulated after spending time together. So I don't think he fills their cup emotionally. He also isn't very obviously kind/caring to me, and I don't want any of them to think this is the ultimate relationship because I definitely feel our relationship lacks affection.

So while dh provides well for us and does the things to demonstrate he is here for us, he does very little to support any of us emotionally and I hope my kids end up with partners who are more emotionally available, warm, considerate, and patient.

Nope. Not in a million years.

The older I get the more I think I would prefer DD not to marry at all. If she wanted a child I'd encourage her to go it alone if she was set on it. I know my friends all feel the same for their children so I'm not unusual in this.

I've seen too many abusive men - sexually, physically, emotionally or financially. Its not worth it.

No, but I wouldn't want her to marry someone like me, either. She deserves better than either of us.

This is an interesting question. He is fundamentally kind and hardworking, contributes to family. Very frugal. All trademarks of my dad!!

But he has a number of unresolved issues probably stemming from his childhood e.g. avoidant attachment, some anger, controlling tendencies and can be self centred at times. Very rude/blunt at times.

I'm not perfect either but I would want better for her.

Both my dd have chosen partners very similar to my dh who is lovely. And thankfully their lovely bfs are nothing like their real dad .

I would wholeheartedly approve of my DD marrying someone like her late dad.

He was a good 'un.

10000%. If my children grow to marry or become men like their father they will have done very well indeed.

I've a son, and I'm very much hoping that we're raising him to be just like his dad. Or that if he's gay, he can marry someone just like him.

Yes! He’s such a brilliant father, partner, friend and all round wonderful human being that I worry nobody will reach his standards for them. I am sad on a daily basis when I read all these threads about horrible partners, mental and physical abusers, ridiculous lazy rude entitled behaviours…they have a great role model which I hope will influence their choices but it’s difficult. I only got to my DH after a succession of terrible boyfriends and learned what I valued and what I wanted and didn’t want from a relationship. Our values are completely aligned which I think is REALLY hard to find. I feel incredibly lucky I found him and can only hope that my girls are as lucky.

its hard because I do think history often repeats itself - my mum settled and was never truly happy, I feel I have done the same and whilst it’s not bad enough to leave it’s never amazing. I just hope my dd breaks the pattern. I think finding someone who truly makes you laugh and finds the best in every day can never be underestimated- who never takes advantage and loves you exactly as you.

Nope.

He was a great husband but never adapted to being a dad.

He got upset when they wouldn't settle for him "they don't like me" and when he tried to play with them or do activities with them "they just don't get it, they are so stupid".

Ironically I didn't want kids and he persuaded me into it because he wanted a family. Turns out he didn't.

He's now about to be a dad to family number two and I'm expecting the same shit show. (We're divorced, this is wife number two).

I don't have dd's I have ds's, but yes I would want them to choose very carefully who they married.

I'd prefer the didn't marry (or partner with) any man at all. I'm quite hoping they'll be lesbians, or at least choose not to fully knit their lot to a man. As I've grown from a romantic teen to a disillusioned almost 40, I look around and I see that almost entirely, men are a net drain on women emotionally.

In almost all the hetero couples I know, even if childcare/domestic labour is notionally split "50/50", the woman I doing a ton more labour both in terms of the irregular/invisible/unforseen (so sick days, sleepless nights, school events and comms, organising and attending playdates and parties and extra activities etc) but also more significantly the constant emotional labour of noticing, identifying, regulating and managing the male partner's emotions, about which the male partner is completely illiterate and at the mercy of without someone to do this work, whilst simultaneously managing the children's and their own because male partner "isn't good at that stuff". So women are the constant emotional weather vanes for minimum two other people 24/7 whilst having zero emotional support themselves from their immediate family.

All the best and most mutually supportive relationships I see are not romantic and don't involve a man - mothers and daughters, female friendship groups, mothers helping other mothers. Men are by and large incompetent at emotions,both their own and other people's. They think this makes them tough but actually it renders them incredibly fragile without some woman standing by sopping up their emotional weather.

I hope my girls figure this out quicker than I did, and pursue an independent life, and have kids within some sort of female support network. When my eldest was a baby and I found my mum tribe, and we were all quietly bewildered by how our nice, educated, caring partners had turned into helpless, selfish, angry children since we'd had babies (they hadn't, the traits had always been there, we just hadn't noticed as we'd been instinctively managing them when we had the bandwidth to do so) - I often thought how much easier all our lives woul be if we set up home together with our babies, instead of being isolated at home with someone who didn't look after us and required quite a lot of input not to make their own and anyone around them's life a misery.

How will your dd break the pattern without being provided a good example?

Yes, my husband is a womderful man!

Yes absolutely.

Happily most women in my life seem to be in loving, respectful, supportive marriages.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush

Totally agree

Yes, I would love my daughter to meet and marry a man like her dad, my exH. He is a lovely, kind, loving, hard working, feminist man...... we just fell out of love.

Don’t have a DD, but if I did, yep she would be very fortunate to find somebody like my DH.