AIBU - motherhood has ruined men for me

[Bettercallsaul2024]

I expect I am being unreasonable but since becoming a mum I have gone off men.

I had always adored men but now I see an incompetence I can’t get past. My husband is an ICU consultant - can handle huge pressure and stress but can’t be trusted to pack a fucking bag for a day to the zoo. He can handle the resuscitation of a child but can’t cope when OUR child has a tantrum. (I too am a hospital doctor so feel like I can make the comparison, and I do appreciate the workload of his job). He would never cope being up all night with our ill child yet can do nightshifts in ICU - I don’t get it?!

and it’s not ‘just’ him. I now see it everywhere. All the men in my family, though lovely, have so much less expected of them. Seen as great dads when they take the kids swimming despite the women doing all the parenting the rest of the week plus having a job/career.

sometimes I say to my mum - how are men able to organise complex things like war when they can’t do the sainsburys food shop without ringing their partner at least twice. She reasons that it’s because men usually only have one task to focus on at a time and so can do it well - behind the scenes women are doing EVERYTHING else.

I find myself unattracted to my husband but also all men really. At the park I see dads standing on their phones, getting cross and stressed when their kids are upset after a grazed knee. It’s so ugly to me!

I KNOW I am being unreasonable. But do others feel this way? I know not ALL men. It just so happens it’s ALL men I’ve ever interacted with

YABU: this is a DH thing. Men are just as wonderful as women

YANBU: men wouldn’t last one day as mothers

I think the use of mysoginistic i
might be wrong here?

Id have agreed with you before DC. I thought we were equals and I had a good one. Now I see it everywhere. I know of very few men that genuinely pull their weight with the housekeeping, cleaning, mental load and emotional labour. In fact I can’t think of one.

either poncing off better prepared women if the emergency arose or like some SAS soldier fashioning a wipe from a baby sock.

Omg this is so spot on haha I know a dad (ex colleague) who absolutely does this. I do playdates with him because his kids are the same age as mine and I enjoy the chat but I have had to lend him a muslin, sun block, share my dc's snacks, remind him to book the soft play etc etc. I don't mind because it's only occasional but it'd do my head in if he were my dh!

And this dad took 50/50 shared parental leave with his wife!

And to quote myself here I actually found I have lowered my standards. Like I'm being grateful for the rare occasion he does what he said he'd do, telling myself that he isn't so bad after all. This is a good reminder to reflect well during the next employee engagement survey. Not that it will ever matter.

Have my first LTB of the week.

You're not being unreasonable. And this is all men, not just your man. And precisely why I gave up on the one who can manage a very complex work organisation, but not remember his kids' birth dates, schools names etc. etc.

Seconded this LTB.

Also I'd point out that drinking beer and watching the footie (and even scratching one's crotch) aren't correlated to being or not being a feminist. My dh does all of these but keeps the kitchen clean and stocked.

Gosh I'm so angry on pp's behalf about the "I'm doing this for you". Grrr just why are (some) men!

The point is that he doesn't think he has to have a point imo. He is the centre and you rotate around him serving him. That's how his world works.

I think for some men at least, life is like a permanent sort of "holiday", to some degree. If you went to stay in an all-inclusive resort where all your meals were catered, your kids were in the kids club, the accommodation was cleaned daily, there was a laundry service for your clothes and waiter service for snacks and drinks, you'd be a bit bemused if someone asked "what is the point of you?" because you weren't entertaining the kids or cleaning the loo. Because your expectation on holiday is that someone else will take care of those tasks for you. Your "point" is just to live your best life, regardless of how hard the staff around you are working.

I think, even when not on holiday, some men live with the permanent expectation that someone else (namely a woman) will take care of at least some of these tasks for them. They don't need a "point*, in their worldview - because it's everyone else's role to facilitate them being them.

Within weeks of him doing the bulk of it he was complaining that we were then messing it up (years I had that and was told I was being neurotic and critical if I complained)

Haha my dh was like this too - pre DC I used to do the washing up but then after my first c section I couldn't for a little while. When I returned to be able to use the kitchen, suddenly there was a More Efficient Way of loading the dishwasher. Knock yourself out dh lol. Tbf he does it every evening now with no complaints, it's firmly one of his jobs

It is very unattractive to have to be a grown ass adults Mother . We signed up to mind our babies, kids etc, not someone you have sex with and are supposed to have an adult relationship with. Its just vomit inducing

It's so so wearing... And here's the thing my own DH is actually a genuine noticer and doer of domestic and child related tasks. In fact arguably he's more on it than I am. I never have to remind him, instruct him or any such shit. He's never 'helped' or passed childcare off to grandparents (not that that was an option). I would fine any of the things many of you have described deeply, deeply unattractive....And yet, and yet....so so many of my friends, work colleagues and let's be honest here all the other women I know (with the honourable exception of two) have male partners who are just like you describe. It's so normal, yet depressing and fucking awful.
I have no idea how anyone puts up with it. It's so deeply unattractive and enraging. Yet gender roles are so conditioned. And as many have pointed out, having kids really seem to flip even the most equitable couples into unhelpful narrow stereotypical roles ....
Don't even get me started on the over promoted Tim Tim nice but dims in the workplace.

I think you have to go through this, and come back out the other side.
I totally remember feeling everything you've said lol, but as time goes by...who does all the DIY, who takes out the bins, who does all the dirty and heavy work, here it's DH and I'm sorry grateful for his side.

Hear you loud and clear OP.

I was very happily married to my STBEX. Him moving his way up the career ladder with me bringing up the rear doing my best work wise, and also the lions share of every fucking thing else.

Then I began to struggle with my health, and try as I might I couldn't keep all the plates spinning. Turns out he couldn't love me anymore, mainly because the house wasn't as he liked it, dinner wasn't on the table, he felt unloved and unappreciated plus he felt I'd become opinionated.

He even wrote to my mum making his excuses for leaving including that I was "undisciplined around household tasks".

I'm ashamed to admit I loved this man and I was devastated when he moved out 3 days later to live with his sister (and next door to his mum), both of whom luckily met his high standards and couldn't wait to get him back "home" where he belonged.

Luckily I came to my senses swiftly. Despite a brutal ongoing divorce and looming financial challenges I have never been happier. I am free.
It is wonderful to no longer be weighed down by his expectations, and exhausted by all the plate spinning.

I've realised how wonderful my friends are (mostly women). I am incredibly lucky to have them and they are so much more precious than EXH ever was.

I'm not sure that I will want a relationship with a man ever again. I shudder at the thought of living with one, becoming a slave and loosing my spark.

If I could choose my sexuality I'd be a lesbian without hesitation.

The inconvenient truth is that men, in general, go along with having kids to keep their partners happy or have parenting foisted on them by unplanned pregnancies.

They don't keep their partners happy though do they? They are very often the source of major dissatisfaction in their partners and their children.

Oh and don't get me started at the suggestion that the poor men are tricked into fathering children. Crazy crazy crazy.

I do all that stuff myself now. I'll let you into a secret- it's easy! They just made it look hard to big up their teeny weeny contribution, and then criticised our own attempts at "blue jobs" for good measure.

I think this is partly true tbh. They almost see having kids as a favour to their partner and that their partner should enjoy doing all of it because that's what she wanted. I always want to ask "but did your husband actually want kids in the first place?" on these threads but I know it won't go down well. Maybe before having kids they should make it more clear about how much they expect the men to do? But assume they might not get the babies they want at all in that case.

He can handle the resuscitation of a child but can’t cope when OUR child has a tantrum.

To be fair I've read a lot of posts from mothers on here who can't cope when their child has a tantrum either...

I agree with you.

Yeah they'd be even less happy if the man said "no kids" though.

I do all that stuff myself now. I'll let you into a secret- it's easy! They just made it look hard to big up their teeny weeny contribution

I wouldn't call all the dirty/manual jobs easy at all.

Dh is very much the bins/DIY/gardens person here (that's not all he does but all of that is his job and i'm more than happy to leave him to it). He's spent hours and hours over the last few weeks just on the outside...mowing, raking, repainting the fences, pressure washing everything thats gone green over a really crappy winter, scraping weeds, repairing our BBQ, taking stuff to the tip, unpacking our garden furniture, planting flowers, putting up a new washing line, resealing some windows etc etc.

It's been backbreaking and constant and (except the flowers which was just a nice to have) it all needed doing desperately. Definitely not a 'teeny weeny' contribution in our world.

What? The woman has to ask the man how much he wants to do with regards to kids? This is so backwards and precisely the point of this thread. It's not the woman's fault that the man 'goes along with it even though he doesn't really want to'. He should express himself clearly as the default is 50pc of the kids parents will be dads and the other 50pc mums unless three or more people are involved in conception.

And instead of doing the thinking himself it's then on the woman to REMIND him that he needs to decide how much he wants to have to do with the kids before they even become parents. Please tell me you don't really believe this.

Ah so he does this once a year and it's all great. Nah, I'm not buying it. It doesn't require special skills nor does it need doing on a particular day or a particular hour like the real domestic or mental load does. It's much easier to do all this with no pressure behind at all. Because what's gonna happen if he delays the job a few days. Exactly. Nothing.

I used to think I was one of those really lucky women that never complained about their husbands. And then we had a baby. How the fudge did he become so unbelievably incompetent. He, too, like OP's husband has an incredibly intense job that requires all sorts of forward planning etc and yet when it comes to DC and home organisation it's like I'm dealing with a nursery school kid. Incredible.

He absolutely should say he doesn't want kids, but men know that most women do so I can see why they just go along with it. My dad was not hands on but he worked damn hard to pay for us and fixed everything in the house whilst my mum worked part-time. And I never appreciated it at the time.

And instead of doing the thinking himself it's then on the woman to REMIND him that he needs to decide how much he wants to have to do with the kids before they even become parents. Please tell me you don't really believe this.

If it's the woman that wants the kids and is going to change the status quo of the relationship then yes.

Having kids and sharing your personal space with a man is completely optional. If women on here hate men so much stay single? I looked at what having kids entails and thought "fuck that", if I had a partner who wanted kids he could do most of the parenting, and I'd make that VERY clear beforehand.

Are you saying only men are ND?
And those men are high earners?
I'm not sure that remotely that case.
I did have a high earning ex (not ND) and he definitely tapped out when he came home.
I tapped him out.

But why do you collaborate with him in this farce? Why don't you just leave your phone in another room and just ignore it all?
Your behaviour seems more puzzling to me than his if I'm honest.