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

It's hilarious that @AStepAtaTime imagines this 'Man from Mars, women from Venus' / 'me Tarzan you Jane' perspective adds anything to the discussion 🤣🤭

I think there are some subtle inbuilt differences and it’s hard to unpick what would have been there regardless of socialisation and what is only there because of the mysoginistic culture we have developed in.

BUT I, for one, am much more than my basic cave person instincts. My frontal cortex gives me the power to reflect on myself, learn complex and abstract ideas and put the breaks on my basic inner brain instincts. Which is why my DH is alive and well and not under the patio.

I’m sure most men also have a frontal cortex that could do the same (with the exception of those with a genuine cognitive difficulty) It is absolutely insulting to suggest otherwise.

It is about effort. Simple as.

I married and had a child with a woman. She was even worse than most of the men described on this thread 😆 Unfortunately I realised just how useless she was when I was in hospital giving birth to DS and things deteriorated further and further from there. I gave her so many chances to be a better wife and mother, we limped on until DS was almost 5 but essentially she found someone else who was happy to make her the centre of the universe and I was more relieved than upset by it!

I think a lot of it is weaponised incompetence. 'I can't do it as well as you, so you might as well do it'. Making a bad job of things because they don't want to do it, and hopefully won't be asked again.

Oddly DH does every bit of housework better than me- except cooking and even that he actually has better knife skills-but my issue is he doesn't do it often enough.

So you are upset with men because they aren't women? That does not sound reasonable.

By this logic, OP's husband can't expect her to contribute any money or share the bills. After all, she is not a man. If men are allowed to be useless at housework and childcare, women can be useless at making money.

Being useless at housework and child care is an advantage (if you can avoid doing it on those grounds) because it frees up your time to do things that earn you power and status give you more control. That means you can manipulate events and people to your own advantage.
Being useless at earning money puts you at a huge disadvantage and makes you dependent on others, this means that they can manipulate you to their advantage.
Two choices: exploit or be exploited.

Of course he doesn't, he's not stupid!
He enjoys showing off his skills but he doesn't want to make a rod for his own back, he doesn't want to be the one who's job it is to do the menial unpaid work.

I just don't and have never engaged in the incompetence.
Everything has always been 50-50
If he tries to pretend he can't do something then it gets left until he can .
I'm not his mother or secretary or PA.