Why so many husband problems?

[Curiousto]

I've just spent the morning with my friend listening, again, about to all her husband issues.

She's one of 4 friends who have ongoing problems. All 4 would rather tolerate the low level annoyances, deceit, laziness, lies and rudeness than say "I'm done". All 4 have moaned about their men for years.

I turn on MN and 4 of the 5 trending threads are about 'D' Hs

Why on earth do wives put up with so much crap from husbands? And why do we as a society breed this in both men and women?

My personal stance on this is that I couldn't be happier 5 years on from my 20yr marriage ending. I was done with his crap. Those 4 friends "wish they could be like me and get rid" They all see how much happier I am now but still themselves put up with being sad and cross 90% of the time.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

I have a lovely husband, been together for 35 yrs. Atm he cooks one wk and I cook one wk , just to give an example of how we share chores. Good solid men are out there! I have one.

Can’t stand the old school relationships that women get into

”I need to get up the road & make his dinner”

why can’t he make anything?

Dadsnet! I don’t know why I find that so funny … But the fact I do suggests that I honestly don’t picture them minding things as much. As long as there’s a beer and a match to distract them, I don’t think many of them ruminate in the same way as women.

I think that last sentence probably sums it up.

It’s hard to spend a life riding the same bike as someone else. You get out of sync because it’s not the same brain controlling it. BUT there are also nice parts to being a team and I think whereas once it was a bit taboo to focus on the out of sync bits, today people pick the holes bigger and bigger. I think relationships are a mixture of them being your rock and your arsehole.

My personal stance on this is that I couldn't be happier 5 years on from my 20yr marriage ending. I was done with his crap.

It took you 20 years though! (unless things were OK for the first 15 or so). Maybe your friends will get there in the end.

I definitely think a lot of why women don't leave is financial, and lack.of practicalsupport...I left my marriage with not very much, luckily managed to rent a partially furnished house and my parents helped with other furniture. I was fortunate to have access to savings to pay deposit and 3 months rent up front. I lived off UC for a long while as I built a business up, with a lot of family support, and xh and I shared 50/50 custody.

7 years down the line and I've never looked back, and never got into another relationship. I've focused on my dds and my business and we're now in a good position financially. But that initial jump was expensive, scary and I was lucky to have 100% support from my dps, which lots of people don't have

I left my ex wife after just over 4 years.

Given her stellar track record I suggest that there are probably quite a few unhappy men out there as well.

It would be interesting to hear from some same sex relationships as well

You stayed for 20 YEARS. Maybe they are staying for the same reason you did

The modern idea that we should get all our emotional, mental and physical support from one partner, instead of living in a community of mutual support from relatives and other women. Our expectations of what one person can give us are very high.

This

I also think some women have very low standards so a lot of men dont have to change as someone will have them.

Haha. Fair point! We all got married around the same time though.

I tolerated until our children became teenagers. The final straw that broke me was that I could no longer stand his ridiculous inability to not change his parenting in line with his changing children.

He caused so many unnecessary arguments and was the friction in our home. He'd provoke DD, wind her up a treat, then storm off, leaving me to deal with the consequences of her anger. DD would often hit me and break furniture as she came down. Her violent outbursts haven't been seen since about 6 months after he left. I have DD back.

1. Money/financial stability
2. Society and the patriarchy telling us all the time that there’s something dysfunctional about us if we aren’t attached to a man.

I think in the vast majority of cases once you remove the need for money women do much better on their own than they do when married. A single parent family headed by a financially comfortable woman should be the goal for families.

My overwhelming desire for my daughter, above almost everything else in life, is that she never becomes dependent on a man for money. Happy to be called a man hater/misandrist.

This is a mainly woman's forum with many 1000's of members, out of all those women at anyone time at least some will behaving husband issues at anyone time. People are more likely to post about stuff that is worrying them or if they need to vent. If I started a thread about how great my husband is, how loving, supportive and generous he is and how happy we are people would say it was goady or boasting.

I used to be on a semi-private father's forum on reddit. Many of the threads weren't massively different from what you'd find on mumsnet as a lot of it was chat about dealing with DC-related issues.

The threads about wives/partners were a mix. Some were praise, some were jokey complaints ("Why does she leave so much goddamn hair everywhere!?"), some were moderate complaints ("I feel like I come way down her list of priorities") and some really quite serious ("she's stopping me seeing my family and I'm not sure how much longer I can take the constant verbal abuse").

What was notably different was that on mumsnet, women tend to stay in shitty relationships for financial reasons. On the fathers bit of reddit, men tended to stay because they feared losing their relationships with their children.

I think you sound incredibly hypocritical. Why did it take you 20 years to leave? Because it isn't a stretch to understand that it isn't a switch that flicks instantly for other people either.

Fear of an unknown, financial reasons, family reasons, security, not actually realising how bad things are, dramatising situations which perhaps aren't actually that bad etc etc.

That’s true - but even knowing how utterly miserable my life was being made, I had friends saying they didn’t want me to end up “a single mother” - that was 22 years ago, hopefully attitudes have changed. I was OK - had a degree and postgraduate qualifications, was used to being frugal, young and healthy at the time.

The truth is I can whinge. We all whinge about people close to us. It’s why siblings fight. But ultimately I’m happy married and happy with him. Maybe your friends are too dept down.

I would never advocate for a woman to stay in an unhappy marriage nor do I think there is any shame in single motherhood, but this thread isn’t about whether women should stay or not, it’s about the reasons they do. And sadly fear of single motherhood is probably the most common one.

Is it a justified one? Obviously not in cases of abuse, but it’s not always that black and white. Being a single parent poses a very serious economic problem, and that can be terrifying.

Because we live in a patriarchal society where work is set up for men with a wife. Women either need to be childless or go crazy trying to live up to these impossible expectations. Even if you do earn well, life as a single parent is precarious and frustrating as you watch mediocre men get promoted simply because they have a wife at home.

I don’t see promotion is down to anyone’s wife or husband. If you are doing a job, it’s down to you. Women tend to earn less if they’ve taken time off for dc but men can do this too if they are employed. If everyone is self employed, there’s loss of earnings to consider. It’s not always women in the worst position.

Money is an issue and fear of men not supporting dc as they should. I’ve seen men be very needy and always find another women very quickly. My DH would have spent a heap of money on them too. Staying meant it came my way and in turn the kid’s way. Stuff some bitch getting what’s mine. Not going to happen. So I stay. I gave up a lot to support his business.

We live in patriarchy, so both men and women are conditioned in the very air they breathe from birth to believe that men are better, superior, should dominate and be deferred to. This permeates every aspect of life, and builds expectations of entitlement on one side and obligation to comply on the other. It is basically sick, and we should all be aware and work to counter these practically inbuilt damaging assumptions. They are cultural, nothing more.

It was an easier place for abusive men.

Fixed that for ya.

"Low level" is very much in the eye of the beholder.

How would you define it?

I think it's that fear of the unknown. Sure, your husband is shit but the good points outweigh being alone entirely. A lot of women have to take time off work to have children and don't exactly have a career to fall back on if they divorce and could be left with nothing. No guarantee they will get any child maintenance or help with childcare. Some just think it's normal to all bitch about their husbands.

Good thread

In rl I have a few friends who put up with shitty husbands and I don't know why. Several of us are hoping that 1 day the rose tinted specs will fall off and they will see they deserve to be happy rather than what they put up with.

I think a lot of women are conditioned by society they should be the main care giver, working ft is potentially frowned upon (especially by other women in my experience) and that they don't want the 'broken home'. Reality is happy parents make a much more stable and happy home so if that's separate then so be it.

I have a brilliant DH who's a fantastic dad but nobody is perfect and I'm vocal if I think he's starting to take the mick or just leave things up to me. Recently that was school stuff and I said we aren't starting by me taking on all the mental load with this go sort DS1 uniform order. He calls me out too if I'm working too much and slip with asking him to do nursery pick ups etc. Many don't communicate early on and then things spiral.