Aibu or is pathetic husband syndrome on the rise

[rOsie80]

I feel like I have far too many females friends who’s husbands are out of work / unable to work / suffering mental health issues / can’t cope with the children. But ultimately they have less responsibility than their wives, even before they suffer these things. Why are men so weak these days (or has it always been this way really??)

I’m 62. My sons are not like that, and are all good husbands viewing their relationships 50/50 in everything. I, on the other hand, find all men my age to be ranting, gammony, pathetic bigots who are not with a minute of my time.

If I were to lose dh, I would also never tolerate another man in my life. I'm sure he has characteristics that wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea , but he's one of the least lazy people I've ever met. Frankly, MN has entirely put me off the mere idea of ever having another relationship if I found myself single for any reason.

100% this. Younger women are cottoning on now. My niece's ex - born early 1990s was useless. (Note EX!)

He did work, and earned well, and was not off sick often, but he did nothing around the house (no children thankfully!) And no life admin or anything. Just left everything to her. She did the housework and shopping and life admin/paying bills etc. She also did all the cooking/meals.

After a couple of years living together (4 years dating) she started to get pissed off with it, and started getting takeaways in and demanding half off him towards it, and when he whinged she said 'well YOU cook then!' He'd be like 'I'm not cooking. I can't cook anyway!' (They never pooled their money. He earned more and kept it to himself, even though she did everything in the house.)

She also started to leave the housework and cleaning, and the house started to get grubby and dirty. Well he wasn't doing anything, so why should she? He had several 'man' hobbies incl golf, cycling, football, and playing pool with his mates. She had/has friends and a couple of hobbies but spent waaaaaay less time out of the house than him. She only did the very VERY basics in the house.

tl;dr, after 6 years together, last year she left him, and now has her own little place. It's beautiful, and always clean and shiny. Much less housework and domestic chores as she's only looking after herself now and not a lazy fucker of a man as well.

As you say, no wonder the birth rate is falling, and more women are happy to stay single.

I don’t know anyone with a DP/H like this. But we’ve just had loads of work done on the house/garden and every young(ish, to me, probably between 27 and 32) tradesman who came worked crazy hard, was chatting to the others about their kids and what they were doing with them over the weekend, and I nodded to myself ‘the DHs are all right’ despite what MN presents.

@SoScarletItWas Of course the tradesman were working 'crazy hard.' They won't get paid if they don't do the job. 🙄 And they're late 20s/early 30s. Wait til they hit 50, they'll change into whiny, workshy, hypochondriacs!

Who are all these whiny workshy 50+ hypochondriacs you have in your life! Time to get rid of them I'd say.

It's general "can't be arsed-itis" and not just among men either. The over generous benefits systems has facilitated too many people to be lazy and idle re work and that's rolling into relationships/families etc. Basically, when there's "someone else" picking up the slack, whether a partner, employer, government, etc., they've no incentive to give themselves a kick up the arse and actually do things themselves.

My sister had one with a relative minor long term health condition. Over the years, he started milking it. Funny how he was always well enough to do the things he wanted to do, i.e. sports and hobbies, but when it was something for the family or his employers, it was "woe is me, I'm not feeling well". Pathetic really. It got worse over the years and she finally had enough and threw him out and divorced the waster. Funny how he suddenly found he was able to do all sorts of things when he had to find money for a new home, do his own cleaning/cooking, and started attending work more frequently again! She started wondering whether she'd done the right thing as he'd turned into "new man" again, but she caught herself by remembering how lazy and useless he became!

I think if anything happened to my marriage I wouldn’t look for another man to live with, I don’t think I could tolerate another person. It took too long to train my husband. He’s a really good earner and father and does pull his weight around the house.

But I did notice when we got married he would say a few comments designed to get at my self esteem or be quick to discourage me from seeing my friends. I nipped those in the bud straight away. I made sure I didn’t tolerate any crap and if he said anything hurtful I addressed it straight away. I also waited before having children to see if he would pull his weight and got him into a routine where he had his chores around the house and I had mine. I remember when we were first living together and I was ill and he didn’t care, no getting me medicine or food so when he got ill I did the same to him and told him why. Never happened again. I made sure I was treated well and my husband knew there was behaviour he had to adhere to or risk losing me. I probably am quite difficult to live with myself (reading back my own comments) but I don’t tolerate fools or rubbish behaviour; it gets called out each and every time.

I had a fairly toxic childhood and my father was emotionally abusive to my mother as well as physically abusive when he was drunk (they eventually divorced) but there was no way on earth I was going to tolerate that in my own marriage. I do the majority of chores around the house (he pays for almost everything except food) and we have a good marriage but I’m not scared to leave and do it myself. I work full time because I choose that independence for myself, so I have a career and pension if things do go wrong. My husband’s mother did everything for her sons, they were pampered and spoilt but no way was he getting that treatment from me.

Yes they were self employed but why can’t the ‘pathetic’ ones of the OP pull their finger out and do the same?

It wasn’t just their work ethic, it was their family focus. I don’t have kids so I always say on these sort of threads that DH and I have fewer things to fall out about than if we were parents, but it really struck me what seemed to matter to them.

And the one I’ve got is 52 and bears no resemblance to what you describe!

Not necessarily, we've had tradesmen in their 50s and 60s who've worked hard, even the most manual of work. Such as a 60+ guy who dug up a concrete patio with just a pick axe, not even a pneumatic drill. Took him several days, and we kept asking him if he wanted us to rent a power drill for him, as we expected him to bring his own, but he soldiered on, sweat pouring off him, day after day! Likewise a couple of almost geriatric gardeners who cleared a couple of overgrown borders to replace concrete post fencing - must have been in their 70s. It's more fitness and attitude rather than age in a lot of cases.

I have got a workaholic, high achieving husband and that brings its own issues.

Apart from moving a small chest freezer into the middle of the snug room yesterday which annoyed the fuck out of me, mine isn’t workshy or crap!
Does 95% of the childcare, household stuff, school stuff, after school clubs and kids hobbies while I swan off with work leaving him to it.
Totally devoted to our kids every whim! Everything else comes behind that and always has done with him.
Also works hard from home which he took up so he could be around for our kids and to allow me to climb the corporate ladder to where I am with 100% support and encouragement.

Thank Christ I chose so carefully the person I was going to have kids and be with for many years ahead.. make no mistake, I did choose extremely carefully and tested this to the max before deciding to stick with him.
Took several years to come to the decision but so glad I did.
Not all are crap!

Behind every useless man is a woman who has enabled his behaviour. It started with his mum, and then his wife.

Not my lovely 60 year old stepdad, works full-time, cares for his dad and does stuff around the house, has hobbies.

But I appreciate not all men are like that. The women in their lives shouldn’t put up with it.

I can’t relate to this as most of the men in my life have all been hard working and supportive. I’m no catch (by today’s media standards) either. I’m sat here trying to think of one man IKIRL who fits your profile and I can think of one of my friend’s partners but he always held down a job.

I have never been out with any men as a working adult who are still financially suckling from their parental families. Maybe this is a factor?

At first I thought this was Creedence Clearwater Revival’s rather disappointing follow up to their 1969 hit single :

‘Bad Moon On The Rise’

There are a lot of people full stop. This category seems to be on the increase. Theres some reason why they can't work full time or at all.

My experience has been it's across the board not just one particular age.

I don't know if I could tolerate another man in my life if I lost my husband.

I'll never live with another man at the very least. I wouldn't take one on with mental health issues or depression. Just don't have the patience for it.

The more women take control of their financial independence, the old ways just aren't that important. Men need women more than we need men I think.

Stiff upper lip actually makes things worse in the long run, men need to show emotions in order to properly process them and then they can start to get better and build more resilience.

Humans have emotions for a reason and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with showing them. On the contrary, I think men need to stop being told to ‘’man up’’ and conditioned to believe men don’t cry. Perhaps then more men would talk about it and they would be fewer men suffering.

This threads not great

mental health issues are pathetic
men need more “stiff upper lip”
too many people on benefits

There’s a lot on here who don’t see men suffering as an issue

I’d love to be in your circle of friends! Mine mostly have just rubbish partners.

My husband is decent, "old school", but YANBU.
Other men are and will remain irrelevant for eternity. 😆

You missed of angry
Why are they so weak and angry

Interesting stuff going on today.
I actually asked my husband this question some time ago, he is very decent and three decades (yes, thirty) years older. When I married him 20 years ago, as a PP said, I also had to nip a lot of things in a bud. He learned very well.
He said, in his opinion, they were angry and weak because they come to realise hard that nobody needs them in their lives.