Marriage/motherhood warning list

[Someoneshouldatoldme]

Based on many many threads here and my own lived experience, shouldn't we warn all daughters and women pre-marriage or motherhood so that they really know what they'regetting into? I'll list a few, feel free to add:

1. Don't have a child with ANYONE at all unless you know you can manage as a single parent

1. If your husband tells you they want a child and will look after them as well as you, assume they mean occasional fun times and some cooking. (If you're proven wrong, you'll be delighted)

1. Your husband might become your biggest problem once you are pregnant or with a child. Even the 'nicest' guys can (and many will) turn emotionally or physically abusive at this time. You might end up seriously hurt. Many will cheat.

1. Never assume his money is family money. He might pretend for years that it is, only for you to find out that it isnt.

Any others?

I don’t get the posters who say all the men they know are utterly equal childcarers as it’s absolutely 100% bullshit. I’ve never been to a kid’s party that the dad has organised. I’ve never seen a collection for a teacher started by a dad. No play dates organised by a dad. I don’t see dads asking for flexible working at any work I’ve done. I don’t know any men who went pt when they had kids. I’m not saying those men don’t exist but I don’t believe all the dads of your acquaintance are doing these things when in the 100s I’ve met over the years I’ve not met any and I include my dh in those men who most women would say is an excellent and equal parent.

Women who are starry eyed in love with their other half get shafted if they are not lucky - I stand by that comment. Men less so.

I understand what you're saying, but this is not the solution. The solution is to ensure our boys understand ALL of this stuff and that to be a decent man you cannot just look the other way.

The usual definition of 50:50 is that women do all the cooking (except for special occasions) all the shopping, laundry, cleaning and social organization, and men now the lawn, put up shelves and change the oil in the car. Oh, and take the bins out.

I'm a mum of 2 boys. I'm doing my best with them. But like my teenage son wisely said (when i pulled him up on a shitty comment he made, and said i didn't raise him that way): You're not the only one raising us mum. The environment we are in shapes us too.'

I was thinking this - it's typical MN advice of don't have kids ever.

There isn' a perfect time to have kids - life happens.

I would say if your not sure about kids - don't have them - and try and keep an eye on what's best for you long term as well as kids and family as a whole - so marriage on deeds stay working but life can still throw you curve balls.

Life taught me people talk shit especially when they don't have to deal with consquences.

So don't end up not having kids if you want them listening to people who did moan about how things weren't perfect or things were hard.

If we'd lisiten to kith and kin we'd be stuck like some of our peers with very young kids - if we'd managed to have any at all - and onerous elder care with much worse mortage situation - as we got on housing ladder for children's stablity - same people who were like you're too young - and now like they should have had kids earlier or had none.

Having kids wasn't like we thought been less support but many things that sound naff have actually brought us great joy. There were hard times financially but we got through them.Teen years here haven't been terrible - first one out of teen years other two not that long left.

So advice try and keep your wits about you but live your life and deal with your own mistakes and missteps as everyone else has to.

Everyone on my side of the family (apart from me) has been divorced at least once. All awful divorces - domestic violence, infidelity, financial messes. No one on my DH's side is divorced. The norm there is very long marriages, and often being married relatively young. He has a very different view of relationships to me, quite obviously. But when you've seen things go wrong so often, of course you've got a more jaded view. It would be strange if you didn't. And you'd be foolish not to have an awareness of the mistakes that were made and be looking to avoid them.

@SomethingFun You haven't met my husband then. In fact he does more of the childcare than me (bedtimes in particular and parties) and an equal amount of housework. He also does all of the cooking.

Life. I was the higher earner, owned the house pre-marriage and was in France so could keep it. All those things meant it was easy to leave my incredibly abusive husband. Without that I’d have been stuck.

Well since you're a man, you would say that.

No I haven't met your husband. He sounds lovely. Would it be rude to ask if you wouldn't mind cloning him 😄

So why are you reading/commenting on a thread about what to look out for in men who don't do all of that? Telling us NAMALT isn't really what the thread is about.

Maybe you could start a thread about the green flags you saw in him?

@6thformoptions Because that poster was suggesting ALL men are the same. No idea why women set the bar so low! Don't put up with it!

You are also here blaming women for setting the bar low? Like its their fault once again for being stupid, having low self-esteem, being naiive, lack of knowledge, actually being lied to, or mislead. Its their fault? Always the womens fault. Never the mans.

Yup, and they wonder why women don't want to have kids any more. The amount of therapy we've all been through, paid for out of our own pockets because we've been gaslit that we are "too emotional" or "sensitive" it's always the women that try to put in the work.

Thanks to the internet, that doesn't wash any more.

I'm with Mandy on this one https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/crlz68p0y8wo

But I do get that some women aren't as jaded, so in the spirit of helping those willing to plough the depths I posted about being extra careful of men who become self employed if you have kids together. IME most of us end up here eventually!

This is the same in my family amd friendship group, but it would silly to pretend shit doesnt happen. I encourage my daughter to choose well and strive for a great relationship, but to also be prepared for what happens if it doesn't.

My parents, siblings and friends have long marriages and I speak warmly of my ex; but we still separated. Being aware was useful for me when it came to disentangling.

I do blame both men and women who so often blindly accept the offer of traditional gender roles, yes. Stop doing it.

We should audition men for the role of fathers 😁 Put them through vigorous selection process of emotional maturity, ability to put their own needs aside, test their brain capacity for meta-work, grade their household chores. Only the top performing ones get to pass on their dna 😆

And that used to be called engagement, Everybody thinks they’re so enlightened by skipping the steps and actually shoot themselves in the foot by rushing things through
Another thing that suits men to rush things and stop you having time to think about anything moving in getting you pregnant all those little red flags

That's an interesting one, b/c my father did that. Went part time to pursue his true calling as not being able to pursue it (due to the burden of having a family that he mostly ignored) was what was causing him to be an abusive dick, or so he claimed.

In (I think) 5 years he didn't create a single piece of work, sold nothing and made no money at all (I mean literally not a penny). It turned that his true calling was actually sitting on his arse getting stoned. The house had to be remortgaged to pay the bills. It wasn't his fault, of course. We didn't inspire him. How could he be expected to be creative under those conditions?

He continued to be an abusive dick.

This is called dating and having relationships before you get married. This is literally what most women do.

I think being aware that shit might happen in a relationship, and preparing yourself accordingly, is different from teaching women that everyone's doomed to be a gender cliche.

That’s not what people are saying. They are saying they split childcare/housework/paid work/mental load fairly and without resentment. So one partner might do more pick ups, the other does all the cooking for example.

My husband and all the husbands of my close friends do split childcare though as all the couples work full time (some do more school collection as their jobs are more flexible, but I would say this is evenly split). The majority of the men took some sort of shared parental leave.

You don’t have to split everything down the middle, just share the load and play to your strengths. I like to cook, but hate clearing up. My husband hates cooking, but has no problem tidying up and clearing down. He sorts all the school calendar, kids parties, medical appointments. I sort the finances and holidays. We both do our own friends and families birthdays (but often my husband reminds me of dates, so maybe I’m the red flag).

Yes, you are quite right as we are the weaker sex. Men are so strong they are nigh invulnerable and they are so much smarter that they are automatically aware from age 10 as to the pitfalls of marriage and fatherhood. We women definitely need a long list of warnings so if we fail to heed any one of them we can all the better be blamed for whatever goes wrong in marriage or motherhood.

To that end, I’d like to add a warning that if you can’t keep your husband satisfied sexually, then don’t be surprised if he seeks it in the arms of another woman.

100% This.
I too didn't have it first time round, do now, no inkling I'll need to use it this marriage but I didn't think I'd need one first time round.