To think that your marriage will be as sexist as the man you marry?

[ForBreezySloth]

People talk a lot about how household labour, childcare and emotional labour often fall disproportionately on women. But at the end of the day, isn’t a marriage only as equal as the two people in it? If you marry a man who believes domestic work is “women’s work”, then your marriage will likely reflect that. If you marry a man who sees you as an equal partner, things will likely be more balanced.

Obviously, societal norms play a role but do people sometimes ignore personal responsibility in all this? If someone chooses to have children with a man who never lifted a finger before, can they really be surprised when he doesn’t step up later?

Or is this view too simplistic? AIBU?

No indeed. Why would we want to dig deeper into the reasons some women are abused and exploited and apply some critical thinking to consider external factors, when we can just blame the women themselves? When we can frame 'self esteem' as a positive character trait that better women have secured for themselves, rather than a state of mind resulting from the way one is treated. If we stop doing this we may have to stop congratulating ourselves on our own wisdom and superiority at not allowing ourselves to be exploited and abused.

Read what I wrote again.

Too simplistic. I married a man who had no problem whatsoever taking care of himself, his belongings and his living space. To be fair, he still largely does that. What I didn’t predict was how he would adapt to having children in the mix.

However, I will admit that there absolutely was a clue that I should have picked up on, and that was his parents’ relationship. His mother hasn’t worked a day in her life (for money) and she waits on his father to the point that, when he finishes a meal, he puts his knife and fork together and sits back and folds his arms, waiting for her to remove the dirty plate and cutlery from underneath his nose.

Now, that’s maybe one thing if the mother doesn’t work outside the home, but being in a relationship with someone who subconsciously thinks that’s the level of servitude motherhood entails - because that’s what they’ve seen modelled to them all their life - whilst also expecting you to earn over half the household income is difficult.

So what I would say to women is, get a good long look at his parents’ relationship and how that’s influenced his worldview before you commit. With that said, though, finding a man who grew up in a true 50/50 household in the 90s/00s will be no easy feat.

I personally think it’s misogynistic to simplify it down to “what did you expect, you married someone like that”.

Dynamics can change enormously when child/ren arrive, careers change, life generally evolves. Lots of things play into it. No one can see the future; while there are going to be some examples where there were signs before the marriage, there will also be plenty where no one saw it coming.

I don’t think we should shame anyone over their decisions when they say “I’m finding this difficult” when ultimately that’s the kind of behaviour that’s stops people reaching out for help for fear of being judged.

I was actually reading a really interesting transcript about serial murder and the professor was arguing that instead of focusing on the motivations of the killer to behave like that, you need address why certain groups of people are vulnerable to being targeted in the first place. I feel like this could be applied to much more than just murder.

instead of going “why would you put yourself in the position” I would be more interested in discussing why women are primarily more vulnerable to be exploited in this way.

100% agree with this and it was definitely my experience. As soon as all the domesticity started to affect my ex, he was suddenly resentful of my career. When I raised it, his answer was always to bring up how much he had supported my professional training and ensured that cooking/cleaning etc were done so I could study. All true but he still, deep down believed when we had three kids under three that the mental load and baseline responsibility was mine, because he found it stressful.

Yeah I never asked men directly if they are a feminist and kind of go and ask questions that give me the answer without asking directly so I will ask what books they read. What podcasts they listen to what men they admire etc

I also think.some people are very quick to talk about upbringing and conditioning.

Men are expected to reject their conditioning and realise that traditional gender roles are wrong whereas women are often considered (on here at least) to be victims of their conditioning and can't possibly be expected to make better choices.

The problem with that is that is only reinforces the idea/belief that men are in control and women are have no agency.

I rejected literally every element of my own conditioning, which was to be smiley, silent and deferential towards men, leave education at 15, marry young and be a SAHM. I don’t expect anyone, of either sex, to shrug and say ‘That’s just how I was brought up’, if their childhood scripts are damaging to them.

I’d add to this idea that some people revert to their own upbringing as the template, when they themselves have kids, with the observation that in my experience, if they had an inadequate parent or trauma in childhood then sometimes their go-to model is a fantasy of what they would have liked their experience of their parents to have been like. Which can be virtually impossible to live up to in reality. So there’s a lot of projection that can just appear out of the blue when you have kids, even when it’s been apparently very 50/50 until that point.

Agreed OP.