To feel something like satisfaction that DH finally gets it (NAMALT)

[Playingvideogames]

DH has always been a bit frustrating during our conversations about male behaviour. He accepts men commit the most crime, are more likely to walk out on their children etc but I got the impression he thought he and his (middle class) circle of friends were a bit above this. And that I was exaggerating when I said far more men were capable of shitty behaviour than he thinks.

Well tonight his friend of 30 years, who walked out on his wife and 2 primary aged boys last year (1 of whom has significant SEN), has announced his new girlfriend (who he has been seeing for 8 months) is 3 months pregnant and he’s ’ready for the best year ever’. This is when he is currently living in a house share, is unlikely to be paying maintenance (constantly talking about being skint), and it’s widely known his contact with his existing children is patchy. The friend is in his early 50s, and of course new woman is much younger at 38.

I told DH he would get the new girlfriend pregnant and see even less of his kids, DH said I was ‘thinking the worst of him’ and he would ‘get it together soon’. Tonight he’s admitted he’s shocked, and that he ‘never thought one of his friends could be like this’.

Of course I don’t like that somebody else’s misfortune has constituted this learning lesson for DH but there’s some relief he’s finally realised why I’m generally so pessimistic about men. Just needed to let that out somewhere!

I think your husband must be in a small minority, if he's shocked and disapproving. Men get a free pass for this sort of behaviour all the time and it doesn't seem to affect their reputation in the slightest. Child abandonment doesn't confer any sort of stigma on fathers, as far as I can make out. In fact, most other men (and quite a few women) probably think it's great. Because a staggering number of ex wives are in fact nutters and psychopaths, don't you know.

@Playingvideogames Well tonight his friend of 30 years, who walked out on his wife and 2 primary aged boys last year (1 of whom has significant SEN), has announced his new girlfriend (who he has been seeing for 8 months) is 3 months pregnant and he’s ’ready for the best year ever’.

Your DH may be slowly getting things, but there's another point that you're completely oblivious to.

He may be a completely awful man... but this completely awful man was selected by his former wife, and has now also been selected by his new girlfriend. Being selected by two different women is validation of this man and his behaviour.

So if this man is so awful and terrible, why is his behaviour being endorsed, approved, and validated?

A close friend's son split with his first wife when their daughter was primary school age. He went off abroad, married again and has 2 children with wife 2. He regularly posts on Facebook about his "amazing kids" and his now grown up first daughter finds the "my amazing daughter" posts about his second daughter especially hurtful (obviously, she's never got a mention).

He gave her no support at all through her degree but is now posting about his eldest who's just started university. We know (from my friend, his mother) that he's obviously funding that one...

Yes it DOES. Second paragraph.

Agree.
Your husband sounds spectacularly dim which is so unattractive, and his friend a total arse.

I would say you have no ‘right’ at all to leave the children too though, which is what he’s done. Obviously many do. Scum.

Enjoy your opportunity to gloat.

Really? A bit slow on the uptake yes but ‘spectacularly dim’ is way over the top. I suppose by that logic 95% of men are ‘spectacularly dim’.

Its not really your business though is it? Hes made his bed and he will have to lie in it.
"You are so pessimistic about men"
I feel a bit sorry for your DH to be honest. He probably darent open his mouth lest he say something you dont approve of 🙄

its the new 38 year old he's got that i dont get. What do women see if guys like that.

This is performative stuff, though. It doesn't require any actual sacrifice or personal cost.

I've known a number of horrible misogynistic men who get involved in anti-misogyny drives, to hide their loathing and to undermine the actual purpose of such drives. Their interest tends to start and finish with issues that also benefit men (sex work, abortion, paying 50% for everything no matter what other duties she does that affect her earning). It's made me very wary of men who parade their feminist credentials. I don't like that, but it's just so common.

Presumably at 38 she is feeling societal pressure to settle down and have children? So she’s settling. Sad. Very common.

I've definetly noticed that about terminations and paying 50 50. They say it's because they are a feminist whilst perving at teenage girls who are 'up for it' on their way to school.

Some women - some women - prefer a man who's already attached because it feels like he's got a seal of approval from another woman and he's already proved that he's the marrying/having kids kind. I know, I know, he's also proved that he's the cheating and ditching his family kind, but they don't see it that way, because obviously he won't do it to them. They're younger and prettier and will never turn into a boring old mum.

At 38, she probably also realises her time is running out if she wants children and single men around her age are probably looking at younger women so they don't have the time pressure. She's a much more appealing prospect for an older man looking to get his ego stroked and who, while happy to get her pregnant if she wants, probably doesn't have so much riding on whether or not they manage it.

It's extremely depressing, but it was ever thus.

Men often accuse women of only wanting feminism when it benefits them, but in my experience men do exactly the same thing, maybe more.

@GKG1 sounds an interesting clip... Could you post a link please?

This scenario happened to play out with neighbours of ours a few years ago. Respectable couple - both in medicine (she a GP and him a consultant).

One day, he announces out of nowhere that he's leaving her and their two young boys as he'd been having an affair with a much younger nurse. So far, so cliché.

Before you know it, he's proposed to the nurse (divorce isn't even through) and there's a baby on the way. Hardly sees his first two kids.

I'm glad to report that she eventually moved on, met a wonderful man who is now her husband, and who stepped up into being a wonderful stepdad. The boys are now almost adults, and she's living her best life with someone who truly respects her.

I hope the wife/mother in your friends situation has a similar level up.

Breathtaking. Are you the DH in this scenario? No-one is having issue with the fact that you have the right to leave. You don't have the MORAL right to literally abandon all of your responsibilities, abdicate it all onto your heartbroken ex and set up with a bit of fluff and brag about it. Do you get that at all?

My ex tried to move his AP into our home with her 9yo kid. It was like something from Jeremy Kyle. I booted all three out and he moved in with her and her husband. Husband didn't agree they were having an affair but must have changed his mind shortly after as he left three months later and divorced her.

Men can do things that are totally beyond credible as they can sort of frame things in the way they wish them to be and seem shocked when you tell them to get to fuck.

It's like they never become fully adult as women do.

I often hear about how women who settle down later have had the time to be choosy and not ‘throw themself at the first man who looked their way’; but I think there’s a flip side and that is once you get to 38, 40 time runs out and some women will feel like they have to jump at the first man who is willing to get them pregnant.

I absolutely agree re toxic ‘feminist’ men. They get all the praise and attention for their empty virtue signalling while acting in an appalling manner, ‘but I can’t be a misogynist as I believe sex work should be legal’

Good God, the nerve of it! You sound totally shot of him. Who the fuck do they think they are?!

There's a difference between who we aspire to be vs who we actually are, deep down. You can see that difference plainly here.

I find a lot of Left wing people are like this, especially left wing men. They're pious, sanctimonious people with big mouths who virtue signal when they can, but when it comes to a real test of personal conduct, they fail because politics don't come above their penis.

I really don't like the get-back-to-the-kitchen men that are so common on the Right, but the 'sex positive', trans-women-are-women types aren't on women's side either.

I’m sorry for how many men are shit. My dh sort of smiled and agreed in theory with my feminist raves, until our eldest was 10 when the male abuse started for her. It shocked him. And as most women know it escalates. And once you start to see it, you can’t ignore it. He’s since raged against how disruptive boys are allowed to be in school, how much more resources they get for local sports, how men treat his daughters as meat, how they are not safe even in scenarios where they absolutely should be ( school/ the gym/ part time work). He’s furious with the laden misogyny of the world . And more so because until it was his daughters impacted HE didn’t see it or call it out. Even the “good” ones are walking around impervious and ignorant to it.

indeed!

It's just so depressing and yet mundane in its predictability. The ones who behave in this way never even do anything original, it is always the much younger gf and then the new baby which they then prioritise over their exisiting children. Of course not all men are like this, but far too many of them are.