AIBU to say that men don’t make women happy long term?

[MenoMenace]

I’m having a quiet work month (self employed) so have managed to catch up with various female friends over the last few weeks. Bar one of them, ALL the others just talked about how shit their men are.

The common thread is that their man isn’t pulling his weight at home. Firstly on the housework side of things, and secondly with childcare. All these amazing women are starting to question what their man actually brings to the table. In some cases, not even a financial benefit.

I’m in a relationship, we don’t live together and are both child free. I LOVE living alone (with my dog). I’ve previously been in a similar situation and found it completely impossible to feel any sort of sexual passion for men who can’t even pick their dirty clothes up off the floor. I’m no Marie Kondo, but my home is my sanctuary.

Some of the happiest women I know are post menopausal women who have managed to shed a shitty OH. I’ve observed how brilliantly they rally round, creating supportive communities.

I know it’s not all men; my own DP was a stay at home dad. He hoovered and shopped etc. One of my EX OHs was a brilliant cook and very house proud.

Interested to see what the general consensus is, or are all my female friends just with complete douchebags?

I do wonder if this is a large part of it, women do have a biological clock and at a certain age that can become overwhelming if they do want children and so maybe more women hit that point and decide to just settle for the person who can get them pregnant rather than someone that actually think will be a good partner and parent. I work with two women both now single parents who often joke that the men they had their children with was never “Mr Right” but was rather just “Mr Right Time” for babies. They knew these men weren’t forever but they seemed like the best option at the time
to have kids with.

Surely a woman would be cute enough not to get tangled up with a slob if she knew he wouldn't make the grade.

@Jellybunny56 so it comes down to basic economics, right? If you can bring up your kids without a second income then the guy is surplus to requirements. I’ve heard this from more than one friend and it makes total sense

C’mon dude, play nice

I should also have mentioned that he is very tidy. I have never in 37 years had to put anything aeay for him. He has never once left any item of clothing on the floor.

I'm in my 50s, married for nearly 35 years. Dh is way tidier than me, and has always pulled his weight housework wise. Cleaning has always been his department, I've tended to cook and deal with a lot of kid stuff (but he took the lead in home eding them, so hasn't exactly slouched on that either)

I don't think anyone has the capacity to make another happy. In fact I find that idea a bit odd.

Some people can, and do enhance my life and I'm grateful for that.
but I'm responsible for me being happy.

I try to enhance the people's life, that I love. As I'm sure they try to enhance mine.

but it's really not my responsibility to make them happy, and neither is it in my gift to make them happy.

for example,I love my adult child and I do whatever I can to make their life happy. But if,for example, things are not good at work or in their primary relationship, there is nothing I can do, except be there.

but being there isn't making them happy. It's just saying "I'm here if you need me". It's a back stop kind of thing.

Exactly! I look at 'em now and I recoil. WTF.

I agree with you on a conceptual level. This is a situational question of one person doing much more emotional and physical work than the other yet expecting to cohabit equally, and how years of this can erode a persons happiness.

@Beesd I used to live with my OH but ended up moving out because of some of these issues. Neither of us were sure our relationship would last, but it has. In the past 8 years I’ve watched him up his game significantly and learn to keep a tidy home. There is talk of us both selling up and living together again in the future but we can now have frank conversations about the reality of that. In the meantime I’m perfectly happy here with my dog.

I’m aware that my situation is particularly unusual. My OH and I are both neurodivergent and self employed in the creative industries. Plus not having children has enabled us to make much easier decisions.

Yes, this. I’m responsible for my own happiness, and for my choice of partner. I can honestly say my life would be far worse without DH in it. I’m considerably less interested in housework than he is, and I made it very clear, when we were discussing having a child, that I wouldn’t be stepping back at work, so we were going to have to find a workable method of sharing drop offs and pick ups, and sick days.

In the OP’s shoes, I’d be wondering why I’d chosen so many women who made poor choices of partner as friends. I have female and male friends in a variety of situations, as you’d expect — longtime single, married, divorced etc. But the ones who aren’t happy have changed things. A couple of friends made much better choices in second marriages. The one friend I have who acknowledges she is currently unhappy in her longterm relationship is very clear-eyed about why she chose this guy, why it’s no longer working for her, and that she’s giving herself time to decide what she wants to do about it.

I think I’d get pretty impatient if my life included significant numbers of people whose conversation involved complaining about their partners.

It’s not up to anyone else to ”make you happy”. That comes from within. That said I am very happy with my DH.

It's very possible to make someone's life UNhappy though. The expectation and non-verbal insistence of a woman being the primary home-maker is a fundamental way to make the majority (not all) women UNhappy. We don't marry to be men's maids. Particularly not now we share the financial responsibility for supporting home and family.

Well, my late husband made me happy for a lot of years, until he died. My current partner makes me happy. Perhaps it depends on who you choose. 🤷‍♀️

I'm on my second marriage and I am incredibly happy, in no small part due to me going into my 'new' relationship with clear ideas of what I wouldn't tolerate and what I expected from a partner (male or female). My DH is a brilliant man who goes above and beyond every single day and, from my experience of the dating pool at various ages, he seems to be a very rare find.

At the same time, I don't believe that anyone's happiness should rely on the presence of another person. Would I be devastated to no longer have my DH in my life? Absolutely, because I'd miss the person he is terribly. But I also know that I could forge a perfectly happy life for myself, created by me for me. So whilst my DH makes me happy, I don't believe he is the only possible way I could have happiness.

Women with a low bar will be unhappy.

Mine is not 100% perfect but pretty much so! Wouldn’t be without him - he’s loving, kind, supportive, helps around the house, is the main bread winner (I earn but a lot less than he does), he’s my best friend, a great dad and I wouldn’t be without him. He does have a hobby that takes up at least one day of every weekend over the summer which I did find hard, but I’ve given my head a wobble about this and found my own stuff to do.

Long term relationships require a lot of mutual work, compromise, grown up reasoning and behaviour. Being together so long and knowing each other inside out so litttle things can being annoying, human nature.

One day you can both in great moods, another can't stand the sound of them breathing!

We all have flaws, it all depends on big some are and if willing to put in the effort to modify some of the most annoying ones.

Having been together with DH for 30 years, sometimes I want to sream go away and get my own place and just look after myself, others the thought of not being with him is overwhelming.

@Goddessoftheearth @WorstPaceScenario @CatherinedeBourgh and others who have great OHs. Good on you! There’s a lot to be said for women who go in to relationships with clear standards and boundaries.

Those of you who have commented about no one else being responsible for your happiness but you; did you learn that the hard way, or were you always like that? I’ve always needed loads of friends in addition to my OH to feel happy. I’d never put the whole responsibility on my OH…but if my long term cohabitant regularly made my life more difficult by not pulling his weight it would chip away at my happiness!

I guess posting an AIBU does mean asking for a binary opinion though, so there you go.

It seems quite common that you often don’t really know someone until you’ve lived with them. I myself have fallen foul of that lesson. I was lucky enough that I could afford to move on and support myself without breaking up a family. Some on here have commented that things change when kids come along. How awful to have to break up a marriage and uproot your children just because the guy couldn’t husband/father.

I’m also quite insulted that one commenter judged my choice of female friends…like I must have something wrong with me to gravitate towards these poor downtrodden women. This is a recent theme amongst the women I cherish, so I’m not sure how I could have foreseen the majority of them ending up aged mid to late 40s in similar situations.

Yes, the reason "marriages don't seem to last a lifetime like in the old days". Women's ability to be economically independent has enabled freedom from domestic enslavement to substandard/inadequate/violent partners. Many men are wondering wtf has happened and yearn for their old mastery over women.
A Room Of Your Own. A Bank Account Of Your Own. A Pension Of Your Own.

My current squeeze is a good one but i'm done with them in general. If this relationship ends, and i have no idea why he thinks my bitter, man-hating, cantankerous ass is a good time, then I wont replace. I dream of a peaceful house and no responsibility bar myself tbh.

I would reframe the statement.

Men alone won’t make you happy long term and you shouldn’t seek to use them to make you happy.

A loving relationship with a good man can massively enhance your life.

BUT:

Pinning your happiness on finding a man is a fool’s errand.

Because most men aren’t worth the candle. But more than that, if you’re constantly relying on someone else to make you happy you are never going to learn how to do it on your own.

Oh every woman I know seems to be in this place with their partner.

They tend to have high pressure jobs and small kids.

Pre-children their partners looked like modern men, interested in equality, could cook, wash, hold down a good job etc.

Post-children they seem to just do less and less, and take less and less responsibility… none of the ‘mental load’, oh actually I can’t leave early to do any nursery pic ups, I don’t like cooking, I’ll wash up tomorrow, why haven’t I got any clean shirts, don’, oh I like to go to the gym every evening 5.30-6.30, I’m playing golf on Saturday, no I’m not available to take them to the dentist / GP / buy school shoes… and so it goes on and on and on.

So the mum does more and more, while still holding down the bush full time job, and the dad makes himself more and more redundant at home.

I honestly think they just cant be bothered with family life much of the time. And it doesn’t matter to them if they’re crap - because they know you (mum) will pick up the slack…!

I am pleased that there are women who have good, supportive husbands and partners. I have never had one and when I reflect on the men that I have fallen in love with, they have all cost ( not financial) me so much more than I have received. I raised my son alone and had some very hard, lonely times but better than having to deal with someone else to look after.
Call me a cynic but that's the reality of my experience.
I have friends and family who are happily married and I know of several people who aren't.

YABU.

It depends on the man (and the woman.)