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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think these men are the real gold diggers?

33 replies

Wehaveallthetimeintheworld · 28/06/2026 22:58

Memes/posts about this on Ig

Saying that nowadays the real gold diggers are men that expect women to do the majority of childcare/household things, plus expecting them to work and bring in a good wage. I’m seeing more and more of this with friends

Where have all the men gone and are these the equivalent of modern day gold diggers

OP posts:
BogusBargins · 29/06/2026 13:22

I’ve heard the term for these men as Soul Diggers, as they often want it all and for the wife to provide all emotional support on top…

JenniferBooth · 29/06/2026 13:46

Wagyue · 29/06/2026 00:21

It's a regular theme on MN where women are the main breadwinner whilst carrying the full mental load, childcare drops and collections, house work, vooking and laundry.

Total workhorses.
Paying and doing it all.
Total madness.

Paying and doing it all.........including their own maternity leave. These are some of the reasons the birth rate is through the floor More and more women are waking up

Beamsss · 29/06/2026 13:50

DeftGoldHedgehog · 29/06/2026 00:56

Cocklodgers. Lazy fuckers. They have always existed, it's not new.

It's not even "just" that. It's also financially secure men who are happy to provide financially, wanting a woman who will do all the domestic labour/childcare/act as his PA.

No different really to "gold digging" women who are prepared to do all that in return for a comfortable life financially.

Wagyue · 29/06/2026 22:04

JenniferBooth · 29/06/2026 13:46

Paying and doing it all.........including their own maternity leave. These are some of the reasons the birth rate is through the floor More and more women are waking up

The sensible ones say one and done when their reality bites.
My buddy was one such person, great job, but found that she was doing it all with her first child.

Decided herself there would be no more and told his family at a wedding when asked when she was having another baby. She said "one and done, he never helped with Sophie, so there won't be another".

His mother was very upset and of course it got straight back to him.
They were divorced within 12 months.

Fortunately she had taken a short term lucrative contract and moved with the toddler to her home city and simply wouldn't return up north where he was from.

That was supposedly why they broke up, her big job🙄, but the truth was he was a selfish lazy arse.
He has turned out to be a half decent father as he never had another child. She's in her 20's now and a great young woman.
My friend never remarried.

Wehaveallthetimeintheworld · 29/06/2026 22:14

wishingonastar101 · 29/06/2026 08:44

I have a couple of male friends who married women from other countries - European countries. And the wives do nothing. They don't work, they don't do any life admin and the dads are fully responsible for kids logistics. It's seems totally accepted - but if you reversed it everyone would be saying LTB.

Do they do all the cooking, cleaning etc? Which countries?

OP posts:
Wehaveallthetimeintheworld · 29/06/2026 22:17

BogusBargins · 29/06/2026 13:22

I’ve heard the term for these men as Soul Diggers, as they often want it all and for the wife to provide all emotional support on top…

Yes to the emotional support too!

But rarely give it back…..

OP posts:
darksideofthetoon · 29/06/2026 22:41

lxn889121 · 29/06/2026 03:43

I've posted on here before about it, but what you are describing is a generational delay between the changing of male+female roles.

Women (and some men) campaigned for a change of female societal roles, so that women had equal standing to men in professional/career terms. It took a century, but it has now (in my opinion) been achieved. Women under 35 now earn more than men on average, and the remaining inequality tends to fall in biological areas that are challenging to solve e.g. childbirth.

There is still inequality in the higher levels of employment, mangers, CEOs, bosses etc. But that is largely due to how long these changes take to filter through. Most senior positions today are held by people in their 50s-60s, who spent the majority of their career in a society that was still skewed heavily towards men. It will take time for these changes to filter upwards, and for the girls born today in a more equal world to climb and reach those levels.

So, you have women actively pushing for equality in the workplace...

Yet over those hundred years are men pushing for equality in the home?

Not really.. they didn't want it at all. It was an easy sell to give men "accept equality/female rights, and your wives will now go and earn money!!!" that worked for a lot of middle class men. But they never wanted equality in the other direction.

So instead they (as a generalized group) have gradually increased how much they do at home to slightly compensate for the increased income that women provide. But up until the last 10-15 years, the vast majority of them have still out-earned their wives, so they can still say "well I earn more".

Now though we have hit the point where a substantial amount of women are out-earning men, it is becoming a problem. As is so observable on here. It is so plainly unfair to women and to any rational outsider looking at a relationship.

But people's habits are very hard to change. And to defend men, it really isn't easy to alter how you view the world, yourself, and your role in your family. Most of the women today grew up watching their mums work and do housework, and being told to be independent and do both. Most of the men today, didn't. They grew up watching their fathers work and do nothing else, and with the idea that as long as they earn, and do a bit of "help" with the kids/house, = equals = they are good dads and husbands.

Changing those fundamental ideas are hard.

So in my opinion there is going to be a generational delay. A middle generation of "useless" husbands who earn less and do less and ruin their marriages.

However, I do believe that the next generation of men, who grow up in a world where women earn as much or more at times, will be forced to alter their view of what a man/dad/husband is - and we will eventually see a balancing of roles. It will just take a generation for it to happen.

Oh the change is happening. I out earn my wife but cook, clean, DIY, tend the gardens and often have the kiddos so she can go away for a weekend. But I get the same back and we try to keep it balanced and it works. I also see this with most of my dad friends who are mostly millennials.

It’s light years away from the dads I saw as a kid in the 90s.

lxn889121 · 01/07/2026 04:33

SomeoneIsWrongOnTheInternet · 29/06/2026 08:17

But people's habits are very hard to change. And to defend men, it really isn't easy to alter how you view the world, yourself, and your role in your family.

Now there’s a new excuse. Don’t even try viewing women as human beings, men you poor dears.’. We know your puny little brains and total lack of empathy just can’t handle the idea that the mum who brought you into the world and your sisters are actually humans who will hurt and bleed if you cut them. A brand new excuse for the courts to let men off the hook for all manner of crimes.

Its surprising that men find it so easy to push women back, changing society’s rules, after they’ve proved themselves though isn’t it? New technology is used against women and their ability to earn every time. But they can’t handle change. Only the sort of change that brings the Taliban in and changes Iran from democracy back to religious and authoritarian dictatorships.

Will you, the same person, be supporting calls to end migration of men from the even-more-women hating countries, Afghanistan and the like? Because men cannot change their culture and women are and will continue to suffer from all these Islamic imports?

Edited

I think you are generally attributing too much autonomy to people. We like to think we are logical people in full control over ourselves, but in reality we are creatures of our environment and while some of us have more of an ability to change, most of us struggle with it.

Pick a social issue where change has taken place, and I'll show you a slow multi-generational shift.

LGBT rights...
Climate changes...
Racial/sex inequality...
etc.

It all happens slowly. An increasing number of people in each subsequent generation shifting their opinions, until a critical mass is reached and the new way of thinking becomes the norm.

This doesn't excuse men - they need to change, and will - but just explains why that change is going to happen slowly.

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