Unacceptable things that men do in relationships

[Superlambaanana]

...which women put up with but shouldn't.

I'd like to create a list of stuff women do for men and put up with from men because society has programmed us to - and which we often don't even recognise as unacceptable.

I'll start.

Expecting their wife/ girlfriend to be dressed up for them all the time while they make far less effort in return.

Huffing like a child if they don't get what they want/ have to do a domestic task they don't want to do (but expect their wife/ girlfriend to do anything and everything without complaint).

Women brushing stuff under the carpet to protect his ego. e.g. pretending something is fine because he bought it when in actual fact it's horrible/ doesn't work/ was a total waste of money.

Women doing days or weeks of exhausting prep for family events like Christmas and barbecues, only for men to do the last but of cooking and claim all the glory.

I don't know any men like this!

What world do you live in

I'm happy some of you have no experience of this, but sad that you have no empathy for those of us who have experienced it. Men that behave like this don't show their true colours straight away, it's gradual. I'm a "strong woman" and I still ended up in a marriage where I was constantly treading on eggshells and modifying my behaviour to avoid confrontations.

So many woman (and I include myself) excuse a whole list of poor behaviour and forever coming up with excuses

was refreshing to hear a colleague say that her husband is an absolute dickhead at times and can act like a spoilt child. She seems happily married but it’s not perfect and she doesn’t excuse him when he is a twat

so few men are decent, so many men I thought were have turned out not to be it’s disappointing

I can only do my best bring up my ds he recognises how selfish and mean his father can be and I hope his has learned this isn’t the way to be

Unbelievable. You're saying most marriages don't fail?
Most divorces are initiated by women, often because they are sick of men's behaviour.
But oh no, it isn't happening.
We're just imagining all these lazy, immature, entitled, abusive and unfaithful men being left by their wives and we're imagining the depressing statistics on the prevalence of those behaviours.

The amount of gaslighting in this thread (even worse, it's on a feminist chat) is utterly insane.

Yes, the old boiled frog analogy applies. They often wait until you're tied down with kids to let their true selves show. A perusal of the relationship threads can attest to how common it is for men to start to crap out on shared responsibility when the first child comes along.
I also think women who are SAH parents sometimes underestimate how lazy men are, because they believe that if they were working the guy would do 50%. It rarely works out that way.

Women have choice they don't have to stay with men and have children with them they chose too

Yes it is a choice when you start dating to not continue seeing someone if they are not suitable

I do not recognise my husband in the op so I married him, but what about the things men put up with? Women put themselves on a pedestal but it takes 2 in a relationship

Do you think they always show their true colours right away? In fact, it is common for their selfishness to only become apparent after there are children involved.

This thread is not about things women do and is on a feminism chat on a women's site. Does that reality register?

Isn't feminism about women? Or is feminist discussions pick and mix? And yes I do believe people of both sexes show their true colours people choose to ignore it when it suits them

It's specifically about women's rights and the status of women in society. Do you really not know what feminism is?

I assume your smug insistence that women ignore red flags just because it's convenient applies to abuse victims, then. Gross.

As pp's have said, I consider myself a strong woman, staunch feminist and can see from a mile off all the crap my friends have put up with over the years, offering advice and solutions (when asked), even though I knew it would go nowhere (because life / society / conditioning). However, I am ALSO part of this demographic too, blind to my inability to take my own advice. I have stayed with men who didn't respect me, have allowed myself to be used while assuming I was the one in control, I ignored all the nice ones, was just caught up in a cycle of poor decisions and low self esteem. I like how the earlier poster implies that I'm not a true feminist? But rather I had an absent (through work) if loving father, a wonderful mother but who not once spoke to me about relationships and self worth, no positive relationship model to emulate, and as a consequence a need to seek out validation through physical expression and confuse that for love. It's only now, as I begin steps to separate from my own particularly rubbish partner who displays all the behaviours listed above (and more, I'll have to add to the list!) that I can honestly say I won't put up with this shit again. But that's after a long old slog and getting lost in the fog of it all.

What's worse is I know my current partner is rubbish, but I'm meeting a lot of women lately (making new friends and all that) who have 'happy' marriages but quietly admit to the same things that I'm complaining about. The 'babysitting' of their children and the weaponised incompetence and the doing one task to their 20 tasks and the need for gold stars when they do something out of their comfort zone. I listen, and know that theirs will likely end like mine is, but for the moment they are perhaps caught up in the assumption that this is the acceptable trade off, perhaps, of having a relatively 'good' man despite all of this. That this is what it's actually like. I get sad that they probably pity me going through my marriage problems but it's actually the other way round - I feel empowered, finally. I don't think I will ever want to live with another man again, unless I find one who truly truly gets it.

Sorry if that was going off on a tangent to your question OP! I just got cross at the people saying 'not my man'. It's just so endemic in most relationships that you can't pretend to not understand what you meant! It's not personal attacks, or misandry. There's a reason why the relationship boards have so many similar questions and concerns.

Your OP described my first marriage - apart from the dressing up bit. I don’t think he really noticed.

So I upgraded. The difference is very refreshing.

I recognise all of these things in the examples given. It doesn’t make me a mug. It makes me aware.
its in the workplace, too - male colleagues less likely to undertake organisational tasks, take minutes at a meeting, do pastoral type activities.

The example about dressing up may be more relevant for a different generation to mine - millennial. Initially I though older generations, however I think it could also apply for younger too - I don't know enough gen zs to have a formed opinion but they (as a group) do understandably have a different concept of how one presents themselves, given they grew up with social media.

I have lived for many years in scandinavia where the lived experience and stats show that men contribute more wife-work than almost everywhere else. Nonetheless, I never met a woman there who thought men contributed 50:50 to wife-work. Never. I never met a woman who believed only a weak woman would put up with it. I never met anyone who believed a man's lack of contribution was an individual woman's fault, or responsibility to fix. Here in UK, in a soceity without a decent financial safety net for woman (paid less, CMS a joke, children living in poverty) as well as the other discrimination society levels against woman - basically training from a young age to be kind above all else - , it's really surreal to read that only weak woman put up with it and therefore it's their own fault.

@PurpleBugz

Thanks for taking that in good humour - I was definitely not making any assumptions about your fancy-ability for men! 😀

I don't doubt for a minute that you are right in your observations about men and women not equally sharing domestic hiring responsibilities. Im just trying to be as balanced as possible given the many people who have argued that men are in fact perfect. Just in case they have a point. I remain to be convinced though!

I do not recognise my husband in the op so I married him, but what about the things men put up with? Women put themselves on a pedestal but it takes 2 in a relationship

This is very unconvincing, not the kind of thing a woman would say at all. Unless it is from a man who is married to a man, but this is not made clear

This is nonsense. There is no real choice for most women because the inequality is ingrained in our society and non-resident fathers are not required adequately to support their children. The choice is often stay with an inadequate partner and accept this, or give your children a much harder, more financially straitened life.

And it is often having children - the very thing which makes it much harder to leave - which triggers the behaviour which means you'd want to leave in the first place.

On an individual level, men may put up with shit in a relationship yes. On a sociatal level, they are the huge beneficiaries of heterosexual relationships.

@SnowFrogJelly so are you saying that modern men never do anything unacceptable in relationships? Why are the relationship boards full of women saying their DH doesn't pull his weight, demands sex, is controlling, huffs if he doesn't get what he wants, watches porn, is addicted to scrolling, expects her to give far more than he does etc etc.

Are they all lying?

Are they all to blame for his behaviour?

Are they all to blame for picking the wrong man? (Grateful if you could explain exactly what to look for when dating to predict future behaviour and how a man will react after marriage and children - perhaps you also have a cast iron predictor of those who will cheat?)

Are they all just moaning about things which you believe are perfectly acceptable because you think women should do more/ provide maintenance sex even if she doesn't want it/ basically be the mythical 1950s housewife?

Same here. The idea that you can predict which men will later become lazy/ cheaters/ abusers etc is absolute nonsense.

It's also offensive because it suggests that all women who are abused by men brought it on themselves by simply not spotting the (never actually able to be defined) signs.

You know it occurs to me..

If the examples on this thread were 100% way off, not true, complete nonsense and men aren't like that yadda yadda..

Why is the relationship board on Mumsnet so dang busy?
It should have tumble weeds blowing through because all men are wonderful.

Unfortunately, the relationship board is rather busy and a lot of the posts are from women whose men have become comfortable enough to take their masks off.

In my work I see men talking over women. Happens a lot, especially older men who are maybe used to it. Even when I am obviously talking to the woman and asking her a question, the man will answer and talk over her. I never look at them, I’m not talking to you, Nigel, trust me you will know when I’m speaking to you.
Women who makes excuses for men. Oh what’s he like, tinkly laugh.
By the way these are work senecios with strangers. I don’t mix with men like this.

Oh fuck me are we really going to do the 'whataboutery' now too?! 'but women aren't perfect either' FFS. This thread has been completely derailed by crazy women who are determined to defend their Nigels. I wasn't asking about 'shit your husband does'. There was no need to come on to tell us how great he is (and by extension how wonderful and better than other women you are). I was looking for a round up of things men do which women put up with but shouldn't so that some behaviours could be publicly called out to perhaps help some women to have the courage to say enough is enough. But you lot seem determined to keep women subjugated. Why don't you all call for the Feminism boards to be deleted entirely if men are so perfect?

@Daffydaff thanks for replying.

"babysitting' of their children and the weaponised incompetence and the doing one task to their 20 tasks and the need for gold stars when they do something out of their comfort zone."

This is a good example. How anyone (especially women on a Feminist discussion board) can suggest that no men do this and women are just making it up or bringing it on themselves is just mind boggling.

Oh but it's all the women's fault! They just didn't pick their Nigel carefully enough.

Yes talking over his partner is a good one. Also dominating the conversation generally. How many women stop themselves before or during saying something because their DH has become bored or irritated. But will listen without complaint to DH drone on about his stuff.

Weaponised incompetence, it's a great term, I'm not sure where it came from but it's perfect.

"Can't you do it? You're much better at it than me."

No, I can't do it, if you're bad at it, learn to be better. A GROWN MAN should be able to fold laundry, cook food, wrap gifts, clean under a bed, organise trips to where he wants to go.. USE A HOOVER.. if he cant, hes a child and i aint his momma.

It really pisses me off that theres so many.men out there that go off to work, earn promotions, do well.. but walk through their front door and suddenly become incompetent, lazy and easily confused by simple household appliances.
"I don't know how the washing machine works though?"
"Really Gary? You've just been at work and programmed a steel cutting water jet that cost several 100 thousand pounds, but the £250 Argos Washer is complicated? ... Fuck off.."