Why do women marry, have children with and stay with men who are ..

[beetroot]

Lazy and dont repect them?

I have seen it on Mumnset so much over the years adn it still astounds me.

It's tricky when you've got kids

It's never as black and white as it seems

It's a big horrible compromise

I think it's a matter, a lot of the time, of what you think you're entitled to. I've had a number of relationships with appalling blokes on the basis that I wasn't good/attractive/thin enough for someone nicer.

Surely you get an idea before you have kids about what your dh is like though?

MI, i agree there. I did the same but I had the fourseight not to marry and have chidlren with them!

im with you beety.... maybe we are just lucky?

I know my DH is fantastic, and I try to tell him and show him as much as possible.

I do think it is hard for some women to have the self-respect and determination to get out of a relationship like that.

One thing I always want to say is....

"Are you his life partner or his mother?!"

I think most women have no idea what having kids involves, never mind how they/their DH's will behave in that situation/environment

A lot of pregnancies are unplanned, Beety

yes but contraception is available , pretty widely in this country!

No, you don't. You have this lovely idea about how wonderful it would be to have children with this man. Then you do. Then, perhaps because the children are difficult, it all goes tits up.

I do think also that children add such other things into the mix - a lot of women seem to take on pretty well all the domestic responsibility, including their husbands' breakfast, at that point.

By the way, my DP is nice to me.

but why do they MI?

our first pregnanct was unplanned and I was quite happy to go it alone. However dh decided he wanted to be part of it and we progressed to another child and marriage. However over the last 6 or so years dh has got worse both with his attitude towards me and how he sees his responsibility as a father although he does work hard outside of the home and is the sole earner right now. I stay with him because I wouldnt be able to manage financially without him.

Hmmm. I can think of some quite complicated reasons why it should be, but like you the actual manifestation baffles me. I can see why, if you're doing full-time parenting at home, it might appear logical to take on all the domestic responsiblities (although I don't, personally, agree with this). I also think that our culture lets fathers off very lightly, and allows them to complain/be told how 'good' they are, far more often than mothers. I think the widespread assumption - perpetrated by women - that 'they're all little boys really' is totally pernicious. And I also think it's bloody hard to keep the daily grind of remembering PE kits, packed lunches, etc, day in day out and genuinely share that.

excellently put Morningpaper

OK my DP is lovely BUT

I often think that if he turned into an arse, I would still stay with him because I don't want my children to have a broken home (like we both did) and I would be prepared to sacrifice my own happiness for that

I think I would anyway

Low self-esteem, in a nutshell. As MI says, they don't believe they would get anyone better so they take up with the first person to show them love and affection - then believe it is their fault that their husbands walk all over them/do nothing to help/show no respect.

It is why I put the good self-esteem of my kids as the most important thing I can help them achieve (very badly worded but YKWIM) - I know what can happen if you don't value yourself highly enough!

Beetroot contraception is not 100% reliable and huge number of people DO concieve unplanned babies...I would not be suprised if over 50% of babies are conceived in this way. You only need to look at the abortion figures to get an idea of the incidence of accidental conceptions! Many of my university educated friends have had abortions.

I find it odd that some intelligent people cannot get to grips with the fact of unplanned children! Not all babies are conceived after a conscious plan that the man will be a suitable and willing partner in parenthood.

I do think our culture has appallingly low expectations of men. If we tell ourselves and each other that men can't multi-task, that they're completely led astray by their willies, that they just can't be expected to behave like responsible adults - quite overlooking the fact that actually, sisters, men are still earning more than women and runnning companies and generally In Charge - well, that means they win again in the domestic arena.

I agree 100% w/MI.

I don't see anything 'lucky' about being married to the man I'm with, b/c I give as good as I get.

We're a team, a partnership, and parents to two daughters. Mutual respect is everything.

Sort of harks back to that thread, 'How you make your kids confident people?' By respecting yourself and your partner, and living in accordance w/that.

If for one reason or another either of us didn't behave as such, it'd be off to the counsellor, b/c neither of us deserves or would put up w/that.

Tbh Beetroot you sound a bit smug and arrogant to me. There are a thousand reasons why people stay in unhappy marriages - financial, emotional, for the kids etc etc. It takes a strong woman to walk out of a marriage just because a dh/dp doesn't get up on Mother's Day and cook them breakfast

I think it's a combination of a lot of things mentioned here, but the bottom line is that women pretty much always grow up when they have their first child, no matter how feckless, immature and irresponsible they might have been before, but not all men do.
Jampots your story sounds very similar to mine, except I did leave - and in spite of the financial struggle this last year has been the best for me since we got together twenty three years ago.

Surely there are hundreds of reasons why this happens according to individuals and individual circumstances?
Why judge other peoples' routes through life?

I agree with you Beetroot, it also astonishes me how women get into these awful relationships. I always assume that the man must have changed over the years. It happens to the best of us to some degree or another. I know my husband has sprung one or two surprises on me over the years - nothing major, but definitely not things I knew about it before we married and we went out for 4 years before we married.