Dealing with BIGOTED opinions of bf 🙄

[Belle356]

Hi everyone

I’m really struggling with something and I would love some advice if anyone has a moment...

I’m two months pregnant with my boyfriend of two and a half years. We live together and he has an 8 year old son from his previous marriage who we see every Wednesday and every other weekend.

Now that I’m pregnant I’m so keen to move on and focus on a happy life together and make our family work. However, my boyfriend keeps dropping bombs that i simply can’t ignore. Some examples: Once in an big argument he was totally racist about my Jewish ex-husband. He never apologised or tried to take it back.
Earlier today he commented on a lady on the tv’s clothes, saying she shouldn’t wear that dress as it made her ‘Tits look saggy’ (literally didn’t though) and her boyfriend should have told her not to wear it as she looked pregnant. 😡
Just now, while sitting down to do his sons homework, he said it didn’t matter if he did what was instructed or not. I argued that it might be a better idea to encourage him to follow the instructions his teachers set and do it properly and he stroppily said ‘No, he should do it how I said, it’s more important to be fun...’ I said we could make it fun and do it properly, but he got annoyed and said that it didn’t matter what the teachers thought- they were stupid and that’s why they’re only teachers. I mean what the hell kind of attitude is that!!

These fundamental differences in opinions worries me that I just shouldn’t be with him. My mum was a teacher and I’m deeply offended by the things he says. He has lots of redeeming features of course, but if his views are so bigoted, how can I get past them? I can’t dictate what he says around his own son, but I wouldn’t want my child around that kind of attitude. He thinks the gender pay gap is justified too and doesn’t listen to my opposing view and just says I don’t understand business. So frustrating, what can I do?! Any advice on how to approach the subject?

Thank you!

Yeah, not through her child’s eyes though eh?

He said not necessarily a bad guy putting on a good act. Both sides of him are not necessarily mutually exclusive. This is what makes these relationships so insidious: people can compartmentalize their behaviour.

That said, if he’s telling his son that teachers are stupid and not to do the homework correctly, then one could and would argue that he’s not actually a good dad because of the attitudes he’s passing onto him.

When someone tells you who they really are, listen up.

Jiggly You would have an ABORTION at FIVE MONTHS (or any stage?) JUST because the father was a bigot.......?

Wow. Just wow

It’s not that he was telling him that exactly- He said it under his breath to me after his son had left the immediate area, but he certainly could have heard and the general attitude can be picked up.

He just came to apologise and said that we seem to have a lot of different views on things lately. That he was sorry that I didn’t agree with his morals. I calmly said that I was disappointed to hear that his morals included thinking that all teachers were stupid (just chosen as it was the most recent and I’d already said how I felt about his comments on the woman’s clothes) - that teachers are highly educated and give their lives to educating our children, that I think they are amazing... And he said that in his experience, he’s met some really bad ones and some at his sons school are, in his opinion, not great... he makes it really hard to argue with and just makes me feel like I’m getting him all wrong.

So many PPs have suggested abortion, wasn’t really expecting that to be honest....

People need to shut up about abortion - that is entirely @Belle356's call and frankly in poor taste. I am pro choice all the way, but bloody hell, what an insensitive thing to say!

Belle - please leave this man. He sounds so horrible.

I don’t think that’s hard to argue with.

I’d have said ‘so which is it? A moral position or an opinion? You can’t claim immunity from criticism even if it is a moral position anyway but what you’ve just said is behind it is the perfect example of a prejudice, not an opinion or a moral position. It’s the prejudices that I am struggling with, and I don’t think that is my problem’

The thing is, by chosing to have a child with this man, even if you split up, he's going to be in that child's life for good. You'll never be rid of him and he will influence his child.

'Jiggly You would have an ABORTION at FIVE MONTHS (or any stage?) JUST because the father was a bigot.......?

Wow. Just wow'

She's not five months pregnant, but two. People can and do have abortions because they do not wish to bring a child into the world who will have contact with an undesirable parent, yes, among many other types of reasons. ANY reason a woman chooses for terminating a pregnancy is entirely viable .

Offred- I kind of did say that... that he is being so judgemental and I was so offended by his comment. He just said that he was sure that there were some great teachers but we will have to agree to disagree and changed the subject. It makes no sense! He’s sure there are great teachers, but that we’ll have to agree to disagree? I’m not sure what he’s even trying to say at this point. Then starts making me a drink and offering to do nice things for me so it seems like I’m dragging it on unnecessarily if I keep pushing it.

In your shoes I would choose to not have a child or a relationship with this man. Both of these choices are available to you if you want them.

His views are part of his personality, not a separate part. He is who he sounds like he is; he's a racist. Its up to you if you can accept being with him; I couldn't.

‘Sucking up to me by making me a drink doesn’t make the fact you’ve just completely ignored what I just said better.

This is not an ‘agreed to disagree’ thing. This is me telling you that on several occasions you have said things which have offended me; anti-Semitic comments, derogatory comments re a woman’s clothes making her appear to be pregnant when I am pregnant with your baby, and now prejudice against teachers when my mum is a teacher.

‘Agreeing to disagree’ just says to me that you don’t think insulting me and people who matter to me is important - do you understand why I want to actually resolve this rather than just allow it to carry on because you have opinions?’

Battle - those of us who have left abusive relationships with children probably wish most of the time that those children didnt exist. We love them, support them, fight for their needs, would kill to protect them, but for 18 years we are locked into an ongoing abusive relationship with their father (unless he chooses to disappear from their lives). That I wouldnt wish on anyone. No matter how strong I am, no matter how wonderful these children are, they will always be harmed by contact with that abuser - even if it is only that they do not see what a decent mutually normal relationship looks like.

I am pro-choice as well and this is MY advice based on my experience.

@Offred- this is exactly what I’m going to say to him (because they are my thoughts exactly, put eloquently) but for some reason I just seem to get bamboozled in the moment. Thank you, I needed that!

I hate to say it but he sounds of a certain working class.
OBVIOUSLY I'm not saying all working class men are like this I'm assuming you're being intentionally ironic? You know, making a bigoted comment on a thread about a person making bigoted comments?

On the off chance that you are just a nasty little snob, if you have to start a sentence with "I hate to say it", that's normally an indication that you should think twice about saying it.

OP, I'm so sorry to derail your thread. A few of the things you've said would be immediate deal breakers for me and I'd be ending the relationship. I think you'd be mad to buy a house with him.

It’s hard to be clear when you are dealing with the emotions of it TBF.

Sounds like me and my partner. We've been together 5 years now. You need to talk about it.

But you know, he is not stupid, he KNOWS it is not agree to disagree, and that anti-Semitism, misogyny and prejudice are offensive, not a case of different morals. He KNOWS that, he is just minimising it and making you feel stupid for questioning it.

The cycle you get trapped in with this is that you think you just need to explain better. You just need to explain a bit better that it is offensive to be rude about your ex on religious grounds, women on dress grounds, your mother on professional grounds. If you just try and explain a bit better, he will get why you are upset and change.

Thing is, he won’t. Because he already KNOWS and doesn’t care. Because if he cared, he wouldn’t have said it; or he would have apologised; he wouldn’t be making you doubt yourself and think you just need to explain better.

There is no explanation that will make him get it, if he does not want to.

It is that simple.

" I admit there were a couple of red flags early on, but not as badly as recently."
So what has changed recently, that means he feels he can let the mask slip and say what he really means? Ah, that would be your pregnancy .

I would wonder if, by you being pregnant to him, that he now considers you irrevocably tied to him; and therefore he can relax a bit, be himself, not put as much effort into appearing to be the good guy any more. Because he's got you trapped, right?

Sorry OP, but this is A scenario I've read many times here. Good guy, until you commit; once you're committed, their work is done and they can stop pretending. Be wary.

The people telling op to get an abortion are sick.

I'd rather a bigot than someone who would abort a healthy baby just because they didn't agree with someone's attitude/opinions.

I don't think anything op said about him was that bad. There is not really enough info to hang the guy (or his baby) on.

He’s testing your boundaries. If you’re “tied” to him, your new identity is going to be “part of the racist chav family who keep falling out with the school”.

He’ll keep doing and saying things so your child is increasingly isolated from its peers, and you too after a while.

It’s not uncommon to see some weird older man making a scene in public (at service staff, strangers, teachers) with some woman standing behind him looking humiliated - everyone feels half sorry for her and half that she’s a pathetic doormat and an enabler of his weird behaviour.

This is the start of that process

Meh, the only reason I would ever judge a woman for having an abortion would be if it was for sex selection.

I don’t think women should have their reasons for wanting an abortion judged and scrutinised by other people who have nothing to do with it.

The only discussion should be between the woman and her healthcare providers and it should be geared around helping the woman to make the choice that is best for her.

If some people feel they wouldn’t have an abortion in the same circumstances that is so completely irrelevant because no-one is asking them to have an abortion.

People really need to get out of other women’s womb’s.

The OP is in early pregnancy, abortion is one option she has, that’s just a fact. She may not want to have an abortion. She may not want to discuss abortion on here... all totally up to her....

I think it’s quite nasty to shame women about abortion choices, which is essentially what some of these shocked ‘I would never...’ comments do even if they don’t apply to OP. That makes them manifestly different from saying ‘abortion is a choice open to you if you choose’.

I said it be a se @greenlanes said, being tied fir the rest of your life to a man like this is not a life I’d choose. The op still has a chance to move on and leave this fuckwit behind.