Genuine question

[user764329056]

Why are so many women prepared to settle for lazy/useless/ cruel/lying/disrespectful - any or all of the above - men? Why do they set their standards so low? Am not trying to be confrontational, seriously am mystified at the prospect of living what must surely be an unhappy life

• Low self esteem.
• Lack of financial
independence
• Not knowing any
better, due to
seeing poor
marriages in
childhood
• Not wanting split
custody of their
DC
• Fear of loneliness

I had a great childhood and judged people by my own standards. Also these men aren't stupid, they wait until they have youvtrapped until they start showing their true colours. There were red flags, but I wasn't experienced so didn't pick them up at the time, it's only in hindsight.

I know, I really do understand having been through my own relationships with fucked up men, but have gone it alone with kids rather than stay in misery, I know it takes a heap of strength and energy to make big changes, just seems there are so many unequal relationships consisting of strong, capable women and inadequate men

Sandy has nailed it as usual. It isn't about strength and energy, if you have learned that a terrible relationship is all you deserve, it becomes your normal. Changing that is the hard part.

I think most just dont want to be single.

I know someone who is still seeing a man who lied about his name, age and where he lived and work he did. So basically his whole life and she found out after only meeting him twice yet shes still dating him. Really cant understand it.

I agree with Musti. I had a great childhood and i have an amazing family. I am a strong willed, opinionated, quietly confident person, I've never followed crowds or been anything but myself. My ex was extremely clever and manipulative, so much so I couldn't see it at the time. Or, I could, but I chose not to. He finally showed his true colours 2 years in and by that point I was willing to forgive him and work through his issues. Nobody would ever expect it of him, an outsider would have thought he was perfect and I was the hard work one. Its not the typical scrote anymore. Well dressed men with good jobs and a great family, a house, a fancy car can be just as bad.

the way society is structured doesn't help either

It can be such a gradual process as well, starting off on 'best behaviour' and then slowly and subtly showing who they are, makes it harder to spot

Can you imagine what a wonderful world it would be if all women recognised their own strength and set their standards sky high? All the shit men would end up totally abandoned

some of the women might also not be perfect

the older I get (I am now in my 50s) the more I realise how profoundly my parent's relationship with each other and, especially, my dad's personality and relationship with women, affected my whole outlook on life. My sister and I (adopted so not biological sisters) are about as different as two people can be but we both made very similar choices of husbands - not on the surface - her husband is very gregarious, extrovert and mine is more introvert but in terms of values, integrity, character. In those terms we both married men very very like our father and both have relationships very very like our parents (functional, respectful, kind, equal, occasionally very fiery) did.

It makes complete sense to me that if you are brought up with very low expectations (except you don't know these are low expectations - you think it is normal and everyone is like this) you will continue this in your relationships.

A question I often ask myself when reading MN is not so much why women put up with such crap but why so many men are so unpleasant and unkind and think it ok to deal out such crap. Don't they ever look at themselves and say "jesus I am an unpleasant bollocks and home life is miserable, maybe life would be nicer if I was nicer too"

Well most of the women who post on here in the situation you describe say that their dp has changed over time and that they are staying because (1) they think there's a chance he could go back to how he used to be, (2) they lack financial independence, or (3) they can't bear to be the one who is responsible for devastating their dc.

Tbf it stands to reason that there must be a similar number of men who are staying with lazy/useless/lying/cruel/disrespectful women for the same sorts of reasons.

Sometimes it's a "balance" thing.
So you look at what your life is like, and no it's not perfect, but on balance it's better than what it would be like if you didn't have him around.
Sometimes it's fear - never having lived on your own and had to do everything for yourself.
Sometimes it just is that the woman loves him, despite his bastardy, and doesn't want to lose him.

Why get with them in the first place - well, very few of them show themselves in their true light until they've got you well and truly hooked, and by then it can be too late to just dump and run.

One thing I have learnt in my own experience though is not to trust "being in love" - the one I was most in love with was the absolute worst - pathological liar, cheat, borderline abusive but would probably have got worse if we'd stayed together. Actually no, I take that back - he was abusive, he was a gaslighter and emotionally abusive, to say nothing of financially abusive too. But my chemical reactions to him were the strongest and I let far too much shit happen because I "loved" him.

I love DH - he annoys the shit out of me sometimes but on balance, I'd far rather be with him than without him. He's not perfect but neither am I.

Lack of money/access to family finance.

Not wanting to risk losing their children.
Poor health/mental health.
No outside help/family.
The high rate of property/rental/cost of living.
Not recognising it as a bad relationship.

I think it can be for different reasons depending on the person. Lots of reasons. In my personal experience, I think it's low self-esteem and sort of over empathising with the man to the point that my feelings get subsumed by his. Not healthy but common enough, I'd say.

I fell accidentally pregnant I was just desperate to keep my family together, bastard just about killed me.

Did the freedom programme when out of hospital, met my DH further down the line and we are very happy years later.

Couldn't tell you if it was down to doing the freedom programme or luck.

I had an idyllic childhood although a lot of mental health issues through my teens/twenties, whether that played a part I don't know.

Some women don't want to see how abusive their partners are,they make excuses for the bad behaviour ,naively believing that they will be able to change them .
Good men and women are in short supply so many people have to settle for second best or face being alone

Some women don't want to see how abusive their partners are,they make excuses for the bad behaviour ,naively believing that they will be able to change them

Ah, if only it was that simple.

I have a pet probably-baseless theory about this.

Short version - there’s much more variability in the male population, driven by sexual selection.

Result - a mismatch in the number of men and women who meet some arbitrary “minimum standard” of not-shitness.

Hence a proportion of men so shit no one wants them, and a proportion of women who are faced with a choice of crappy relationship with an shit guy, or no relationship.

I thinks the question should be why are men lazy/useless/ cruel/lying/disrespectful rather than shifting the blame to women again.

It'll be because their mothers didn't raise them right. Always a woman's fault!

I don't understand either. Some women lurch from one disastrous relationship to the next, not pausing for breath, having babies with one or more of these useless 'men'. Some are scared of living alone while I preferred it a thousand times over dealing with one of these losers.

I had a standard when it came to men which I learned from my DF. He was hard working, generous, kind, gentle, funny, did his share of house cleaning and childcare even though he worked six days a week and that was in the 1950s. You won't be surprised to learn that the men I went out with rarely met those standards so I quickly learned to lower them but would immediately dump those who didn't even begin to come close.

I get depressed reading on here, virtually every day, threads by women who are not married, live with their DP, have no financial investment in the home, have child/ren, become SAHP and suddenly DB starts to treat her badly, she hangs on for grim death despite emotional/ physical abuse. He by now has found someone else, woman and child/ren thrown out of home with no money. Rinse and repeat.

I don't know how you begin to help these women and I don't mean financially or materially - they need to learn what acceptable behaviour is by a partner and that living alone doesn't mean the end of their lives.

They didn’t exhibit these traits in the beginning, it happened after a year or so. With the first one he used coercive control and after 11 years when it ended I had no idea who I was, what my opinions were etc. The second seemed great but after a couple of years it began to emerge. My self esteem was so low so I stayed. I felt by then I was conditioned to being abused I didn’t know or deserve any better. Now I have a wonderful and loving fiancé.

That's exactly it. Some guys don't show their true colours at all in the beginning. Others do. I remember one guy being an absolute asshole on the first date! At least he was honest and I knew to run a mile!

A question I often ask myself when reading MN is not so much why women put up with such crap but why so many men are so unpleasant and unkind and think it ok to deal out such crap. Don't they ever look at themselves and say "jesus I am an unpleasant bollocks and home life is miserable, maybe life would be nicer if I was nicer too"

^ same question here