Signs that a man will be a deadbeat dad

[Littlegemz]

What signs did you have that your ExP, or in some cases P, would become a deadbeat dad?

For me i think these two should have been alarm bells:

Laziness
Lack of interest in his own family when there aren’t any issues, I.e. no phone calls, not visiting (especially brother and niece)

From reading threads on Mumsnet

Gaming ;
Drinking ;
Hobbies !!!

Avoiding his own family.
Putting himself first.
Over-sensitivity.
Emotional absence.

No personal experience but my friend found out that if he's already a deadbeat dad to his kids he has with someone else, he'll be a deadbeat dad to any he has with you too.

A huge one is financial management!

Not doing fair share of domestic work.
Bad and/or not transparent with money.
Negative / sexist attitudes towards women, eg exes.
Drinking to excess regularly. Weed.
Reacting badly when not able to do what he wants.

Yes, poor with parenting and paying for existing DC, eg only seeing them every other weekend.

Laziness.
Attitude of entitlement / the world revolves around them.
No interest in own family. keeping in contact etc.
Alcohol / drug use.

Someone who spends lots of time in the pub, does little or nothing around the home, someone who casually swears like a trooper, a bully. You can spot these guys a mile. For some reason though some woman are attracted to these types and seem confident they can change them.

Any signs of laziness, selfishness, lack of compassion or empathy should raise alarms. If he still lives with his parents then he has no track record of managing his own household but at least look at how much he contributes to the bills and daily chores. If he has his own home how well does he manage it? People who are lazy or unmotivated are usually quite easy to spot if you just take the time to look.

Yeah, agree with a few especially -

The negative/sexist attitudes towards woman (eg exes) is a good one.

Attitude of entitlement. Plays the victim in every argument and can't see faults in own actions!

General selfishness.

Lack of interest in you as a person and your goals.
A time-consuming hobby/passion.
Don't ever marry a collector.
Physical laziness/couch potato: If he can't shift his arse to walk a dog, god help the kids. If he comes in from work and watches TV or else games from 6pm until silly o'clock, that's a big flag.

A partier- if he's well into his 30s and can't stop getting pissed, then just walk away.

They don't change. Who you are with now will not change. Not for you. And not for a baby.

The biggest flag has already been mentioned and this one is huge:

Reacting badly when not able to do what he wants.

I've married two deadbeats, back to back and the above has been the case with bells on.

I agree with lots of those, but not a time consuming hobby. I know many parents (mums and dads) with hobbies. They haven't lost their sense of self and interests by having children. I know some do athletics 3 times a week, another has quiet months and is big into amdram during show season, another cycles and races during the season, another spends a lot of time running worship band and groups at church.

A time consuming hobby doesn't equal deadbeat parenting. I think it becomes an issue when one parent maintains their interests and the other didn't have any hobbies to start with and so resents the other for having them.
Of course some really do take the piss, but I've tended to find people with an issue with hobbies are people who don't have hobbies.

One to add, if they are quick to point out how crazy and unreasonable their ex was on every occasion, claims the ex won't let them see their children but they want 50/50 despite having made no attempts to see their children.

Yep. Total selfishness. It's almost impossible to describe the level of selfishness. #MeFirst #MeAlways
No insight into their actions or behaviour. None.
Always right. Never wrong.
Usually has a terrible relationship with his own mother/parents/sister.

Laziness/selfishness/always putting himself first

Unfortunately, I had no warning at all. He was mostly a brilliant husband, with the occasional irritations everyone has. It was only when dd was born that every thing changed, I genuinely had not seen it coming at all.

Ones with dc already who blame their ex for them not seeing the dc....

Mummy’s boy.

flakey employment 30 jobs in 2 years, extremely underemployed, pretend jobs and get rich schemes that hardly bring in anything.

other children they don't pay for and have abandoned, usually with some excuse of crazy bitch ex refuses to let him see them.

Always in debt, no savings, parents seem to pay for a lot of his things.
any vices; drinking, drugs, gambling, expensive hobbies

A mummy's boy who expects you to deal with his mother for him (and take any blame) but who doesn't actually really ever want anything to do with same mother. 🤔

Guys, that's a really bad sign. 🤣

Also gaming and leaving their home/room in a filthy mess. That doesn't improve with commitment and kids.

Showing you off, but then being resentful if people actually like you...and then working hard to make sure that changes. 🤨

Finally, if you ever get the sense that YOU dont really need to be on/ that holiday/event/party and that any well presented woman could step into your shoes...like a living mannequin dragged about for people to see with him...and he'd be just as miserable happy, just walk away now.

When you are later (appropriately) focused on the kids he will be fuming and your life will be a misery - as he intends it.

No personal experience but my friend found out that if he's already a deadbeat dad to his kids he has with someone else, he'll be a deadbeat dad to any he has with you too.

I've read the opposite as well. When a man leaves his family for another woman, he falls over himself proving his worth to new women and kids while neglecting the children with his former partner.

This thread should be read out at the alter.

In most cases on mn the guy is already hopeless before the woman decides to have kids with him or there's a 'contraception failure'
I never can understand it. Of all the billions of men in the world you pick one who is lazy, financially or sexually incontinent or unkind to father your kids

Crikey. My ex ticks all of those boxes. But yet, his girlfriend thinks he's a great Dad who deserves to see his children, which she told me in an abusive email criticising my parenting.

She'll be on Mumsnet, moaning about him in a few years

The thing about these guys though, invariably, is that intitially they are on best behaviour. And you don't always know their history. These guys don't enter the relationship with red flags a wavin'. If anything, they're on a mission to right their wrongs, but they can't. The mask drops and by then it's too late. You've got a baby!
But initially, the red flags pop up from just beneath the parapet and you're like, "Did I just see a red flag? Or am I imagining things?" The oozing charm is then laid on thick like a balm to soothe those doubts.
It's usually pregnancy when the red flags are like, "Yeah, we're here. We're crimson. Get used to it. None of it's in your imagination."

Picsinred

Exactly!