How do you even begin to like/trust men

[EternallyUntrusting]

I'm 36 years old. I can hand on my heart say I don't like men. There are some men I have respect for at work (they are good at their jobs), but I don't like men.

If you knew me in real life you would think the absolute opposite. I dress 'for the male gaze', I outgoing, chatty, flirty, very confident. But to a man, I cannot stand the fuckers.

Every significant man since I was a child has turned out to be an utter cunt. My father beat and abused my mother and us. My first husband (lovely man to all and sundry), cheated on me and left me with 3 small children. I was single for a long time then. Lots of therapy, very angry with men and therapy seemed to consist of 'they aren't all the same, you are seeking out these men, good men exist'. My male therapist then fucking messaged me when he was drunk!

I then met a lovely man. Kind, successful, no drug problem, no criminal record. Promised me the absolute earth, my DC fell in love with him, when our DD was 9 mths old he walked out the door and I haven't seen him since (4 years ago).

Since then i've pretty much gone off my rocker. I am aware of how i am acting. I've actively sought out men to prove my theory that given long enough, given enough opportunity and the promise of it never getting out every single one of those fuckers will cheat on their wives/girlfriends or at least cross a line they shouldn't be crossing.

And I hate them for it. Even today, stood at the train station sheltering from the rain, a man about 20 years older than me starts a conversation about the brexit vote. Perfectly pleasant 10 min conversation. Then asks me for a drink. You sure your wife won't mind? He was wearing a fucking wedding ring!!

The same on here thread after thread after thread of 'lovely family men' cheating, using women for wife work, hiding from putting their kids to bed and just nasty useless cocklodgers.

Am I going to hate men for the rest of my life? Even now I've tried to stop proving to myself what wankers they are they seem to go out of their way to prove it to me!

It's helped me that I'm plain as a pikestaff (although that hasn't stopped the 'pity shag' men) but I don't, and never have got, propositioned in a general way.

I just tend to attract men with 'behavioural difficulties' (who, I suppose, see me as a 'second mum'). Am sick of whiny men following me around saying 'what shall we doooooo?' and being incapable of changing a bed or making a dinner without hours of faff and the smell of burning.

So even the ones that aren't wankers are incapable idiots.

NAMALT, obviously, just the ones that find me attractive.

There is more for those who have not got there yet!

The invisible stage. In this the older women in the office are ignored while women in their 20s have ‘fascinating conversations and giggles’.

Thats why when I hear a woman fancies an older man in the office and they just get on so well and seem to just ‘get each other’ I’m like .

My DH had a stay at home father & a mother who worked outside the home which was obviously rare in the 80/90s & I really think that's why he's more domesticated & didn't see chores just as wife work.

Best thing to do is marry one who is comparatively less attractive and less intellugent than you and who earns less than you. That way, even if he does cheat you can move on relatively unscathed with your finances and ego more or less intact.

I disagree with this advice. Marrying a man who’s got less money than you will cause you to give him 50% of all your stuff (house, savings, pension) and possibly even pay him maintenance after you split.

Marry a dull, boring man if you must, but at least make him someone who earns the same if not more than you do.

Best thing to do is marry one who is comparatively less attractive and less intellugent than you

Bloody hell, wouldn't it be better not to marry at all?

Definitely agree with you op. It's a sad fact.

Or just don't get married to him.
Personally I will never have a relationship where I am not the higher earner. When men earn more they seem to think, in the vast majority of cases that this entitles them to the make the majority of financial decisions.

Furthermore, most of the boring men out there seem to earn pretty high salaries. Their entitlement and egoism informs their dullness imo.

category12

Not really. I'm not advocating having relationships with ugly idiots.
Just always maintain the upper hand in every aspect of your relationship, looks, brains, money, wit, common sense.
I'm pretty sure most men live by this maxim in any case.
Seems to work for them....

Yet another thread on here full of women who openly despuse men wondering why they can't find a decent man. Clue's in the question, folks!

Actually quite a few of us are in rl with decent men...

Misplacedad actually read some of the comments. This is not eye roll stuff. This is serious stuff that has happened to these women. This is the problem, men just think it’s a little bit of bitching not realising the struggle these women have had.

Sadly it’s not uncommon to have been harassed or raped as a woman.

rvby that’s such an interesting post about the Stone Age. It shows how many men think just shagging any woman they want to is some kind of basically reasonable desire and they only can’t because of modern society and it’s laws - not because they’d consider at all whether the woman wants to.

I immediately thought of myself chipping away trying to design some cool tools and trying to invent wheels and knitting and stuff! What fun I thought :o but Stone Age sex was the furthest thing from my mind!

misplaceddad yes a a lot of women are posting about how they dislike and feel unable to trust men. But most say they started out believing in love and romance and trusting the lovely-seeming men they met and got involved with. Can’t you see that the feeling of dislike and mistrust has been engendered by their awful experiences of being let down, cheated on, abused, put last, and/or Endlessly treated as a piece of meat by other women’s supposedly lovely men? It’s a result of men’s behaviour.

I’m not one who hates all men; I accept there are truly nice, respectful men out there and I have a lovely son who I hope I am bringing up to respect women and understand sexism. But as a women you experience a vast range of misogynistic behaviour, from unthinking sexism and embedded disadvantage, like getting paid less, to rape and DV which regularly extends to murder.

Can you imagine the opposite sex being generally bigger and stronger than you and behaving like that consistently and repeatedly? Can you imagine at the very least losing your trust in them?

I agree with so many of you. So many men are sexist and entitled.

I've got a date arranged with an old friend next week and the crux for me will be whether he sees women as being equal to men, if he's even slightly sexist then he can bugger off because I just can't be doing with sexist middle aged men and their sense of entitlement.

My last boyfriend was lovely, no sexism, or male entitlement and looked up to women, trouble was he had addiction issues.... there's always something

Like many on here I used to prefer male company when I was younger, now those very same men just seem to be sexist entitled gits, I don't know if they've got worse as they got older or whether I'm just too old for their shit now

Isn’t it a case of managing own expectations more than anything though?

We are taught ‘how men are’ from childhood, you learn from your dad. Then society teaches us all about the role a woman should have. We realise that society is geared towards men. We’re bombarded with all these Disney expectations, we have our heads filled with unrealistic expectations. We are punished and obstructed when we twig that actually, women are much better at looking after themselves.

Now we know (or, we’ve always known, but couldn’t do much about it, more likely).

What’s stopping us from turning around and saying: I’m not putting up with this shit, off you fuck! Why do we even have to justify our needs?

I have a partner, I really do love him and want to be with him. But it doesn’t mean I need him.

What I am saying is I don’t see myself in a relationship as the person in charge of domestic chores, I’m not looking for someone to be my ‘other half, to complete’ me. I am whole, it’s ok. I’m in a partnership, and that means I’m at work and he’ll clean the house, that means we both worked that day and we’re both cooking in the evening, that means I saw a book he might like when I go into town on my own, or shopping with girlfriends, that means he might grab me a punnet of grapes, cause he knows I love them etc. Nobody is rescuing anybody.

But most say they started out believing in love and romance

I think a belief in romance is part of the problem tbh. Many women are brought up to think that being romanced is a good thing and a sign that a man truly loves her. Whereas many men are brought up to believe that acting romantic is a way to get women to like you/have sex with you. I would view 'treating me like a princess' as a massive red flag. I want to be treated like an equal human being. Men who still in 2019 think that women need ott wooing and flattering are men who don't really see women as proper people imo.

It’s just about respect, at the end of the day.

Of course, I don’t think most women want to be rescued, and I certainly don’t. I just would have a liked a man who would pull his weight domestically, take a fair share of responsibility for his kids and not belittle me and lie to me or put his career above mine. Sadly I ended up with that and part of that was because I believed that he was “a lovely man” (as he seemed to be at first) and loved me, and I genuinely thought he;d pull his finger out because why would someone who loved me not want to share the load equally with me? I had a lot of cognitive dissonance along with my socialised tendency to carry the can and just get on with it.

Of the other men I’ve been with, most have either cheated on me, threatened and hit me, tried to rape me, or just expected me to do all the running and drudgery. Not a catalogue of unusually bad luck or that I’m attracting the bad’uns- just similar to most women’s experiences, and not as bad as many.

I just want an equal, kind, respectful, adult man, not a rescuer - and grew up as a feminist who expected that. Still didn’t happen.

I had a bad childhood with a violent alcoholic stepfather, I also have three sisters who are between 7 and 16 years older than me. All of them ended up in abusive marriages. Two came back to live at home when I was a teenager, one arrived home black and blue from being beaten. Stepfather had happily died by the time they returned.

Seeing what my sisters went through made me incredibly tough and to look for signs. I remember dating a guy who was so full of himself that just the few sentences that seemed dodgy had me dumping him.

Marrying someone who is a very low earner when you are a high earner is always risky, that goes for both genders. But it’s rare for people to bring exactly the same assets to the table when they get together. You have to do your own cost benefit analysis of the situation.

I do believe there are some decent men on the planet they are just few and far between.

lazylinguist yes I totally agree - girls grow up seeing that romantic relationship as something they are heading towards, and are led to think it’s true love and something they need, and that the man will really love them and it will be wonderful.

There is also the biological drive to have children that causes some women to “settle” as well. Because the structure of society means it’s hard to have children without the relationship part.

lazylinguist I think your post has helped me understand something fundamental as to why I haven’t had the experiences of my sisters and a lot of my friends. I am not romantic at all and view it with suspicion.

@rvby

Sharpening my tools then hunting and skinning as many animals as possible because I'm always hungry and always cold 😁

Where on earth are you finding these people!?...The men I mix with I can say with all certainty would never answer in the way you've described because they are working with more than a peasize of grey matter!

@SlightlyMisplacedSingleDad

To be clear....

I don't dislike men...not at all, and I certainly don't spend my days wondering why I can't find a good man 😂

I've fallen in love with you OP. So I'm going to give you a big unmumsnetty hugs

Everything you have said is utterly correct. You are like me. Utterly intellectually brilliant and I'm rather afraid, a narc magnet.

So many men are utterly spineless. Yes, there are good men out there. I wish they'd speak the fuck up. Be true allies. Rather than just fucking wimps.

Women are being systematically raped and abused on levels which would and perhaps MAY cause a civil war. Its that serious. We have now decriminalised rape in our country.

I know this as truth. What my ex did to me was utterly criminal. The coward has run away. Far away. Took my children. Smeared my good name.

In the middle of all this shit, there have been men who have fought for me. One especially is going above and beyond. But I needed to be in a position to recognise it.

You will have such men around you. You just need to see them.

Always here.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the op. Time after time I speak to women who have suffered at the hands of a man - seriously abused in a lot of cases. These sentiments a lot of women have aren't formed on a whim - they come from bitter experience sadly.

Very true @Frizzbeol