Unreconstructed men: opposites attract?

[Anonanonon]

I'm posting here, trying not to judge, just honestly looking for insight and understanding.

I'm male, raised by a strong-minded, feminist mother so grew up instilled with the idea that men can and should do better than the traditional chauvinstic stereotype. When I met my ex-wife, we were best friends, shared the physical and mental burdens of parenthood, communicated about our needs and loved discovering stuff about the world, travelling, etc. She considers herself a feminist.

And yet, she left me for a man who, whilst by all accounts a decent bloke, is obsessed with football (which she hates), who spends most of his spare time playing video games, who - according to his ex who he left for my ex - did precious little to help with the kids and house despite her being the sole breadwinner and who's idea of communication is to sulk and get passive-aggressive. She likes to get out and see the world. He'd much rather be watching the footie or playing on the console. She likes conversation. He's traditionally "stoic".

Since then, I've connected on Facebook with another of my exes - a strong-minded, independant woman who was (and is, through her work) involved in progressive social causes. She's happily attached to her partner, but again everything about him is literally, beer. Beer this. Beer that. Like a character from Men Behaving Badly. He, very deliberately, presents himself as an unreconstructed male.

And an ex-work colleague - had high-flying career in a charity. Left her husband and is now dating a guy who appears to just talk about beer and cars. Very blokey and ticks almost every "toxic masculinity" box.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to suggest anything "all women" or anything. I'm aware these couples might be a minority. I'm just trying to understand - maybe to try and understand a bit about my own divorce - why a woman who is obviously so strong, intelligent and demanding of men to be more communicative and emotionally intelligent, would opt for the very opposite in a partner? That everything I grew up thinging would be appreciated, actually isn't all that after all?

I suppose I find the way people present themselves to the world often isn't the way they are in private. In all sorts of ways.

It's also possible that they like being the only feminist in the relationship? I know I've sometimes felt I liked being the one who knew most about topic X in my household. I'm aware this isn't necessarily a healthy impulse... I also like having some separate interests from my partner so it doesn't bother me if they're into something they do on their own.

Its also true that its only after 2 years in therapy that I've ended up in a relationship that looks very different from the ones i used to have. They may be playing out patterns from their childhood.

I don't know about the specifics of women being attracted to unreconstructed men but I do think there's something in the idea that people go for the opposite of their first spouse second time around.

It would be hard to answer that question without asking the women in question.

They often say you can't help who you fall for. I'm sorry I can't offer more insight, but speaking as someone who been shafted over multiple times by blokey bloke types, all I can say is I will firmly be staying away from blokes like this in future and raising my sons to be better.

You really can't judge who people are from social media - good or bad it is all just a front/image/pr/whatever. The beer guy could be someone who posts only about that and loves the image it projects but is sweet, gentle, helpful and nice as a partner.

So don't take too much or indeed anything from what people post on FB. It is never the full story.

I was reared by a fab feminist mother (she didn't know she was feminist really) and a completely decent father who was born in 1927 and walked the floor with us as colicky babies, changed nappies, played with us and was adored by his children and his grandchildren. My sister and I have married very similar men - they are very different in many ways but very similar in that they have the values of my dad.

I think you should be wary of drawing conclusions about someone with limited information. My partner is a big car fan and enjoys beer and rugby but is also an opera fan, enjoys art and museums etc. We have equality in our relationship in terms of finances and house stuff/admin. I think especially when you are comparing yourself to an ex’s new partner it is easy to criticise things you perceive as different to you because it makes you feel like you were not the best they were looking for but every relationship is different - just because the new partner is different to you doesn’t undermine your relationship with that person necessarily.

Well I guess women are allowed to choose who they have relationships with. And merely being a NiceGuy does not entitle one to a shag. But then, as a non-chauvinistic man you'd know that.

@ToothGrinder I never said it did.

But then, as a perceptive woman you'd know that.

Your wife left for a reason.

What were her reasons?

Have you met these men, because you have made an awful lot of judgments about them.

You can like beer beer football cars and be a reconstructed, maybe they are awesome in bed. 😉

Tsk, it's not the men who are the problem. It's the women, getting feminism wrong. Eg the ex "considers herself a feminist" but she dumped OP!

@ToothGrinder

Tsk, it's not the men who are the problem. It's the women, getting feminism wrong. Eg the ex "considers herself a feminist" but she dumped OP!

LOL!!!!

Classic Mr. Nice Guy!!!

I thought this thread was going to be about circumcised men who hadn’t tried to surgically reconstruct their foreskin.

You consider yourself to be perfect OP?
There's obviously something about you that can't sustain a relationship with your own perception of yourself. There's an error somewhere and if I were you I wouldn't look too far from myself.

@Anniissa

I think you should be wary of drawing conclusions about someone with limited information. My partner is a big car fan and enjoys beer and rugby but is also an opera fan, enjoys art and museums etc. We have equality in our relationship in terms of finances and house stuff/admin. I think especially when you are comparing yourself to an ex’s new partner it is easy to criticise things you perceive as different to you because it makes you feel like you were not the best they were looking for but every relationship is different - just because the new partner is different to you doesn’t undermine your relationship with that person necessarily.

I agree with this. To be honest it sounds like you are (understandably) hurting and taking the sides of your ex's new partner as a judgement of your own character, which is almost certainly not the case.

I would also say that a man liking beer and football doesn't make them unrefined. Your hobbies and interests don't necessarily define your character, just like having a feminist mindset, while necessary IMO, also isn't the be all and end all of someone's character.

That being said, the lack of contribution of this new man to the house and with the children is a strange one. That will get old pretty quickly

I wonder if the clue lies in the bit where you said you and ex-w 'communicated your needs'. Written down it sounds fantastic. I had a friend in a relationship like this and in the end she got sick of every moment being overanalysed and wanted a good fuck and to be herself and for bf to be... well, real somehow.

It is possible, I the case of you ex, that opposites atteact but not the opposite of her but rather the opposite of you. When a relationship ends its hard, some peoples way for coping is by enjoying how different a new partner is. It can feel like a breath of fresh air, sometimes it makes someone see that they likebthe change and sometimes it makes them realise that they don't.

You are focused on the things you feel you ex should have valued about you but maybe you are missing the things that she didn't like, maybe they outweighed the positive. Perhaps whith the new partner, his positive attributes outweigh the areas you listed as him lacking.

I dont know all I can say is my ex was funny and very charming and kind etc......until I moved in with him then he suddenly switched into treating me like I was his mother, he sat on the ps2 while telling me to clean the house and moaning my work wasnt good enough, to begin with I accepted it, altho I felt like his mother I brushed it off and hoped he would grow up as this was the first time he'd lived away from parents and I was unemployed so didnt mind doing my share of the work as in house work because he worked full time and was keeping me.

but then things got worse and worse he was an absolute pig and nothing changed about the housework when I got a job and things got even more worse when I had my son. I have not had a relationship since.

I used to ask my mother why she married my father, her answer was she didnt know, he wasnt like that when she met him and she picked the wrong one, he just worked, watched TV and did nothing with us as child rearing was womans work.

I suppose the simple thing is love is strange and without reason, people change, everyone does something you find annoying and how much annoying you put up with is individual, also leaving is hard.

I would also agree with this I suppose I find the way people present themselves to the world often isn't the way they are in private. my ex has a completely different persona for work/public compared with home right down to tone of voice, well he did.

also whats wrong with beer, cars and football? I love beer, my child is obsessed with cars. why are you sneering at peoples tastes and interests, might want to look into your prejudices and judgements do you often look down on people who arent interested in the same things you are or things you think are below you?

my ex was an very abusive controlling bastard, he didnt drink beer and had no interest in cars or football, what image are you trying to conjure up of those who do?

Hard to tell from this why the two or three women you describe might have gone for those blokes. Here's a few possibilities, see if they resonate!

1. You/ their previous partners present as super caring and flexible but are actually a people pleaser who isn't great at boundaries and holding his own needs firm. The strong women you've been with need a man who is able to contain them emotionally, by grounding them and you are too similar to them in your nervous hypervigilant analysis of the relationship, so they went for something different, which is more soothing.

1. You are a really genuinely cool person who's been with over-demanding women who are a bit into status and they've gone for more 'alpha' men this time round, they might regret it in the long run while you'll probably find someone better suited.

1. You're confusing correlation and cause, there is a different emotionally story in play for each of them and you've noticed the beer/football but missed some other aspect of the dynamic.

1. You are an unreliable narrator and aren't as sensitive and feminist as you think- lots of (lazy) posters will jump to this one but tbh I think you sound alright.

my money's on number one.

The hobbies gaming and football are not a problem unless money is spent on them or partners or children are neglected because of them just like any other hobby.

I used to be involved with the left due to campaigning for women rights, specifically focussed on equal pay for work of equal value and also with the rights of ethnic minority workers as a woman who isn’t white. I did this for 12 years and helped write the first equal opportunities policy for a local authority, so many years

I found many people with very left wing credentials really joyless buggers or the hair shirts as my friend used to refer to them.

What does unreconstructed mean? I imagine an Action Man taken to pieces and left in bits but the desirable guys are put back together again? It doesn't make any sense as a concept. Why do people need deconstruction and reconstruction!

You simply mean the guy is a bit of an idiot in your view?

@ImJustMadAboutSaffron

What does unreconstructed mean? I imagine an Action Man taken to pieces and left in bits but the desirable guys are put back together again? It doesn't make any sense as a concept. Why do people need deconstruction and reconstruction!

You simply mean the guy is a bit of an idiot in your view?

I had to look it up and according to the Cambridge dictionary it's 'Having opinions or behaving in a way not considered to be modern or politically acceptable in modern times'. So I want to say from the context that he means they're old fashioned?

Honestly I'm not sure that any generalising about relationships and what kinds of people are attracted to each other is really useful, because people are complicated.

As others have pointed out, what you're seeing of someone else's relationship (especially for friends via social media) is a tiny sliver of a far richer inner world for the individuals involved and for the relationship between them.

It's hard to explain why one person is attracted to another, and it's going to be far more complex than the few surface traits that you personally are aware of.

Also, I can think of plenty of strong, independent, feminist women I know who are not with blokey blokes (and in many cases they've been in their relationships for decades, LOL I am old).

TLDR, I don't think your sample proves anything other than those individual women being attracted to those individual men. I don't think you can draw any wider conclusions from it.

If you're asking this because you feel frustrated over finding a new partner, just be yourself and keep trying til you meet someone you click with. It takes most of us a long time to click with someone and that's not because people are deliberately choosing their "opposites" instead of you, it's just a needle in a haystack thing.

I don't think you're trying to understand OP, even if you're baffled at this behaviour. I think you've come on here to seek reassurance that your qualities are still sought after by women, and you sound a bit resentful and bitter (even though are trying not to come across that way).

When people come out of bad relationships, or relationships they were really unhappy in, they can overcorrect at times. So, a woman who was fed up with her super talkative, loud, extroverted partner who fancied himself a bit of a funny man may overcorrect by going for someone much quieter and introverted. At first she might thinks these qualities are refreshing compared to her last partner, but over time, she might realise that she overcorrected. This could be what happened to those women, or maybe those men have other good qualities that may not be apparent to you.

It could be that you’re an absolute delight and it’s just a case of unfortunate wording, but your post makes you sound quite pompous and scornful of anyone who isn’t just like you. Women absolutely do appreciate emotional intelligence etc. You just don’t sound very nice.

I don't consider an interest in football 'unreconstructed'. I'm a feminist and I love football!