Why do so many long term relationships seem to end after having children?

[ohlittlemy]

I see this a lot and always used to think it was odd although now I’m almost in the same situation 😕

Because a lot of men don’t like children and don’t like parenting.

Alot of men like the illusion of having a family while being able to act childless. They don’t want to engage in the emotional Labour of raising a child.

A lot of men want a woman at home to fuck when he wants and to do the bare minimum of emotional labour to maintain a relationship with her, and kids at home that he does the bare minimum for. He wants to leave her to do the life admin and raise the children while he comes and goes as he pleases. They don’t want to actively engage in family life.

More women need to understand this and treat men accordingly. Most men aren’t actually fit for long term relationships or parenting. I would suggest women stop allowing these sort of men to put their genes into the gene pool. It’s the only way we can stamp out this behaviour.

Stop engaging with these sort of men and cut off their access to have anymore children.

We were a great team when the kids were little. Once the eldest started expressing their own views that were reasonable, but in conflict with what ex thought should happen, ex couldn't cope. He wanted full obedience. This caused conflict between him and children, then conflict between him and me because he couldn't see that his children were allowed their own opinions and space.

The effect of all this conflict meant he felt emasculated and knocked his self esteem I think, which led him to try to find it elsewhere.

Now we're divorced he sees his son very little and never sees his daughter. They want nothing to do with him, as they dislike his controlling behaviour. He's telling everyone he's living his best life...I imagine he is, as there's no one being disobedient in his life anymore and he can control everything around him.

There is a disgusting selfishness that some partners, mainly men, display once a child is born.

When they talk about their lack of sleep and they are too tired to help whilst you are bleeding and in pain from breastfeeding and recovery can make you see them in a different light.

Lack of sleep can really test people.

Because the woman realise they married a selfish twat?
my babys over a year old. Every day , i think " todays the day i will leave."
I dunno if I'll ever get over DHs behaviour for the first 8 months
he does occasionally simper he cant believe hes not getting laid... i doubt itll be long before he goes elsewhere for it

We’ve got a toddler and newborn. There’s no relationship time! We are acutely aware of this. We can’t do much about it until baby stops cluster feeding /waking every few hours and we get more parental help or help from somewhere !
I can see how the relationship dies and you become kid focused and sleep is preferred over all else.
its important to keep communicating and we try to do this but yeah I can see how it can all fall apart.

@Anonymoushelpneeded I've been there and I left. I'm so much happier now.

What I would say is you need to be clear in your own mind that, whilst the person saying they love you may be the instigator for leaving your marriage, they are not the reason for leaving. When you've been neglected and someone suddenly 'sees' you it's intoxicating - like being in the sun after a long time in the dark. It may well be the push you need to leave a very unhappy situation, but don't leave for them. It may not work, nothing may come if, or it may work (in my case for 5 years) and then reach its natural end. Leave because you get only one life and you can create that independently, outside of an unhappy marriage.

The problem is this only becomes apparent after you've had children.

I think it all boils down to unrealistic expectations, resentment and exhaustion. This being caused by issues around sex, money and unequal division of labour.

It'd be interesting to ask men about why they think this is.

I know plenty of men stuck in unhappy, marriages with disrespectful wives who won't leave simply because of access to the children and not wanting to liquidate the assets. I know plenty of men in separate rooms, bedrooms, and their lives are separate. Another thing that happens is mind games, both parties feel the other doesn't listen, so the manipulation begins.

Personally, I think women manage children and their lives differently from men, this causes tension. Even my own Dp, she micromanages to the enth degree, this causes so much tension in the household and with the children.

Sometimes I just think chill the fuck out.

The problem is this only becomes apparent after you've had children.

I'm not convinced that this is as true as people on MN insist. Men who are shit after children were normally selfish and did nothing around the house before having children, in my experience, it's just that that impacted a lot less on their partner so she was much happier to put up with it.

Isn't it said that when women marry they want to change their husband, and when men marry they lament the fact their wife has changed.

Because you develop a parenting style. You may discover your style doesn't match your partners, and vice versa

I think we are failing to discuss child rearing with partners before we have them?

We leave things to chance instead of gearing up in our youth for finding and co-operating with the person we want to start a family with.

If a family is something that's important to you, isn't it wise to put a lot of thought and effort into finding somebody with the same parenting style, the same life goals, the same expectations of parenting as yourself?

Instead it seems we are running blind. I think part of it is reluctance to teach our children that a relationship is vital, children are not a whim, and we should be focusing on family instead of other things.

Did you do this with your partner for instance? Did you discuss how you would parent and what type of set up you would have? Who would focus on money? the home? the children? You can't do all of them, that's the thing with focus.

I think often “flaws” in someone’s personality become more problematic when you have kids.

So you married the chap who is so laid back and relaxed. That was fine when there were 2 of you. Now woman is carrying the mental load and partner’s laid backness just comes across as lazy.

You married a chap who was life and soul of the party. Fun to be with. Not so much when they are drinking at 2 am.

I think also when you have kids you often become a lot more dependent on each other for finances (might have even been separate before) so now you find out your partner has a huge credit card bill and can’t contribute to nursery costs.

Because once you have a child, you have no option but to grow up. You are no longer a selfish child, who puts their OWN needs first anymore.

However the partnerships that don't survive this, are inevitably the ones where one partner refuses to grow up and put their childs interests and wellbeing ABOVE their own. Therefore the partner that DOES 'grow up', simply becomes increasingly resentful of the one who refuses to, and this is what destroys the relationship.

So, if you want your relationship to last, you need to ensure your partner is as 'invested' in being a parent as you are.

Another reason is some couples have a baby to “save the marriage” (or relationship). It’s what my mother did….more than once. Didn’t work though. But surprisingly I have come across other women who honestly thought a baby would bring them closer together with their partner and like a magic wand just disappear all their problems.

I know plenty of men stuck in unhappy, marriages with disrespectful wives who won't leave simply because of access to the children and not wanting to liquidate the assets.

You see, the moment I see a man (or woman, theoretically, but I've never heard a woman say this) refer to being "disrespected" it tells me immediately that he's probably an entitled, misogynist wanker whose poor wife or partner is having to endure his behaviour. These men you know are most likely living this life because their wives are just tired of not being supported.

I do think that resentment is the big killer of relationships. But I'm not sure it's true that it's when kids first come along. I actually know only a few relationships that ended in the first couple of years. It's usually longer after the realisation that the resentment that started kicking in when the DC were small wasn't going away because nothing ever changes. I think that resentment is there for everyone in the beginning no matter how great you both are just due to tiredness etc. But after 4 or 5 years, when it's still there because nothing has improved... that's when you know that this relationship is unsalvageable.

@MarshmallowSwede Have to agree with all of what you posted.

A lot of men like the illusion of having a family while being able to act childless

Totally sums my father up. However after 10 years he didn't want the illusion, either, and from that point on acted as if he was childless.

@gonnascreamsoon

Because once you have a child, you have no option but to grow up. You are no longer a selfish child, who puts their OWN needs first anymore.

A concept I think a lot of men also struggle with. Some just can't understand that they aren't 'numero uno' in their partner's life anymore, and won't be for a long time.

OT, but: ”Because once you have a child, you have no option but to grow up. You are no longer a selfish child, who puts their OWN needs first anymore……..”

Really isin’t always true.
Both of my parents are very selfish people, who only ever thought about themselves.
I’m just pointing this out, because I can’t stand the ”parents are mature, childless people must all be selfish nonsense.

I agree with every word of this, as it was my experience after I had DC. Before then, DP was the one keen to have DC, I didn't want to have them until I was firmly established at a certain level in my career. He relentlessly begged me to have DC, using our ages to press home the point (we were late 30's).

Then when the DC arrived in quick succession, he had a very swift personality transplant. One which told him it was not his job to put the DC to bed ever, or get them up and ready in the mornings, or pack their day bags, or do the washing, or keep the house tidy...I could go on forever!

How do we weed these people out beforehand, when they are saying all the right things?!?

@ParisNoir That was my point too. Both my DH and the male partners of other people I know have aged far worse than the women ( who are also mothers). They like having their attractive wives, but don’t put in the effort themselves!

Exactly! I'm sick of hearing men whine on about their wives bodies changing after childbirth when they resemble a sack of lumpy potatoes with a thumb for a head.

Because men are often selfish and lazy and leave the huge amount of shitwork that comes with small children to their female partners, who become increasingly resentful. If the woman doesn't initiate a split at that point, and hangs on in the hope of change, the man often take the woman's expressions of resentment and/or the fact there is less sex (lazy arseholes tend to be less sexually desirable to women) as proof that the woman 'has changed' or makes him feel unloved.

This, with the added comment that often the one who DOESN'T grow up often becomes resentful too - because they either pick up on the fact their partner is beign more grown up or else is setting boundaries, at which point they start feeling "judged".

My counsellor told me it turns into a parent/child dynamic, which - part from being on obvious passion killer - leads to the "child" party seeking out affairs as a form of rebellion/vindication from someone who isn't a "parent" in their mind. It's horrible because there's nothing really the supposed "parent" partner can do other than let themselves become a doormat. Even if they end the relationship, they'll often be tarred as being at fault because they were a "nag", didn't meet their partner's "needs" or somesuch.

Because my exH expected to continue the lifestyle he demanded before we had children after we had children. That meant his sport all weekend every weekend plus a job that meant around three nights a week away from home. He was a pretty poor husband before children but it became blindingly obvious after.

My life was pretty much annihilated with the responsibility and the resentment became unbearable. He hasn't seen our DD for around ten years as she was dropped in favour of wife number two who didn't want a stepchild. However he has done both of us a huge favour as we don't have to deal with his manipulations anymore. Always a silver lining!

I think a lot of men give minimal thought to the challenges of having children (the extra work required, sleep deprivation, reduced financial freedom, their partner's body changing, the emotional investment) and mostly anticipate the positive outcomes (having an image of being a 'family man', passing on their name and genes, having small people around to look up to them, being a hero by giving their children material things they never had in childhood, etc).

I think women can also be unrealistic about how challenging it will be but when confronted with reality are much more likely to accept it and get on with it, while men, due to probably a mix of patriarchal entitlement, lower natural empathy/higher natural narcissism, less confrontation with reality (due to cultural and biological expectations that men go to work while women stay at home), not having to physically recover from pregnancy and birth, and the widespread belief that men are more 'visually/sexually motivated' than women tend more often to go into denial of reality and try to continue their 'pre-child lives' or a version of them that doesn't incorporate the understanding that they are just as responsible for the children they chose to have as their partners are.