Lazy, manipulative men. ARGH

[JonVoightBaddyWhoGrowls]

Not me, a close friend. Broke up with her controlling, lazy, useless ex a few years ago but has never really managed to get rid of him - when she finally did, he managed to lose his job and have nowhere to live so she felt obliged to let him back. sigh.

He's about to start a new job, brilliant. She was excitedly telling me about how he seems to be much more together etc. The job is lowish pay but actually better than he was on when they were together so that's great. And she's got all these ideas about how he can boost his income so that he can find a decent little place to live in to have their DC over including one of her close friends offering him a reliable additional 3-6 hours of work a week.

But, in nearly 15 years, I've never known this man to do so much as a few hours overtime. The very first red flag, had we known it at the time, was his decision to drop his weekend/evening shifts when he first moved in with her (leading to a drop in income).

So why is my friend so oblivious is my first question? She genuinely thinks he's going to do this extra work? After all these years, she still thinks he's magically going to be willing to do more than the bare minimum?

And my second question is WHY are some men so willing to sit back and not contribute to their children's lives? He hasn't paid a cent in maintenance since they split and my friend isn't even looking for that -she wants him to earn more so that he can have space to have the DC over.

I would lay bets she had a troubled childhood of some sort. Not necessarily any severe abuse, just cold parenting for example, that can leave you looking for love in all the wrong places.

I suppose she is trying to fix him up for the sake of her children.

And perhaps she thinks it will pay dividends when she might finally have some weekends to herself when he is presumably finally gainfully employed and can house his children.

It’s sad really.

He probably has just been raised with horrific male privilege where he thinks women and children have been put on this earth to cater to him. Utterly revolting. I don’t know how women can have more than one child with someone like this. I would practice the only reliably safe sex, which is complete abstinence from intercourse.
Fair enough if you can’t bear to leave the deadbeat dad, but don’t go bringing anymore baby innocents into this mess to suffer!

I think your friend has two issues, one her boundaries and the other the ex that is not an ex?

Not sure why you are frustrating yourself over her issues?

If she is relaying to you how he is, and not doing anything about it, meaning, letting him stay, or overstay, taking him in and then being all bothered about it.

Not sure what she can do other than be more firm, pack his bags and tell him he needs to go back to his actual mum.

The question is not why is he so useless. The question is why is she condoning it and trying to ‘fix him’? He’s useless because he can be.

It’s that simple. She can do better and should free herself to the possibility of finding it. It’s better to be single than this waste of space.

Not sure why you are frustrating yourself over her issues?

Not so much frustrated by th issues but just constantly incredulous. I listened to her talk earlier and she was so optimistic and happy for him and how things are going to improve and I felt like the most cynical person on the planet as I thought, "yeah, right".

As for him, well, I think as I get older and I see this sort of thing more and more, I just find it so frustrating that there are so many men who are like this. It feels sometimes like you can't swing a cat without meeting a woman who is single handedly raising children while her ex wanders in and out as and when he feels like it.