Why do so many women set the bar so low?

[Anonymouseey]

I’m feeling so sad having just read the latest ‘he does nothing but please don’t suggest I leave him thread’. Why? Why do women want so little for themselves? Every day there’s a thread like it, half the time the woman seems to pay for everything too so the man brings nothing!

I am in a same sex marriage. We have our issues but everything is 50:50 there is no doubt about that. When I had a child free weekend with friends my first thought is ‘right we’d better work out when my wife gets the equivalent for herself’.

So what’s the reason? Is it self esteem? Is it fear of being single? I do have slightly more understanding when there is financial reliance on the relationship because that must be scary but in the cases where the man doesn’t even pay it just makes zero sense to me.

I know one in the most miserable “marriage”. Can’t be seen to be a failure by being single and won’t let go of half the house to a man she despises. Trapped by her own stupidity and greed

Money, housing.

Always have an escape plan.

Behaviour that seems cute and protective becomes controlling and abusive.

And there is no longer a social safety net, no social housing. So what do you do? You and your kids become homeless or you put up with an abusive dick?

...you could move somewhere less expensive?

I mean I get that maybe your friends and family are there but... are you actually (sorry to be crass) still having sex with someone you don't like, just so you can keep a roof over your head?
Cause I mean that's pretty messed up.

Just move somewhere cheaper. Or look into cheaper options in the area like 1 bed flats. You can claim child support and other things when you are out too so it might wind up less expensive than you thought. Heck, I'd sleep on my mums couch rather than pimp myself out to him.

You could even shunt him out and take in a lodger/flatmate potentially. If your child is under say...6, you could share their room. Or if the kitchen access is through the hall and not the living room, then the living room can be made into a bedroom.

Also a lot are unmarried and there’s no cohabitation bill in this country. So if everything is in his name, mothers are entitled to very very little if not married

I don’t think women set the bar so low, society does. Just existing is reason for a round of applause for a man.

As others have said patriarchy plays a big role but many of these men don’t necessarily start off as shit. They’ll probably be attentive at the beginning but it’ll slip and the woman will become the default date planner. Then when they move in together, she will default give her email because she’s grown accustomed to doing the admin. Then she does more housework because the man is doing a half arsed job because he can. And it grows and grows until you have women who are stuck, who have taken pay cuts at work to work part time, maybe never gone for a high paying job because they wanted flexibility, women who have given up their job to care for children and a useless partner.

Even with the good ones, you need to push back constantly about what is expected of you as a woman. DH forgot to a Mother’s Day card and FIL berated me for it. I pointed out they’d raised an intelligent, competent man and if he can’t notice it’s Mother’s Day then that’s his failing. But you come across it with the doctors, dentists, school, nursery. I think sometimes women just decide it’s less exhausting to just do the work themselves rather than fighting everyone on it.

I get it’s more difficult if there’s kids and joint finances involved but there’s untold threads on here where even early in the relationship women are bankrolling cocklodgers, forgiving cheating, tolerating emotional and physical abuse from a man they’ve known a few months crying ‘but I love him’

These situations don’t ever get better so if they’re showing massive red flags already why carry on?

Tbh I hate to say it but a common theme for some is that they just don't want to give up their home comforts.

They don't want to downsize, they don't want less household income, they don't want to have to move home while they decide their next steps, they don't want to take any risks. They fear the unknown.

Or they simply, can't be alone. Never learned to do it. Always been with someone and think the world will implode if they go it alone.

There's a lot of this about.

Because so many women are more concerned with appearing to be happy than actually being happy. So they stay with losers and cheaters, marry them, have their kids and cry "woe is me".

There was a female isolation and independence movement in medieval times ... Linked to religion. Beguin/Begoin, off the top of my head.

They - of course - ended up being rounded up and killed, or at best some were disbanded.

I feel the same OP and hope this doesn’t get deleted as a TAAT because I wanted to shake that woman senseless- how can anyone put up with that?!

Yep, a lot of it definitely pragmatic/financial/standard of living stuff. For the , and kids.

And a lot not wanting to be alone (totally natural) and being scared of not meeting anyone or not meeting anyone any better than their partner.

Spot on!!

Only thing is, some get abusive when pushed…

I totally agree with you.

I've read two or three threads on Reddit recently where young women, i.e. younger than 25, have shacked up with men who leave skidmarks on the bedsheets and won't shower when they stink, won't clean their teeth etc. How can a person have such low self-esteem that they'll put up with that, seriously?!

I am just guessing here.
I think some people value other things other than decency more highly.
There are also people who do not think that someone who values them really knows them.

My friend left her husband about 8 months ago after years of being in an unhappy marriage (they have two children together).

Since she left she is living in a much smaller house, the father sees the children 7 days a month so she carries out 75% of the childcare, she doesn’t have a social life anymore as she has to be at home with the children and she’s in a much worse financial state

She often says she wishes she’d stayed because life is so much harder now.

I think a lot of women stay because the alternative is so shit for them.

Well it’s the Instagram age isn’t it. “Look at me and my perfect life”. I’ve never bought it all. Fake as fuck. If you’re that happy why the need to keep convincing yourself by telling people

Do women inherently have more empathy than men so tend to put up with more, maybe overthink more as we feel sorry for the man, for our children if we leave etc etc. Do women form deeper emotional connections making them harder to break.

Because it seems 'keeping' a man is more important than being in a decent relationship, sure I don't get it but there are lots that go from one relationship to the next because they can't be alone, also they close their eyes and don't want to see what is in front of them

It is a choice, they don't have to stay and keep on having children and putting up with bad relationships but they choose too, maybe their parents had the same relationship and then they raise their children to put up with the same thing and the cycle continues

Men don’t have to do much to be seen as a ‘a good one’ either. My son cooked dinner, made packed lunches, and ironed my dgs shirt for school. Well you’d think he was father of the year. Luckily my dil has her head screwed on and put him straight.
Btw I don’t doubt I’m going to get the blame for that, not raising him right, but I did and I think he’s comparing himself to other men who don’t do it.
Can’t see much changing either with the younger generation where I work. The young women there put up with all sorts of shit that I never would have.

I guess it depends on priorities. A lot of women love money/lifestyle more than love.

agree with this.

I know a lad whose parents split. He tried to maintain a healthy relationship with both mum and dad but dad was vile. He told his son that he 'would do her over in the divorce to make sure she came out with nothing'. He gave her the clap as he'd had an affair. He bad-mouthed her to his son and belitted her during their whole marriage and she just tolerated it; all the while the son was witnessing all the horrible gas lighting behaviour. The son is now a little 'mini-me' of his dad. Treating girlfriends like shit. Because he's witness all the behaviour from his dad; seen that his mum puts up with it so therefore thinks 'this is how a relationship should look like'.

And so it perpetuates. But it shouldn't.

I think the idea of 'love' is to blame for a lot of misery.

I've heard so many women say,
"But I love him"
As to why they stay with an absolute cunt.
To which I can only ask,
"Why?"

I'm built different I suppose but I could never love an addict, an abuser, an emotionally coercive tantrum thrower, an idle arsehole, a dullard etc.
And yet I've known plenty of women picking those types of partner for the sake of 'love'

For me, it's a simple equation.
My life single - 8/10
Any partner that causes that to drop, ain't worth my time, my effort or my love.
A partner that adds a point or two, even then, it's a maybe... They'd have to be damned near perfect.

The thing is OP, it does sound a little bit as if you feel you have found "the ideal" and not in the "ideal for you" way, but the idea that everyone should aspire to your model.

Do you presume that everyone wants to do everything in a relationship 50% of the time, or can you accept that there will be equally happy and functional relationships where one part does 75% of something and 25%of another?

Abusive behaviour, be it physical or mental abuse is wrong, full stop. That's the long and short of it.
But continually pushing the 50/50 modal as the only good option is tiresome because it doesn't account for people's strengths and weaknesses and it doesn't leave space for flexibility and growth that are essential in long term partnerships.

So many people disconnected from themselves now. We’ve lost the whole point of life unfortunately. A lot of generational trauma, a lot of issues are the problem. So much brainwashing and gaslighting from governments. So much comparison and desperation to get to the one place in life we all think we need to be at when in truth we are all on different paths. Comparison really is the thief of joy and we are brainwashed into going along with it all.

I think sometimes people are almost groomed into staying, so it's not always a case of them wanting so little but not being able to see there is more.

I was in a destructive relationship with a man for nearly 5 years. At first it was 'perfect', he was everything I thought I wanted. I moved cities to be near to him, I was integrated into his family and friends and I'd built a life with him. There was always a bit of a secretive side to him and by the time I discovered he was bi and having ONS with others, I was devastated. I desperately wanted it to not be true and I believed everything he told me, that it was over, that it was a 'weird phase', yada, yada!

I can 100% see how it's possible to construct a reality in your head and drown out the dissenting voices (including my family) and say 'you don't know the real him, it's not as bad as you think' etc etc.

Thankfully it's long in my past now and I don't recognise the person I was then...but I CAN see how it's possible to get into a situation where the bar is gradually lowered.