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.

So, why would they chose them over a man who would put her first, is well kept, works hard etc?
May be the man leaves skid marks, but is 6'2" and his parents bought him a flat?

I think its this. Im mid life, had many boyfriends in my younger years who really were very selfish and immature. Married a man who seemed to be more enlightened to the rest and was all about 50/50… until we lived together.
Because he was mostly a good person and was honest, hard working and I knew would never cheat I settled.

I think I knew it was a mistake even standing at the church door, but compared to every other man I’d been with and knew as a friend he was so much more respectable and reliable. And we were best friends, I could be me with him.

Then we had kids…and it was obvious by then that housework, paperwork, organisation of our lives was all down to me and this extended to the kids. I tolerated it for years because he was, in many ways, a ‘good’ man. But I eventually lost all love and respect for him and when I raised issues he would never address them, or did for a short while and then reverted to type. He simply didnt care how unhappy I was and that I had become his mother.

I left. I just couldn't stand the thought of another 30 years of disappointment, resentment and lack of sex (I couldn't stand him near me by this point)
It is much harder financially to be a solo parent, its lonely sometimes, even though I am in a relationship.

I’ve just never met, or known a man who is truly adult enough to have a mutually respectful, equal, passsionate, caring, fun, and loving relationship.
Every man I know has a deeply entrenched belief that women are there to be objectified, do the housework, and be the ‘mother’. Even the ones who mask it well, when Ive heard them talking to other men when they dont know a woman is around is like this.

My new man comes close to being a properly decent man.. but I’m not sure I’ll ever live with or marry anyone again, because this is where it seems to all fall down.

I know one woman who is very very happy in a truly decent relationship. One.

There's an element of this alright. Embracing being a martyr or a doormat for the same reasons anyone chooses anything else: it's preferable to the alternative.

I don’t think these men exist.

I’m convinced that v many women in the western world have low self esteem. And I can only put forth a view from my own experience because I don’t represent the women the OP describes. There have been times in my life where I didn’t have the confidence/resources to push back on what peers and society expected of me. The settled by 30 narrative. The ‘time is running out’ spiel. I felt under enormous pressure to have all those conventional things in my late twenties.

I’m now 33, I own several mortgaged properties. I love my job and travel widely. I have never wanted children (but love them) and have been engaged twice. Neither of those men would have made me happy long term. The sooner I realised that, the sooner I set about creating a life on my own terms and no one else’s. I was fortunate to have happily married parents who didn’t impose expectations on me to find a man/settle down. They encouraged me to be happy instead.

this means I don’t rely on a man for a nice home - I have one. I earn my own money and don’t rely on anyone else’s finances - besides the helpful contribution of my lovely male lodger. I don’t require a mate for mating purposes because I enjoy silence and funds(!) and any male company that comes along has to enhance these wonderful things, not detract from them.

so I think part of the low standards you see certain women accept are down to the circumstances they are trying to create that necessitates having a partner (having children etc, living in a big(Ger) house) plus part conditioning that says partnership is essential/you’re somehow missing out if you’re single. I find this view really disappointing but prevalent.

Of course they do. But they might lack height, status, wealth or charisma.

This. You can't even manage on 2 incomes never mind one. Choice between being unhappy and starving children - obvious which one I'd choose

I grew up in the 1990s. So there was a bit of a feminist movement, more women were moving into "male" jobs, it was all about Girl Power and girls being a "lad". But behind that there was a lot of pressure at school to snog boys, lose your virginity, all that as well. So any lad that took an interest in me (I was, and remain a shy, insecure sort) I embraced, even if they were a shithead.

My first real boyfriend ghosted me. The second man to take an internet I married and it was not good, very abusive.

The thing that stops you leaving is the lack of support, lack of somewhere to go, being told, oh, this is just a bump in the road, it will get better, and the eternal hope he will change. Reader, he never will.

Also my parents have been married for 50 years and it was drummed into me to see through the ups and downs, stay for the kids, all that bollocks.

I'm in my 40s now with a 17 yo girl. I don't want a relationship now. My DD hasn't yet had a relationship, though Inthink she's been attracted to people. But she says there's no rush for that, she's ambitious and success is her main goal right now. It's very much a different vibe.

I think if you want to have a shit life with a shit bloke, fine. But what pisses me off is when they have multiple kids with the loser and so the next generation perpetrate the same depressing cycle. And it’s always girls and women who ultimately suffer.

@Screamingabdabz lol it sounds so simple when you say it like that and it does boil down to that at the end of the day.

I see a lot of comments on Mumsnet about how people are 'chasing perfection, which doesn't exist' or having 'too high standards' which tbh, boils my blood a bit for several reasons:

• Other people's experience might be different, but if I looked at 20 friends, I might find one with unrealistic expectations, but I'd find 8+ who were in unequal relationships, where they are the default parent, life admin, cleaner etc. Where are all these people with 'unrealistic expectations'? I think people having low standards is a MUCH bigger problem.
• People standards are fucked up due to the patriarchy. If a bloke is nice and friendly to those around him, a hard worker and has a mostly positive looking relationship with his kids, people are verging on outraged if you aren't happy - the fact you've done every single scrap of housework bar the odd hoover is just seen as a trade-off for the good stuff. For a lot of people, they are so conditioned, even though they are exhausted and it bothers them every day, they have internalised that they can't leave a 'nice guy' over housework. Whereas from my POV, any man who stands by and lets you do all the work and clean up all his mess, doesn't love or respect you. How could you possibly stand by and let someone you love do everything you are meant to do as a team, watch them clean while you do things for your own entertainment? That's not the actions of someone who loves you, in my book! But we condition women that this obvious disrespect and lack of care is normal.
• I'd much rather a woman have too high standards and never have kids, than women have low standards and choose someone who is showing signs of being a bit of an unequal, emotional unavailable, unreliable partner just because they want kids, only to lumber them AND an innocent child with an unequal, emotional unavailable, unreliable father. Yes, I know some men don't show their true colours until pregnancy, or after the baby arrives, but that isn't the case all the time, is it. Sidenote: why aren't men up in arms that that's a thing men do, start to become shit or abusive when a woman is at her most vulnerable. Could love to see more men talking about this, do they recognise it in their family and friends.
• We teach women to be forgiving, and flexible, and compromising, and we diminish those quirks in men so that they aren't a 'big deal'. Funny that, how the stuff that is designated 'not bad enough to leave him over' is almost always the same stuff that historically society has designated as 'women's work' or 'women are better at it' like cleaning, or childcare, or handling emotions.

It absolutely is the patriachy. Because from the day children are born the expectations and treatment for girls and boys is different. We can say that women have low standards all we like, but they've been hearing their whole lives about how important it is to be in a relationship, to find a man. to be grateful if he at least pays the bills or gets up in the night once a week.

In real life, I've lost count of the number of times I've seen female friends' be castigated or pressured by their parents to put up with shitty relationships or to find relationships if they are single. By the time the woman herself is supposedly "desperate" for a man, my assumption is it's probably because it's been practically beaten into her.

And it goes far beyond this with women having to deal with the constant subtle difference in expectations from day 1.

It absolutely is the patriachy

How would you explain similar patterns in gay relationships, @GerbilsForever24 ? It happens just the same.

Because we are conditioned from birth to be kind, accept that men get more and won’t be an equal help or support to you.
It was only in my fifties I finally really saw how this had affected my life choices.
Now I stick to cats.

Because that’s how they were trained as children. Myself included until I did therapy and a shit load of work on myself.

when I’m go on dating sites now I see a sea of damaged people. It’s really sad really

I'm going to put my controversial hat on for a minute.

I don't think love is a single emotion. Its a whole bundle of them rolled up in one. It's happiness, protectiveness, fear (of losing the other person), jealousy, wanting to care for someone, empathy, sadness (when your partner is sad), and a whole bundle more.

I think men are less capable of love than women are. Not at a genetic level or anything, but because we're taught from birth that we're not allowed to display our emotions, or at least the ones that make us "weak". So we take that on board, and as we can't show those emotions we hide them down and eventually we feel them less.

Men aren't allowed most of those emotions, we've forgotten how to feel them. Protectiveness, jealousy, we're allowed them. And most men will protect their partners when they feel they're under threat, and will get jealous if they think their partners are looking elsewhere.

But empathy, being caring, nope, we've lost those skills. We're allowed to do happy, as long as it's not happy. And we kind of get fear and sadness, but mostly they come out as a kind of anger.

Which finally and belatedly leads me to the point of the thread. What makes you pull your weight in a relationship? What makes you get up off your arse to go load the dishwasher, when you've had a really shit day? Its love. Its the thought that if you don't do it, your partner will have to, and they've probably had just as much of a shit day as you have.

And on the flipside, what makes women stay in relationships with lazy partners, with crappy partners? Again it's love. Its an overwhelming all encompassing emotion that blinds them to the fact that the person they love is taking them for a ride.

Love - women feel to much of it, and men don't feel it enough.

One thing to remember is, what person sees as low bar.

Personally I wouldn’t care (I’m single, but if I was in a relationship) about getting a weekend away, cause I’m a homebody, so that is not something I would notice at all.

But I don’t understand why any woman would be with a man (or a woman) who watches porn (name me anything that is more misogynystic), go to strip clubs, paid for sex. A sex pest. Or every ’joke’ has to be sexual.
Or one that drinks a lot, spends next day being hungover. Isin’t romantic….
List goes on.
BUT!
Just reading MN, many women don’t mind. At all.
Coudn’t be me.

But it’s never going to end.
Just look at fashion, make-up and plastic surgery /beauty industry.
So many women are bending over backwards trying to please the male gaze.
Don’t give bs how they do it for themselves.

Woman’s worth is still: looks, youth, complicity, having a man and his baby.
This is coming from both, men and women.

Single and/or childfree women still get a lot of flack.
It’s a taboo not to bother with men.

It’s going to take generations to stop, if it ever happens at all.

Aren’t men and women just different. In the wild men rarely stay with one woman. We just don’t see things the same. It’s all got a bit lost.

Because our society is built around couples and families. That is the standard model. It is actually very hard, socially, financially etc to be single long-term and not conform. You are the exception to the rule.

This.
It takes a truly strong person to be single for long time. Or for life.
It’s very lonely and hard.
I bet there is very few people, men or women, who have done this.

I’m not going to fault anyone for wanting a relationship.
No matter what their standards happen to be.

Thanks for your reply, I agree with your perspective completely actually. When I say 50:50 I mean there is equality with essentially the opportunity to’ live their life’. So I mean 50:50 with ‘free’ time. So maybe one person does more childcare, the other person works more etc but they both sit down at the same time at the end of the day. If one person has a child free weekend away the other person gets a weekend to do as they choose too- fine they might be a homebody and stay home but that is their choice, they’re not forced into it.

Also just to add, maybe I shouldn’t have brought my own situation into this discussion but I am in no way saying I am in a perfect relationship, we nearly split up last year because we were struggling with resolving conflicts. I just meant that I couldn’t see either of us thinking it was ok to let the other person ‘do everything’. I’m not very eloquent and might not be making sense here!

Ive been single for years and im staying single.
Some people dont like to be alone some dont like to be single for to long.
But i believe when you are truly happy on your own you know what you really want.
Because your in no rush to find mr right.

It's not just partners. I've read many posts on MN where women are treated like dirt by adult offspring, who also refuse to pay for their keep and/or refuse to contribute to the household in any way. Yet they accept it.

Ive been single for years im not lonely and its not hard either i dont miss out on anything.
Not everyone wants a relationship and not everyone goes looking for one.
I find it much easier not wanting a relationship.
Less stress.

Absolutely. I’ve been single a few years now and I’m happy with my life. To meet anyone now they would have to add something to what I’ve already got otherwise I’m not interested. And all of my single friends feel the same. It’s not lonely, it’s not hard and it’s much better than being in a crap relationship.

Being single has really shown me what I do and don’t want out of life. Even if I met my perfect match tomorrow, I’d never live with anyone again. My own space, having my own life and not answering to anyone is priceless.

I have great friends, a brilliant social life and go on several holidays with mates a year - why would give that up for a low effort half arsed bloke?

It's very sad to see, I agree. I wish women had more pride and self-respect in these situations