What would make a nice man from a normal, uncomplicated, middle class family choose to keep getting involved with women with so much baggage?

[BakersKitchen]

I’m talking about my DB - of course he now has baggage himself so finding someone with zero baggage is probably out of the equation!

He is recently in another relationship, following a divorce, with a woman who has complicated circumstances. The women all have children from previous relationships (this current one has two from two different fathers and has had another cohabiting partner since). The previous one was much older and her child was the product of an affair which led to the relationship breakdown.

He also has his own child with his ex wife, who also had her own child from a previous relationship and was also much older than him. He married her extremely quickly after not having known her very long at all. He is now repenting at leisure!

All the women are on low incomes, supported by UC, living in poor quality rented accommodation or social housing. DB owns his own home and I wonder if they see him as a meal ticket although the divorce has cleared him out and his LTV is now back down to about 12%.

I can’t understand it. Why doesn’t he want to meet someone without all this drama and baggage?

We are (outside of this) a very nice normal middle class family with married parents and zero drama. My other brother, cousins, and I have all married nice, professional, university educated partners with no prior children and I’m finding myself increasingly frustrated that he keeps introducing these women and their children into our family dynamic, and then out again.

I feel desperately sorry for all children involved and extremely concerned there’s going to be another pregnancy announcement soon!

What’s the psychology here? Is it wanting to feel needed? Low self esteem? The irony is he has always been so judgemental about these sorts of situations and here he is living it!

If there is a repeated pattern of dysfunctional relationships he should go to relate and unpick his behaviours -
you can only hypothesise from the sidelines -
have u asked him what draws him to these relationships??

Well for starters you sound very judgmental!
I cant comment on his first wife, but once he became a parent himself and reached a certain age, most women he would meet would naturally come with similar "baggage".
Maybe your DB doesn't care about university educated partners or the "nice normal", middle class families you pride yourself in.

Maybe he’s not a snob like you!?

You seem to view him as being interested in a more chaotic or dysfunctional type of person than he himself is, but I would challenge that: he seems the kind of person who fully brings his own chaos and drama, so effectively it is like attracting like, he attracts/is attracted to women who are similar to him. That's who he is, so that's who his partners are too. So you need to move past this narrative of "my normal brother is attracting all these crazy women, why is that?". He's the same!

Well he always says he wants to settle down but he’s not choosing people that settling down is particularly viable with!

I agree with you tbh which is a bitter pill to swallow but I can’t understand why. We had a very nice, normal childhood with no trauma or dramatic events. Why be so chaotic?

So your "nice normal middle class" family clearly has very specific standards that you don't like to be changed or adapted to.

How many other ways has he bemused and confused the family since he was a child/teenager/young man? If you've always had issues iwth his choices and this much judgement, I can see how he might not be prioritising the same things the rest of yoru family are.

Also, with all due respect, it sounds liek the no drama thing is because everyone just does the same thing, and the thing that everyone else approves of. I'd argue that a "no drama" family is one where everyone is free to make different choices, without it causing drama.

Does be actively pursue these women or do they pursue him? Where does he meet them?

Could you introduce him to women you deem more suitable?

I’m not really sure to be honest - he has met them all IRL though not on the apps. We didn’t mind the first one - we thought oh okay well maybe it’s meant to be, it’s the repeated pattern of multiple step children and different coparenting relationships and then asking for lots of help when it all goes wrong again

Perhaps he is not as desirable as you think he is. Or yes, low self esteem. Or perhaps he is attracted to a bit of drama, some people are.
Or maybe they are lovely women who he likes and is attracted to without caring about their housing situation or income.

The ex wife definitely isn’t lovely! They have all been quite difficult people so far as well which doesn’t help.

I completely agree now that is isn’t as desirable as he was as he now also has all this baggage. I find it such a shame there was no need for it.

A friend is the same - he is living a normal life with his wife and baby and his brother has 4 kids from two women, neither of whom is he in a relationship with (although is married to one) and sees only half of them. It’s bizarre!

Also the housing situation and income is the least of our concerns - it’s all the children and baby daddies! The income thing is what makes us wonder if they are using him for a meal ticket.

You sound like a crashing snob.
Some of the most fascinating, intelligent, kind people I know have the sort of "baggage" you have detailed here.

And I can think of plenty of paint by numbers MC nuclear families with all sorts of baggage buried below the veneer of respectability

Hes thinking with his willy

I was a single mum when I met DH. He had a decent professional MC job. All the benefits I was entitled to meant I was a lot worse off when he moved in. And within 3 years I was out earning him and have continued to do so. Maybe they just want a relationship

You’re a classist snob and it would be very silly of these ladies to give up stable secure social housing for someone who owns 10% of a home lol

Low self esteem or simply desperation to be in a relationship and not prepared to wait to find someone.

Having children isn't baggage it's perfectly normal and natural. Why should every adult regardless of age remain child free so they don't look chavvy to you?

You do sound quite snobby. Like why shouldn't he date someone who lives in social housing?

How do you even know what status of housing your brother's gf lives in? It's absolutely none of your business.

Round here social housing is adored. Everyone regardless of whether they own or privately rent vote for more to be built every election. And people who have it are respected and also envied a bit as it's great.

Love the internalised misogyny here. Always the Mums to blame, never the sperm donors, who drop their trews, then run when it gets tough (or get kicked out for being an abusive arse/cheater etc). Leaving the (mostly) Mums to hold everything together, while 'certain types' look down their noses at them for doing the hardest job in the world. If absent fathers (or even present ones), so much as wipe an ar5e once, they are lauded as heroic, if a woman does it, their technique, timing, and products used are frequently criticised. Not many live this lifestyle from choice.

I was so glad to read @Moominhug post.

What you consistently refer to as nice is quite niche I think. If he hasn’t found someone within your narrowly defined niche maybe it’s because all the women who might qualify are in nice relationships already. Or maybe he finds your niche insufferably narrow minded and dull.

Unless he has some kind of neuro diversity that makes him vulnerable then I think it would be fair to say it’s none of your business. It would also be fair to say that he probably enjoyed the relationships he has had until they went awry, which is true of all relationships, including nice, niche middle class relationships.

You are an absolute judgemental snob, no wonder he wanted a different life. Someone can have the same parents and want completely different things. And the things you describe are normal life.. women with kids from different dads, UC, council houses.. all very normal life in the UK.

But it wouldn’t even have to be that narrow - just someone without all the unnecessary complication. We were all fine with the first and welcomed her and her child. Now we are onto the third one it is all wearing a bit thin

Perhaps he's not the catch you think he is.

Because the woman is willing to have sex with him.

That's all.