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!

I mean it’s not a good thing by anyone’s standards to have lots of step and half siblings is it?

If you all think your brother has ADHD, why have you not encouraged him to seek help and a diagnosis?

I never said I think he has ADHD?

Referring to your DB child and those of his previous partners as ‘baggage’ makes me sad. You don’t sound like a particularly nice person.

I don’t see what is “chaotic” about having children from a previous relationship and renting a home? If you’d said they were drug-addicted strippers you might have a point. My children have different fathers, and I can assure you that there is absolutely nothing chaotic about me. I’m quite boring.

It's not the women @BakersKitchen.

It's your DB playing out his Prince Charming complex and creating a Drama Triangle where he repeatedly sets himself up as rescuer of women and children, knowing his version of victimhood will protect him when it all goes to shit.🤷‍♀️

The sad thing is he's playing with the real lives of his partners, the children, you and his parents.😔 Meanwhile you all scrabble around to put blame onto one another.🙄

Your brother is the one who brings more baggage than anyone else.🫤

Indeed. I own my home but that doesn't make me more or less chaotic than someone who rents. It's pure good fortune (a chunk of inheritance and being of an age that meant it wasn't so tricky to buy ) that means I own rather than rent

Some of the best most stable parents I know rent their homes and are single parents.

Meanwhile I know quite a few very MC sahms who are out drinking heavily every weekend and constantly heading off on weekends away, while their darling husband heads away most weeks work conferences and screws his colleagues

👏👏👏

So I'm from a WC background. Many here know I've been to prison, and have family members who have. So you, OP, would probably think the same about me or several of my female relatives if we dated your brother. Though most of us lack the chaos in our personal lives that you describe.

I will say that chaos is definitely more prevalent in people like us, than people like you given that you self identify as being different to the women he dates.

What I can tell you is why some men from the higher socio-economic classes seem to have a penchant for women like us. Now some of it is indeed problematic stereotypes they apply to all women they believe come from a certain background, so they don't always apply to everyone, and nor are they exclusive to women from the lower classes.

Either way, they say that we are:

• more resilient

• more content with traditional gender roles

• more sexually adventurous

• less bitter towards men generally

• more tolerant of imperfection/"baggage"

• happier to accept and respect their parenting views.

Again, a lot of why they believe this is problematic in various ways; where it is true, it is often more indicative of powerlessness that empowerment. But swings and roundabouts.

If he's divorced with a child and a step child then he had lots of baggage himself. Though I don't like to call children baggage.

This with bells on. I know so many people who have done all the "right" things and are desperately unhappy and dysfunctional but they have stayed married and not had kids with more than one person. Maybe open your mind a bit and you might be able to see that people who split up, get divorced and, shock horror, have children to different men! Can actually be decent people. People who have the veneer of middle class respectability can be some of the most hypocritical and nasty people I've ever met.

Because it's a myth that any family is nice and normal all the time. We're all a bit chaotic and dysfunctional in overt or covert ways. Often in families that try to present a perfect image it's really common to have one member who is ill or "troubled" so that the rest of the family can continue to say they are perfect and the scapegoat member is the problem. Open your mind OP and try to have a bit of humility and compassion.

Why not?

Hear hear.

Are you just being facetious at this point?

Nobody grows up thinking - when I’m older I want to have different children by different fathers and introduce several different step siblings and coparenting relationships into our lives. It’s too complicated.

If people have nothing helpful to say then they can just scroll on by honestly

It's a genuine question. It's incredibly naive to think if parents stay together all will be perfect in the family and between siblings. Blended families and single parent families can raise happy healthy children with good sibling relationships and the opposite can be true for "nice, normal, middle class families" too. Your views are quite frankly deeply offensive and bigoted.

Some of the most toxic and chaotic set ups I know of have been "respectable middle class" nuclear families

• the ones ruled by a domineering /abusive tyrant and the kids have to watch one parent because constantly squashed by the other parent
• the ones where the dad is having constant affairs but the sahm can't afford to leave him so she just tolerates it and becomes a shell of herself
• the ones where the parents are career obsessed and don't really spend time with their children /regularly relocate for work
• the ones where the parents but their social lives first and are always out drinking or going on weekends away

I can't believe that Hyacinth Bucket actually walks among us.

He is the common denominator isn’t he?

“I wonder if they see him as a meal ticket?” Bloody hell OP. Watch your outrageous internalised misogyny and classism there!

I really don’t see how the point you are making is relevant. Absolutely none of that applies to my family or the current situation I am concerned about.

@BakersKitchen

Did he ask for your opinion on the subject?
I find it fascinating when families feel the need to vet prospective partners.

I also wonder what is happening in a family that demands a partner is as they are. If only she was like me, then she would be suitable!

Does this impact to you practically? If not, then zipping one's lips may be a good start. We do have the choice of not speaking our minds.

I wish you, he, and them peace

I find that hard to believe. If these women were single mothers in mansions I think you’d feel differently

So you’re “nice and normal” but any woman who isn’t still in a relationship with the father(s) of her children, and has the misfortune to be on a low income and therefore claiming the benefits to which she is entitled, to allow her and her children to survive is “chaotic and looking for drama”.

With all due respect, you have no idea what these women are looking for in a relationship but if they’re anything like every single mum I know, it’s love, companionship and a man who will make them feel like they’re a woman and not just a mum again.

Your brother’s income probably doesn’t come into it at all so you can stand down with your whole “gold digger” narrative. If anything, unless/until they actually marry him, these women would be worse off living with him as they would lose their UC payments, so don’t worry that they’re after his money. Having been in their situation they will want as little drama as possible and probably just want a nice man to go for dinner with and have the occasional shag when their kids are visiting their dad!

You seem very judgey and enmeshed with your brother. Just because you and your other relatives are still married it doesn’t make you superior or mean you made better choices. Life has a way of throwing shit at you when you least expect it so maybe just hold onto the notion “there but for the grace of God go I”.

“A normal, uncomplicated, middle class family “.

Now there’s a phrase! They don’t exist, of course.