"My Peter Pan husband is growing up at last"

[BlingLoving]

This article had me shaking my head in absolute horror. I think it's supposed to be a "good news" piece - ie the man stepped up at the end and haha, he only forgot one of his children instead of three.

But it's not funny. It's just sad. She's got three children and spent eight years with this man and he's only now "Growing up".

What does an article like this say about or society? To me it just continues to encourage men to feel it's okay to behave like children while making women think this is normal and they should be "grateful" for whatever "help" they get. I despair.

I read this article and hated it for all the reasons already metioned. However, there is another aspect to this story which I also noticed and that is the fact that the husband's drinking was clearly very important to him. The fact that he seems to have a serious alcohol problem which is being dismissed as "Peter Pan" antics means that the whole family is living in denial, that help for that particular problem will not be sought and, ultimately, nothing in their domestic set-up will really change. Another example of partriarchal attitudes to men and women's responsibility roles leading to harm for the man in the situation too.

it was horrifying. Felt like grabbing her and saying 'have some self-respect!'

This article made me RAGE. The fucking knobbers deserve each other. Shame for the children though.

I agree rosabud. In denial there.

Not sure about the animosity towards the wife. It is her husband who is behaving appallingly. She has levels of cognitive dissonance and underreacts to her husbands mindblowing selfishness. But that's not unusual in an abusive relationship such as this. She on the other hand is coping with working and three young children virtually single-handedly.

Mind you she should never have taken him back once she'd chucked him out. I suspect if she'd asked MN for help at that point she wouldn't have!

So glad it wasn't just me who found it infuriating. Those poor children, with that doormat of a mother and childish twat of a father. Did you notice his input into the article? "I don't want to put all the blame for my actions at the door of genetics, but I do think that the way men and women are wired has a lot to answer for." How pathetic.

"... I do think that the way men and women are wired has a lot to answer for" This is the sort of thing that is not good for my blood pressure.

Confucius says you are answerable to your own actions when you are 30 (paraphrasing ). Stop making excuses.

The "I do think that the way men and women are wired has a lot to answer for" also infuriates me. Not least because it suggests that men have always been so irresponsible. Huh? Sure, men might not always have been quite so hands on with babies because the whole hunting/gathering thing took much longer but they had huge responsibilities for children both financially and physically. If we're going with straight genetic traints, men are as likely to take their responsibilities seriously as women. This is just an excuse to get out of the modern requirements for help with cooking and cleaning.

Thinking a guy is magically going to transform when you get married/have kids strikes me as incredibly naive. Did they live together beforehand? Surely she knew what kind of person he was.

I don't want to put all the blame for my actions at the door of genetics, but I do think that the way men and women are wired has a lot to answer for.

Stupid as well as selfish. What a catch.

What always strikes me first about these men (and call me shallow, I don't mind) is how deeply, incredibly sexually unattractive they are.

How can anyone want to actually go to bed with a man who can't function as an adult, let alone be together with them long enough to have children with them? How can any grown-up woman find that sexually attractive? The very fact that he couldn't be responsible, would just render him sexually repulsive to me - I imagine men like this as being too incompetent to put their underpants on properly and with skid marks because they can't wipe their own arses properly. I'm always astonished that other women can summon up enough desire for these incompetents, for them to ever get a shag. (OK I know they may not have skid marks in reality, but it's just the image of them being so bloody stupid that they can't function as grown adults. It's so bloody unmanly. Who fancies that FGS?)