Women and useless men

[Bumpitybumper]

I am always so perplexed reading threads on MN about relationships where these absolute waste of space men seem to be able to avoid doing their fair share of the domestic/childcare work despite working similar hours to their partners and also manage to escape being burdened by any of the mental load associated with running a household. Then we also have the threads where a couple has split and the father maintains the bare minimum or no contact with the kids and child maintenance is often unpaid. In all these scenarios women are disadvantaged by the actions of these men. Also where there are kids involved it just seems that the behaviours modled by these men are seen as normal and then get entrenched in the attitudes of the next generation and their view of what is acceptable.

Of course this problem is one that relates to male behaviour so men have the responsibility and are best placed to tackle it, but I can't help but feel that they lack an incentive to do so as ultimately they aren't detrimented by this. So what can women do to be a catalyst for change? When thinking about what women could do I thought of the following:

1. Mothers should educate their children about equality, fairness and respect in a relationship, and not blindly support their offspring if their behaviour does not meet these standards. (obviously fathers should do this too but just focusing on women got the purposes of this list)
2. Women should tackle inequality early in relationships in regards to the division of domestic duties. It's much easier to sort these things out early before kids arrive and add yet more work. If the man won't pull their weight, the woman should be prepared to leave (see point three below).
3. Women have to be prepared to leave relationships that are unequal and unfair. Too often women stay because they love their DP but their DP doesn't love them enough to pull their weight.
4. Women should shun men that do not support their kids adequately. There shouldn't be an option to just move on and start again with another woman.

Has anybody got any other ideas of what women could do that could have some impact? Am I being super naive to even think the points above could work?

I agree. Why would I want a man who I would have to look after like his mothet? If I wanted a child I’d have one.

Yes good point @expatinscotland - I looked into both when I was single. The anonymous sperm donors abroad were a lot more appealing than doing it here and you can browse online!

There's also platonic co-parenting sites.

I guess that's the only way for women to truly take the control from these men as like PP have said, lots of women have a biological urge to have babies and women can make poor decisions about the man they choose to do this with especially if they feel they are running out of time.

I do think having kids with a useless man is a bit of a trap for lots of women. It often diminishes your health, career prospects and consequently financial security, self esteem (post baby bodies, lack of time to spend on personal grooming etc), social circle and opportunities to focus on oneself. This combined with the desire to avoid the guilt many associate with 'breaking up the family' and you can see why so many women are stuck enabling these useless men.

'I do think having kids with a useless man is a bit of a trap for lots of women. It often diminishes your health, career prospects and consequently financial security, self esteem (post baby bodies, lack of time to spend on personal grooming etc), social circle and opportunities to focus on oneself. This combined with the desire to avoid the guilt many associate with 'breaking up the family' and you can see why so many women are stuck enabling these useless men.'

Oh, definitely! Baby fever has a lot to answer for, especially if you are running out of time. This is why you get people who say, 'He doesn't want to get married. But I'm traditional and we have 2 kids.' Or they post about a useless arse of a man and then reveal themselves pregnant with no. 2 or more. As long as you realise that this is who he is, he will not change and he is nothing but a glorified sperm donor.

It'd be far better, however, to have a smashing career you've built up and be able to dispense with a useless arse altogether.

As a single mother of two DC who left an abusive relationship, these men do not come with flags on their forehead. It is NOT the fault of individual women. If you read Evan Starks ‘Coercive Control: how men entrap women in personal life’ (2007), it argues that domestic abuse is part of a spectrum of controlling behaviour which is socially condoned and historically determined. You need to unpick the whole societal and economic dynamics of power and sex-based inequality to get to the ‘why’s’ of useless men and women who put up with them. These are the conditions in which abuse develops.

That is before you even consider what is sold as ‘romantic’ traditionally.

If you have not time to read Stark, look up Biderman’s Chart of Coercion. The abuser learns over time, intimately, how and what makes a woman pick up the slack and put up with the shit. Not all men are abusers, but Stark’s argument is that lack of equality in the home minimises the time women have to participate in the public sphere, it denies them full autonomy. Those are the conditions for abuse, but they are also the reality of many women’s lives.

At a population level, women are paid less, do part-time work and then if they leave, are poorer, stigmatised and have most of the domestic work still and less money.

Then if there is abuse, you also need to think about how hard it is to leave a controlling man. The woman’s need to leave is in tension with family court processes which prioritise child contact with dad even in abusive situations. Abuse can and does continue through the courts; women want to protect their children. Women know this. I left over five years ago, matters are still not settled.

Everyone surely gets married thinking that their marriage will be happy and what they want. These women are not stupid doormats. Men don’t rock up on the first date saying ‘useless’ (most of them). Please don’t pick it apart as ‘esteem issues’ and blame the women in question and how they could have made better choices. Think about why society (and men) think it is okay to perpetuate inequality in work, leisure time and the home. Educate sons and daughters, men and women. Read Evan Stark

There is a risk of being judgemental about women in bad relationships - but yes- teaching your daughters how to spot the sexist losers before they marry/breed with them is sound advice.

Maybe we need to tell daughters about adopting as a single parent as well then - all the benefits of a child and none of the disadvantages of a man child

And you (general you) wonder why feminism gets a bad name.

Well said Katara

Katara thanks for your post. You raise some interesting points about abusive relationships and I have looked up a few of the sources you have references which I was previously unaware of.

I think your point about not presuming women who end up in these relationships are stupid is valid and important. However I do notice that there are some women that tend to get involved with these useless (not necessarily abusive) men time and time again. I do think that there is an issue with these women that is related to self esteem and low expectations that helps explain why this keeps happening.

It is NOT the fault of individual women

Do women ever take responsibility for their lives?

I suppose the advice to use a sperm donor or adopt as a single parent is at least encouraging postive action rather than just going along with the idea life just happens and it is likely to be awful.

I am not saying it is a question of abdicating responsibility Lass, but that the factors which perpetuate inequality in relationships go beyond the individual.

The point is that people go into relationships, marriage, parenthood with the exact opposite view of ‘it is likely to be awful’. Most women go into relationships thinking women have equality and their relationship will reflect it. The inequality in most relationships develops really more obviously when children come along. But women are brought up to think we have equality, and the reality is a shock, because that is when salaries get more uneven, leisure time gets uneven, and if there is abuse, it gets worse (or starts).

There is then a disconnect between a society that says women are equal citizens and the reality of one’s life. And so it becomes harder to speak of one’s life because you think you are doing something wrong. Because generally you love your husband or partner, so it is hard to believe your goodwill is being exploited and he is not supporting you. Because you both believe in equality, he says so. And the disparity between expectations and popular beliefs, what is being said and the reality of your life grows.

The point is precisely that I did not believe it was likely to be awful, that I believed we were equal, that we were intellectually and practically on the same page, because that is what he told me, and -until we had children - what I saw. And then I believed I could fix it (taking responsibility). I tried everything I could to fix it, even though people have said ‘why on Earth did you stay?’

So what is responsibility? Is it trying to get equality in a marriage with someone you love, who talks the talk but increasingly does not walk the walk? Or is it realising that you are in an abusive relationship and there is nothing you can do, because it is not your problem to fix - and leaving - which means admitting that your relationship, your choice falls short? In a society which says women are equal and these problems went out with the 1950s?

The third paragraph of your last post @Katara is really powerful.

It is shocking how many women think there is no inequality despite/until suffering from it. It's why so many fail to protect themselves, their earning potential and their security. We need to teach our daughters that despite the progress that has been made the inequality is still going strong and that you need to guard against it.

I think when it comes to abusers and deceivers the ability to detect deceptions is fucking hard. Even if you are a natural at it AND have had deception training you're only a handful of a percent more accurate than random chance, so yes I think abuse victims deserve a pass.

When it comes to messy, lazy man-children I think it's a lot more obvious. One thing I think is worth pointing out is that considering the narrower window of fertility women have relative to men, the message of playing the field like men can in your teens and twenties accrues with it a cost. I'm not saying don't do it, or that it not desirable, but simply to highlight the risk.

If you think you are really going to want children then you need to plan to have a few LTR where you can try out living together make sure you have a solid good man, and give some space for some cock-ups and re-calibrations of the arsehole detector!

Way too many women kind of sleep walk into their 30s assuming a quality man will jump out of the woodwork at precisely the right time, and when they don't panic sets in and standards are temporarily lowered, once the immediate panic is removed once children manifest the realisation that they have married a dud hits them like a tonne of bricks.

I think as outlined above hit your career hard and adopt then if the time comes there is resources to provide for a child if the right man fails to appear. Basically have a plan b!

But adoption isn't for everyone and lots of women would like to experience having their own biological child. I think sperm donation could work for some, but again isn't for everyone as it means that women are pretty much guaranteed to be single parents for at least some of their child's life which is notoriously hard. I don't think there is anything wrong with aspiring to have children with a partner, but it's hard to get away from the pitfalls highlighted when we have such a finite fertile window and useless men can be skilled at manipulation and hiding their true colours.

I agree with ClareB83 about educating women especially that although equality is the ideal and what society should be striving to achieve, we definitely aren't there yet. I think there needs to be some way to drive home to women how having children affects the dynamics of a relationship and can make women more vulnerable. Also educating women about ways to spot a useless (and potentially abusive man) early on so they know the red flags. A PP said about rhetoric that they tend to use 'i'm a traditional man' etc or asking what is their signature dish. Also in their current living arrangement do they currently do the housework and to what standard? All of these things could be early clues about what kind of man you are dating.

Also more emphasis needs to be placed the statistics around inequality at home as well as in the workplace as the two are intrinsically linked and both need to be tackled aggressively to make any headway.

Finally, Katara's posts have made me wonder where the line between 'useless' and abusive actually is. Often a man abuses his position in the relationship and the power dynamic to become useless but I'm not sure that would meet people's definition of abusive per se?

My stepmother is like this. My dad is anal about tidyness and cleanliness and perfectly capable of maintaining a household, and did so between my mother passing away and getting remarried, but nowadays she scolds him if he so much as picks up a duster, and both of them seem to find this somehow adorable. Makes me want to vomit.

She also pretends that she doesn't know how to fix very basic things that go wrong with her car, put up shelves, etc, so he can then do the manly things that men are meant to do. It's ridiculous, but I could deal with it if she didn't keep trying to impose this arrangement on me. My DH was raised by a single mother from an early age and is more tidy than me, and I'm a lazy bugger who's quite happy to live in a messy (thought not filthy) house. Does stepmother care? She does not, and I've had to tell dad to just not pass on any of her thoughts about how my domestic life ought to function for the sake of our parent/child relationship.

So yeah, apparently some women like it. Internalized sexism, innit? Those threads on AIBU drive me nuts too. No, the fact that your partner refuses to pick up his dirty socks or put the rubbish in the bin is not cute, it's infantile and sexist.

Thing OP misses is many women don't choose lazy arses (of course, some definitely do). The men turn into lazy arses.

I had a lovely sharey relationship. Alternate days of cleaning, meal prep, washing and so on. Got married, had kids. Now all housework is mine: all things into mouth and out of bum, dirty clothes, plates, house, all things school related (all homework, packing bags, drop-offs, teacher meetings), all illnesses, vaccinations, trips, holidays, birthdays and Christmas is my sole responsibility. I could go on. But I just wanted to say I DIDN'T CHOOSE THIS, and I don't think many women do. I wasn't ignorant or lacking in education. I thought I'd chosen a man not like those other men. And getting out of said marriage isn't as simple as walking out the door. Sorry, but I think OP's post smacks of naivety.

Also I've lost a lot of respect for dad due to his apparent eagerness to participate in this nonsense. My mum did her best to socialize him out of it, but apparently it doesn't take long to revert.

A lot of these behaviours are initiated or increased after children. I feel that parental leave and childcare is one place where policy could really help. If men had (or were at least able to!) to take paternity leave, and if more women were able to go back to work, I feel less couples would experience such ridiculous inequality.

I am talking here from my own class and education point of view, of course, and that limits the scope of my comments. My experience is about professional women martied to professional men, who are reasonably emancipated and were reasonably equal before babies, only to turn into Stepford wives after babies.

Bumpitybumper I was reflecting on that point myself - I am talking about abuse and the thread is about useless. My first co-habiting relationship was with a lovely, funny, but domestically useless man. He drove me to distraction in the end, and basically his parents always stepped in to do stuff for him. You could argue that is just close family and his family had quite traditional ideas which I did not fit. We had our arguments and in the end he found someone to take care of him, if that makes sense, and the parents are still there helping out.

But I can talk to him without being triggered and I do not feel abused by him. We had different goals and needs in life. However, he did exploit my domestic labour to continue to live in his bubble of not worrying about things.

Paradoxically, xH (the abuser) was extremely self-sufficient and competent with things and that is why I thought he would be a better bet

So my conclusion on reflection was that my criteria for non-useless led me to extremely efficient sociopath. And I was not brought up to spot them! Whereas now, if you watch Frozen, Prinz Hans is the sociopath.

However, I also think my xH knew how to exploit society’s ideas of what a woman should be and do (domestically) and the idea of the good mother - which are the same ideas which let my first xP be useless, if that makes sense. But xH did it to undermine me and exert power, to make sure I was always busy and had no time for other things, he would make comments if I wanted to do different things and punish me in various ways. Whereas cohabiting man, while outwardly useless, would not bat an eyelid when I went to the gym three times a week, or if I was not home by a certain time or went out with my friends myself. The housework would only occasionally get done in my absence if I asked, but my freedom of movement was never restricted in any way, he did not undermine me and consent was always fully respected - mostly I remember him as fun. I don’t feel traumatised still by him.

But I think the point is that the same societal power imbalance and sex-based expectations underpin both experiences. And with relationship 1, I arguably started off with the idea that cleaning the house was my job because I had a routine from my previous flat of when and how to do it, whereas it was his first time living alone.

I don’t want this thread to become about my experiences, just reflecting on it - xP was benignly useless in the definition of the OP, xH was not, but both operated and used (maliciously or not) society’s traditional ideas of a woman’s place as wife and mother, which is based on inequality.

Katara, you make some good points but I don't think this is the whole story. There are definitely women who actively go ahead and procreate with men they already know aren't pulling their weight. There is an issue with low expectations for at least some women.

One of the things I've seen on here several times is a woman angsting about having a first child with her partner and describing him as always having been very selfish. Can someone explain that one to me, please?! Why would anyone even form a relationship for years, much less actively choose to have a baby with, someone they know is very selfish?

For me, the best education was growing up in that kind of household. I was determined that I'd never be with a man like that (although did end up with with a narcissistic abusive that in my early 20s).

I do think a lot depends on what the norm is around you. I rarely pick my kids up from school, but it's an eye opener when I do. I assume modern men will be like my ds, but apparently not. A lot of the women round here seem to just accept the idea that, while their men are capable of building planes or fixing cars or other industrial type things, they don't need to do anything at home.

Flytipper I agree that other than a few exceptions highlighted on this thread (often women that like to feel needed) few women would consciously choose useless men. However I don't subscribe to the theory that it completely comes down to luck and every man has an equal chance of becoming 'useless' once kids come along. I think like Biderman's Chart of coercion captures for abusive relationships, there will be common indicators and behaviours related to useless men that women could potentially spot prior to getting past to their point of no return. I do also think these signs may be incredibly subtle and difficult for the untrained eye to spot hence the need for education and understanding.

Katara yes I agree with your distinction between abusive and useless. I definitely think there are some hybrid relationships though as I see a lot of threads on MN that divide posters as to whether the behaviour is abusive or just not ideal (useless).

This thread has been wonderful and painful for me. I'm fresh out of a nine year relationship with a useless man. I'm a 'strong woman', and pretty canny, but I didn't see the signs. I was 22 when we met, and although he lived with his mother (red flag??) at the time, he had his own business and yes, he 'believes in equality' and is a NICE guy who would never knock me around or abuse me. In fact he was very permissive, not at all jealous or controlling.

Over the next nine years, during which time we married and bred, the business went nowhere. It was always prioritised though, so I ended up doing all household stuff and working part time to support us after I had child. He contributed nothing financially so tax credits and my work were what kept us afloat. i also tried to help with his business in a desperate attempt to make it better, so in effect doing about 4 different jobs round the clock!?

The housework was tricky for me. He's one of those where he WILL do it, but only if you specifically asked him to. That irritated me - its as much work to have to think of everything that needs doing it, tell someone and check it's been done etc etc - not what i want. I tried going on strike, testing how far he would let things go before being triggered to clean etc. - we have one of those teabag holders, I stopped emptying it...you wouldnt believe the ridiculous height the intricate stack of teabags got to, it amused AND infuriated me. It must have taken far longer to artfully stack another bag on than it would have been to just empty it? Was he doing it out of stubborness, or did he really not see how stupid it was? I dunno. Just a small example of how far things could potentially go - social services would confiscate our child!?

It was only once I had my daughter that it hit me - I now have to earn MORE money, but have much less time to do it in. I re-assessed how far this 'business' had come and redoubled my efforts to kickstart it. 4/5yrs later, I realised finally that my husband was actually working against, not with me. Why would he want to expand his business? he'd have more work to do! Why change a thing when he had a chef, a nanny and a wh0re all rolled into one, who went out and earnt the money aswell!!? and he did it all by just basically doing nothing, being completely passive and 'a nice guy'.

Now I feel amazingly stupid :( I don't know what the answer is if someone like me can be duped lol. I will definitely spell out the consequences of children to my daughter in financial terms to pre-warn her.

Tutuye you are not stupid at all, and I don’t think your experience is that unusual. It’s the myth that if you just do that one more thing, or find the right way to communicate, then he will ‘get it’. So you keep trying because of what you believe a relationship is, which is not stupid, it is really not. Stupid is not stepping up, so the woman who was prepared to sacrifice an awful lot in the end walks away. Please do not beat yourself up, because I figure you are early thirties, which means you have SO much of your life ahead of you, and leaving is like opening a door to possibilities, which would otherwise have remained closed. It’s hard, it is probably not what you imagined, but at the very least, you don’t have to negotiate the tea bag mountain any more.

QueenAvaris the other side of the question is why do these men think it is okay to be selfish? I agree that women should have strong boundaries and recognise when they are being taken advantage of (my boundaries were poor), but equally men should not exploit women.

Bluntly put, let’s assume an equal sex ratio of people wanting to find partners. If there are only a few good men (for argument’s sake, I know there are more than a few), then women have to stay single or ‘settle’ if they don’t happen to meet one of those good men. In the past, women would have stayed through social pressure and lack of financial autonomy.

I don’t know what the answer is, a successful marriage is a mystery to me. Maybe the answer is for men as a class to take some responsibility for their behaviour to women, instead of women taking on that burden to solve?

Yyyy ^^ to everything posted by Katara