Advice for how to vet your DH’s potential as a future father/partner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the PP that not everything is as straightforward. You never know if the person who had to work for everything to pay for college will feel strongly that they don’t want that for their own kids or feel the need to make up for what they didn’t have. Meanwhile someone that grew up secure in money could have learned good financial practices and had parents that made sure their the kids still understood the value of money.

The key is that you are both being willing to talk about how you felt about it (it was great or no, want to do this differently). Also being able to communicate and listen if you don’t naturally align while not being critical of the other person’s upbringing. I’ve been fortunate my DH and I have a lot of similar values and I get along well with my in-laws. Even with that we had to navigate different habits/communications we hold from our family of origin and find compromises that are not 100% what he grew up and not 100% how I grew up. As cliche as it sounds, communication (both listening and ability to reflect and articulate your thoughts), flexibility and thoughtfulness are probably better indicators than a specific way we grew up.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I had it to do again, I would more closely examine my potential FIL's attitude towards fatherhood, housework, and his wife. I too easily dismissed red flags from his behavior because my DH expressed disagreement with and said he wanted to be a different kind of husband and father.

When you have kids, it can be stressful, and there is a tendency to revert to what is familiar. If that's a father who withdraws, never takes initiative, and expects his wife to "mother" him the same way she mothers the kids, then even if your DH is working against that example, there will be times when that's what he does.

My DH does better than his dad did. But his dad was a misogynist who believed a father's role was discipline and nothing else, and that men had no obligations to a household other than working, even if their wives worked. So the bar was extremely low. If I did it again, I'd look for a man whose father raised that bar up off the floor, at least. I'd look for someone with a family dynamic where no one freeloads and everyone contributes, and where people know how to communicate (beyond my FIL, many of the men in my DH's family expect to be cared for by women, whether their wives or their mothers or whoever is around, simply by virtue of being men).

I made a mistake in thinking someone could totally reject their socialization.

The bolded is most men in the world. While the world is rapidly changing, most middle aged people were raised in a very male oriented community. If you were fine being a single parent by choice, your strategy would be fine because you would have been looking for a long time for that man from a progressive family.

There are many men( not enough unfortunately) socialized like you explain who turn out to be much better fathers and husbands. These men are not perfect, because, as you rightly observed, these socialization will rear its ugly head in hard times. However these men are still worth marrying and pooling resources with to raise children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other threads today have me thinking. One person said that you know the kind of partner and father your DH will be based on how their father was when they were growing up. But if you didn’t grow up in the same town, how can you know?

No, not how DH grew up, how DH’s father behaves NOW. That is the future of your DH. Is the dad a grumpy, stingy misanthrope? That’s dh’s future. Is the dad happy and a good partner? Then DH will be too. Is the dad financially responsible and stable? Then most likely DH will be too.

OP and the “now” question is a good one.

And it brings me to a major red flag that I’m not sure how I should have managed: from the day I met him, FIL had dementia and it progressed quickly. So he was just not there, even when he was physically present.

In hindsight, was he always like that, even before dementia? Probably. But I didn’t have any way to truly know and it made sense to assume that it was the dementia that sidelined him, not his own choices. I do think that FIL was just as self-sidelined and uninvolved pre-dementia as he was after it developed. But again, hard to look back and know and hard to investigate at the time.

I think I created a really hopeless thread. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

OP you married wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you married wrong.

OP here and well yeah, no kidding. But I’m trying to understand how others could avoid this and what advice I might give to DD one day.

[Anonymous]

I think you are trying to overlay control on a situation where we have much less control than we think. You do not know what the future holds, and how people change. In our dating years, my DH was great when I was sick, he took care of me. Not so much now that we are married. Just one example. Life has done a number on him, changing many things about his personality that I thought were core. People change in unpredictable ways.

As I’ve been thinking about this myself, the one thing that I keep coming back to, and that I worried a little bit about at the time, is that he’d never experienced any true challenges in life. He was born on third base, so to speak. I, on the other hand, had experienced many challenges. I do think that because he had led such a charmed life, he wasn’t prepared for challenges that we faced when they did come up. It’s like he was a fish out of water, thinking these things don’t happen to me and exhibiting sheer confusion when they did, whereas I almost expected them. However, I don’t think it would’ve been a good strategy for me to have gone looking for someone who had experienced deep trauma in their childhood or young adult years either.

You do the best you can and hope for the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you married wrong.

OP here and well yeah, no kidding. But I’m trying to understand how others could avoid this and what advice I might give to DD one day.

The advice I would give is that your partner will never have more strengths or grow to be more amazing than at the point when you marry them. Everyone is likely to discover more flaws as they go along. So the foundation must be solid with no doubts going into the marriage.

I really don't think you can draw firm conclusions from family of origin issues. Many people reject their parents' values and try to model the exact opposite.

Thinking across 35+ years of marriage, the one thing that bothers me now that I could have learned from is that my husband is not handy and his father felt that way about him too. I am handy and so are my in-laws. Due to the work of running a household, this actually has become a huge issue. All the positives I saw are still there.

Speaking honestly, there are things one could have learned about my family that might have given a DH pause. But I was still a catch.

I think later marriage and shared agreements about kid timing can help. Neither me nor my husband can say that we didn't do what we wanted with our lives and careers because of anything related to spouse or family. There are issues but none related to one person clipping another's wings.

I, the DW, also take more after my father for good and bad, so predicting I would "become my mother" would have been faulty analysis at the young age when we met (college).

I think children of divorce draw their own highly personal conclusions and parents cannot totally influence what the kids conclude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you married wrong.

OP here and well yeah, no kidding. But I’m trying to understand how others could avoid this and what advice I might give to DD one day.

Not sure how old your daughter is but she will likely form her own ideas of what she wants and doesn’t want in a relationship. I tend to have more indirect discussions about dating when we watch reality dating shows and either hypothetical situations (from DCUM - what if) or things they’ve observed with friends. I’m more so want to hear their opinion than give advice and so far it seems they have a good head on their shoulders. I believe it’s more about being able to navigate any relationship (including friendships) and having good self esteem, boundaries and communication with discernment about actions matching words and recognizing unsafe/controlling behaviors than to give specifics about the guy’s parents etc.

[Anonymous]

My dh had a chaotic childhood and a limited model of fatherhood but I knew he'd be a good father because he was so caring and kind and he has been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you married wrong.

OP here and well yeah, no kidding. But I’m trying to understand how others could avoid this and what advice I might give to DD one day.

Like the other poster said, dd will form her own conclusions based on her observations of the relationships around her. She will have a good chance to make better choices.

[Anonymous]

This is old advice but it’s often true for how he will be in conscious and subconscious ways: How does a man treat his mother ? How did he see his father treat his mother? Was his father an involved and positive influence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is old advice but it’s often true for how he will be in conscious and subconscious ways: How does a man treat his mother ? How did he see his father treat his mother? Was his father an involved and positive influence?

Meh, not in my case. His mother was a batty b-tch and dh did his best to avoid engaging with her without completely cutting her off and while still trying to give the illusion of a functional happy relationship with her. His dad passed when he was a teen, but I gather he was a crotchety old Irish drunk who was not exactly bad to his mom but I don’t hear many redeeming warm stories either.

Dh however is about the most kind empathetic caring father and husband that could be imagined.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, in retrospect, I'd say the #1 thing to look for is - have they spent significant amount of time (I'm talking HUNDREDS of hours) around kids and families. Not the niece they see three times a year on holidays and are "nice" to, I mean are they around families on a weekly basis and in their homes helping out with the kids doing the grunt work.

Most men have zero idea what it takes to raise kids. I remember talking to a single guy recently who had all these massive plans for marrying a woman he would start a business and travel the world with. When I asked who would be raising the kids while they did all that, he admitted he never really thought about that and had zero idea. He thought the kids would just run around the house while he and mom worked (yea, no).

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the men I've known who *have* spent that much time around kids ended up deciding they didn't want their own, after being faced with the reality of how much a time, energy, and money suck they are. They're much happier being fun uncles.

[Anonymous]

Check for mental disorders amongst his family members.
Anyone chronically unemployed, still needing Mom to pay their bills or taxes on time, living at home indefinitely, can’t plan a trip or budget, etc. are all possible indicators of a bigger underlying issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I had it to do again, I would more closely examine my potential FIL's attitude towards fatherhood, housework, and his wife. I too easily dismissed red flags from his behavior because my DH expressed disagreement with and said he wanted to be a different kind of husband and father.

When you have kids, it can be stressful, and there is a tendency to revert to what is familiar. If that's a father who withdraws, never takes initiative, and expects his wife to "mother" him the same way she mothers the kids, then even if your DH is working against that example, there will be times when that's what he does.

My DH does better than his dad did. But his dad was a misogynist who believed a father's role was discipline and nothing else, and that men had no obligations to a household other than working, even if their wives worked. So the bar was extremely low. If I did it again, I'd look for a man whose father raised that bar up off the floor, at least. I'd look for someone with a family dynamic where no one freeloads and everyone contributes, and where people know how to communicate (beyond my FIL, many of the men in my DH's family expect to be cared for by women, whether their wives or their mothers or whoever is around, simply by virtue of being men).

I made a mistake in thinking someone could totally reject their socialization.

The bolded is most men in the world. While the world is rapidly changing, most middle aged people were raised in a very male oriented community. If you were fine being a single parent by choice, your strategy would be fine because you would have been looking for a long time for that man from a progressive family.

There are many men( not enough unfortunately) socialized like you explain who turn out to be much better fathers and husbands. These men are not perfect, because, as you rightly observed, these socialization will rear its ugly head in hard times. However these men are still worth marrying and pooling resources with to raise children.

Not sure what you mean by “raised in a male oriented community,” unless you mean very very little was expected from a father or son in regards to maintaining the household, schedule or traditions. Beyond a paycheck and pat on the head.