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

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[quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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