My ex was a dud husband. He has never been without a partner (cheated on me, and then subsequent girlfriends). Now he has found a very reasonable girlfriend who lives with him and takes care of my kids every other weekend when they visit. So, she is my co-parent. It's totally annoying to me, but better for my ex and my kids. And the girlfriend gets to play "step mom," which she seems to appreciate. She does not have her own kids.

And for the past year, I think I've been dating someone's "dud" ex-husband. My significant other has 50 percent custody. He puts a lot of effort toward parenting, but I suspect he did not during his marriage. His household is in disarray, so we spend our time at my place. I will not marry him or live with him. He does his job well, but has poor executive function outside of work. I won't take that on again, so this relationship can only advance to a certain point.

So, apparently these are the men I attract. Or settle for.

If they’re truly a dud, they latch on to the first warm body they can. Mostly so someone will take care of them and or their kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She only _thought_ I was a dud. I was a winner all along, and she was and continues to be a loser.

My income is up 40 percent, and I've slept with a couple of dozen women who are 10-30 years younger than me since the divorce.

I've made two major mistakes in life: getting married, and having children.

She was right and you just admitted it. Anyone who regrets their children IS a dud as a father and parenting partner. I doubt your ex is impressed by your sex life now, but I hope she’s keeping an eye on your bank account and taking what her kids are owed.

I am a woman and I agree with the previous poster… The biggest mistakes in my life were getting married and having children. I love my kids and I’m a great mom but these were still two of the biggest mistakes of my life. It’s simply not worth it and has derailed to the things that I really wanted to do. I am so sick of this society glorifying motherhood and parenthood. A lot of it sucks and it’s not worth the “reward” everyone espouses.

That's your problem, just like it's the PP's problem. Don't have kids expecting a magic rewards. Have kids if you want kids. And if you have kids and view it as the biggest mistake of your life, you are a dud parent, no matter your gender. I wish both of you had figured out this out earlier, before bringing kids into the world, who will now have to live with your mistakes. Selfish.

The way parenting works, you only know if you love AFTER you become a parent. It's okay to not fully enjoy the experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She only _thought_ I was a dud. I was a winner all along, and she was and continues to be a loser.

My income is up 40 percent, and I've slept with a couple of dozen women who are 10-30 years younger than me since the divorce.

I've made two major mistakes in life: getting married, and having children.

She was right and you just admitted it. Anyone who regrets their children IS a dud as a father and parenting partner. I doubt your ex is impressed by your sex life now, but I hope she’s keeping an eye on your bank account and taking what her kids are owed.

Your response is dumb and bitter. Sometimes after a divorce people are better off. Sometimes it's the ex-husband. Get over it, it happens. If sex with multiple women makes him happy, so be it. It's his life. He's SINGLE. You just sound like a corny ass hater.

Anonymous wrote:I think they find someone else and do better the second time around.

We all wish this were true.

It's not. They don't change.

Anonymous wrote:She only _thought_ I was a dud. I was a winner all along, and she was and continues to be a loser.

My income is up 40 percent, and I've slept with a couple of dozen women who are 10-30 years younger than me since the divorce.

I've made two major mistakes in life: getting married, and having children.

DC Urban Moms ought to have a voting feature so that if enough people vote, an anonymous post becomes unveiled and the identity of the schmuck who wrote something like this is revealed. Then we can all avoid this person and otherwise vociferously shame them as the moral failure and repugnant person they are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, ladies but men have a lot easier of a time rebounding after divorce than you do.

This is just not true. It is not 1965. It is far easier for women

Look, not every thing said on DCUM when it comes to men versus women is sexist. Some of it is actually true. Men remarry more quickly and more often than women in this country after divorce. FACT. That to me is pretty good evidence that they “rebound” more quickly.

It's so true.

- A woman.

The duds in my family remarry (I count 3).

The second marriages have the same problems(the second wives complain) as the first. However, contrary to popular belief, they last longer.


I think the second wives in my family don't come in with as many expectations as the first. I think they assume that something must have been seriously wrong if the first wife divorces. So as long as the man is not absolutely horrible, they put up with him.

Some naive women believes their BS about their wife, gets wise, then divorces them too. That’s why the second time divorce rate is so high.

Anonymous wrote:She only _thought_ I was a dud. I was a winner all along, and she was and continues to be a loser.

My income is up 40 percent, and I've slept with a couple of dozen women who are 10-30 years younger than me since the divorce.

I've made two major mistakes in life: getting married, and having children.

You don't sound like a winner ...

OK, the men are duds and their ex-wives are great and have no trouble on the dating market post-divorce. But how does that work? I highly doubt young men are interested in divorcees, especially divorced moms. Do the divorced women date older men who have never married? Those guys have to be even worse than the divorced duds. They weren't even capable of getting married, and have if anything hardened in their idiosyncratic ways rather than learned how to be in a relationship. So that leaves divorced guys who have been cast off by other great women because the guys were duds. So then are those women getting duped by a divorced dud, or does it turn out that the duds aren't really duds objectively but just were mismatched?

My ex actually never married, is still obese, doesn't have a job, and has a very nice cat. Honestly, it makes me sad. It has been over a decade and he wasn't a bad person just clinically depressed. I wish him the best.

Anonymous wrote:It’s not one sided in most cases, the women call the man a dud but they ignore everything he contributes to the marriage. Most of the time he has a demanding job that tires him out and the woman is a SAHM or has a lower powered career. My ex fiance (who I broke up with) accused me of being emotionally unavailable when she had a huge amount of problems that required professional help and tried to make me her therapist. I don’t have the time, expertise, or desire to be someone’s therapist. She was a mess.

Nah, that's a different dynamic. The dud DH's aren't the big earners, and often are the lower earner with the less demanding career in the marriage. That's a source of the conflict. If the man is going to be unambitious and make less money, the expectation is then that he do what a woman in the same position would do -- the heavy lifting at home and with the kids.

The dud husbands do neither. They don't clean, they don't do childcare unless explicitly told/asked, they don't initiate social plans or plan for the future. But they also don't work hard at work, are not ambitious and are never sole providers (a SAHM is rarely in a position to ditch a DH because then she has to go back to work and that's daunting).

Duds are the ones who WFH but somehow are never able to do school pickup, who sit around playing video games every day instead of hanging out with the kids or getting dinner ready.

They are... duds. They don't do anything. A man who is a high earner with a demanding job may pose problems in a marriage (maybe he's a jerk, maybe the couple is in competition for whose job is more demanding, maybe there are mental health issues) but he's not a dud -- he's contributing. A dud is a guy who makes his wife think "Ugh, this would be MUCH easier without him." Dead weight.

Most of the "dudness" comes from a discrepancy in opinion on what is required to run a house with young children and underestimating one spouse's contribution while overestimating one's own.

Anonymous wrote:It’s not one sided in most cases, the women call the man a dud but they ignore everything he contributes to the marriage. Most of the time he has a demanding job that tires him out and the woman is a SAHM or has a lower powered career. My ex fiance (who I broke up with) accused me of being emotionally unavailable when she had a huge amount of problems that required professional help and tried to make me her therapist. I don’t have the time, expertise, or desire to be someone’s therapist. She was a mess.