Fwiw, I have only one ‘real’/local/irl friend that has children. They have been living in hell, to put it bluntly, for the last… 14 years. Everyone else is in a much better state of mind and happiness, and without children… so you could say from my perspective, that number of offspring is inversely related to the enjoyment of life. We can, have, stand back and say ‘holy shit, fuck all that’ - and so far, the message has stuck with the rest of us.
I feel sorry for the guy, I’ve known him for ~25 years, but he really could have solved many, many, many of life’s problems with the use of a few condoms. Like, so many… so fucking (heh) many. Now he’s stuck with a couple exs, a dead-end job, a couple of vehicles that are almost-literally falling apart, child support up to his eyeballs, and is headed towards his third bankruptcy. He nearly dragged me down trying to help him out financially. The rest of us are taking detailed notes of how life can go to shit with just one decision.
It’s not the fault of the children, but it’s definitely because they had children. Two partners (two marriages) who had red flags the size of Texas, I was jumping up and down raising the alarm, and they still decided ‘let’s have kids, it’ll be great for our relationship’ which quickly turned into one side realizing ‘I can leave, sit on my ass, and collect child support while the dumbass works his hands to the bone’. And then he did it again with partner #2!
Ulterior motives and people being massive pieces of shit is the root cause, but putting their dick in crazy (twice) lit the fuse. Trying to be a good person (‘you don’t need to get an abortion, I can provide for us, I’ll get a second job…’) locked him into the scenario he’s now dreading.
Fwiw, I have only one ‘real’/local/irl friend that has children. They have been living in hell, to put it bluntly, for the last… 14 years. Everyone else is in a much better state of mind and happiness, and without children… so you could say from my perspective, that number of offspring is inversely related to the enjoyment of life. We can, have, stand back and say ‘holy shit, fuck all that’ - and so far, the message has stuck with the rest of us.
I feel sorry for the guy, I’ve known him for ~25 years, but he really could have solved many, many, many of life’s problems with the use of a few condoms. Like, so many… so fucking (heh) many. Now he’s stuck with a couple exs, a dead-end job, a couple of vehicles that are almost-literally falling apart, child support up to his eyeballs, and is headed towards his third bankruptcy. He nearly dragged me down trying to help him out financially. The rest of us are taking detailed notes of how life can go to shit with just one decision.
Really does not sound like children are the cause of the problems there.
It’s not the fault of the children, but it’s definitely because they had children. Two partners (two marriages) who had red flags the size of Texas, I was jumping up and down raising the alarm, and they still decided ‘let’s have kids, it’ll be great for our relationship’ which quickly turned into one side realizing ‘I can leave, sit on my ass, and collect child support while the dumbass works his hands to the bone’. And then he did it again with partner #2!
Ulterior motives and people being massive pieces of shit is the root cause, but putting their dick in crazy (twice) lit the fuse. Trying to be a good person (‘you don’t need to get an abortion, I can provide for us, I’ll get a second job…’) locked him into the scenario he’s now dreading.