Men of Reddit, what made you realize that you weren’t meant to be a family man?

19 comments

1. I don’t like my own family and I don’t really like kids. Not to be harsh but that just about sums it up. Obviously if it happens I’d probably be happy and definitely do what I’m supposed to. I’d just rather not.

2. Had two relationships that came with a small child (not mine).

   Both times, while there were some fun moments, I realized how much I resented that I could never be my partner’s primary focus, and all plans were exponentially more complicated and/or expensive when factoring a child into the mix.

3. I like peace and quiet and have major sleep problems.

   So having a kid to wake me up at night would just lead me down a dark path which I wouldn’t want to put a kid through.

4. I have very high educational and career oriented goals and aspirations. And when I had to ask myself if I would choose that over a family, I realized that I would much rather have that than a family. Ideally, I could have both, but I’m not convinced that’s possible. At least for most.

5. Dick fell off.

6. My neices

7. I had a 7yr relationship with a woman with 3 kids. I loved them all very much so decided to live together after 3 yrs of dating. Took about 3 yrs of living together until I just had enough and started shutting down then another year to just to logistically work through the split. Not to mention Covid and quarantine happened amongst all of that time.

   It was just too much “life” for me. I like my alone time and quiet time and really don’t enjoy “family outings” where it’s basically make the kids happy and the adults just have to be OK with it. Not to mention every kid had different interests so anytime we did anything one kid was always unhappy. It was always a clusterfuck and I knew it would be before any event even started, so very demoralizing.

   I’m selfish with me and my time and not afraid to admit that. Much happier now kidless and just dating on my own time and terms.

8. Watching my friends have children. I thought I wanted some of my own, but now I’m like “no thank you”.

9. The love of my life who was pregnant with my first born child who was killed by a drunk driver on Valentine’s Day 2005. It was the most gruesome thing that I’ve ever seen and that image is burned onto the inside of my eyelids and every time I close my eyes even to this day I see her as if I’m staring right at it. I was the one that had the ID her body and to say that it was gruesome is like explaining one speck of sand on an entire beach. It has changed me in a way that I cannot come back from. And after 16 years of therapy and counseling and medication and all the things that I’ve done to try to recover, I’m left with the inevitable response that I will never get better and that there are some things that a person experiences that they can never come back from.

   When I was a kid all I ever wanted was to be a husband and a father, and in one fall swoop that entire dream and my entire desire was taken from me and I can never get it back no matter how hard I try and no matter what I do I can never come back from this.

10. Annoying kids and nonstop crying babies helps alot, also the whole “won argument against wife now sleeping on the couch” shit

11. Having a kid

12. My infant niece arriving on my doorstep.

13. Having a family. I hate being a father.

    I am not kidding. I love my family, I love my kids and will do anything for them, but I am in hell.

14. Honestly I’m to selfish I cant see my self giving half of myself to anybody

15. Zero sperm count.

16. When I was a kid I wanted nothing more than to grow up and never deal with kids again.

17. I just thought about this question:

    Who would you rather be at a traffic light? The dad in the minivan with 4 kids and a nagging wife or the guy the same age with his girlfriend with him in the corvette right next to the first guy.

    And then I realised that I’d rather be the guy on the motorcycle who just got up on a sunday morning and decided to go on a solo roadtrip adventure on a whim, with my SO waiting at home.

    Unfortunately being a family man comes with obligations. I don’t hate children, I actually know that if I had kids of my own I’d love to be that dad who provides for his family and everything and has a loving wife and all that.

    But you look at the fact that modern day laws mean that the man has basically zero power as a father. You are not allowed by law to assert your authority in front of your family. The mere mention of male authority in this time and age evokes images of some tyrannical abusive father and not the calm gentle kind man who is sat at the head of the table, who works hard to provide for the family and is respected by them and society for it.

    But now it’s like you’re expected to provide, but you can’t assert yourself, you can’t tell your wife that you can’t clean the dishes because you just got back from a 12 hour shift and she doesn’t work in an office. You can’t tell your kids anything with authority, lest you be called the cruel father. You are no longer the captain of the ship but you have all of the responsibility. It’s a ship operating with divided authority.

    How can I be expected to be responsible for something I have no power over?

    Motorcycles however, never seem to disappoint, they’re also dirt cheap, and offer about 80-90% of the level of contentment you’d have with being a family man with lots of kids.

18. Bad parents (both of them).

    Don’t wanna repeat them.

19. the sound of a baby crying makes me want to pitch myself off a roof. or the baby. one of us has to go