Stop Blaming Women For “Choosing” Crappy Partners

It was one of the worse things people said to me when I announced I had left my emotionally abusive husband, two months after giving birth to my daughter: “I always knew he was a bad guy.”

It wasn’t helpful. It didn’t make me feel any better about my situation, nor did it make me feel stronger. All it did was make me feel guilty. Guilty that I had given my daughter this man as a father, guilty that I had fallen for his tricks when clearly everybody else knew he was bad news, guilty that I was bad at picking partners. It felt like another dig in a situation that already made me feel bad about myself — I was stupid, I was wrong, I chose a bad guy to be my kid’s dad.

And it’s a dig everyone feels allowed to make, whether they’re responding to a Reddit vent from a woman who feels like her partner isn’t a good parent to an Instagram reel or TikTok sharing a single mom’s story.

You chose wrong.

How could you pick that man to be your kid’s dad?

Ladies, this is why you have to be so careful about who you choose to spend your life with.

Because of course it doesn’t matter what he did or how he changed or what he said — it’s always our fault. We were the ones who should’ve been looking into the crystal ball to see what the pressures of parenthood would do to his psyche. We should’ve been the one to predict the future, to see that he was going to become a deadbeat dad who ignored our phone calls at midnight. We should’ve pulled a tarot card, consulted an Etsy witch, done something to see if he was going to be one of those men who was so excited about that positive pregnancy test, but left us for another woman the minute we felt our baby kick.

It’s always our fault.

I used to say that anybody who told me “oh I knew he was a bad guy” in reference to my ex had their heart in the right place. It was well-intentioned, I’d say. They didn’t know what else to say, so that’s what they said instead.

But I don’t think that anymore.

Because in a moment where I needed people to rally behind me, to tell me they were there for me and that they would be happy to help in any way they can, they chose a different option. One that was entirely unhelpful and entirely demeaning. They chose to center themselves, to make sure I knew that they were ahead of the game. To make sure I knew that they saw something I didn’t. To make sure I knew that they were smarter than I was.

You should’ve seen those red flags.

You should’ve known it would turn out like this.

You should’ve left him a long time ago.

I promise, when you tell a woman these things, you aren’t telling her anything she hasn’t already told herself over and over. We get it. We did see the red flags. We did know he was capable of hurting us. We did think about leaving before.

Maybe we were in a bad place mentally and couldn’t get out. Maybe he had us fully convinced we’d never make it without him. Maybe we were scared that if we did leave, everyone would tell us we should’ve tried harder, given it another shot, forgiven him one more time.

We didn’t choose a shitty man to be our partner, to be our kid’s dad.

We chose a partner. And then they showed their true colors.

And then we made a choice.