Mums of sons. (Hard hat on for this)

What happens is they learn their power. The ones with inate positive character traits such as high empathy, low selfishness and strength of will use it lightly and wisely, and even try to share it. The ones with poorer characters, the weak, the suggestible grab it with both hands, because it makes their lives easier and it gives them what they want.

There's a huge problem with this on MN.
The double standards when it comes to cheating or lack of sex in a relationship. The man is always the sex pest, and yes in some cases that is true, but it's not healthy to go round labelling every bloke who wants to have sex with his wide a sex pest. Sometimes women are the problem. But women don't want to hear that.

@SquirrelMadness but a woman can and does have a responsibility to walk away or not to pursue a relationship. That's common sense no? That's not saying she is to blame for a man's terrible life choices or behaviour. But there are plenty of threads on MN where the woman has met a no good boyfriend, had a baby, and then wonders why he won't change. She was partly responsible for that situation she is in. She could choose better.

I couldn't give a flying fig whether your husband has ever played golf. My point was that in a healthy relationship, each adult is responsible for their own behaviour and not for the behaviour of their partner. If you are genuine and seriously struggling to understand this I suggest you explore this with your therapist.

We dont all read the same threads.
You said in a pp about baby regret if it's a boy, I rarely go on threads about babies, so I wouldn't know. Same with mil and step parenting and the royals. I have no interest so I dont bother. However women in abusive relationships and skin conditions and fwr and menopause and parking threads, I'm there, I have an interest.
If you went on the same threads as me, you too would see the same story being played out, year after year. Surely to God if you saw the same things happening to so many different women you too would point out the similarities between that womans problems and how other women have dealt with it. You too would share your story and show other women what to look out for, when the dangerous points are, that your abuser will try to convince you he will get 50/50 custody, but is that true, he has no interest now, why would he want them 50%
To look at how much you'll get in benefits, that it is hard yes, but you can live without him, heres womens aids number, heres a charity that'll help, etc.

I don’t agree that posting the true facts regarding murders is minimising murder or rape? It is true that men are 2x more likely to be murdered than women. That is a fact.

It is also a fact that the murder rate is at an all time historic low.

Rape, sexual assault, these are issues, but stating the facts on murder have noting to do with either.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so egregious.

I haven’t RTFT. But as a mum of boys this is something I have thought about a lot lately.

As far as I can see, a lot of men are absolute arseholes. Not all, but a lot. And even the ‘good’ ones are still influenced by existing in a patriarchal society.

I’ve got two boys, and one of the things that having two sons has shown me is that most young boys are absolutely lovely. That’s not just me worshipping my own sons. I mean my sons’ friends, my friends’ sons, my nephews - they’re all delightful. Kind, thoughtful, sweet human beings.

Boys aren’t born arseholes. Something happens between childhood and adulthood and I don’t know what it is. I hope I can figure it out. Steve Biddulph’s book ‘Raising Boys’ has a few insights/theories on this - he thinks it starts when they’re shoved into formal education far too early without due regard for the fact that their brains mature much slower than girls do.

Also the throwaway comment about false accusations ruining men’s careers…how many women are doing that? It reminds me of things I’ve read from men online saying things like, ‘If I smile at a women I’ll go to prison for harassment’, or this gem…‘I’m afraid to be alone with a woman because she’ll accuse me of rape’.

Yes, I was agreeing with the OP & you, the allegations of hypocrisy to you both did not sit well with me.

Exactly, poor behaviours are often a prelude to abuse and then coincide with it. The boiled frog analogy is a good one. I do think it is important to not blur terr definitions of domestic abuse. I liked how you wrote up there are bad behaviours that are bad but different from domestic abuse and not as bad as domestic abuse.

Yeah, that's what's really disgusted me.

Spot on

Personally, the moment the OP asked “how many women murdered by their partners we personally knew” she had moved into indefensible territory.

As for minimising murder because “it’s very few, and men kill other men even more” when we have 1 in 4 women raped or sexually assaulted and rape convictions in single figure percentages…

Fuck me.

I’m glad my sons hold men to a higher standard than the OP and her socks buddies.

I completely agree. I actually think mumsnet is so unpleasant at the moment. Its like a them vs us with men at the moment with no in-between. It's so hateful and not balanced.

Ah I see. Apologies, I was getting wound up by the OP blaming a woman for her husband playing too much golf and wasn't reading posts properly!

I do think that abuse often starts with small behaviours that don't really meet the definition of abuse and can be easily explained away. And then the behaviour often slowly escalates into abuse without the victim realising, frog in a pot. I also understand what you're saying though, prioritising hobbies isn't in itself abusive and not all neglectful behaviour will lead to abuse.

My husband, father, brother, father in law and brothers in law are all incredibly decent men who behave exactly as you would wish any man to. So I know what good men look like. Because of that I have a seriously low tolerance for the many shitty ones.

Yes, I agree, I was writing to fluufner who I think is on a worry path of minimising domestic abuse.

I rather think that excessive time and money on hobbies often coincide with abusive behaviours but are not abusive behaviours themselves.

It is a real disservice to the victims of domestic abuse to conflate even very bad, relationship destroying behaviours with domestic abuse. For example, cheating isn’t domestic abuse, but we do also see that cheating will often coincide with abuse.

By "family" I mean your daughter, and any wider family members who may be impacted by supporting you with the multiple stressors you are experiencing - domestic abuse, cancer, a sick child. You have a lot on your plate OP and men can sort themselves out. You are treating this thread as though it's an occupation (eg phrases like "back to it" before writing another quarrelsome post) and it looks a lot like you're avoiding your rl situation by having this extended argument that isn't going to change anyone's mind.

I didn't say that all bad behaviour is domestic abuse, or that giving a hobby priority over your partner is as bad as domestic abuse.

I said that nobody is responsible or to blame for their partner's behaviour.

In a healthy relationship, both adults are responsible for their own behaviour. If my partner abuses me, it is not my fault. If my partner neglects me, it is not my fault. If my partner prefers playing golf to being with me, it is not my fault. These situations are not the same. But in all of them, it is not my fault how my partner behaves.

I actually think that understanding and accepting this is very important for having healthy relationships. Feeling responsible for your partner's behaviour can make you much more vulnerable to abuse.

I don't think it's double standards. Part of human nature is that our opinions on people/things are massively influenced by their our own past experiences.

The mother of a boy/man will naturally have different opinions about the son she has raised and the sons of people she knows, because her experiences with them will be positive, where her experiences with men outside of her close circle may have been very negative.

I've been lucky enough not to have had any majorly traumatic relationships that have made me feel like this about all men. To be fair it's probably because I'm the daughter of a child protection social worker and DV survivor, who made me learn the cycle of abuse by heart amongst other things. Rather than use her experiences to create fear, she used them as a way to empower me by making sure I could spot early patterns in behaviour and keep myself safe in relationships.

FWIW I have a daughter.