To think some people are taking life advice from dysfunctional people and wrecking good relationships?

Yes. My SIL has had therapy where the outcome was to get rid of toxic people from her life. That her boundaries are not for bending etc. which has resulted in her being a somewhat toxic person herself. Her SC aren’t allowed in her house as they cause her stress & anxiety & her sanity is of higher value than the needs of her lovely H relationship with his kids. All this because his 13yo told her to F off you’re not my mom. After an incident that I thought she bought on herself.

i have a mate who suffers with PTSD from an accident & from her therapy she now has a high expectation from friends. It was insinuated she wasn’t being supported by her mate enough. A woman by the way that had lost her mom & dad within a short time whilst my friend was having therapy. The bandwidth her friend had to discuss this therapy wasn’t up to standard & she fell out with her. Her bf telling me what the hell is going on in those sessions. You used to be able to discuss your opinions & either have honest debates are conversations. You can’t now. I literally have to watch what I say & if my opinion deviates from hers I find myself changing the topic. It’s oneway radio. There is nothing wrong with having boundaries & expressing your opinions. You have to accept others do to & learn to not be offended if you don’t align.

People don't tend to leave happy relationships because strangers on the Internet tell them to.

By the time someone takes to the Internetto splash their business on the www, they already know what they want to do.

I would also be wary of painting women as so weak and feeble minded that they can be manipulated by strangers into walking away from a happy, fulfilling and loving relationship or suggesting there's something wrong with leaving a relationship they aren't happy in unless they are being abused.

I think it is more a case of bad behaviour being called out more now.

There were the days of 'put up and shut up' and also one partner not working and therefore tied financially.

But times have changed and more people are seeing that they don't have to stand for being treated badly. And what we all call being treated badly can be very different for many people.

Some things that would be a deal breaker for me, would not bother some.
But then again, there are some things that would not bother me too much, would be a big deal for someone else.

So, I guess the 'advice' being dished out, is from very personal point of view.

It is up to the personal involved and to what their deal-breakers are.

I think the emergence of random coaches is more concerning.
empowerment coach, life coach, burnout coach, parenting coach are more dangerous.
There is a coach for every imaginable angle, waffling on, selling women the dream. They are not qualified to meddle in the way they can.

Your relationship - especially if it isn’t working - is one area where you need to put yourself first (I happen to believe everyone, especially women, should put themselves first most if not all of the time but we clearly differ). If you’re unhappy in your relationship for any reason, there are no prizes for enduring it when you could just set yourself free

I think people (myself included) shy away from hard conversations with partners or indeed with other people.

People who have therapy and become able to prioritise their own needs are entitled? Good grief. Sounds like you could do with some therapy!

They do, but my sympathy is measured when that ‘suffering from life’ is dealt with via abusing women, physically or emotionally.

When someone’s fist connects with my face, forgive me for not pondering sympathetically the source of his unhappiness.

My Mum did.

It was years ago so not influenced by MN but she had an early midlife crisis stoked by a new job with new friends who were all younger than her, single or gay who were constantly telling her she could do better, my Dad was controlling and all sorts of shit that wasn't true. They were self-proclaimed feminists with their version of feminism being that men are lazy shits trapping women in marriages and dimming their Goddess life.

The reality was she was bored and felt like my Dad was holding her back from acting like a single 20 something when she was a married Mum of 2 in her late 30s.

She kicked him out and went on the piss with her mates for years and went from a loving Mother to an emotionally neglectful, selfish bitch.

Within 5 years the new friends had faded away as they settled down, meanwhile my Dad was happily remarried.

Other than a few short-lived relationships, Mum has remained single.

I see that no one stops to consider what issues may lay behind the partners’ unwanted behaviours. Men suffer from ‘life’ as much as women.

I don’t think telling people to implode their life & that of their children’s on a perspective of one side, without knowing the poster personally is good advice. We all know a drama queen. My friend found some dry cleaning in the boot of her husbands car. He had lied & he had dropped it off. He hadn’t & obviously forgot. Well this meant his a lying b & can not be trusted was her take. Our other mates nodding along & saying you can’t trust a liar. With one actually saying how would you know if he cheating as it comes so easily to lie. Until I pointed the difference in the lie. Being deceitful is more than telling a white lie. I also pointed out that my dear friend is a hot head as much as I love her. I said this is possibly the most obvious scenario. Hubby was asked to drop off some dry cleaning for a do that’s over a week away. He said yes. Put garment in boot. It’s not in his eyesight etc. he meant to drop it off after work. Comes home & wife says did you drop the dry cleaning off. He is faced with 2 possible choices. Be honest, she throws a strop. Goes get dry cleaning & goes herself & spends the rest of the evening in a grump (which is what happened anyway) or tell a white lie where the chances of being caught out are low & save the drama & remember tomorrow to drop it off. The turnaround is a couple of days so still in plenty of time before needed. She had to retrieve something from his car & finds the dry cleaning. All hell breaks lose they’re both now not talking & it’s bigger than it needs to be. I said you kick off to easily. If uou don’t want him to ever lie then you have to be less angry when he tells the truth. Be exasperated that he’s forgot don’t fly off the handle. She sat there for bit as the conversation went to something else & she turned around & said you’re right. It’s a stupid white lie & him telling the truth would still have seen me overreact. So for the peace of the house & out kids evening he lied. She ended up apologising to him & then he apologised to her & out of goodwill went to collect the dry cleaning she dropped off & incidentally was her garment

I happen to believe that life goes better when everyone's needs are considered, yes.

I think this is the more common scenario..

the poster will start with a tale about some minor thing and my first thought is ‘ that isn’t too bad- just talk to him’

but then as the thread goes on, the poster starts mentioning huge red flags that are way worse than the original complaint.

the reply to ‘just talk to him’ is answered with- ‘I can’t - he doesn’t let me speak to him when he’s gaming and he spend the rest of the time at the pub with his friends… ‘

or ‘I’m struggling with the cost of living’ becomes ‘ my DH doesn’t work or do any housework and I’m paying for everything’

People who have therapy and become able to prioritise their own needs are entitled? Good grief. Sounds like you could do with some therapy!

People who have therapy and become able to prioritise their own needs are entitled? Good grief. Sounds like you could do with some therapy!

People who have therapy and become able to prioritise their own needs are entitled? Good grief. Sounds like you could do with some therapy!

I think the opposite, actually. I think far too many women stay in miserable, unfulfilling relationships because of commentary from people like you; if your partner is “great on paper”, the pressure to make the best of it and not “throw away a good relationship” is immense. Women are socialised to subdue their own interests and be kind, be fair etc. So they stay in relationships with men who are often quite toxic and horrible to live with, but are good at projecting a “good man” image to everyone except the woman they live with.

I agree

There are times I’ve read comments on here and think blimey they’d have a field day with the nuances of my relationship…which has overcome some difficulties.

Neither of us are perfect and I could list things I’d change…. but we are happy he’s my goto person in life who I am happy with.

I think some advice is based on an identikit formulation of what some folk thing ALL relationships should be based on.

Yes but to an extent I know I keep going round in circles in kind of 6-9 month cycles. My therapist has got me focussing on myself - to come out of victim phase - to take back some control. It means I haven’t ended the marriage and I’m focussing on myself. It’s partly distracted me from my life with my husband a bit and I leave him to it, I’ve just got to be careful of the anger and resentment and victim thing.

Sometimes it takes a very small and potentially forgivable “red flag” to see that a man as a whole doesn’t respect or have care and consideration for you. Women no longer need to endure decades of trying to teach a man basic empathy and that she is human. If he is showing his true colours and a woman is done, the most empowered thing to do is walk away. And good for them.

Who wants to sit around unhappy their whole life trying to force a marriage to work when it’s proving it doesn’t ? Who has the time. We have one life. Too many women are wasting theirs with men who refuse to see or appreciate them.

I agree. There is a lot of nonsense written- the ‘take him to the cleaners’ crew has obviously never been near a divorce, as it doesn’t work like that.

but I think there’s a Lot of very good advice on MN from some very wise posters.

No I think its a good thing that so many women now don’t settle for less. I could cry hearing about all the miserable marriages of my mums generation but they were stuck.

Ummm…. Precisely, if the relationship is ok, they decide NOT to divorce!

it’s hard enough to convince and support people in incredibly abusive relationships to leave, never mind people who are actually in ok or good ones!

I agree there is far too much shotgun advice to leave in very pedestrian normal day to day problems. There is also a tendency to assume the woman OP has 10% or less of the fault in any situation. But I don’t see the evidence that people are actually leaving good relationships because of it! Perhaps it moves the women slightly up the scale towards asserting/demanding more? I can imagine it makes some OPs less empathetic and less inclined to listen to their partner’s sometimes legitimate perspective, but since women’s default tends to be being overly accommodating, I don’t think this is a disaster.

I don’t see this at all. I see lots of posters trying to gaslight others in to believing that, rather than accept these women just have higher bars.

the bottom line for me for any relationship is - does it make you happier than if you were alone? Yes, stay. No, leave.

Yes, I'm sure stuff people read here helps them reframe their relationship. Sometimes this is good, like when it's genuinely abusive, but too often I see posts where the couple really need to sit down and talk to each other as a first step, but instead it's all LTB.

A great deal of life is in the interpretation!