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Original poster

What's the worst advice you've had from MN?

277 replies

Dinkydonkytonk · 01/02/2021 09:51

I have personally received some good advice from this site, however with all the LTB! and other extreme reactions I want to know if anyone has had some truly awful advice from MN?
Or did you follow advice but it turned out to be the wrong decision?
Or did you really LTB but regretted it?

OP posts:
WalrusWife · 01/02/2021 11:39

Hahaha I just found that post I made and the replies are “he’s just not that into you OP Sad”

“It's early days, so get out now before you get too attached.”

So glad I didn’t take the advice Grin

Bloatedandconfused · 01/02/2021 11:41

I've just read on another thread a poster telling the OP to get her 17 year old daughter to write an essay about an incident involving a razor. An essay. Really? GrinGrinGrin

Ponoka7 · 01/02/2021 11:44

"Are people really living so separately to their parents, siblings etc that you don’t all talk about things and want to find a way you can help?"

I think a lot of posters are. I can remember backing off from my DD when she was pregnant, after advice on here. She burst into tears in front of me and told me that she thought I didn't care. A lot of MN posters are very anti family and I do wonder if they are really like that in rl.

I started posting on here in 2010, after finding the site and including it in research that I was contributing to. It was because of the incorrect advice around child protection and SS. What was being said was very dangerous.

IToldYouIWasFreaky · 01/02/2021 11:51

Generally I think the anonymity of the site allows a lot of advice to run 'hot' - taking actions in the middle of an upset that could irrevocably rupture relationships.

Agreed. I had a thread a few years ago when I found out my exP had been having an affair. I got lots of excellent advice and support for which I am extremely grateful but I was also aware that there were people posting on my thread who were clearly just in it for the drama and encouraging me to do things to fan the flames, and act in haste just to keep things interesting.

I think some posters forget that people are talking about their own lives, and it's not a soap opera!

LouJ85 · 01/02/2021 11:54

One of the worst I've seen was a SAHM complaining about how when her FT husband came home and she asked how he was, he said 'tired' before cooking dinner and doing the bedtime bathtime routine with the kids while he prompted her to sit back and relax. She was aggressively angry that he dared to complain about being tired when she'd been at home with 2 kids all day but also found a way to be angry that he'd let her sit down in front of the tv while he put the kids to bed. He was flamed in the replies and called a deadbeat dad and she was told to LTB.

Wtf. This place never ceases to amaze!

HibernatingTill2030 · 01/02/2021 12:14

I posted vaguely under a different name, about a complicated situation. Despite, in the OP stating why option A wasn't an issue, and I had already tried it, got multiple posts saying to do option A and nothing more helpful.

x2boys · 01/02/2021 12:14

You have to take it all with a pinch of salt ,lots of posters state their opinions as fact even when they no absolutely nothing about a topic they state things they think should happen rather than what does
I always cringe when the second wife posts something about the ex wife and or the kids from the first marriage because you just know the poster will be torn to shreds for having the audacity to be a second wife and the first wife and or the kids will always be in the right regardless of how unreasonable they might be being 🤣

PegasusReturns · 01/02/2021 13:02

@GoodbyeH thanks Smile

It was a real could go either way situation so I don’t suppose it really counts as “worst advice ever” but it does mean I’m pretty quick to jump in now and encourage others to just go for it.

BalloonSlayer · 01/02/2021 13:14

I put hair remover down a slow draining sink on the advice of one of those amazing miracles tips threads.

Blocked it completely.

BalloonSlayer · 01/02/2021 13:18

Oh and advice for woman whose physically abusive husband had just stormed out. Get the lock changed. She couldn't afford it. Change it yourself! It's not hard! Look it up on you tube!

I still shudder with horror imagining the reaction of a physically abusive man returning home to discover a failed attempt to change the locks.

Iknowwhatudidlastsummer · 01/02/2021 13:40

I don't ask for anything than practical advice (on places or things if that makes sense)

but the "advice" i see about work, like telling your boss "to do one" and "stand your ground" when it's a bog standard business place and requirement...

You can tell people either have no clue of what the work place actually looks like today, or don't have to deal with the consequences themselves!

Smorgasbored0000 · 01/02/2021 13:47

I posted once asking for advice on how to deal with my suicidal DH and was told to LTB and that he was emotionally abusing me. I have no idea how the posters had reached that conclusion, because he is the kindest man I’ve ever known.

Anyway, I ignored their advice and stuck with it, and helped him through the darkest time in his life. He’s doing much better now, but I still get rage when I think about everyone telling me to leave him. How callous and cruel that would have been to abandon him when he needed me.

HibernatingTill2030 · 01/02/2021 14:55

@BalloonSlayer

Oh and advice for woman whose physically abusive husband had just stormed out. Get the lock changed. She couldn't afford it. Change it yourself! It's not hard! Look it up on you tube!

I still shudder with horror imagining the reaction of a physically abusive man returning home to discover a failed attempt to change the locks.

Christ, thats awful. Not to mention, legally, he has a perfect right to enter his own home, if he owns or is on the tenancy. Changing the locks wouldn't help at all in this situation.
excuseforfights · 01/02/2021 15:21

I hate when people post

Is this for real?
Is this a joke thread?
There is no way this is true

etc

It's like they cannot fathom anything outside their own limited experience.

Iknowwhatudidlastsummer · 01/02/2021 15:24

It's like they cannot fathom anything outside their own limited experience.

context is everything.

Think about screaming in the Sistine Chapel, or the now deleted thread from the poster "left for dead" when her family only checked on her 6 times in a day (that she knows as she was asleep otherwise )

Corncorncorn · 01/02/2021 15:29

There are pockets of absolute lunatic evangelism on Mumsnet. The LTB, NC brigade.

The doghouse is just Shock.

schnubbins · 01/02/2021 15:33

It's the Mil's I feel sorry for most.They get a terrible bashing.Seeing as i have two sons I am rather worried what lies ahead.

Pootle40 · 01/02/2021 15:47

Bread and milk were not emergencies in lockdown

HibernatingTill2030 · 01/02/2021 16:23

@Pootle40

Bread and milk were not emergencies in lockdown
Ha! Drink black tea and eat plain boiled rice. And only buy the absolute basics for survival, no fancy stuff allowed in baskets.
Iknowwhatudidlastsummer · 01/02/2021 16:23

@Pootle40

Bread and milk were not emergencies in lockdown
these threads were intentionally confusing essential shopping with essential items, with posters just as dishonest as each other

Bread and milk are definitively not "emergencies" Hmm when there's food in the house, and your 10 year old won't die if they have a yogurt instead of milk with their cereals.

Baby formula is "emergency", medication is "emergency"
Nothing to feed your child is "emergency".

People being deliberately obtuse are getting tiring.

VinylDetective · 01/02/2021 16:29

After seeing the “advice” handed out to others, this is the last place I’d come for it.

MrsPinkCock · 01/02/2021 16:31

The “legal advice” posted by people who have no idea what they’re talking about, often backed up by another ten posters who also haven’t got a clue what the law actually says. As a lawyer those threads drive me nuts!

I also find it utterly bizarre that so many posters enjoy drafting unsolicited emails or text messages for the OP to use that nobody in their right mind would ever send to another person

LondonStone · 01/02/2021 16:34

A long time ago I complained about a contracting company carrying out noisy work at all hours of the day and also working consistently on a Sunday; we had thirty-something days in a row with no break in between.

I was told to get over it/ tough shit/ you’d want them to use a pneumatic drill at 7am on Sunday if it was YOUR house/ no one will care or take it seriously.”

My council were actually very interested in the noise complaint and really helpful. I know the spoke to the company in question and we actually got moments of peace in the morning / from 7pm / on Sunday.

I’m sorry but sometimes you can’t just “get over” noise happening anywhere between 6:30am-11pm seven days a week for weeks on end and I’m glad I didn’t.

x2boys · 01/02/2021 16:36

Yes the legal advice ,I'm not a lawyer either so have no idea about the law but I wouldn't dish out" legal advice" honestly I have seen posters asking for legal advice and ignoring the ,actual solicitors giving advice because it's not what they want to hear and hanging on to the words of posters who have no clue because they are saying what the poster wants to hear .

rawalpindithelabrador · 01/02/2021 16:36

The MN haircut. VERY ill-advised.

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