If people are as horrible in real life as they are on here I really feel sorry for their children, friends and family 😩

[ToddlerMama27]

There’s just so much bullying, nastiness and judgement

I actually think I remember that thread.

it was right you got a battering, what if there was an earthquake? You wouldn't have been able to huddle in the doorway as is recommended. You absolute risk taking shit.

That's quite shocking.

I think a lot of posters project their own experiences when they read a thread. Sometimes they miss the actual point, or go off at a tangent, which everyone else latches on to. Very soon you've got a mob with burning torches screaming 'LTB!'

I'm sorry you followed advice that you later regretted. That's tough.

MN has always been a great place to get candid opinions that you wouldn't get from friends and family in RL. However I think that there's a growing number of regular posters whose only contributions are to ridicule and belittle other posters. Whenever I dip into MN I see the same names posting some quite vitriolic stuff and I do wonder what they must be like in RL, and why they are so sad and bitter.

Oh yeah, I was called sick for simply putting my baby in nursery. 🙄😂

I just let it roll off my back. On the whole, comments like that are the minority and I really enjoy it here.

I find if a thread is getting too much I bail out of it. I’m only really here for a bit of amusement and killing time if I’m inbetween stuff so when a thread suddenly starts getting too emotive or argumentative and I get sucked in I have to stop and either get on with my real life or go to another thread (if I’m on a train or something). I’ll choose lighter threads then. I actually don’t enjoy the drama and if I start feeling I’m getting piled on I’ll move on as MN is not real life. It’s weird really as I have never been ‘piled on’ in real life and get on very well with most people but MN can make you feel like you must be the worst person in the world, with no values, feral kids and offending people at every turn - all of which are completely non existent in real life.

Sorry to hear of everyone who took advice that didn't work out. The thing is relationships are extremely complex. A para or two doesn't do justice to them. And then you get knee jerk solutions like "Go NC" or "LTB" or "Your child has SN".

Generally speaking... welcome to the Internet. A place where a small amount of experience makes one an expert. Coupled with lots of people who never admit to or own up to mistakes. Couple this with anonymity (this is especially bad on MN as name changing is almost encouraged) and you get what we have.

I absolutely hate the phrase but it is what it is. It won't change and will only get worse the more it's normalised

I don't know @Globules, I do think the advice given on the Relationships board is generally sound, I know people say that MN is very quick to advise LTB, but the vast majority of threads I read on there are truly LTB situations. And I do think women get very good, very humane, sensitive and sensible advice to get themselves out of awful situations. It can be quite an eye-opener for some women to realise that their situation is not OK or in any way normal.

I don't know your particular story, and you obviously have some regret, BUT is that more to do with any feelings you have about your current situation, that leaving a bad relationship isn't all milk and honey? It's bloody hard to be a single parent, so the daily slog may make you look back and wish it was different.

I suspect you had sound advice and the relationship was untenable. That doesn't detract from the fact you may not be happy now, but that's a different conversation.

We all come here to be horrible to each other to get it out of our system. Then we can be nice to the people in our actual lives

Ha ha maybe that's it!

Just like in real life, there is all sorts of folks on forums. And hiding behind keyboards is easy to say all type of things. Sometimes it is good take a pause from reading forums.

😄True.

It was well deserved.

On any even semi-controversial thread, you've got ten percent of posters who live on a different planet, ten percent who are deluded/fantasists, ten percent know it alls without the experience to back it up, and ten percent who are good old fashioned wind up merchants. Which still means that most posters are relatively benign and grounded, but the problem is that the first four categories shout louder than the regular folk.

I treat MN the same way the government treats public consultation - it's an interesting exercise that might generate some decent ideas, but I have no qualms about binning it off to do exactly what I fancied all along.

'I treat MN the same way the government treats public consultation - it's an interesting exercise that might generate some decent ideas, but I have no qualms about binning it off to do exactly what I fancied all along.'

That actually did make me do a LOL @TheTurn0fTheScrew .

V true.

'I ended up taking my dd out of primary school and sending her privately as so many posters insisted she must have SEN due to her behaviour. I mean 100% of posters.

She doesn't have SEN and we wasted loads of money until we moved her back to state for 6th form. She's now doing medicine. She was just an anxious child and grew out of it really quickly. I wish I had supported the school more at the time.'

This actually is a problem on here, every single thread about a DC and their behaviour or emotional health the poster will be told by multiple posters that the child needs to be assessed for autism, others might join in with helpful advice only to be scolded because 'that doesn't work for a ND child' meaning the OP hasn't got the advice they were looking for and now has an extra worry, likely for no reason. I see it all the time.

The first time I got piled on (about 8 years or more ago) I was so upset I felt sick and vowed to not come on here again. I didn’t for a long time and only came back when they closed the discussion pages on Digital Spy (which I never got piled on). I changed my name and started afresh. It’s still a horrible place at times but I enjoy discussion forums and don’t know any other ones so go on here but I’d change to a better one if I knew of them. There’s a mentality on here that if you show emotion you need to get over yourself or if your husband/partner has been one degree less than perfect you must leave (the bastard). There seems to be a lot of men (husband) hating, children (their own) hating people on here 😁 I’ve never had a dramatic falling out or shouting match with anyone in real life (except my sister when younger) but here I seem to be defending my right to breathe. 🥴

Yes I'm living proof.

Dd still occasionally reminds me about the time I had her tested for autism. She finds it funny but it makes me feel mortified!

I won't ever post on AIBU again. That'll keep me safe.

Advice for the MN ages ⛑️⛑️⛑️

There are a lot of women on here whose lives and experiences I can't relate to and sometimes their opinions can be eye-opening and often downright offensive. I find it hard to read stuff like that.

My husband tells me not to read Mumsnet, but I think it's important to at least look at these opinions, even if I do dismiss them after consideration.

The thing I can't bear is posters who pick up on one tiny detail I'm a long post and start bashing the OP with it. Or even go so far as to look back at previous posts to try and catch a poster out. That is truly nasty behaviour.

Posts that criticise or attack people with disabilities, step-parents and people who need benefits just to survive are sickening. Some responses take my breath away at times.

Exactly. And some times it's unnecessary and people forget there are still real humans behind the keyboard who could be upset by their words but other times it can be a good thing.

E.g. in real life when a friend is talking about their dh people try and mince their words (on both sides as in the woman minimises the extent of the abuse and the friend feels they cant be as hinest as theyd like) whereas sometimes you need someone to just be brusque and say "ffs what you're describing is abuse you need to ltb!"

Or in less extreme cases sometimes it can be hard to say to a friend "yes you are being completely unreasonable of course you can't bring your kids supersoakaer to the park for another kids birthday party when their parent has already said no! I can't believe you're even thinking about it!" Sometimes being direct because youll never meet the person youre speaking to rather than fannnying about because you want to maintain a relationship with someone is what's needed.

I don't think that's true.

If you just want to winge about your shit partner/husband this isn't the right place. You will get robust opinions if you're partnered up with a dick-head. And I like that a lot. There are too many platforms where it's seen as acceptable for men to behave like arseholes and women just get a headstroke and 'boys will be boys' 'what are they like hun' bollockry, and drinking the fucking koolaid regarding men's bad behaviour.

It's really refreshing to see women en massè reject this.

So. Don't dally with twats. And if you do and come on MN to discuss, do not be alarmed when you're (quite rightly), told to bin them off.

Other forums are available if you do just want to stick your head in the sand whilst simultaneously getting it patted and soothed.

Oh yes, posters on here are really something special.

I recently posted on AIBU about something fairly trivial and a few posters started a pile on and twisted my scenario into something else entirely and the posters that followed all seemed to disregard what I said and took the warped version as fact. Very annoying.

It was a classic straw man fallacy, and I see it constantly on MN. A definitions for those unfamiliar:

A straw man fallacy occurs when someone takes another person’s argument or point, distorts it or exaggerates it in some kind of extreme way, and then attacks the extreme distortion, as if that is really the claim the first person is making.

To be fair @Ohfgsjon they did delete it but I do find the sheer vitriol of some posters quite unbelievable!

Yes, but don't post in AIBU unless you want to see some truly exceptional projection.

The made-up scenarios that some posters see as their great insight are extraordinary.

I once ventured onto the royal threads. Never again. 😱

On occasions it’s really upsetting when someone lashes out and I’ve spent the rest of the day feeling shit as one of my many flaws is oversensitivity.