To wonder why people put up with the shite that they put up with?

[gigglepin]

Spose i am being judgy, but i am doing it secretly, in my head and to you all. I have NEVER said any of this actually in RL, but i do wonder this..

For example, i have a friend, she is very intelligent but is married to an arse who is just hopeless, clueless and takes the piss out of her...yet she thinks he is wonderful.

My MIL is a doormat to both FIL & BIL, and has put up with shit for years and years.

Why do folk just carry on for years and years when they are obviously not happy OR oblivious to frankly OBVIOUS poor treatement by people who are supposed to be thier loving partners?

ps there is NO DV involved, just selfish, inconsiderate behaviour over & over & over again.

I suppose we all wonder why dear friends and relatives are married to various wankers, at one time or another.

True, true

I sometimes wonder if I'm the wanker that other people wonder why their friend/relative is with.

HA! Me too, i KNOW that my PIL think this of me

Sometimes it is only the outlandish behaviour you see as well... I had a friend who was trapped in a dire relationship, however, it was as much to do with we manipulation and playing the victim as it was about him being a twat.

Some people like being martyrs, some are in real trouble, in the end you can be an ear and support but you never have a true unbiased view of what is going on.

some women love playing the martyr

Dunno. My sister has been married to a whinging arse for 27 years. They can't stand each other. She said she'd leave... 'when the DCs started school... when the DCs were 'old enough to understand'... when the DCs had gone through their GCSEs... when the DCs had gone off to uni... when the DCs had graduated... etc. etc. She is still there and DCs are in their twenties now.

Anxiety about change. The kind of "emotional rules" they were brought up with - eg that they are not worth as much as other people etc. Guilt. etc.

I often wonder this, anbd I do actually say it on occasion. I've come to the conclusion that some people get some value and self-worth from being treated like a silly twat.

However, I do agree that on occasion, everyone is "That wanker that so-and-so is with." I know I certainly have.

Maybe they are happy with it?. Some genuinely don't mind behaviour that you would find impossible and don't see anything wrong. Some people do like being the victim or martyr. All sorts of reasons.

And, what bothers some people doesn't bother others.

I agree gay40, there is a difference between people who are trapped in a relationship with an abuser and those who thrive on the drama if unhappiness.

Someone once said that however troublesome your life is, if you and everyone you knew sat round and, bagged up their problems and put them in the middle of the circle and could choose any bag, you'd pick your own every time.

That might not always be true, but I think we all have crosses to bear and we feel comfortable with our own problems. They make sense to us.

The behaviour you describe is DV though. It doesn't have to involve physical violence. Taking the piss out of your partner constantly and generally being an arse to them is emotional/verbal abuse.

Also it might seem obviously horrible to you, but sometimes people just think all men (or women) are like that so they may as well put up with it.

Path of least resistance, I think, a lot of the time.

My friend split up with her partner of 6 years recently and is very happy being single. We were just saying only yesterday how rare and brave it is to leave one relationship when you don't have another one in the pipeline.

Most of the time it seems people only get up the courage to leave an ok relationship when there is the possibility of a better one.

Sounds like my mum's advice, which is "If everyone hung their problems on a tree, you'd take your own and run." Usually when one of her children is moaning the fk on about some triviality.

Do you really think that's true, Foxy? I think that's really sad :(

Doormats often need to be needed and actually enjoy their doormat-ish-ness

Bertie I think it's true for a fair percentage of people (people I know, anyway)

I understand it; ending a relationship is horrible and sad and difficult in lots of ways - emotionally, financially etc.

It must be much easier to embark on that if you know there is something good waiting for you.

I think there is also a factor that people who constantly get treated badly by the person who should be cherishing them lose their sense of selfworth and start thinking they deserve it. It's not so much enjoying it as getting used to the idea of "I don't deserve any better, nobody else would put up with me, he/she is only doing it for my own good".

Fear. It is always fear.

Fear of the unknown. Scared of making changes. Afraid it will be too hard. fear of being alone. scared of managing financially, frightened that you'll step from a bad situation into a worse one, in some very sad cases, fear that you will come to physical harm

But it's always fear of some sort.

So people stay in a shitty situation because they are less afraid of that than of the alternative.

And they convince themselves they have no choice.

Because they don't understand they just made one.

Poor self esteem, depression, most likely bad chilhood experiences.

My mother is exactly like this, all her relationships have been terrible and she keep repeating the same mistakes.