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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

The relationship section of MN makes my blood boil.

868 replies

aaaaaaaaargh · 30/01/2012 19:42

I will never set virtual foot in there again. I have imprints on my forehead of the keyboard from where I have been banging my head against it. It makes no SENSE!!! I have a jaw like Jacob Marley. There are so many threads like this:

OP: The other day I was a miserable cow, kids were stressing me. He came home to a complete shithole and then proceeded to clean up. I could sense he was a bit miffed at the state of the house so I told him to cook his own fucking dinner. He wanted to tell me about a problem with work, but I was pissed off and told him I wasn't interested, tell someone who gives a shit. He then shouted that I didn't give a toss about him and stomped upstairs. I can't live like this anymore.

Reply: He cleaned up?? How controlling is he? He then tried to make you listen to his work problems? What about YOUR problems?

Reply: He's emotionally abusive, but you know this don't you.

Reply: Definitely controlling, he doesn't care about what you want. He wanted to make you clean up and listen to his problems. Why the fuck are you cooking his dinner?

Reply: He shouted at you? This is abusive behaviour. You don't have to put up with this, you need to really think about how to proceed. Has he shouted before? This isn't normal.

Reply: Well actually, you weren't too pleasant to him. Perhaps you should look at YOUR behaviour.

Reply (to above poster): Great support there, this woman lives with an emotional abuser. Don't speak if you haven't got anything constructive to say. Don't listen to that poster OP.

Etc, etc....

I know that a lot of people in seriously abusive or violent situations have been helped in this section, and that that is an extremely good thing, before you point that out to me.

But some of the replies on other threads!!! Madness.

OP posts:
aaaaaaaaaaargh · 30/01/2012 22:59

longlegsmcgee - eloquently put (much more eloquent than me).

yellowraincoat · 30/01/2012 22:59

LeBOF, I do think there are a lot of relationships threads where the abuse is clear and the OP needs to have their eyes open.

Not disputing that at all, and it's great that so many take the time to post and help the OP.

But recently there was a thread where people were so harsh on the OP (who seemed to be in an abusive situation) that she gave up and left. I didn't blame her, but it certainly didn't help her.

I spose I just wish people would be a little less... I don't even know what the word is. But I think some posters have a lot of self confidence and think everyone is the same. I think it would help to sometimes realise that a gentler hand is needed.

I'm not talking hugs and "oh poor you" just a bit gentler.

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 30/01/2012 23:01

I love how people who never go into the feminism section seem so determined to maintain that it is 'quiet'.

So quiet that it has morphed from nothing, into a page, into a sub-forum with separate strands, and all with many, many lurkers as well as posters...

Yes, very quiet... Hmm

OP - stay out of the rellies section if it drives you into such a rage. [meh emoticon] I stay away from it for the most part - but for very different reasons from you.

I'm sure all the beleaguered partners of the shrews you mention in your OP very much appreciate your virtual support, though. :)

TheFarSide · 30/01/2012 23:01

I also think the OP has a point, which she has defended well throughout the thread (even if the original post was exaggerated). The relationship advice that has been most helpful to me in the past has tended to be from friends who have taken a more impartial stance and got me to see things from a different perspective. There are certainly far too many posters who make massive assumptions with no evidence and are quite insistent that they are right, and do indeed get into a slanging match with other posters where it seems that being right is more important than helping the original poster.

madonnawhore · 30/01/2012 23:02

yellow I'm not undermining you. You do that to yourself if you feel like you want to say something but decide not to and then resent the fact.

Choose to hold your peace and pick your battles if you want, but don't blame others for your making that choice.

ClaraSage · 30/01/2012 23:03

I agree yellow. It is a known fact that people says things on these threads that they would not say in real life. Being annonomous allow for great expression but this can be abused.

AnyFucker · 30/01/2012 23:03

yellow, the OP is advocating that a whole swathe of regular MN'ers be "ignored"

that doesn't sit right with me

yellowraincoat · 30/01/2012 23:03

I'm not blaming anyone for anything. I'm saying that the relationships section would be more helpful if people were a little less robust in their opinions.

TheFarSide has a point I think.

yellowraincoat · 30/01/2012 23:04

It doesn't sit right with me either, AnyFucker, but I do think that a lot of other posters are shouted down because they don't agree with the majority on a thread or because they don't have the "right" opinion.

aaaaaaaaaaargh · 30/01/2012 23:05

#I love how people who never go into the feminism section seem so determined to maintain that it is 'quiet'.

How would I know if it was quiet if I hadn't been in there? I may well have posted under a different user name. Assuming again.

Irishchic · 30/01/2012 23:05

Yellowraincoat is right Madonna, you are totally undermining her. Your tone is incredibly patronising and you know it, frankly you are being a bitch, for some reason.

ClaraSage · 30/01/2012 23:05

'allows for greater' I mean.

aaaaaaaaaaargh · 30/01/2012 23:06

#yellow, the OP is advocating that a whole swathe of regular MN'ers be "ignored.

??????? I'm saying that they should be far more considered in their responses.

Blu · 30/01/2012 23:07

"People tend NOT to leave these abusive situations easily, despite the urgings of other posters."

Well, exactly, and it may sometimes be because of the energetic urging that they leave the threads! It can take ages for an abused woman to find her own strength and time to leave, and it sometimes takes real and genuine support over a sustained period, not lots of urging.

madonnawhore · 30/01/2012 23:08

Well Irishchic you undermine whatever point you want to make by flinging the word 'bitch' around.

I'm not bothered about what someone who uses that word thinks about me.

xkittyx · 30/01/2012 23:08

Actually yellowraincoat I think that by and large, Relationships is a very sensitive part of the board overall. And it needs to be - people reveal some very painful things on there.
Yes individual threads don't go that way. It happens - people are human, get wound up etc.
It's left a very bad taste though to see such a valuable resource and place of safety used as some sort of trolling bait by an anonymous coward.

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 30/01/2012 23:09

You have posted under a different user name - you said as much. Confused

As someone who lurks there far more than I post - it isn't quiet. It's a busily frequented forum with new topics popping up daily.

MitchieInge · 30/01/2012 23:10

"I love how people who never go into the feminism section seem so determined to maintain that it is 'quiet'. "

yes that always makes me laugh too, nobody ever reads or posts there, and especially no mainstream journalists or others with influence - it's one rabid name changer or two and a semi-literate troll

funny that such a quiet section provokes such impotent opposition now and then. Do you remember that freak who wanted it shut down and was going to contact all the advertisers to warn them that a site purporting to be for parents was in favour of gender equality - not just equality of opportunity but also of outcome?

Grin
ClaraSage · 30/01/2012 23:11

AF, I don't think OP is advocating that regular posters be ignored, or have I missed something?
Some regular posters are very vocal and are used to being listened to and do tend to shout others down. Some, I said, not all.

Florieinaweddingdress · 30/01/2012 23:11

yellow, I am saluting that about confidence/being gentler.

Surely bossing an OP to do what you think she should do isn't the best course of action when she's getting bossed around plenty at home already.

yellowraincoat · 30/01/2012 23:11

Tell you what, fishnet is quiet, eh? The bloody fish-loving wishy washy idiots.

longlegsmcgee · 30/01/2012 23:12

"I do think that a lot of other posters are shouted down because they don't agree with the majority on a thread or because they don't have the "right" opinion."

I agree. I was shouted off mumsnet for daring to argue that my DP shouldn't be booted out of his own home, away from his DCs without any actual evidence of wrongdoing. (Sorry to go on about it but I've not brought it up since it happened and I feel it's relevant here.)

aaaaaaaaaaargh · 30/01/2012 23:13

#It's left a very bad taste though to see such a valuable resource and place of safety used as some sort of trolling bait by an anonymous coward.

Nice. I have an opinion. I am entitled to make my opinion. You are entitled to disagree. I am not trolling Hmm. I am anonymous, are are you..I have no idea who you are.

I am not a coward. I have started this thread knowing that I would be flamed. I believe in what I am saying. That is not cowardly.

aaaaaaaaaaargh · 30/01/2012 23:14

*as are you

xkittyx · 30/01/2012 23:15

Your opinion feels quite a lot like an attack on woman, you couldn't back it up with any actual examples, and you sound aggressive and a bit troubled.