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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:
aaaaaaargh · 31/01/2012 20:13

My sons have great male (and female) role models. I feel defensive because of the way men are slagged off on this site. There is a perception on here that if a man isn't perfect, he's abusive. Nobody is perfect, and I doubt my son's will be.

DH and I will of course, try our utmost to teach them respect, boundaries and self esteem, amongst other things. I hope we succeed. It's the premise that men, by definition, have ulterior motives in everything they do. I don't think many men do, women do this if anything (speaking from my own personal experience).

ifeelloved · 31/01/2012 20:15

To be fair arrrrgggghh. Some men deserve to be slagged off in here, there are some real gems.

I just wish not all men were slated purely because they're men

BasilRathbone · 31/01/2012 20:18

I did not vilify you whatmeworry.

I wondered how come you seem to know which radical feminists I have met and what their opinions are and the comment about you being a stalker was flippant, not vilifying.

Vilifying is an absurdly histrionic word to use in this context. One might almost say hysterical. Even shrill.

aaaaaaargh · 31/01/2012 20:19

It does sound very like you, so you're not actually a lone voice. If you can bear to set foot in the Relationships section again, perhaps you could chummy up and form a crack squad to defend all these poor beleagured men from all the insanity? Because that would be an incredibly important and useful job. And while you're both at it, you could demean and belittle the experience of posters who have experienced abuse and tell them it was all in their head- that sounds cool and fun too.

You have demeaned and belittled other posters on other threads, and now you think I should??

Poor form.

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 31/01/2012 20:21

I would question the sensibilities of anyone coming to hard and fast conclusions about the whole world based on a sliver of society (gender, socio-economic, nationaity, etc, etc) viz Mumsnet.

Surely you can see that some people will be more prone to support other people and relate to their side of a story and experienced than others on a site like this. To believe that Mumsnet posters are representative of the world at large is absurd in the extreme.

To be concerned for your sons based on comments on this site verges on a rather half-arsed storm in a teacup if you ask me...

LeBOF · 31/01/2012 20:21

You could get yourselves some superhero costumes too, like Batman or something. Or has that been done before?

SinicalSanta · 31/01/2012 20:23

Well stand up for men when you see it happen then. (I'm sure you'll be worn out)
You can control your own keyboards can't you - just not anyone elses.

Or join the rest of the internet - where men are men and women are cumbuckets

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 31/01/2012 20:24

How is Basil 'vilifying' you, wmw?

You twisted her words in such a way as to imply she was saying the exact opposite to her intent, and you're accusing her of vilifying you when she picks up on that in a humorous manner?

Don't forget your words are here on the screen in black and white - we can all see them. Grin

aaaaaaargh · 31/01/2012 20:28

#You could get yourselves some superhero costumes too, like Batman or something. Or has that been done before?

Dodgy ground. I have discussed this earlier.

aaaaaaargh · 31/01/2012 20:30

#To believe that Mumsnet posters are representative of the world at large is absurd in the extreme.

This is a very large and influential site, as you well know.

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 31/01/2012 20:36

Oh come on...! I'm taking you less and less seriously as time goes on, aaaaaargh. Grin

You think attitudes in the Relationship forum are going to seep out into the real world and women en masse are going to up and leave their sometimes less-than-perfect husbands, even though 90% of the time they're actually entirely happy with them?

Riiiiiiight.

I'm sorry, the more you post and the more you reveal of your thoughts, the more they seem a little incongruous.

Your thoughts simply don't chime with some of the other posters who have come on here to agree with you, even though you're supposedly on the same side of the fence. Most 'odd'...

aaaaaaargh · 31/01/2012 20:40

#You think attitudes in the Relationship forum are going to seep out into the real world and women en masse are going to up and leave their sometimes less-than-perfect husbands, even though 90% of the time they're actually entirely happy with them?

Utterly ridiculous.

BasilRathbone · 31/01/2012 20:41

One of the reasons MRA's come over here to troll and so on, is that they are terrified that that will happen Slink. Abusive men hate it when women talk to each other and compare notes and start realising that they don't have to put up with shit because that isn't just what men are like, lots of men are much nicer than them.

Even a tiny little island of reasonable advice like Mumsnet, in the sea of shite that is the internet and wider world, scares the shit out of them. So they come here to make sure the advice is tempered with the usual misogynist shit.

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 31/01/2012 20:41

Yes it is. Confused

So what are you worried about, then?

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 31/01/2012 20:43

I know Basil - that's why I through out the word 'incongruous' with regards to aaaaaaargh's posts. Wink

ifeelloved · 31/01/2012 20:44

If only this was just on mn what about the man who was asked to move seat on the plane (away from his pregnant) so he wasn't sat next to an unaccompanied minor.

Or the that some men are scared to approach a distressed child in case of false accusations.

Or some people believing that a man working at a nursery shouldn't change a babies nappy as its wrong.

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 31/01/2012 20:44

'threw' even...!

ifeelloved · 31/01/2012 20:46

Ffs. No one is saying that anyone should say in an abusive relationship, all that has been said is that not all men are abusers

aaaaaaargh · 31/01/2012 20:47

The women en masse part. Anyway this is going seriously off topic now.

Read whatever you like into my words and surmise away.

LeQueen · 31/01/2012 20:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LeBOF · 31/01/2012 20:50

Now you just need a name...The Saggy Spandex Set?

xkittyx · 31/01/2012 20:51

ifeelloved, yes most of the people saying not all men are abusers are the ones over in Relationships telling abused women that very thing, and that it doesn't have to be this way.

Hattytown · 31/01/2012 20:54

But the only posters who seem to slate 'all men' or even use phrases like 'most men' are the ones who attempt to persuade women that they should suck up terrible behaviour just because the person enacting it has a penis. I don't see posters in the feminist section using phrases like that, or posters who self-declare as being interested by feminist politics. I have never seen any of the regulars on the Relationships board lump all men together like that. In fact it's one of my pet irritations, this assumption that 'all men' and 'all women' are the same.

You'd only need to worry about your sons OP if you and the other role models you describe have lower expectations of their humanity, than you would of female children.

As Basil says, the real man-haters are the ones who do lump all men together and suggest that one man's atrocious behaviour is typical of a whole sex and can only be expected. That's as offensive to my husband, DSs and male relatives, as it is to the kind, decent male posters on here who aren't, as Basil says, masquerading as a decent human being/female poster for a short while, after a site invasion.

SinicalSanta · 31/01/2012 20:56

So basically...the relationships section does a lot of good work, yet sometimes the advice given doesn't apply to the OP's situation.

I can see how it would make your blood boil alright.

Poor you OP. Maybe counselling would help you with your over-catstrophising and perspective issues. That's an order, not a suggestion obviously.

BasilRathbone · 31/01/2012 20:57

It's mysterious that people who are saying that not all men are abusers, are the ones who also say that women shouldn't put up with abuse.

Very stupid people will be confused.

But as slink pointed out, mumsnet isn't representative of most of the interweb or RL. Its posters are better educated and better able to follow a nuanced argument, than most sites on t'interweb.

So most of them will be able to see what's going on here.

That's the second time you've said that not all men are abusers Ifeellove.

Why are you ignoring that that is exactly what those of us arguing against the original proposition of the OP, are saying?