To wonder why women put up with such crap from the men in their lives?

[seeker]

There's always threads on here about men being unable to cook, or about men making women feel so uncomfortable in the driving seat of a car that they can't drive when the man is in the car.........and women seem to think this sort of thing is normal and acceptable. Or even if they don't they still think it's up to them as women to modify their behaviour to accommodate men.

Why???????????????

I have not read the driving thread, but can imagine.

I think though lots of women - me included - put up with a lot of shit because when you are in the midst of it you can't see the wood for the trees. It is very difficult to make that decision to leave even if, deep down, you know the situation you are in is poor.

I have not read the driving thread, but can imagine.

I think though lots of women - me included - put up with a lot of shit because when you are in the midst of it you can't see the wood for the trees. It is very difficult to make that decision to leave even if, deep down, you know the situation you are in is poor.

Panicking... Are you in a long term relationship where neither of you have had to accommdate the other in some way that involves compramise? I wanted a purple hall carpet. Dh didn't. I won, he compramised. Surely every relationship has some form of one person letting their wants slide? Or are there couples who agree on every little detail of life?

Interesting that people always say "oh, I'm sure men make as many compromises as women do"

Well, not if you read mumsnet! It does seem as if agreeing to settle down with someone, not sleep around and being prepared to have children's as much compromise as most men are expected to make.

How can you come to that conclusion when the majority of the time its the female half posting here?

I think with respect Seeker that often women feel unable to leave these men because socially we are judged fairly harshly for doing so, particularly if we have got children with them.

I refuse to put up with shitty behaviour but then when this happens, if it does, somewhere along the line when you're already up the duff or you've got kids, you find yourself caught in the trap between staying put and 'working' on whatever you can salvage, or leaving, reclaiming your life and then having to put up with people looking at you with a mixture of pity, embarrassment and confusion when you tell them that your child's father was a dick and you decided enough was enough.

It is not nice being a social pariah
In fact it is tempting to tell no one but your closest friends
but people find out anyway and then they just talk about you instead of to you, and it makes no difference.

Men who make our lives miserable are usually 'normal' to begin with...mine was normal, strong, emotionally sound, funny, kind and protective. And sober.

When I was a few weeks pregnant he started to show his other side which is characterised by drunkenness, emotional hyperbole and suspicion of me to the extent that if I am out for any length of time (we do not live together) he will time me and become very angry.

I would ot stay in a life such as this, but to leave has been very very hard.
I can almost see why people stay, and compromise themselves totally. I am lucky to be accustomed to being a social pariah so for me this is part and parcel...I left anyway.

Oh yes - and I think he certainly expected me to compromise. He would always behave as though nothing was wrong the morning after. It was as though if he said he loved me enough, didn't beat me up, and promised me the earth I would be happy with that and accept the utter shit he put onto me the other times.

Maybe his last partner did
But I refuse to.

The majority of the time when I've seen a man does post on here, he gets shot down. He gets told he is wrong and that his feelings/concerns are selfish and how controlling he is being.

Just because the compromises are perhaps on the different side of the coin to your personal feelings op, it doesn't make them less valid.

I think there all sorts of different permutations going on.

Some men change or reveal their true colours after marriage, sometimes in a very scary manner that makes getting out or complaining difficult.

Some women have been brought up to have very high expectations on their role as keeping the relationship going.

Some women want to keep their expert role about the house and encourage cluelessness in secret though they may complain openly.

Some do a half-way house, like my mother: she wants my dad to do basic cooking and cleaning but never, ever to use any initiative around the house, because that would be threatening her expert status.

It's also cultural assumptions. When I moved here from Sweden, two things struck me:

one was that there was a general discourse that portrayed men as useless or helpless around small children (though I had known plenty of sloppy, lazy men (and women), I had never come across this particular one before)

the other was the discourse that assumed that you would be less good at parenting if you were working class- again a totally new one to me

I wonder how much people are influenced by cultural discourse.

It's true! I was in an EA relationship for 20 years. I had no idea he was abusive as it just kind of happened and I let it because I was sure he was a good man and would change. He denied me my own home by saying that we had to live with his mother because she couldn't afford to stay in her home unless we helped. Many arguments over that one, but it always came round to making me feel selfish and guilty for wanting our own place with our children. So many other things as well. It was all very subtle and mainly guilt inducing, making me question my own values and mind that it became normal.

I did eventually realise how deeply unhappy I was and that he was not going to compromise ever - but it took a very long time to work up the courage to leave. One of my kids is severely disabled and I could not have handled him on my own (well, I don't think I could). When he went to a residential school, I found the strength to start making plans.

2 and a half years down the line, I have my own place and a partner who has shown me my worth. There is no more subtle criticism. There is no more coercion for sex. There is no more paying for a man to drink himself stupid every day and dabble in businesses that go tits up after a year. There is no more pandering to his mother's whims. There is no more shouting.

In the past, I did discuss and communicate with my husband but it never got me anywhere as my views were not valid or considered in his view.

My life now is so much different. The ex was devastated when I left him because he had lost the control. I told him that if he had ever loved me he would have treated me with respect.

My new partner couldn't be more different (and considerably younger ). I have never been happier. My kids are happier.

It is difficult to break away and stop the cycle. It's difficult to change a situation too.

Seething quietly inside I will throw my hat into the ring. Some men are arseholes but news flash so are some women. The threads on here are not a true reflection of life but from people who have distress in their lives so we see a skewed aspect of relationships. how many threads say my OH is fantastic and I have no complaints, not many of you would settle down to read those. relationships are a real sod and bloody difficult to make work as we ghange . Some of the stories here touch the heart and those men are indeed gits but others set expectations on us that we cannot ever live up too. I get grumpy and miserable and life grinds me down but that happens to my Oh and we just say sorry and get on with it. So my advice to those with small problems is stop feeling so hard done by and enjoy your life before you know it you be looking back and thinking well i wasted that.

Rant over slinks back to the ironing

I agree with Teeb here.

Also, perhaps a lot of men feel as though driving is more 'their thing' because their wives never change the oil, change the tires and wouldn't know their way round a car engine if their lives depended on it?

Maybe they see that as 'men's work'?

Also, you read just as many posts from women saying their DH's don't do things "right".

"Right" often translates to he doesn't do it "My way".

If I was married to someone who kept criticising the way I did things, I'd probably leave them to it as well.

Obviously, I'm not talking about everyone here but it does get on my nerves when I read it.

Athing "women feel they should "work at it" after dating for a month."

What is that all about? It drives me mad. I want my daughters to have many relationships. My worse fear is that they'll fall in love with someone in their teens and think, this is it I must work with what I got.

I've been very lucky with my DH, but I didn't win him in a raffle. A few things about him I didn't like, but the big things, I either decided early on to accept or change. But I met him with a few relationships behind me- not failed, but relationships that taught me what I wanted from a partner and what I was prepared to compromise over.

However when I read threads like the driving one, I don't look down on the posters, I just feel grateful that I was strong enough to not accept a 'good enough' relationship and to work on the marriage I did end up in.

I totally get what Emilie says about being a social pariah as well. So many mutual friends chose to believe what the ex had said about me rather than consider that he might be at all to blame. I don't see them any more.

I have also noticed a lot of threads where women (and on mumsnet it is usually is women) are trying to be nice, reasonable, kind and thoughtful about other people who patently are not the slightest bit thoughtful or kind about the OP.

Custy's relatives thread for example, she was clearly expending unbelievable amounts of emotional energy on a bunch of people who treated her like shit, and she was feeling guilty.

Why, why are there so many threads with women being guilty about not liking being treated like shit?

And it isn't always women treated badly by men I know several RL couples where the women behaves dreadfully towards the bloke who remains passive.

And I think it is down to cultural discourse, the emotional side of relationships is seen as the woman's territory, the same as arranging social events, it is nearly always the women who arrange them. Therefore if there is a relationship issue the woman is seen as being the one who expends the energy trying to sort it out.

Also, yes, people get the behaviour they are prepared to tolerate, so if you think it is ok to be treated badly, people will generally treat you badly.

What a horrible thread. Why is the question always why do women put up with this and not why do men do it? That is the root of the problem, stopping men behaving like this. Focusing on women's behaviour is just looking at the symptoms not the cause.

And contrary to popular belief women are not as bad as men. 4 times as many women are killed by their partners as men. 1 in 4 women suffer sexual assault or rape in their lifetime. Men perpetrate abuse and violence far more than women.

What strikes me as odd is that people think compromising over the colour of a carpet is on the same spectrum as "compromising" over being spoken to and treated with respect.

Being able to agree with other people about stuff like carpets, cars, who plays with the alien house is stuff we teach our toddlers.

Putting up with being treated badly by someone is not something I will ever be teaching my kids.

I always hung on to the thinking that I must work at my marriage. It wasn't about what I would tolerate and in the end became about not being financially or emotionally able to leave.

It wasn't until I realised that a marriage takes two people who are willing to work at it that the penny dropped and I started saving to leave.

agree abi

seeker I know was harsh but

(a) this thread wont make anyone feel good or solve anything, really

(b) sometimes relationships have niggles, as many have said upathread a good man not washing up 100% of time is NOT end of the world

(c) this could be viewed as sexist against men, as makes some fairly wide asumptions

(d) this is also sexist against woman as it denigrates them for being weak fucking twats for putting up with it

I am NOT feeling the love for this topic, can you tell!

Leave the bastard?

Because they op mentioned issues like driving and cooking and didn't mention full blown emotional abuse, other posters have filled in the gaps, I'm talking about what I see as inevitable compramise when 2 people share their lives.

Because he puts up with a lot of shit from me.

"Why is the question always why do women put up with this and not why do men do it?"

Both questions are important.

lambet - I have girls too, and share your hopes for their future relationships.

And I will certainly be focusing more on what they shouldn't accept than why men act that way.

One is interesting in theory. In practise, only having their own boundaries will help them.

I agree Abigail that serious abuse against women (as well as men of course) is absolutely wrong. I wasn't aware that this is what the discussion was about and I felt it was more about general day to day grind of relationships like cooking or nagging and criticism which happens from both sides, but seems to be a lot more accepted when it is a woman doing it.

I wonder if that says more about how we perceive gender roles, that a woman who complains her husband never does anything right (her way) on these boards would be supported and told that her husband should do more around the house and do it efficiently. If however a man came here and said 'my wife doesn't fold and iron the clothes properly' then I can just imagine the reaction he would receive, that he likely has control issues and shouldn't be telling his wife how or what to do things and micro-manage her. Is that because we consider men to be stronger/more powerful and therefore they can more easily slip into a position of control, where we think of a woman as the weaker of the two and so her complaints are harmless?