To wonder why some peoples response is always LTB

[anon2013]

I've noticed over many threads that people say "if it was my DH" all the time and LTB go hand in hand. I've seen people ask for advice today on here and they just get torn to pieces and it's worse if the OP is male.

AIBU to wonder why this is always the case?. If everyone took the advice they got on here sometimes nobody would ever salvage a relationship

Lol give it up, Favorite, she probably outstares six better goaders than you before breakfast

Class

I think it's helpful for posters to see that Leaving The Bastard, whilst it might not be the thing they immediately want to do/can see themselves doing, is a logical and rational course of action that has been used by others. In other words, that they are validated in the feelings that led them to posting.

IME, the things people post about are often the tip of the iceberg.

Some people who post on Relationships have had poor relationships and want to share their insights. Some people on Relationships have very good relationships and want to share the fact that life can and should be different. Some people have had both experiences.

I don't see man-hating. I see git-hating.

Um, there was a thread asking this, last week. Maybe you need to go and read that one, ahem anon.

exactly garlic

StickEmUp. There has been no personal names. And AF pointed us to her previous recent posts.

well going of this thread if AF declares you should LTB then the almighty has spoken!

I haven't read any of AF posts but there is a lot of adoration going on for her....maybe thinking I might give her a brief inbox of mine and DH relationship and see if he is out!

jingle

just say it love. we can read the strike-outs you know

Didn't AF suggest that people look at her previous posts because of the hints around 'are your parents still together' .

I thought 'check my posts if you are interested' was the post equivalent of 'and?'

Is the idea that one objects when a poster is the subject of none too veiled attacks the same as adoration?

anon2013

I don't know what threads you have been on, but I have found that this weekend there have been a few upsetting threads.
Not because people have said LTB, but because they have had to say it. :(

It's like hell is breaking lose or something. or a journo had a quiet weekend at the office

Other weeks it's more quiet.

Christina - The LTB stuff doesn't sit well with me when the OP is explicitly saying that it's not helpful but posters keep insisting that they somehow know more

This reminds me of an online argument I'm having elsewhere. People are doing the "just a bit of fun" thing over something I find deeply, offensively sexist. They cannot see my point, because their own attitudes are so sexist that my opinion doesn't make sense to them. I'm speaking a morally different language.

It's like the boiled frog analogy, and also like Stockholm Syndrome.

When I was in abusive relationships, I had no clue what non-abusive relationships looked or felt like. When I saw mutually respectful & caring relationships, I assumed they were faking. I genuinely thought all relationships involve abuse. Very patiently, Mumsnet showed me that they don't. It gave me a different set of attitudes.

The Relationships regulars have experienced both sides; they speak both moral languages, if you like. Even more importantly, they know it's perfectly possible to move out of a world where abuse is inevitable. To begin that process, the abused/abusive person must understand it's not normal or unavoidable; that the happy couples aren't all faking it.

And that process is what you're seeing when you see an OP insisting she doesn't want to LTB.

Mostly, they come back a year later and start another thread, with a mind that has been opened by 12 more months of abuse.

Sorry I mentioned it, genuinely. Maybe some people do need tough love and LTB.

MN is, or ought to be, like group therapy: if you have a problem with the group (or one of them), then raise it in the group. Hence the 'no threads about threads' rule. So I think anyone who doesn't agree with a poster should post to say so on the thread in question.

Anything else leads to unpleasantness, including a thread like this one where the OP may be genuinely trying to make a general point about the prevailing culture, because these threads rapidly become personalised.

git-hating Jamie you get my Post of the Day award.

Meanwhile, I must confess myself intrigued that countering personal attacks on someone's pyschological health counts as "adoring". I mean, exactly how low are your expectations of human beings?

Also, the line "come, let us adore him" is now on repeat in my head, and I am uncomfortably conscious that Christmas is Nigh.

I'm not pleased!

anon

I don't think that you need to be sorry. You raised a question and others explained/defended.

anon there's no need to be sorry, you asked a genuine question.

I'm a bit about individual posters being attacked for their straight-talking views though, which isn't your doing.

:) anon, I'm pleased that you've never been in that kind of trap and that you've taken your answers on board.

I think the trouble is a lot of people just won't or can't change. So you either accept them the way they are or leave. That's why there is so much LTB.

I don't care about the personalised, but I do worry about complaints about what is perceived as the "prevailing" culture.
Such threads suggest that LTB is banded out indiscriminately in Relationships, when it's not really. Or that some people just give it out without giving a thought to the actual case.
I do think it's important that such threads are challenged for the sake of the people in the abusive relationships who don't want to get out of the hole they are in.

I agree with vivienne. I was taught early on in life that with adults the only person whose behaviour you can change is your own (kids are different but you shouldn't be having a parent- child relationship with your spouse.)
If you're unhappy you decide what you want to change, you discuss this with your spouse, if they are unwilling to change/ only change for 5 minutes then it's pointless keeping on trying to change them you have to decide what you are going to change in your own life to be happier, and often that involves LingTB.

Now, I've only skimmed this thread, so sorry if I'm repeating, but...

I have been popping in and out on the relationships section for many years as I used to be a counsellor and work with agencies such as men overcoming violent emotion MOVE and woman's aid, and I am still amazed at how many women genuinely have normalised the abuse that is going on in their lives. I found they were BLIND to the FACT they were in an abusive relationship. It's like they were sleepwalking, and had normalised all the headfuck shit as normal.

Sometimes a healthy dose of LTB is exactly what these poor women need to hear. It takes a lot of courage to leave someone who has you upside down, and have you second guessing your every thought and feeling, but people saying LTB , amd you dont deserve to be abused in your short life is a start to a better realisation about their situation, and to stop the appeasement of mr shithead.

Most women leave when they notice the effects of the toxic situation is having adverse effects on their children, especially if the violence is now targeted at the children, and don't regret getting a better life away from mr headfuck.

After leaving or getting rid of his sorry ass, they wake up one day and realise for the first time in years they're not tense.
That's a result for the LTB chorus.

I see the value of the LTB posts.
No point in salvaging an abusive relationship.

Life is too short not to be able to breathe when you hear a key in the lock, and turn like a dervish to see if all the little things he doesn't like are put away and tidy - like the kids, and your opinion.

So, OP, IMVHO, YABU. LTB is a force for good.

I read the Relationship forum and have never seen someone start a thread explaining a problem they have with with their OH, being told LTB and saying oh ok, will do.

What I have read is (mostly) women who have had their self esteem eroded and by the questions asked of them, gradually come to understand that the behaviour of their OH is unacceptable. Only when they understand it do most go on to take control back of their lives.

The reason why regular posters on there know and understand what they are going through is because they have been in that situation themselves, at least once.

Some of the threads are heartbreaking and the posters who provide advice and guidance are providing a huge service IMO.

I've been on MN for years & I've never come across a LTB where it is not warranted.

I'd be interested to see a link to a thread where LTB has been suggested seriously for a partner forgetting to put the bins out once in a blue moon, or expecting sex more than once a month.

I also steer clear of threads where the OP says she'll never leave. I refuse to validate someone living in an abusive relationship with young children suffering.

I remember a thread about a woman who got "told off" for forgetting to buy milk. Turned out he was abusive

I see FT came back with some profound plonkery. Not entirely unexpected. Now, FT I need some tartan paint, doll, do you think you could get me some ?