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

I think in the real world that ' talking things over ' is what people actually do a lot of the times.

Actually, it's more like
I think in the real world that 'talking things over' is what good, reasonable people actually do a lot of the times with each other.

It doesn't work unilaterally with twats and abusers.

Oh, well in that case maybe I am agreeing with both you and Pagwatch.

Any doubters still left on this thread, go look at the one in Relationships entitled simply "sleep"

New babies are very tiring aren't they. Very hard on both mummy and daddy. Yes, indeed. Sleep deprivation is a killer but you know, it's harder for the men than the women. They just don't get it like wot we do.

Now go read the thread and see what is enfolding before our very eyes.

I don't mind advice to LTB in cases of cheating when that advice is given by someone who's been there done that etc.

I do mind that sometimes a person might reinvent themselves and over time their story changes. The advice can then sound very hollow indeed to people who've been around long enough to know the reality but the distressed person asking for help is inclined to take the advice at face value. And that's unfair.

OPs vary from controlling drama llamas to people who are in a very bad place, but there are definitely MN posters whose solution to the whole spectrum is LTB, and it devalues the advice.

I think when the whole community is saying LTB it's time to take heed, when it's just the usual suspects banging on it's better to look at the others' views.

Always makes me laugh, I see the "sounds like a Twat, LTB" posts & immediately my first though is that the poster is a Twat themselves & is sat there in a grimy bedsit in their undercrackers, typing with a glass of Lambrusco next to them - bitter and twisted 'cos "the Bastard left them".

AIBU is very often the text equivalent of the Jeremy Kyle Show - next time they pan the camera round the audience & show all the sweaty, judgey people nodding & tutting - that's who's attempting to tell you how to live your life.

AIBU is fun (in a car crash sort of way) and great entertainment, but take it with a pinch of salt....

And OP you have nothing to apologise for, you're hardly the only one who has noticed the LTB chorus, its lampooned by other posters on MN and in the wider media.

Not sure what you mean, Letsface.

Are you saying that posters who say LTB change? Or the people who post about their problems?

I actually only remember the reverse, at least one poster who was so invested in not leaving the bastard that she would start threads about people managing their partners instead of leaving. Eventually she left and her tack has changed, not surprisingly.

I'd take notice even if only the usual suspects were saying LTB.
Instead of offering solutions, if people probe he OP deeper it turns out that more often than not the relationship is abusive.

If I'm not sure from the initial post I always ask about the whole relationship.
And IME it's more often people changing to LTB, than the reverse.
Ops sometimes tend to leave out the gruesome details.

In AIBU you do get the knee-jerk reaction, both jokers (mostly) saying LTB and people offering paper over solutions.

In relationships people actually take a more balanced approach and ops do get more useful advice.

It's the equivalent of:
My baby is crying a lot and won't sleep.
Oh, leave him to sleep
No, you should hold him to sleep.
Vs
Have you checked his temperature?

Sorry,
Oh, leave him to cry.

The "LTB" posts often come from posters with no relationship skills who therefore think that problems and differences are unsurmountable.

FavoriteThings Mon 23-Sep-13 14:14:41
"AF. Do you know of people where it worked out best for everyone all round that they split up?"

[Raises Hand] I posted thread after thread about my then partner on MN when DS was little, usually under different names (my last few were under the name AboardTheAxiom), and I usually buried my head in the sand. However, the same posters stuck with me, advised me and encouraged me. I genuinely couldn't see the wood for the trees and was in denial that I was living with someone who was controlling and abusive. Eventually with a lot of support and encouragement - mostly from MN, and a little from my local WA, I did LTB and I've never looked back. I am now independent and enjoying life and DS is happier. Our finances are healthier (less money coming in but it's not all getting frittered away). Oh and ex has remarried so I think he's okay with it too.

I would like to thank the mumsnetters that are always in the relationships board spouting LTB. They definitely changed my life for the better.

Whenever I venture in the relationships section, I'm always astonished at the stuff so many women are having to live with!!!! I've never ever said LTB, but by God I've thought it!!!!

The notion that there are mosty threads where the couple are haiving a little tiff that can be sorted (if only itweren't for those nasty posters with ishoos) is crap. There are so many women dealing with horrendous abuse. It's bloody awful...

Funnily enough, the men appeasers never show up on those threads. Or perhaps the raw and obvious sexist abuse the woman is receiving just doesn't appeal. A bit like the anti private school brigade who never seem to show up on threads where posters are at the end of their tether at their state school!

Oh wordfactory, do you honestly think that the stuff in the relationships section is so different to the stuff that most of the couples around you are living with? People make compromises to stay married/in long-term relationships, and we all make different ones. I'm sure some of the compromises I make would be totally unacceptable to others, just as their compromises would be totally unacceptable to me.

A lot of it is far more extreme than normal marital strife Bonsoir

I don't know anyone whose DH swears at them, calls them names, keeps them short of money, stays out all night getting drunk, gambles, spend hours on porn...yet this is bread and butter in the relationships section.

It honsetly shocks me!

The vast majority of my mates are happily married. We moan about the usual stuff, but nothing that would make me remotely consider telling them to split up.

My few friends who are divorced had situations that were untenable!

I agree that the things you mention are no-nos, but I don't just see that. Mostly I read about women with very poor self-defence and negotiation skills who have got into a hole because they didn't realise that they were making too many compromises (no single compromise was generally per se particularly dreadful).

Everlong Your penultimate one-line paragraph is actually contradicted by what follows.

But everlong telling someone not to put up with something isn't saying LTB. Its just advising not to ignore and letting resentment fester. If something your partner is doing annoys then it is generally worth telling them no?

Right, so just so we're totally clear, they were not advising the OP to LTB?

So your statement...

But there are men who aren't bastards and their women are quickly told to leave them, that's the bit I object to.

...is, in the example you've actually given, not true.

Next time the anti LTB mob want to make another one of these threads please give links to the threads where (for instance) somebody wrote in about their partners mere " eccentric habits" that merely irritate said OP and that she is making too much of an issue of because she lacks social/communication skills. Please point out where the LTB mob have encouraged LTB when there hasn't been abuse. Stop giving crap anecdotes and give real examples.
Men don't have to hate on women. There are enough enablers to big boys who weren't brought up well who went on to partner up with unwitting women. I've got a female cousin like this. A minimiser who has been in abusive relationships, is often the "other woman" in emotional affairs and often mistakes downtrodden women who stay with their abusive partners as " women in love" and abused women. Whole heap of people say that the world needs to be grateful that she never had female children. However, her four boy children (various ages) are not going to be easy work for any woman.