to beg women with lazy sexist arsehole DHs not to have more DCs with them

[BeeInYourBonnet]

Apologies as I'm sure this must have been done before, but some of the threads recently have been SO depressing. I've been on MN 8 years, and it never ceases to amaze me what total fucking arseholes some women are married to. These manchilds are pathetic.

I want to cry when I read that some poor woman is pg with no 3, 4 or 5, and admits that her DH has never helped with a single night wake-up, has hardly changed a nappy, provides no support emotionally or practically, is financially abusive, the list goes on....

I know its more complicated than this, but I just want to scream 'stop having DCs with these complete bastards' 'stop showing them that's its OK to check out of family life'

Problem is that you can teach the theory as much as you like in schools, but family and peers and the media are a far greater influence.
And there will always be the cries of victim-blaming if you encourage people to take responsibility for their choices and actions.

When I was teaching in secondary schools the sex education we provided did include issues about assertiveness, not being pressurised into sex, etc. - but it was still nowhere near broad enough, & certainly didn't get into the wider issues of what constitutes a healthy relationship.

I would be furious and horrified if the school started veering into 'moralising' on what 'they' considered a 'healthy relationship'. It is certainly not their place to say, and would be extraordinarily arrogant and culturally insensitive. There are many people very happy with the balance in their relationships. Fine tell them where to go (CAB etc) if their personal boundaries are crossed, but don't tell them where there personal boundaries should be. It smacks of another form of controlling, well meaning paternalism in education.

It's very easy to judge from the outside and declare that the women are in the wrong and somehow contribute to the way they are treated.

I saw my lovely mum have 5 dc with a vile, abusive man. Part of his abuse was rape. She was unable to take hormonal contraceptives and she haemorrhaged with the coil. She was financially, emotionally, physically and sexually abused for 20 years. She was let down by every organisation she approachdd for help. We finally left when he chased my dsis up the street with an axe. We were homeless for 8 months and slept on blow up beds on my aunties floor. My youngest dsis was 3 years old at the time.

So yabu. Abusive relationships are often about the power one person holds over another. The power is exerted in many different ways and the abused doesn't always have a choice about how many dc they conceive.

What a depressing, judgemental thread. Talk about victim blaming.

How to avoid being abused.
There is nothing you can do, it is not your responsibility to spot warning flags, avoid developing relationships with abusive types, or walk away from situations that make you feel worthless or challenge unacceptable behaviour.
The responsibility is upon the abuser not to abuse.
So let's wait for that to happen.
Because anything else is blaming the victim, or potential victim and it isn't their fault.

It doesn't make sense to me.

MrsKoala what is controlling or paternalistic about telling children that a healthy relationship is one where each partner respects the other and doesn't pressure them or treat them poorly?

And mothra abusers don't tend to change their ways, so if someone abuses you (emotionally, physically, sexually) it isn't victim blaming to suggest that the victim needs to regain control and exit that situation. You aren't blaming them for their situation, just saying that the power to leave hat situation lies with them.

what about questioning these men as to why they are the way they are

it is not as simple as someone has let them be that way, they do not wake up one day and think right now i am going to be a cunt towards my partner

society, role models, media and peer pressure all play a part but fundementally we give the message to women that if we find a good man we should be grateful, we wait for a man to decide he wants to marry us and so on rather than it being equal this is what you should expect and you should not settle for less

but having children and slowly someone changes you have a mortgage, a life together it is not that easy

MrsKoala many people are happy with the balance in their relationships because they don't know any different.

Many people have grown up not witnessing equality in the relationships within their families/around them.

I think being taught in school about equal/healthy relationships is a very good thing.

Because it is not for the education system to start moralising on relationships. Telling people, if you feel you need help, are not happy then the recourse is x, or legally the definition of financial/physical/emotional abuse is x. If you feel this is happening these are the places you can call - All brilliant, fine, great etc.

Telling people what they should feel if there partner doesn't do night feeds help with housework etc. - None of their business.

I agree with Mothra's argument, but yes, when there was that recent thread about whether Mumsnet made you question your own lifestyle, my immediate response was that the biggest thing I've learned from this forum is how many ordinary women are in terrible, abusive relationships, or even less obviously 'abusive' but still exploitative, loveless and one-sided ones. And these women are not living in crack dens, but functional adults in immaculate suburban semi-detacheds.

And the worst thing of all is that many posters don't realise the full awfulness of their relationship, as they apparently don't know anything else. They post about something small and specific, and other Mumsnetters ask questions about the relationship, and it emerges as a house of horrors, and the awful thing is the OP's surprise and shock that a hundred other women are telling her this isn't normal and that in their house, everyone doesn't tiptoe around so as not to upset the Man of the House, and that chores, childcare and income are shared etc etc.

It breaks my heart. And it breaks it more that those threads often just peter out because the OP is overwhelmed by just how unequal and exploitative everyone else thinks her marriage is. And then a year later, you'll see an identical thread started by the same woman.

How is giving people the tools to recognise abusive behaviour victim blaming?

It's no different from telling small children about stranger danger, or 'good touch/bad touch'

The thing is - women with low self esteem attract shitty men, mostly. The longer they stay with said aresehole the lowet their confidence gets. The harder it becomes to leave.

You start dreading the day you do finally leavr him because he's said he'll take the kids & leave you with nothing. Or you start imagining them staying with him weekend after weekend without your mitigatng influence & imagine he'll spend the entire 48 hrs turning them into little shitty liars like him. Then you start to wonder if he'd have less influence over them if you just continued to put up with him.Then at least you can keep an eye on what he's teaching them. Or maybe that's just me.

No-one's suggesting the schools should tell people what they should feel

They just need to wake people up to how many people are unfairly treated in relationships.

Yanbu and i say that as one of the idiots who went on to have a second dc with a worthless asshole!

That's exactly it Pigeonhouse

The shock is often a wake up call when they realise that not all men are like their DPs...and not all women do the majority of work within the house

But that's not what is being suggested. We need to start equiping children with the knowledge that they deserve to be treated with respect. It isn't about whether they are getting up in the night to do feeds, it's about feeling confident in your status within a relationship and thinking that it's normal for adults to be able to discuss the balance of work within their relationship on an equal footing, that they shouldn't let themselves be walked all over.

It is very clear that a worrying amount of young men and young women are not getting this information from anywhere. When women let themselves be walked all over in their relationships, what is this saying to their sons and daughters? If your son grows up to be a total asshole to his wife because he saw his dad doing the same to you.. or your daughter grows up picking horrible men because she doesn't think she deserves any better... It's fucking sad and needs to be stopped. Children learn from what they see.

Oh hey - I am not victim blaming here - not at all.

Abusive men come in all guises...not just the alpha male stereotype. The seemingly good guy may abuse as much as the apparent bad boy may not!

I think Freudian and I are saying the same thing:

The focus shouldn't be on preventing stupid women choosing feckless men. It should be on educating people about healthy relationships, communication, boundaries etc

I appreciate that we can all feel angry, frustrated and despairing at what we read on Relationships, but the posters don't need judgement and despair. They need advice and education. They need compassion because somewhere along the line they didn't have what we have. They didn't make the choices we made, because they didn't know that the choices existed.

But MrsKoala sometimes not doing anything around the house or for the children IS a form of emotional abuse. You see it time after time on here.

Women are still socialised to think everything in the house is their responsibility and they should feel lucky if the man deigns to 'help' in any little way. This is a very damaging societal attitude, it can cause great harm to individual women -- not ALL women, but quite a lot.

So no, I don't think the schools should dictate what share of the housework each person should do -- that's not realistic. But to educate people that what happens in the home is the responsibility of BOTH partners, and they need to find a balance that works for them and is respectful of both their needs, would be a good thing.

I do feel a bit frustrated with people who carry on having babies with incompetent husbands.

My husband was a bit shite with the babies early on. It formed a big part of the basis of my decision to not have three children, which my husband sorely wants (to this day). He is a really nice guy but domestically lazy and inconsiderate/incapable of seeing anything but his own needs when he's tired. I saw the writing on the wall after baby number 1 and knew what I was getting myself into with baby number 2.

The seemingly good guy is far more often to be abusive than the guy who you would think would perhaps not make a great partner in my experince (working in dv)

they need to hide their true ways and often do and many try to be something they are not but for whatever reasons their controlling abusive ways start to surface

MrsKoala, I wasn't envisaging a teacher standing at the front of the classroom saying: "Now children, this is what a healthy relationship is like". I don't know if you've ever worked with teenagers, but that really wouldn't get you very far anyway!

I was talking about the need to discuss these issues & allow students to think through their own attitudes about relationships, & possibly be challenged by different views. A lot of teenagers will be influenced, sometimes negatively, by peer attitudes (still depressingly common for girls to be labelled "sluts" etc.) & it's important that there is a forum for analysing & unpicking those attitudes. That's exactly what education is there to do.

Women are sold a duff 'story' about relationships. Virtually every single 'romantic' film/book/tv series has a moody uncommunicative man as the hero with a poor sappy woman who will do anything to 'win' her man. People buy into that story and think that's the basis of a relationship. It isn't.

Reality's post from ages ago about what a 'good' relationship looks like is a fantastic template to judge a relationship against.

I also think, mumsnet aside, some other women need to get better at supporting their female friends/relatives. How many times have you read one of those threads about an awful dh and here are a couple of women on their saying either op is not tough enough or they should accept it? And it happens less on mn than in RL. My MIL, mother expect dh do to 0 despite us both working as that's how it was for them...unhelpful.

Children learn from what they see

Yes and no, how do generations change if they all replicate what they saw growing up. My father is abusive. I would NEVER put up with what my mum does. All my friends at schools parents had very dysfunctional relationships - it has made us more determined to not repeat it. And i know people whose parents are not abusive at all and have equality and respect and because the woman couldn't recognise the early signs of the abuse she put up with it for ages, slowly having it chipped away.

I think a very broad message of respect is fine, but any specifics and you are veering into dodgy territory.