to think that MN is not a good place to get relationship advice?

[InForAFlaming]

I've name changed for this as I am so obviously going to get flamed.
I've had a couple of threads on the relationship boards, as well as reading quite a lot. I've been really concerned and appalled about how quick people are to denounce someones relationship as doomed and suggest they leave, especially as there are children involved. I realize many of the people giving advice have been in very difficult or abusive situations, and I don't want to undermine the importance of these experiences, but there does seem to be a very quick assumption that everyone's husband is like this, therefore LTB.
When people post, you can only get a very vague sense of what's going on (I'm excluding the obviously awful ones where someone is being hurt or taken advantage of blatantly), and you only hear one side of the story. So how can people be so adamant in their advice?
In reality:
Good people (men and women) do bad things sometimes.
In the lifetime of a marriage/relationship most people (men and women) will at some point say something hurtful, behave unreasonably for a period of time, other things which are not nice.
And I get the impression that on MN all men are supposed to be angels all of the time, as well as being patient and understanding when women are less than angelic due to pregnancy, motherhood, work related stress etc.
Am I on my own here?

Again, I don't think there's anyone on Mumsnet who genuinely hates all men.

They just seriously dislike bastards.

Also again: not all men are bastards.

There is one poster who I have been known to stalk in a non stalky way, just because I love what a common sense approach she has :)

The trouble with that board also, is that posters like Worra and many others, leave the board and all the posters saying LTB or encouraging them to leave, are still on there posting.

YANBU, I generally avoid relationships but have noticed the super eager 'I think there's an OW involved' no matter what the poster's DH has done...

There are definitely some that should LTB. No doubt about that. I dont think many posters would say that that isnt true. And sometimes, the ones that should leave should have left ages ago.

But it is the attitude of some posters that do not think a relationship can be worked on, when it can.
They want the relationship thrown out. Thrown away. And intersestly, the women who do that, are actually in relationships themselves. Perhaps it is a case of do what I say, not do what I do.

I do actually think some of them are basing the LTB advice on what happened with their own childhoods, and not their current relationships.

I totally disagree. I am in a very long and happy relationship. I see too many women putting up with awful relationships, both on here, and in real life.

Good point, snoofle. I rarely post on threads about marriages/romantic relationships, if I do head into RL I err towards family threads etc. Sometimes I do post on marriage threads, for example, but I have a few times been shouted down by other more vocal posters, been told I am being U etc. I don't feel the confidence of my opinions and so don't post much more.

Is that what happens to a lot of posters? There's that worry, as someone has said upthread, that maybe the relationship really truly is shit. And if you post saying oh, that's not too bad, what if it is, what if you are encouraging someone to work things through with their abuser, making them feel they shouldn't talk out about issues?

It's like medical advice. It's probably better to err towards the "OMG!" side...

Would agree with other posts though, that if a woman has good reason to leave, and is going to leave, that excellent advice is then given[as far as I know].

infinity I'm glad you got the support you needed but that isn't always the case for every one.

JapaneseMargaret. I really do think there are a few man haters. Or at the best, man 'okbuttheyneedtoproverthemselvers'

I have three DSes. I actually fear for them a bit with the venom sometimes aimed towards males on here.

I guess in some ways, misery loves company?

I'm always amused when it turns out I know supposed 'man haters' in RL and they're married with male children and male friends.

And intersestly, the women who do that, are actually in relationships themselves. Perhaps it is a case of do what I say, not do what I do.

Gosh, what a bizarre interpretation. Why 'interestingly'?

Maybe these women are like myself - in happy, loving, mutually supportive relationships with nice men, and they're encouraging an OP to leave because she can do so much better.

I agree. I think there is some great advice from some amazing people a lot of the time but recently I've been quite shocked and worried by some attitudes on MN.

Two recent threads particularly - one where many women spoke about a consensual sex act that they enjoyed within their relationships which provoked 'he is degrading you, has no respect for women, thinks you're garbage etc'. And another where an OP was angry that her 16 yr old DS was dumped by a LT girlfriend the day before a big exam and someone posted 'why should she be groped or penetrated (!) when she doesn't want to be which must have been awful for the OP to read. Followed by lots of 'should we tell women in abusive relationships to stay till it's convenient' and 'telling girls not to put their feelings above a man's is damaging' etc when the OP was just saying, it's a shitty thing to dump someone the day before an exam.

I've been on MN a lot but I have noticed an increasing trend on SOME threads (not all, but definitely many) that seem to be veering towards a general view that a lot of men are abusive and that women are hapless victims regardless of whether they think they are or not.

I don't that is a healthy view about men OR women.

Yanbu! I've thought the same many times! Relationships are far too disposable these days, sometimes they actually need effort

In the past I've been told to LTB when I posted in a rough patch. Needless to say I didn't and everything has been grand now for several years. The response wasn't that helpful I suppose. Except that it reinforced that something had to change.

So obviously, I didn't LTB just because some people on MN told me to. But if I had decided to LTB it would have been great to have had the support of MN through that, including practical support and advice.

So I do know what you're saying but I also think it can be very supportive in some circumstances.

I don't read the relationships threads much any more.

I remember a long thread from a very unhappy Mumsnetter about her marriage, which did indeed sound terrible. Her dh sounded awful. She was extremely unhappy. Loads of us were saying ltb on that thread. But she didn't and then had another child with him (I think her third).

She's left him now, though, about 4 or 5 years later.

I used to think that feminists[not sure how relevant that is to the relationship board, but maybe it is??] hated men.
Now I think it is not hate, but fear.
Fear of most men strangers in general.

It's not a huge amount, but there are few posters I truly think hate all men, as I have never seen them post anything remotely positive toward a man or staying in a relationship with a man, even when the op is a very mild question about a disagreement. They will do their best to make the op question him, sometimes getting rather hostile and trying to "catch the op out".

As an OP, I do think it's easy to rant about DH's on an anonymous forum and even make them out to be entirely wrong and unreasonable because you're angry about a disagreement, and if you weren't posting anonymously on the internet there would be a very different version of events presented. It isn't right because it becomes very hard to see where there is a genuine problem, where the OP is later minimizing the incident, and when she has actually just calmed down and told the truth, but it's always going to happen, as long as this is an anonymous forum.

Well, I'm a feminist, and I've already posted upthread to say that I love men. They're great.

I just don't like bastards, and yes, woud encourage a woman living with one to actively think about leaving him.

I am probably a bit scared of bastards, truth be told. Aren't most people...?

I took the LTB advice a few years ago after many years of misery in a marriage that wasn't obviously doomed but was just bringing me down.

The wise MNers called emotional abuse, some thing I'd not really heard about before.

Questions were asked about what exactly I was getting out of my relationship (financial stability, along with some financial abuse), what did he do to show that he loved me (nothing), what was the main thing keeping us together (fear of the unknown, worry about the DCs) and I realised that I didn't need to stay married if it didn't make me happy.

It's as if MN 'gave me permission' to put my feelings up there with everyone else's and leave. I'm so glad I did. I wasn't strong enough then to put myself first, but now I am.

Subsequently when MN advice about my current DP conflicts with my gut feeling, I am confident to take it with a pinch of salt, but that confidence also means I can call my DP out on it too. If I were less confident to sort issues out directly with him then the LTBs would probably be justified as his strong personality could easily overpower a more vulnerable woman.

I think that having a zero tolerance approach to some of the behaviour we hear about so often on here is the best way to keep ourselves safe and to show these men that they need to step up and treat us better.