Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

When people ask for my opinion to not get upset when I give it

43 replies

Poohbearandfriends · 19/11/2015 07:13

NC for this as I don't want to out myself.

AIBU. I have several incidents in the past where friends and people I have worked with have asked for my opinion on a matter only for them to turn on me when they hear it. An example from the past was where a work colleague asked me whether she should get pregnant by her physically abusive partner as he has promised not to hit her whilst she was pregnant.

I will be honest, I laughed and jokingly asked what was going to happen after she had given birth. Work colleague then went back to her friends and told them what I had said only to be met with a chorus of disapproval from the rest of the office for my reaction and an explanation that he was a lovely bloke who just got stressed from time to time. My life was made a living hell after that and I left soon after.

The latest is a friend who lives with her partner is looking to get a grant for her son for his further education. My friend was saying she should qualify for the entire amount as she is a single parent. i.e she isn't married. I pointed out that the fund is dependant on household income, i.e. how much her and her partner earns not on whether or not she is married. (She was very quick to point out that as my dp earns over a certain amount I would not qualify).

I have sat in the same room with her whilst how the system works is explained and she still thinks as she is not married then her partners wages will not be taken into account. She is now getting quite aggressive and throwing her weight around with friends who think I am in the wrong and am trying to upset her. Culminating in me not being invited to a special lunch today that I have been asked not to come to because I will just upset her by me being there.

Feeling really pissed off atm. Please tell me I am not going mad

OP posts:

redexpat · 19/11/2015 11:44

Yeah I have a friend who isnt very good at listening to facts either. We're abroad so different rules and entitlements and things. I'd tried to get her to understand that she needed to tell the council that she was going on maternity leave, so that she could continue with her course when ML was up. But no she didnt want to do it anymore, so it didnt matter. Then 2 years later she decides that she does want to do it, and she's only used 2.5 years of her 3 years, so she is entitled to another 6 months. NO NO NO NO!

Sometimes you just have to shrug and say 'hmmm I'm sure you're right' and then change the subject. And then hold your tongue and not do an I told you so dance, even though it's really tempting!

Original poster

Poohbearandfriends · 19/11/2015 11:45

lougle I always think about others and try not to hurt anyones feelings but it seems that not everyone thinks of how hurt I am by the events. I after all only repeated back what the Deputy Head had told us.

OP posts:

redexpat · 19/11/2015 11:45

Tapirs makes a good point.

Birdsgottafly · 19/11/2015 12:14

I was a SW and I was trained in Benefits etc.

I did try to give out factual information (to friends/family), but learned that wasn't what they wanted, so I got very used to saying "I'm not sure, why not just apply" and refrained from explaining why they wasn't successful.

I was knowledgeable and it was difficult to watch people I cared about make mistakes, but unless I was their SW, they wasn't mine to fix.

In the first case, you handled it badly.

In the second case, "Not my Circus, not my monkeys" applies.

jamhot · 19/11/2015 12:36

I think I am cut from the same cloth as you, OP. I know you are getting a hard time about scenario 1, but I completely understand. She had a terrible idea about how to proceed in her personal life, and mollycoddling her isn't going to stop the fecker from hitting her. Telling her it will be alright doesn't make it true.

He's said he won't hit her this time (bet he's promised that before) and she needs to wake up to how wrong her relationship is! It is so frustrating dealing with smart people who put/keep themselves in terrible scenarios. The other people are not helping her.

Fuck tact, when it might help someone realise they should walk away from their abuser.

ZoeTurtle · 19/11/2015 13:03

Scenario 1 - I hope that was shocked laughter??

SirChenjin · 19/11/2015 13:19

mollycoddling her isn't going to stop the fecker from hitting her

Neither is laughing at her. It's not going to get her to LTB either.

Alconleigh · 19/11/2015 13:28

I can't believe that there are workplaces where colleagues sit round musing over whether one of their group should have a baby with her DV-perpetrating partner and then defending said partner.......where a conversation involves "now, Susan, shall I have a baby with Kyle, after aoll he has promised not to hit me during the pregnancy......"
I am not calling you a troll OP but hell's teeth, what sub world are you working in?!

SiegeofEnnis · 19/11/2015 13:38

OP, are you entirely sure you are explicitly being asked for your input in these scenarios? Because I do notice with some people in my life - including my wonderful DH, and I do think it's a side-effect of male, rather than female socialisation in general - when I'm talking about something, and they assume I'm asking for advice, when I'm not - I'm just talking about an ongoing issue or plan.

DH, despite knowing me since my teens, will come back with advice or a plan about how to fix what he thinks I'm complaining about, whereas in fact I'm perfectly capable of sorting out whatever it is, and am only looking for a listening ear. IN my experience, few people are actually asking for advice, they are just looking for someone to provide a sympathetic ear.

Original poster

Poohbearandfriends · 19/11/2015 14:11

Alconleigh I have worked for years in various offices. I cannot explain how bizarre the behaviour of the people in this particular company was. You would definitely not believe me if I told you some of the things that went on and it was not just confined to the girls in the office.

Tapir maybe I am just not very bright but what do you mean?

OP posts:

Alconleigh · 19/11/2015 16:09

Actually I can believe it - I have remembered one particular office I worked in where everyone was like something out of Eastenders - constant rows / feuds / dramas / crying / general low rent behaviour - it was absolutely mad.....they were so emotionally incontinent I think they actually modelled themselves on Hollyoaks or something.

Enjolrass · 19/11/2015 16:24

It could be delivery.

However I have dealt with people like this. Sil does it all the time. Recently she asked me about applying for schools. As I have just done it for both my kids.

She didn't like the information I have her and so I was wrong and she was offended. I just left it. I know I am right and she won't get into an out of catchment school that is always over subscribed. I tried to help. Nothing I can do.

I don't offer advice or opinions anymore because people asking for them don't usually want them.

Euripidesralph · 19/11/2015 23:23

For it to happen more than once may indicate delivery issues you are not aware of?

For example.... Had you realised that none of your posts has really accepted you could have done something wrong? You genuinely may not but you have excused every second of your own behaviour, matched with a strange martyr phrase "maybe I'm not very bright", I suspect you genuinely aren't aware but that sort of passive aggressive wording can feel quite manipulative even when you don't mean it

Have you got a trusted friend who would be brutally honest you could ask ? Who knows you well?

I'm incredibly lucky to have a friend who will tell me nicely upfront when I'm being unintentionally manipulative etc.... She is a godsend and I do it for her.... It's done wonders for our relationships with others

Original poster

Poohbearandfriends · 19/11/2015 23:44

Moved around too much to have any special friends. May be I cannot accept I have done anything wrong because I haven't.

I should make it clear the second incident I actually hadn't said anything when this woman announced that I would not get anything because my partner and I earned too much. To put it into context in the group I was standing in every other persons household income exceeds our income including the woman herself. Then she announced that she would qualify for the highest amount because she was a single parent. (Who lives with her boyfriend). It was only then that I actually replied about it being based on household income not if someone was a single parent or not and besides she wasn't a single parent she lived with her boyfriend.

Maybe my delivery might not have been very friendly but I felt under attack.

OP posts:

Euripidesralph · 20/11/2015 00:05

I wasn't saying you had done anything wrong, I was saying you didn't seem to entertain the possibility that you might have possibly been partly responsible, that's the sort of attitude that can cause a problem in situations if it's perceived ...... The sad thing is it seems to be you suffering the most

DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease · 20/11/2015 00:27

When you say that you didn't do anything wrong, are you including laughing in someone's face, and when they are asking you for a response on them ttc?

Fatmomma99 · 20/11/2015 01:14

I have a really amazing friend who "gets" what people tell her and says "That sounds to me like [xxx], I would do this [xxxx]" and me and others have said "oh wow, that's amazing, I'll try that"

And I tried to copy that, but I am NOT my amazing friend. People tried things I suggested and they didn't work out and they blamed me.

Friends emailed me for advice or opinion, which I gave, and then they resented me for both.

So I've pretty-much stopped. I do "listening" now. It goes down much better!

Senpai · 20/11/2015 04:01

I had a similar scenario a few years ago actually. A friend told me her boyfriend hit her, and I immediately decided right there and then I would never like him still don't.

Fast forward a few weeks and she introduces me to him, then asks later what I thought. I told her I'd never like him because he hits her.

I got some flack from mutual friends until I dug my feet in and insisted that nice guys do not hit.

"He doesn't hit her"
"She said he does"
"But he doesn't"
"Then she shouldn't have said that"
"Ok but he doesn't"
"I still don't like him, if she wanted me to like him she shouldn't have told me that"
"So you don't like someone based off a lie?"
"Yes"

That was the end of that. We still talk, I'm still friends with friend. She never brings up boyfriend and neither do I.

Stuff like this tends to blow over. Mutual friends went back to normal after a couple weeks.

I've had worse falling outs with friend because I stubbornly dug my feet in about them doing something that was clearly wrong. Unfortunately we worked together, so the whole office became toxic for a bit until I left and they saw their BS after they picked a new target. I'm still in contact with a good majority of my coworkers. Quality people will keep being quality people even when shit is hitting the fan. Those that aren't, won't. It's just unfortunate having to experience which one they'll be.

Flip

1 2