To be astonished at how shit my life seems compared to other MNers

[Momentumista]

I really value the support I get on MN but am often taken aback at the strength of feeling and the dramatic solutions (LTB) expressed about negative things in my life.

Things which (because they are my normality) I just take for granted. Like DH not being supportive, not standing up for myself, not putting up with being nagged etc, having had a difficult life, a past I am ashamed of.

Are most people's lives rally so good & complete with perfect relationships? Or have people just learnt from bad experiences?

I have problems but in RL, but manage to hold down a job and seem fairly normal (hopefully) to the casual onlooker.

My problems to me seem like shades of grey, while on MN they sometimes seem very black and white. Not sure where I am going with this really but just feeling a bit alone and confused.

A lot of people have something dark lurking underneath that will probably never really leave; you just learn to cope with things, or sometimes, you struggle to

Yes, I have a very nice life now. It wasn't always that way. It's a shame MN wasn't around back in the day because I would have turned it out around a heck of a lot sooner. It took me a while to LTB but if I had asked what to do on here I know that is the advice I would have been given and it would have been the right advice.

You get one life. Don't put up with shit.

I think a lot of people don't post the whole truth about their circumstances because they can't be bothered listening to LTB because their DH never does the dishes or whatever.

There will also be a lot of people with very serious problems who use MN as a form of escapism and just want to forget about their big problems. That doesnt mean their advice isn't valuable, if it is requested.

The other thing you need to think is people start a post regarding a specific point so when someone posts along the lines of "my dp behaves badly in this way " and people reply saying "my dp would never do that you deserve better ltb" you automatically think there life is already better than yours by the fact their relationship or marriage is better . But they may not have their health or have mental health issues or be skint etc etc etc the list goes on .

I do think people post from experience too for example I had a shit ea relationship . I would never ever put up with it again and am now a stronger person so if I post saying to someone in a Similair position my advice will always be to get out and that they don't have to put up with that shit . Because I have been there and I see it from the other side now

I think there is a small element of 'don't do as I do, do as I say.' Sometimes people give advice which is counter to their own experience (for example, they may be in a pretty shit relationship, but can still give advice such as LTB to others in a similar situation, because it's what they wish they could do, but, maybe for other reasons, can't).

I'm often astonished at the difference between people's lives as described on MN ('Well that wouldn't work for me, OP: in our home we have a precise 50/50 split of household duties, adequate insurance, a healthy balanced diet, no clutter, bi-weekly date nights and a tremendously exciting sex life that only gets better after 40 years of matrimony...') and the lives of almost anyone I know in real life.

So I take a lot of what people say with a grain of salt. I also think that if things were that brilliant people probably wouldn't be spending so much time on MN weighing in on other people's lives (that's certainly true for me - I find I'm on here the most, and being the most irritating & opinionated, when I'm very anxious and trying to avoid thinking about one or another horrible thing that's going on in my life).

I haven't read your other thread that people are referring to, but I've got a vague sense of what it's about from comments here. I think people who have been in an unhappy relationship can come across as a bit evangelical about the benefits of getting out, because it really has changed their lives for the better in ways they couldn't have imagined. I was in relationships for years that were not abusive, but generally awful and full of mutual dislike; I had come from a very dysfunctional family and honestly didn't believe other people when they said their relationships were happy and they didn't feel constant contempt and anger with one another. I then had the good fortune of meeting someone who was nice to me, and who called me out on it when I was not nice to him, and it entirely changed what I think is possible in relationships between men and women. Now, I put up with wildly irritating habits of his that much of MN would tell me to LTB for, and he puts up with similarly appalling behaviours from me, but actually it's fine, because we've gradually worked out what bothers us and what doesn't and we live how we live and are generally content. Basically, the inevitable shit parts of living with another person are a bit easier to put up with when you and your partner mutually like and respect and trust one another. It's hard to know what that feels like if it's not a situation you've been in.

I do hope that things turn around for you.

You only get a snapshot here. If you had looked at my life in my late 20s you would have been horrified and I would certainly have been told to LTB. I did and now my life is mostly great. But not perfect. Which is why I tell people in shitty relationships to LTB. Because it worked for me.

No one"a life is perfect. Some people are content with their lot, some people are able to describe the most average of behaviours from their spouses in such glowing terms that it sounds like the love story of the century (yes Facebook, I'm looking at you!) and some do have nice lives, but they might not be everyone's idea of nice. I've learnt to think only about my own life, without comparing it to others and trying to solve my own problems. You never know what other people's lives are really like.

I had a chaotic upbringing, troubled past and all sorts of that nature and that's why I don't stand for it now.
In fact, the one thing I wouldn't tolerate would be an in-supportive partner.

Having spent many years feeling worthless, I won't invite someone into my life to do that again.

That said, my life isn't perfect. My family are still batshit, funds are often low, despite being intelligent, I left school with no qualifications and things like illness or bereavement don't discriminate.

My DP is wonderful though, and if he wasn't, I wouldn't be sticking around to see if he'd improve.

Unsupportive. had, auto-correct.

I tend to be much more strident in any advice I give when I've been in that situation previously and either through blind luck, hard work or the grace of God, I've managed to turn things around.

My life is absolutely not perfect, not by any means. But I am very happy with it and wouldn't swap it for anything in the world.

"The other thing you need to think is people start a post regarding a specific point so when someone posts along the lines of "my dp behaves badly in this way " and people reply saying "my dp would never do that you deserve better ltb" you automatically think there life is already better than yours by the fact their relationship or marriage is better . But they may not have their health or have mental health issues or be skint etc etc etc the list goes on ."

I think it's also important to remember that just because a poster says "my dp would never do that you deserve better ltb" doesn't mean that their relationship is perfect - just that whatever has been mentioned is not an issue in their relationship (assuming that they're telling the truth...)

I think the most strident advice given on here usually involves posters who come on purporting to want to change their situation. But not actually wanting to do anything to change their circumstances.
Many sympathetic people will advise a range of possessible strategies to achieve change and the op will use the word "but" over and over. Often coming back and reposting over the same problem over months or even years. You can almost. Hear the collective cheer when they realise that wishing is not an effective way to improve your life, doing is.
So yes there is also sorts of advice from all sorts of perspectives, some of it deliberatly extreme, some of it from heartfelt experience. But amazingly almost all of it designed to help the poster find a way to move forwards and find a way to do it, even if it means shocking them out of their current mindset.
Mumsnet forum is quite amazing like that.
Oh and my life wasn't and isn't perfect, but I am working on it.