To think there's too many women on Mn living their lives with utter fuckwits?

[ssd]

I know its never easy and theres no one size fits all. I know some women live in fear for their lives or their childs lives. I know many women are financially dependant on their men. I know its easy to look on and shake my head

BUT BUT BUT.... sometimes on here I want to scream...why put up with that? why put up with utter shite?

dont let him away with it FFS

and I'm not talking about the heart rending posts from terrified or browbeaten women living in bad bad relationships, I'm talking about the everyday bollocks a lot of women seem to live with

dh isnt perfect and god help us neither am I, but fuck me, some of the threads on here are beyond belief

There is a massive gap in what we (as a nation/generation/on the whole?) are teaching wrt positive relationships, what that looks like, how to spot warning signs, how to get out of it before you feel trapped, how to set boundaries and how to enforce them and most importantly that you are allowed to end a relationship for any reason. You don't have to have approval from your partner or your parents or your friends or society and you don't have to have proof that they are cheating or abusing you. They don't even have to be a bad person at all, you can just leave because it isn't what you want anymore. Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum and we still have a long way to go to undo the thousands of years of socialisation that makes women put up with so much.

I've known a couple of women who had babies with family near by and treated their mums/sisters as the "co-parent" and pushed out their DH apart from ocassionally having a go that he "doesn't' do anything" and then they leave the kids with him for a day after not allowing him any input or parenting opinions for months, then criticise everything he did that wasn't how she would do it.

You know the type - the mum/sister cut the cord in the delivery room, was first to hold the baby, she discusses all parenting issues with her family not her partner and does everything (including holidays with the kids) with the mums/sisters no the DH……. then wonders why he struggles to bond with the kids

DH gets pushed out - then berrated because he's backed off

it is really easy to see from the outside. from the inside it is much more difficult. also one only has a small sample of rl examples of relationships to draw on. if they are crap then yous may seem normal. often it is poting on mn and seeing hte responses that suddenly opens your eyes.

I remember reading of how a women was pushed by her partner and being surprised at the outraged responses of how unreasonable he was whilst thinking; but he only pushed her...

that thread was the one that made it click for me. Had not been on mumsnet long at that point.

Surely there are a lot of women in poor relationships with abusers who post on here because:

a) it's a (relatively) safe place to post; they may fear repercussions if they talk to someone in rl
b) most of us come on here to ask for help with things we find difficult. I've asked for suggestions with DH's health difficulties (which are all too real), but I wouldn't start a thread telling people what a great husband he is, why he's a brilliant parent etc., though both are true - I don't need help with those, and I'd be a smug git to repeatedly point them out.

It's so bloody easy to say LTB but stop for a minute and try and think how it actually is for some people.

Your whole life is tied into this relationship. Your children, your pets your home, your stuff, your day to day existence are all at stake. It's incredibly difficult to see a way out and a way forward.

If you're in an abusive relationship your confidence will be low after being told you're useless and you can't manage on your own.

Some women will also be in genuine fear of their lives and the lives of their children. Many women are killed if they try and leave an abusive relationship.

Please, those of you who casually say LTB think on and try and see it from the woman's position.

By the time she's posting on here she's probably realised her relationship is fucked up...which is why you get all the info about the financial and emotional abuse. They're testing the water to guage if it really is as bad as they are beginning to realise. But they aren't ready to see the full picture as they are trying to protect themselves from it. It's a slow process coming out of the fog. It can't happen suddenly even when he's done something major.

Often you feel you can't justify ending it because you can't quite grasp the big picture. And you think it will get better.

I was never entirely sure, although when I had 2 under 3s I suspected, he was a selfish evil bastard. He tells me every day that its all my fault, 29 years of this. I was telling my cousin my plans to leave him today but that we were moving into a holiday let whilst we have some re-wiring done; I am allowing all our building work to go ahead to increase value of house (that'd be another thread about why it needs so much work) and she actually said brightly "well you never know maybe you'll have a nice time together and that might help!" after I'd told her what a bully he is with the DCs.

I can see the near future - people will think I am mad, he'll play the victim, whilst manipulating me from a one bed flat no doubt. At least the DCs are old enough now they can stand up to him but I still worry what he might do.

Women are in poor relationships for all sorts of reasons. I find on MN (as in RL) the response to this is to berate women for "putting up with it" or say "LTB" rather than help them change the situation or give them models of better relationships.

I do think some women post on here a sort of "oh dearie me isn't he silly, men eh?! smiley face wink!!" way and then when we all pile in saying "no its not funny he's a cunt" they freak out, they have to preserve what little idea of normality they have, they feel threatened with the pain of realisation, so they start defending their DH, its a sort of self protection?

I had a friend when we were teenagers (so a lifetime ago) with a boyfriend who was jealous and wanted to know where she was etc. She said she liked it as it showed he cared!! Can't reason with stupid.

I agree with MeanAger but let's be honest, that will never be taught to teens/young women unless it's by their own parents because the truth is quite a large percentage of the population don't actually believe that. There is very little support for women leaving abusive relationships and a lot of pressure for women to carry the load, put up and shut up. If governments gave a shit there would be more effort put into ensuring fathers pay maintenance for their children, that there were adequate services for women leaving abusive men. If society as a whole gave a shit there would be pressure on government to do these things.

Not everyone can even depend on their own family's support. I've read quite a few posts on here from women who say they'd have no support if they left a relationship and been told by their mum "well, you made your bed..."

I mean just the practicalities alone…. it's a big thing to split up a household.

It would take me months to save up a deposit for somewhere else, never mind thinking about how I could afford the rent on somewhere big enough for me and the children on 1 wage.

I don't want my kids living in another house that's nothing to do with me half the week. I also couldn't have them with me full time if I lived alone as I work irregular hours that childcare don't cover.

It would be an incredibly daunting task….LTB - to where though? and how?

There's one on tonight where the reasonableness of OP is open to debate, but the DH has clearly been inconsiderate to her needs and interests (OP pregnant).

The DH may respond by learning through experience, being reasonable and modifying his future behaviour or he may happily carry on putting his own desires first ignoring that their situation is different from the days where the relationship revolved around the two of them alone.

The frog in hot water is true in many of these cases. His behaviour often wasn't initially problematic, but becomes so because he fails to adapt with the relationship particularly when children appear on the scene. What may be far from ideal but tolerable with one child may become intolerable by the time there are two or three.

We rarely get the benefit of the pitfalls of female behaviour as it is biased towards the OP (e.g. some may micromanage themselves into these situations where he can't win if he's involved or not) but generally the process of pregnancy, birth and most women taking maternity leave means that their lives will change whereas men can bury their heads in the sand and carry on dumping it all on the female partner if he's that way inclined.

Previous relationships be it family dynamics or romantic relationships will also set out people's expectations. Some people have a distorted view of normal.

that will never be taught to teens/young women unless it's by their own parents because the truth is quite a large percentage of the population don't actually believe that.

Unfortunately this is true. It would involve massive cultural changes and several generations to getting there. But we can keep chipping away at it. Nothing happens overnight.

I think half the problem is if you raise this issue you get accused of victim blaming when in fact what people are trying to do is point out to people in shit (NOT abusive - just shit) relationships that they deserve better. They aren't victims anyway - just people who could be happier.

What strikes me reading on MN is how little choice women seem to feel they have in the man they will live with. Several threads recently were "he is lovely and we get on very well but when we fight he blanks me for days at a time" or "he is lovely and caring and nice to me but he cannot tolerate any criticism whatsover and gets angry if I do critisize him". And their arguments were almost "if he is lovely and nice most of the time, I would be unreasonable not to want to put up with a little bit of shit, wouldn't I?"

Either of the above would be enough for me to say "you are very nice but we aren't suited, goodbye". I wouldn't have agonised, I wouldn't have worried I was being unreasonable - just moved on.

My parents didn't have the perfect marriage but it was one in which both people were adult, functioning, kind and had a sense of humour. My mother set a very high standard in what to accept in a man by marrying my father. She also gave us explicit advice. Don't marry someone who is mean - you can't live with that it will grind you down. Don't marry a jealous man, it may seem flattering at the beginning but it will grind you down. Always have your own money. Marry a man whose faults you can live with. etc. She commented on marriage a lot - this was Ireland in the 80s, lots of her friends were ground down with too many children and too little access to money. She didn't act like that was ok but spoke to us about it.

Also before you marry anyone, you need to be pretty certain about who you are yourself. I also think many people don't actually know what a decent relationship looks like in real life.

But the thing that strikes me most when reading these threads on MN is not so much how many women put up with crap but how many miserable men there are out there who treat the one person they are supposed to love most in the world in a completely unkind way.

I had a friend when we were teenagers (so a lifetime ago) with a boyfriend who was jealous and wanted to know where she was etc. She said she liked it as it showed he cared!! Can't reason with stupid.

I have a (not teenage) friend who thinks it's a good thing that her relationship is so "passionate"

By "passionate" she means they have HORRID destructive rows, break-up, Tell each other they actually can't live without each other, have great make up sex….. then stop having sex as they build up their resentment and jealousies again…. building up to a big horrid destructive row, break-up, declare their undying love for each other.. make up sex etc etc

She thinks that other people don't "get it" because their relationships arent as "deeply passionate" as hers

I had all the it can't have been that bad and if it was that bad why didn't you leave shit after I finally managed to free myself. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The first mistake is thinking most of what's written is real.

Also people like to over dramatise on one incident and peopl think it's their every day normal

But what you think is just a shit relationship might actually be abuse.

I mean there is currently a thread running where a woman's ex partner has moved 4 hours away to live with his girlfriend and gone from having his children 3 nights a week to one night a fortnight. The OP of that thread was being told that as well as already picking up his slack on the parenting end of things and managing to care for his children on a deficit of child support she should also do half of the journey or pay half the train fares for her DC to go to their father. Failing that her new partner should do it. That's right here on MN, right now. A woman who is still being dictated to by her ex is being told to just put up and shut up "for the children".

I agree we need to teach our dc about what is kind and functional and what is not acceptable.

Pallisers. What you outlined in you second paragraph is exactly what I grew up observing. So to me as a young women that was what I'd seen as normal behaviour all my life. If you're not used to it of course it's a shock and stops you in your tracks but when you are used to it it's not necessarily a warning sign.

Honestly I'm glad I met DH in my 30s when I had gained a lot more insight into my own upbringing (and had treatment for the anxiety and depression that upbringing contributed to). I can't be sure that prior to that I too wouldn't have walked into a controlling and unhappy relationship so I just think there but for the grace of god... And I'm not even religious

I agree, I hope a lot of those threads are just trolls because I just don't understand why you see your new bloke treating your child from a previous relationship like shit then go on to have kids with him. I've seen so many threads like that over the years.

SaveMeBarry, I'm 42, so technically middle aged I suppose and I haven't been conditioned to be a good wife or to be nice and not make a fuss over anything, and none of my friends are of that mindset either.

Fuck that, NOBODY will ever come into my home and mentally or physically abuse me or my child.

The threads that annoy me the most are the ones where they don't want their kids coming from a broken home, like that should even be a saying these days.

The alternative is being brought up in a toxic environment where neither parent protects them.

Imo every woman should do whatever it takes to go back to work after mat leave, part time or full time, earn their own money, pay into their pensions and have their own savings, at least enough for a hotel for a few weeks or a rent deposit if they want to leave. I know childcare costs a lot, but both parents saving for it before the kids are born enabling the Mother to go back to work should be a priority, financial independence = freedom, freedom to leave the bastards if need be.

You're getting angry with the wrong person.

HTH

Some of us are actually stuck - I saw a solicitor standard procedure is that dads have 2 to 3 nights a week. Mine gambles. He would not care for them instead he would leave them with the first available relative. I wouldn't have the right to complain. Plus he could take them back home / I can't legally stop him apparently. So i wait. I just didn't see until after I had a child then it got better then far worse after the second. It is not so simple to just leave when there are children.