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

@GonzoFlyingProducts why are you letting that bitch destroy your son?

Again, a kid without anyone to stand up for them, not even his parents.

Your'e allowing your child to be bullied in his own home, you are just as bad as the stepmother.

gonzo I really feel for your son. He isn't getting your support at all. Don't be surprised if when he's 18 he goes no contact with you, will you? ☹️

But don't some women want the relationship they end up with and sometimes it's one that you couldn't tolerate for 5 minutes.

My very good friend has been married for decades to someone I tolerate in a pleasant way because she is married to him. She always felt her DF was dominated by her DM so she wanted a victorian traditional marriage. And by god she got it.

Her DH is a total MCP. I could not be married to him for 5 minutes. But she likes him being in charge. She likes that he is strong, a know all, bossy, and has the last word. Unfortunately she has 3 sons who, apart from 1 of them, are carbon copies of their Dad. One of them said to her that women are best chained to the sink. Yes really. I obviously called her out on this big time but it's her life and what her DH says is the way it is.

Deep down I think she has big issues because resentment does creep in with how her DH is sometimes. But most of the time she chooses to be take second place to him.. (Her DH and 3 DSs don't even bother with her birthday but she's let them get away with that for decades).

One thing I do know. She will never ever leave him. All I can do is be there should she ever need me.

I just think her upbringing has conditioned her to seek a relationship like this.

I see this on the local fb groups I'm part of all the time. Mum's complaining about their useless DPs all the time, how they don't do anything around the house etc. Then in the next breath 'I'm pregnant!' Just, why??

When someone posts a problem on the internet, we only see the snapshot of their lives they initially give us. There could be a hundred other aspects to it that we don't see.

I'm lucky that my DH is normal and doesn't behave like an arse much, but if I were to make a post when he said something hurtful or ignorant or when he was impossible, or impatient, or bad tempered, you would all shout LTB. It doesn't happen often but if I told MN about it it would be the end of him!

I'm fairly passive but I do have standards. I had a lucky escape in my 20s - something felt off and I refused to marry the guy or move away from my family so we split. When I look back, he had all the classic hallmarks of an abuser, emotional and physical. I was gone pretty soon after the TV remote first whistled past my head - I never discussed it with anyone at the time (no such thing as Internet) but I was fortunate to be have been brought up in an environment where that behaviour was considered neither normal nor acceptable. But many are not so lucky.

Agree and recently people here have been queuing up to defend said fuckwits. It's depressing.

Don't let's forget that many women are (rightly) afraid to leave their husbands because they don't quite know what they might do.

It is a well-known fact that a high proportion of murders this country involve women who have left or are in the process of leaving their husbands.

This a thread atm with an ex threatening suicide and posters berating the OP because she needs to know what happens to him after he leaves hospital. They keep telling her again and again that she must harden herself and ignore him, and don't seem to notice that she is saying that she needs to know for her own and her daughter's safety.

typo: There is a thread

Thinking about this some more, we obviously learn a lot from our own parents.

In the 1950s my Dad worked really long hours but it never stopped him from doing his share of housework/parenting. He was my gold standard. After dumping the men in my first couple of relationships who fell way short, I became much more choosy and set my bar higher.

However, if you have been brought up in a family where the father was an abuser or controlling or a lazy slob, then it becomes the norm. I don't know how you break out of having such low expectations.

It seems some women don't or can't learn and they lurch from one bad relationship to another having babies as they go and making it more and more impossible to escape the pattern.

I can't see this ever changing which is depressing.

YANBU and even some of my very good friends are just nonchalantly plodding along with absolute pigs. They know they're worth more and deserve more, but sometimes it's so heavily indoctrinated they stop even noticing the behaviour. I could weep sometimes when I listen to just general chat, that to me would constitute physical/emotional/financial abuse, and they're talking about it like "oh, that's men for you". No its just not ok!

A lot of women do seem to have very low expectations of men and I think this can start with their DMs/DGMs.

When me and my DP moved in together all the women in his family were laughing about how he wouldn't be able to tidy and do his laundry and how would he cope etc etc.

I just laughed and said he was perfectly intelligent and able to do normal household tasks (being an adult and all!) and that I certainly wouldn't be washing/ironing for him. And he's fine, probably does more housework than I do. We both have much lower standards than his DM has though; I can't be doing with constant laundering or ironing.

I do think sometimes women make a rod for their own back. Just to be clear, I am NOT talking about abuse here, only household laziness as it's one issue that seems to come up a lot.

Given that girls/women are conditioned from birth to play nice, be good, smile, look pretty, appease... and those who don't are feisty, boyish, unfeminine, masculine, cold-hearted, etc it's hardly surprising that so many end up being treated like a doormat is it? Must make sure we keep the peace, after all.

Have to say I found myself with a number of arseholes prior to meeting my lovely DH and it wasn't till I dissected the relationship I had with my father growing up that I realised why I'd made bad choices. I never lived with any of them, thank god. Not everyone has that thing at the back of their mind telling them they're worth more. Because, through various life lessons, they have come to the conclusion that they aren't.

Awful? Yes. Surprising? Nope.

Financial independence is key. It should be taught to all girls in school. You should never rely on a man for financial security. I know of lots of women who are only with their partners for this reason and lots of me who are only with theirs for the kids.

men

I have a 17 yr old son from a previous relationship and he came to live with me and my long term girlfriend with whom I have two younger children seven years ago. She is awful to him. She picks on him, she resents him, she marginalises him

You are letting this happen for seven years!! Seriously? Shame on you
^ you obviously have never had a loved one in an abusive relationship!

As this dad (and many of us who have watched similar happen) probably knows, if you press too hard on the issue, the abuser will use this to totally isolate their victim from you so that they have no support system at all waiting for them when they finally get the lightbulb moment and want to leave!

You should never rely on a man for financial security.

With the cost of living relative to wages this becomes difficult. I worry as I am disabled and currently reliant on benefits, and whilst I hope to return to work at some point I don't know if I'd ever be able to manage fulltime whilst looking after children.

When a woman is on maternity leave and/or has small children to look after why shouldn't one partner be financially dependent on the other? It can also be the other way around of course. What I mean is it's not necessarily just how you organise your finances, it's learning to support each other in different ways during different stages of a relationship that matters - equality, being true partners and having respect for each other's roles.

I thought my biggest mistake was not insisting on a joint bank account, however this was not the issue, the real issue was lack of transparency regarding finances and lack of respect and undervaluing my role as the primary care giver, unable to bring in as much income as my partner. Mind you, he is an abusive narcissist but I didn't know that until I became financially dependent on him for a brief amount of time.

YANBU!!

When the 'and I'm pregnant' comes up my heart just sinks.

How can you be attracted/have sex with somebody who treats you like shite??

We teach our kids about contraception, it's not rocket science.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I have a genuine question:

If a man is not abusive, is just bog standard selfish/lazy/inattentive to wife and/or kids etc... If he's just a common garden fuckwit and a woman wants to leave...

Then how does she square in her mind and heart the idea of her kids being away from her, and with him, for potentially 50/50 of the time? Might she not think (and possibly rightly) that it is better for the kids to have at least one great parent with them, 100% of the time? Instead of spending up to half their time with someone who is not awful, but who does not provide what their mum (or dad, if situation was reversed- women can be fuckwits too!) can. What does the woman- who cares more than anything about the welfare of her kids, and who works fucking hard to ensure that their home environment is as happy as it can be, even if her relationship isn't- do then?

I know the counter argument, that kids pick up on an unhappy relationship, that happy mum means happy kids etc. But how can she wave goodbye to her kids up to 50% of the time, KNOWING they will have a worse time with him than if she was there?

It is so, so easy to judge when everything is fine in your own life. But things are not always clear cut.

okthen

I agree. I have friends who spend 3/4 days a week dealing with the fall out of dad's house (no bedtimes, irregular meals, erratic discipline and varying amounts of attention plus LOTS of broken promises) and just as the kid is getting back to normal it's time to go back to dad's house!

Is the need to have more children more important than who you have them with.

GonzoFlyingProducts
I have a 17 yr old son from a previous relationship and he came to live with me and my long term girlfriend with whom I have two younger children seven years ago. She is awful to him. She picks on him, she resents him, she marginalises him.

I don't know if you are brave or stupid to admit the above. But I don't need a crystal ball to see how utterly selfish you are to have put yourself first by chosing to live with a woman who treated your son so badly and you did nothing. He should have been your priority. No doubt you will be puzzled when he comes of age and choses to go no contact with an uncaring father and a horrible step mother.

It's shameful.

You are letting this happen for seven years!! Seriously? Shame on you.

So if a man posts its his fault, if a woman posts its the mans fault, ah I see the nuance

YANBU. It makes me sad that so many women have such a low sense of self-worth that they put up with being treated this way. I wish I knew what we could do to stop this happening.

She is awful to him. She picks on him, she resents him, she marginalises him.

Think that was in reference to the birth mother not the step mother