To think that Mumsnetters suggest leaving DP's & DH's at the drop of a hat?

[ohmywhattodo]

That really! I’ve been with my DH nearly 23 yrs and married over 18.5yrs. Seriously speaking reading the mn posts I would have been told to leave him multiple times - yet I don’t want to be divorced from him and both he and I love each other. We have several children and if I’d left him every time we’ve had a serious disagreement or said things in the heat of arguments or when things have been tough (& there have been many) our children would have been much much worse off both financially and stability wise. Relationships take ALOT of work and even more when there are children involved - frankly reading Mumsnet I’m not surprised that the number of children from split families is so high if virtually nobody seem willing to actually work at a relationship.

I’d agree with the pp who suggests that effort doesn’t always mean hard work but I would say that during parts of marriage it has been hard work to maintain a marriage with all the difficulties going on around us. That imo is ok - it wouldn’t be ok if were a lot of the time though!

Agree that sometimes LTB is used in a case where actually there should be a chance to have a really serious conversation first. You have to give people the chance to change. BUT the relationships I read about on here really shock me. The things some women put up with and see as normal makes me so sad for them. So I guess I see both sides.

You should only LTB if there's abuse or infidelity. Anything else you should resolve so that the whole family benefit.

Anything else you should resolve so that the whole family benefit

The whole family can benefit by acceptance it’s over and allowing two new families to grow.

53% of women in coercively controlling or emotionally abusive relationships don’t self-identify as victims of abuse.

That is to say; half of emotionally abused women don’t realise they’re being emotionally abused because, as pp have said, ‘shit’ is their ‘normal’.

And often on this board there are posts that shout loud and clear that the OP is in an abusive situation but doesn’t realise it. But to anyone who’s been through it and got the t shirt, it’s glaringly obvious.

That’s why when I read things like ‘relationships are supposed to be hard work’ it sets alarm bells off. LIFE is hard work. Relationships are supposed to support and nurture you.

Is your partner ever cruel to you? Do they withhold money from you, push your sexual boundaries, make you feel threatened or frightened, physically harm you or someone else close to you including children and pets, stonewall you or withhold affection as ‘punishment’? Are they jealous? Do they track your movements? Do they try to isolate you from friends and family? Do they use drugs or alcohol excessively?

All of those things are signs of abuse.

The whole family can benefit by acceptance it’s over and allowing two new families to grow

New families? You mean having children with other people when you already have kids? If so then that's very selfish for one and you're just making your life even harder and messy for the children. Even the evidence states that it's not good for children if the parents split up, bar abuse etc.

Well, it's true..relationships shouldn't need 'hard work' etc.

You get one life, and its too short to spend compromising and having to constantly work to keep things pleasant.

If you haven't got the courage to do it, that's fair enough and understandable..its a scaru thing to do financially and practically sometimes.

You mean having children with other people when you already have kids? If so then that's very selfish for one and you're just making your life even harder and messy for the children

Neither myself or my ex have additional children.

Even the evidence states that it's not good for children if the parents split up, bar abuse etc

You do know that evidence doesn’t apply to every situation?

You have one life. We could have bumbled along, getting increasingly unhappy. We chose to end the relationship as friends, we remain friends and co-parent successfully and amicably. DD has two loving homes.

Some posters cry ltb at the slightest thing but more often it's well and truly needed. I've read some awful things on here and the op needs to be given it straight. Too many women are being treated like rubbish and sometimes its a trivial fight that brings the whole thing out in the open.

The point I was making is that LTB seems to be the answer for everything on those threads.

No it doesn’t. I actually can’t remember ever seeing someone an OP to LTB where it wasn’t justified due to said bastard being in some way an abusive little shit.

We shouldn’t be normalising women putting up with horrible behaviour from men. We shouldn’t be saying ‘maybe he has a good reason for being abusive’. We shouldn’t be saying ‘marriage is just hard work’. We shouldn’t be saying ‘everyone is cruel sometimes’. This is bullshit and it’s actively harmful to women.

My relationship isn't hard work. I'm glad I long ago left a relationship which was hard work or I'd not have met my lovely DP.

Relationships take effort but no, they're not supposed to be 'hard work'.

Sounds so smug, & as if a woman should be grateful to be in a relationship come what may and should strive for a man.

When someone posts with relationship problems I don't assume they got up one morning thinking oooh, let me post my dilemma on MN. Mostly they've had a shit situation going on for ages, & also have already tried 'The Talk' several times, but have been ignored. So they're here as a last resort.

Yes, there are threads that make me raise a brow when it's something that could be resolved, but posters act as if they'd leave just like that (yeah, right) & the OP should too.

But that doesn't take away from the vast majority - the posters who give well thought out, kind advice.

The thing is if you look for negative then that's all you will see.

A relative was hit by her DH. Her mum said “she’d made her bed and could lie in it.” Is that ok? Should she just have worked harder?
If a relationship makes you unhappy then it’s time to move on.

I think people who have left an abusive relationship after it got very difficult to leave (and were lucky to escape with their lives, their kids lives and sometimes custody of their own kids, any sanity left etc.) quite often say "LTB" because they wish they had when there was first trouble instead of putting up with years of shit and wasting big chunks of (sometimes their whole) lives.

I try to err on the side of caution and don't often recommend people LTB but only because I know it wouldn't have encouraged me to leave, I was too overwhelmed, scared, unsupported. So I would rather advise people to take steps to learn about abuse etc. Especially as it's known that leaving is the most dangerous time (so LTB could lead to someone getting killed if they haven't made steps to make sure they are safe) but I can see how tempting it is to just shout "leave him, leave him, leave the bastard now it's not going to get better" because it doesn't and it won't

If a relationship makes you unhappy then it’s time to move on.

This is such an important point. Just being unhappy is enough of a reason to leave. You only get one life.

Another poster also made an excellent point that leaving an abusive relationship is actually the most denagerous time for a woman. 96% of domestic murders happen at the point of separation. Very often women stay in abusive situations because they know is the only thing keeping them alive.

So while ‘LTB’ is often the right advice in blunt terms, better advice would be to point women in the direction of support to be able to leave safely.

It seems to be a place of extremes, you see lots of threads about abuse, but also things like DH went for coffee with a female colleague -LTB . People have very different expectations and boundaries and any advice on an online forum should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

I disagree. I think women on MN are willing to put up with truly shocking shit from their partners, and that there is generally a very low standard set for men.

My partner has never even once said something cruel, or used a weakness of mine against me, or treated me like a housekeeper, or pressured me for sex, or any of the other crap you see on this site all the time. And I have never done it to him. Neither of us are magical unicorns either - this should just be normal. It should be absolutely standard to treat your partner with respect and kindness. And if your partner doesn’t do this, you should seriously consider leaving.

I agree with every word of this. One of the things that often strikes me is how many women describe a completely shit relationship devoid of kindness, joy, respect and then say "is this abuse" as if a diagnosis of "abuse" will allow them to leave. This happens even in relationships which aren't committed yet - no children, not living together and they are still limping on with a completely shit relationship. It doesn't have to be abuse for it to be unacceptable. You don't have to be in an abusive relationship to decide it isn't for you. Obviously if you have children, you don't leave without a great deal of thought and consideration but relationships should make your life better - not worse.

I think good relationships can be hard work at points. We've got a newborn and money is tight because I'm on mat leave and I'm the higher earner. We're both sleep deprived, and because of finances and the practicalities of having a tiny baby our lives have changed completely, we used to travel a lot, see friends all the time go to the theatre, gigs, exhibitions, dinner etc most weeks, we'd talk about politics, music, current affairs. Now it's nappies, laundry, desperately trying to find time to engage with each other as a couple rather than mum and dad, talking about feeding times, naps, the baby. It's harder work now than it was before.
When DH has fallen asleep at ten despite getting a full nine hours the night before and being on annual leave this week, and I'm trying to juggle a velcro baby, getting the cat in and sterilising a breast pump at 1am which resulted in me accidentally leaving my hard won tiny amount of expressed milk on the kitchen counter overnight reverting it useless, of course I'm annoyed/upset, we just talk about it, deal with it and move on (won't be happening again and he's taken baby out for a couple of hours so I can nap, bath (and MN)). If I just wrote a post saying DH has gone to sleep and left me to do all this even though he's off work, I'd get a chorus of LTB, but actually he's great with DS daily does household chores, comes straight in from working twelve hours and takes DS recognising I need a break, brings me tea in the mornings, makes me lunch before he goes to work so it's in the fridge for me, does little things like de ice my windscreen in the morning if he knows I need to go out in the car etc, but it would be easy for me to only tell one tiny story.

I think that it is quite interesting that you have posted from the position of being in a long relationship of 20 years plus. A lengthy relationship gives perspective that is quite different from a relationship of under 10 years, or 10 -15 years. Relationships go through huge peaks and troughs.

A trope I often see repeated on MN relationship threads is 'I left my ex-husband and now I am in a relationship with a lovely man'. But they may have only been seeing that man for two years: of course he's lovely as it is still the honeymoon period! But pop over to the dating threads and it actually seems very hard to find a new partner, especially once you are 35+.

I dont think people are suggesting anyone stays in an abusive relationship or one where you are permanently unhappy. But in any relationship there are going to be occasions where you have to compromise.

Whilst sometimes the advice to leave someone seems to me to be the correct advice, I think some posters seem to relish the opportunity to encourage others to end relationships for what might be something minor or repairable. I do wonder whether some of these posters have a history of dysfunctional relationships but I suppose I'll never really know.

What I do think is that if anyone is serious about wanting advice to save a relationship AIBU is not the place to come. If you want validation of a decision already taken to leave someone AIBU is the place.

I think it can seem to some posters like MNers are way too quick to shout ‘abuse!’ over tiny little things. But sometimes those tiny little things are absolute blaring signals that there’s something really bad going on that the poster hasn’t explicitly said, and sometimes you’re totally oblivious to that unless you’ve been through it before yourself or seen it play out repeatedly.

Or there are things which aren’t outright abuse, but do mean that the poster’s ground down and miserable and living with someone who treats her really badly, and she’s still trying to ‘make it work’, as if one person can ever make it work all by themselves when their partner is doing fuck all.

If I just wrote a post saying DH has gone to sleep and left me to do all this even though he's off work, I'd get a chorus of LTB

Well yes, if you deliberately misconstrue your partner’s behaviour in a way that makes it appear significantly worse than it is, you may he told he is a bad partner and you should leave. But that’s your fault, not the fault of posters taking you at face value and believing what you say.

@JasperKarat

Perfectly put..

Frankly I think a lot more women should LTB. It's astonishing what some women will put up with before the fog lifts. I don't say this from an ivory tower - I was stuck in a cycle of abuse for years as I thought it should be hard and all the drama meant he loved me. I'll say it again: a lot more women should be losing their proverbial bastards.

But Jasper if you wrote that, then if other posters take that at face value (which is all they can do) then of course people are going to say that’s shit. And if it was representative of what your relationship was like all the time, then yes that would be a LTB situation.

What else could posters say if that’s all they’re given to go on?