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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

164 replies

ohmywhattodo · 13/02/2019 09:55

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.

OP posts:
Drogosnextwife · 13/02/2019 17:00

@MRex

That was my first suggestion, but if we did that people would scream troll 😂

Iggly · 13/02/2019 17:01

Jesus Christ if I had a pound for every time my husband called me a bitch in an argument I'd be a very rich woman!

That’s actually pretty shit.

But hey, at least you’re married right?

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:03

Yep happily married and it's our anniversary tomorrow ❣️

pallisers · 13/02/2019 17:03

Why is Abuse the only reason to end a relationship? What if someone is just very unkind to you quite a lot of the time - or even sometimes? Or doesn't care about you as much as he cares about his mother/job/cycling hobby? Or he never considers you when making any decision? Why is it such a binary - either Abuse or The Hard Work of a Relationship. I'm married 25 plus years and the early years of having children were challenging to say the least. emigrating was hard. Coping with deaths of parents/hard times at work/financial hard time - all hard. The relationship has never been hard work. Life can be hard work sometimes but my relationship with my husband makes it easier. Now maybe some personalities like more drama and conflict so the two people do work harder at managing their relationship - that's their choice. But reading MN I often think women say to themselves:

I am very unhappy in my marriage
Is he abusive?
If yes, I can leave
If no, I must continue to work hard at the relationship because marriage is supposed to be hard work.

Actually it really isn't supposed to be hard work.

I've never seen a thread where someone was seriously advised to ltb because her husband wouldn't make her a cup of tea. I've seen several threads where maybe you could shorten the thread to "wouldn't make her a cup of tea" but the fuller story is something like "she had just given birth, her stitches were killing her, she was trying to establish breastfeeding and her husband insisted on going to football and wouldn't even make her a cup of tea before he left and he is always this unkind to her"

53rdWay · 13/02/2019 17:05

Well, you don’t have to classify a man frequently calling you a bitch as abusive if you don’t want to, but there are bound to be a few Hmm faces when you hold up ‘frequently calls me a bitch’ as a sign of how great he is.

Iggly · 13/02/2019 17:06

Actually it really isn't supposed to be hard work

^this

Yes you might have to make an effort but hard work sounds much more than that.

And any name calling is a pretty low standard of behaviour frankly.

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:07

Are you all trying to say that you don't call your husband a name when in a heated argument? 🧐

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:09

What insults do you throw back an fourth? Do you pick on each others shoes? I'm curious 😂

Auslander · 13/02/2019 17:10

Woah. All this jumping on a poster because her OH calls her a bitch occasionally in an argument just sums up what the bones of this thread is about.
She could be calling her OH a cunt during the argument, but let's accuse him of being the nasty one instead. That doesn't make a Shit marriage.
My OH sometimes calls me a miserable old cow, I sometimes call him a fucking bald headed haggis muncher ( he's Scottish )
So by that logic, my 37 year marriage must be a pile of Shit.
Jesus!

justasking111 · 13/02/2019 17:10

The poster did say they were both sweary, if he calls her a bitch, does she call him names perhaps? My Italian friend is a case in point she throws everything including the kitchen sink into an argument

53rdWay · 13/02/2019 17:11

We don’t really call each other names or throw insults back and forth at all, no.

justasking111 · 13/02/2019 17:15

Haggis muncher, oh my lord, that is funny....

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:15

@53rdWay oh how boring 😕 I love a good row! Get everything out in the open. Chuck a few insults around "your mothers a cunt" "your sisters a slut for banging her best friends boyfriend"

Then there's the make up sex after! 😝

53rdWay · 13/02/2019 17:16

All this jumping on a poster because her OH calls her a bitch occasionally in an argument just sums up what the bones of this thread is about.

It sort of does... but not the way you think.

Nobody’s said that her marriage is shit, or that your marriage is a pile of shit. Nobody’s said that it would be fine and lovely if she was calling him a cunt. All people have said is that it’s not very good for a man to repeatedly call his wife a bitch.

I think it’s the same with a lot of threads on here - you start off with posters saying “hey that wasn’t very nice of him”, and people who feel this is somehow an attack on their own relationship blow it into “people are calling him abusive and evil over tiny insignificant things!!!!”

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:18

Tbf the word bitch is tiny and insignificant to me 🤷🏻‍♀️

SilverySurfer · 13/02/2019 17:19

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

I couldn't agree more, I'm horrified by what some women think is acceptable behaviour by their partner.

It's not often I see a LTB over something really trivial. I remember a thread on the Relationship Board which really horrified me. Actually it several full threads. The woman was being sexually, emotionally and financially abused by her husband and what started out as a harmless sounding query, gradually revealed the full horror of her life. The posters on those threads were unbelievable, slowly explaining and supporting the woman who didn't even recognize she was being abused, until she eventually gained the understanding and strength to take her children and leave him.

IMO that was the very best of MN and every LTB was appropriate.

53rdWay · 13/02/2019 17:19

yeah, toomuchtoolittle, I used to say the same. Wouldn’t put up with some boring milquetoast relationship, me! Give as good as I get! See how totally unbothered I am by it all!

God I had low standards.

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:23

@53rdWay ever heard or not tarring every man with the some brush. You sound very anti men

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:23

Oh and bitter 🍋

Bumblebee27 · 13/02/2019 17:24

Totally agree with the op. I would never come online and tell a stranger to leave their partner based on one post. Sure there are cases where it's clear that their partners are total arses but there are often so many other factors and history to it.

I once posted about an issue I was having with oh and the amount of posts I got telling me to just get rid (in some cases in a very passive aggressive manner) was crazy. You have to ask yourselves if the people dishing out this radical advice would be as quick to take it themselves if it was their own life and relationship.

It's good that we live in a society where it's more acceptable to move on from unhealthy relationships than it once was but I also think it makes people to quick to throw in the towel at the first sign of anything less than perfect. Relationships take work and people do make mistakes that can be worked through.

I certainly wouldn't leave my partner based on the advice of some online strangers anyway 🙈 but sometimes it is nice to get an outsider perspective...just sensible and helpful rather than judgemental and over the top.

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:26

Yes 👏🏼 @Bumblebee27

53rdWay · 13/02/2019 17:26

You sound very anti men

Why? Because I don’t think they should call their wives bitches? Plenty of men think that too, you know.

IrmaFayLear · 13/02/2019 17:27

I think it's true that we just don't know the nature of a relationship. If dh called me a bitch I'd be Shock as he has never called me that - nor any names, actually, although we can have ding-dong battles. Otoh I've heard couples call each other unspeakable names and because it's their normal no grudge is borne afterwards.

I really agree with a poster upthread who said that there is at least one "LTB Whatever He Has Done" poster, determined to stir up an annoyed OP into one who is demanding their "30 minutes free consultation" with solicitor, changing locks etc etc.

I was however heartened to see that 90% posters agreed that an OP was being U and less than candid when she was asking if her dh was being unreasonable for not hot-footing it back from the pub on a rare night out for an "emotional trauma" that she was unwilling to reveal (even to him).

JacquesHammer · 13/02/2019 17:29

Jeez it’s like bingo. Didn’t take long for “anti-men” and “bitter” to be thrown around Hmm

toomuchtoolittle · 13/02/2019 17:32

@53rdWay 🍩

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