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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think “love” is a load of bollox for most women?!

466 replies

Playtive · 31/03/2019 00:32

It’s brightly packaged and sold to us but it’s all nonesense really. Even when you smugly think you’ve cracked it - fast forward 10 years and nope, no you haven’t. It’s all compromise and sacrifice, boredom and indifference.

Men are obsolete. I have my DC, I literally can’t think of a single other reason to want a man around. It’s all bullshit, I wish we never had “Hollywood” this side of the globe - many people would be a lot less disillusioned.

Anywho that’s my rant!

OP posts:
OldAndWornOut · 31/03/2019 16:39

I don't think I will ever risk a relationship again.

I've had some good long term ones, but my last one (strangely enough with the one man I really did love completely) really, really hurt me when it ended.

I still feel all mangled up in my heart, and my head sometimes.

Amanduh · 31/03/2019 16:51

Sorry but anyone who is of age enough to be ‘looking for love’ is old enough to understand hollywood isnt real.

Yabbers · 31/03/2019 18:00

Why? Because single = bitter?

OPs post doesn't exactly sound positive, does it?

Ah, I see. The ‘smug married’ has spoken. You only have any value if you’ve managed to snare a man. No other achievement in your life counts for anything

Straw man right there.

I don't consider any relationship status as an achievement. It seems a really strange thing to say "I'm proud to be
Single". Just as it's strange to say "I'm proud to be married"

HavelockVetinari · 31/03/2019 18:03

It's sad so many folk aren't convinced love can last. DH and I have been together for 11 years, have 1 DC and are still passionately in love.

SelkieRinnNaMara · 31/03/2019 18:05

It doesn't matter how long it lasts. The important thing is to know you'll be fine if/when it ends. Welcome the space even.

Plus. lol at 11 years proving that love can last.

HavelockVetinari · 31/03/2019 18:08

I never said my relationship was proof of anything, please don't be putting words in my mouth. I was responding to previous posters saying you get the first flush of romantic love then it turns into boring companionship.

My parents have been together for 40 years and are still very lovey-dovey. It's great, they're so clearly happy and in love. It reassures me that not every relationship is doomed like half of MN seem to (very bitterly) think.

HavelockVetinari · 31/03/2019 18:09

And I would NOT be fine if my marriage ended!

ABadlyShavedYeti · 31/03/2019 18:14

HavelockVetinari wow, so you are happily married but anyone else who isn’t is bitter? So they could have been battered within an inch of their life but are really just bitter cause troo luurve escaped them?

JacquesHammer · 31/03/2019 18:21

OPs post doesn't exactly sound positive, does it?

There are many other posts on the thread...

It's sad so many folk aren't convinced love can last. DH and I have been together for 11 years, have 1 DC and are still passionately in love

Great - if that's what you want.

FudgeBrownie2019 · 31/03/2019 18:30

It sounds brutal but I'd be fine without DH. I love him, he makes me happier than I'd be without him, but I strongly believe nobody should put too many of their eggs in anyone else's basket, especially where love is concerned.

Without him I'd still pay the mortgage, raise the DC, have a job I love, spend time with incredible friends and live a lovely life. He's here because it works, not because it's convenient. I have nothing but respect for anyone who chooses to find another way to be happy.

OhTheRoses · 31/03/2019 20:00

The thing is I'd be absolutely fine if dh were no longer here. Because I have no regrets and he has been a wonderful friend.

Butteredghost · 31/03/2019 23:23

It's ridiculous all the people worried about the men on this thread, acting as if men are the super romantic ones with stars in their eyes. "Oh what would a man think if he read this, what if a man heard that a women wanted to be single, misandry, etc".

Thats the exact way most men think about women and always have, and I think this is one area where they have it right. Men aren't fussed about romance usually, but are in relationships for practical reasons such as sex, someone to live with and having children. So I think they'd be just fine (or happier) knowing a women felt the same way.

Butteredghost · 31/03/2019 23:27

I read another thread recently where women were posting about how they would never go out socially without DH, or anywhere except work, even just to fill up the car with fuel, as they just love their DH sooo much and they are soooo sad if he's not there. Even just going to the letterbox, "all I'd be thinking about is how I wish DH was here".

I just thought that was so sad because the DH definitely doesn't feel the same way. I have read many different forums and met many different men, I have never ever heard or read a single man express anything like this. They simply wouldn't feel this way.

corythatwas · 31/03/2019 23:56

People are all different.

They have different needs and different circumstances and different experiences.

It is silly to try to generalise.

I have been very happy since I fell in love with dh 36 years ago- 10 years long-distance relationship, 26 years of marriage, there's still no one I would rather spend time with.

I am still perfectly capable of going away for a few days without him. I just enjoy spending time with him, that's all.

I probably wouldn't remarry again, but that's because I'd feel with dh I've already had it all.

It's not an achievement, it's not a blueprint for how anyone else should lead their lives, it's just one experience out of many.

LimeKiwi · 01/04/2019 00:04

Oh wow. Admittedly haven't read past the first page, but YABVVU. Speak for yourself. Together over 20 years, 2 kids.
Men are not obsolete as you so charmingly state.
Still lovely ones out there and they're still very much appreciated (abusive ones aside before anyone starts)

hopll · 01/04/2019 00:10

I very much understand and share similar if not the sms views!

hopll · 01/04/2019 00:10

Same* not sms

PookieDo · 01/04/2019 00:46

Sadly I actually agree that there is actually zero need for a man in my life either. I don’t want to promote that to my DC but I think it’s become obvious

I have tried it a few times in 10 years and it always ends the same way - drift apart as I am too busy and want completely different things to them. Oh and they drive me bonkers because they don’t seem to bring anything to my life, and it always feels like everything is much harder work than if i just did it alone.

No one has wanted marriage or to buy a house with me - things that would make life completely different in a sense of sharing a long term commitment with a shared goal for the future. They have already been too burnt (like me!) so want to live separate lives long term ‘dating’ a couple nights a week. I end up just thinking what is the point? I could see my friends then, or my DC. It is very boring to think that is all that is on offer - 2 years I spent with one bloke who never even said he loved me. I don’t want someone to hang out with me because they are lonely, whilst still paying their ex’s mortgage.

On the other hand you can spot a mile away those who do want to cock lodge in your house because they want to be looked after. Ain’t no time for those ones either.

Do not want to drift along watching Netflix with someone once a week for years on end, would rather be by myself

PookieDo · 01/04/2019 00:55

I feel like OP is angry when she posted obsolete and I don’t think it means wiping out all men. It means there is just no requirement

The only men in my life are people I don’t actually know. People from work or people I encounter day to day - like the postman. I have no issue with men as a sex. But I don’t have any need for one - hence I think the ‘obsolete’ part. I don’t have any deeper interaction with men than functional day to day. Everything else is done by me. I don’t have a functional father or any bothers so men do not enter my sphere as a sex that is ‘needed’. No one needs a man or a woman, you might like to be with one but it’s not a need

LimeKiwi · 01/04/2019 01:04

@JonesTheMail
Being in love is absolutely a societal construct designed to keep women and servitude."
Oh, give over.
How about giving women credit for thinking for themselves, for feeling for themselves?! Not a bot programmed to think a certain way due to patriarchy blah blah, I don't think I've ever heard anything so daft and I've been on here ages!

Megs4x3 · 01/04/2019 12:01

The 'men are obsolete' thing is nonsense. I spent a lot of years as a single parent, secure in the knowledge that if I needed a man for anything I could pay one to complete the task and send him on his merry way. Things like fixing my can or building work; things I didn't have (or want) the skills for. I could service the car and put up shelves amongst many other things, but I cannot and will never be able to do everything. True, I could have found a woman with those skills, just as there are men who can knit or do exquisite embroidery. I now have a wonderful man in my life but am saddened by the idea that people or so absolute in their opinions. We are told that we MUST have a spouse or MUST be happily single. Years ago there just wasn't the pressure on people to have a partner, I have single people in my family tree that demonstrate that, and though there were steroptypes about the 'bitter spinster' or the 'confirmed bachelor', then as now life was much richer than that.

So many women these days seem to see through a very narrow lens of female servitude. Life is what you make it ladies and we have more choices than ever before, and sometimes those choices were promoted by men, shock, horror! True, women were constricted in their choices for a long time but they were instrumental in the push for every family to have two primary wage earners and that was a BIG mistake. Every family should, I think (not being absolute here) be able to get by with one and each of the couple should choose what part they play in wage-earning or child-rearing without fingers being pointed at them. It seems to me that women wanted not only to have it all but to get the credit for doing it all - see all the 'superwoman' articles in the women's magasines in the '60's - and now they are paying the price for it. Oh, and blaming the men of course. As I said, nonsense.

Megs4x3 · 01/04/2019 12:03

PS If women want men to respect them they need to start showing the good men in this world, and there are many, some respect. The current level of misandry is horrifying and inexcusable.

fikel · 01/04/2019 12:07

No men aren’t obselete !! I have been married 16 years and I have been the happiest in my life. I married in my mid 30s so have experienced it from both sides. I love the romance in our relationship, which comes from both of us. He is my companion and best friend. I feel very lucky

Megs4x3 · 01/04/2019 12:10

Another thought - romantic love is a social construct designed by big business to part men from their money - St Valentine's expectations, diamond engagement rings, extravagant weddings, date night and the like. Men get the very thick end of that wedge and the pressure are enormous and unreasonable for some of them.

JacquesHammer · 01/04/2019 12:22

If women want men to respect them they need to start showing the good men in this world, and there are many, some respect

Women are not responsible for the behaviour of men.

The current level of misandry is horrifying and inexcusable

Not wanting a man isn’t misandry

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