To wonder if MN makes you question your relationships?

[Lifeonmars77]

I've only been on MN a few months and sometimes find myself reading threads where a poster (either as the OP or within a thread) may have experienced something similar to me or be in a similar situation.

All fine and I get that everyone's different, but I'm sometimes finding that reading some posts and responses are highlighting things in my own life I hadn't considered before. For example relationships (or things that happen within them) that you think are fine/the norm but then start to question that they're not.

Does that make sense? Sorry I'm not sure if I'm putting it across the right way!

In a weird way it’s done the opposite for me. Hearing some of the horror stories on here really affirms to me just how brilliant my own husband is, because a lot of the time I can’t begin to fathom what some women are putting up with.

I think Mumsnet is brilliant in the way that it helps show some women that the abuse, coercion and control they experience from their own partners is not normal and not something they just have to accept. That has to be a positive thing.

It makes sense

Tbh mumsnet makes me feel very lucky about my own relationship.

Hearing some of the horror stories on here really affirms to me just how brilliant my own husband is,

This^ for me, reading the awful relationships your see on mumsnet just makes me appreciate how amazing my own husband is and how good of a marriage we actually have.

I get what you're saying. It doesn't make me doubt my relationship. It has certainly made me appreciate my DP more.

Not really, most of what I read on here I think is bat shit bananas these days ( I didn't feel the same 10 years ago reading )

I don't use MN as a barometer of what is 'normal' or not,I use it as a bit of a distraction ,like reading a magazine because it's got to the point where there are so many trolls here it's hard to know what's true and what isn't. Saying that,I do talk to RL friends a lot and sort of compare family life with theirs but I'm pretty happy with my lot in life so don't do that much,just now and again someone will say something which will make me think WTF?

For a long time I couldn't see the dysfunction in my family but the more I've read threads on certain things the more my eyes have been opened. I can now clearly see what I've been blinded to for so long, I can't close the box back up like I want to

I think that sometimes mumsnet misses the bigger picture. One action or character trait can be damning in and of itself but in context isn’t so bad.

I think it does both for me.

It just makes me wonder where all these numerous wonderful men who come home from work and cook, do housework, night feeds and nappies are.

I never met one

Maybe that’s because all the mumsnet posters have snapped them up

I despair at the lack of resilience I see to what are fairly normal every day events. One thing that does seem evident, people are very lonely and isolated, they must be or they wouldn’t be bringing utterly minute problems to a forum, the sort of daily trivia you might call your mum/best mate/partner about or chat over the dinner table about. It’s obvious that some people just have no communication/conflict resolution skills. I don’t understand how these parking/school gate/he looked at me all funny type threads get blown out of real life proportion.

I also wonder about ‘buzz words’ and whether they are used with no real understanding if the meaning. Anxiety is one.

All these things combined are why people falter in relationships they have few personal skills.

The down side of this forum is the manipulation; the coercion of posters to destroys salvageable relationships over on trivial incident. That’s very damaging. Planting those seeds of doubt, not good. On the other hand, the hand holding through dreadfully abusive situations and giving of information is amazing.

Exactly, some of it is just bonkers and some advice I see given here is downright dangerous. However I have had a few light bulb moments that are now difficult to ignore and move past.

@IsYourGoogleBroken 100% agree with you.

My DH relationship is all fine. But mumsnet has made me realised how messed up and complicated a lot of people’s lives and relationships are. And how difficult and awkward people actually are in their heads.

Yes. I am quite a strong willed person anyway but I would say MN gave me the courage to really change things in my relationship because actually some of it was just shit. Infact I think MN made me realise what it was that was bothering me about my relationship with DP and call him out on things instead of just ignoring them. It has made a difference and I would say I am a bit happier now.

I despair at the lack of resilience I see to what are fairly normal every day events. One thing that does seem evident, people are very lonely and isolated, they must be or they wouldn’t be bringing utterly minute problems to a forum, the sort of daily trivia you might call your mum/best mate/partner about or chat over the dinner table about. It’s obvious that some people just have no communication/conflict resolution skills. I don’t understand how these parking/school gate/he looked at me all funny type threads get blown out of real life proportion.

Yes - though also more sadly about situations of abuse/shit relationships.

I know people get at questions like 'why did you have children with this man' etc, but to me, that is part of the staggering difference in what is acceptable or desirable in a relationship/life. It SHOULD be shocking that someone has children with a lazy, moody git who is mean with money. It SHOULD be the case that NT people can just brush off silly incidents.

But learnign about different kinds of people is hugely valuable all through your life - even if it's learning bad things. The very WORST sorts of posters are the ones who shut anything down that's outside of their very small experience.

Opposite for me too. Every time i read a relationship post I come away grateful that my partner is the kind, considerate and hard working lovely man that he is.

I will day though, some things said on here are just ridiculous and complete over reactions, but most of the time it's easy to see that.

Sometimes it makes me think I'm lucky to be with my husband, he's not perfect but neither am I. Other times it makes me think actually I'm not lucky he's just nice and he loves me and what follows is always going to be pretty good if that's what I married. Being nice to your partner isn't lucky it should be a given.

Mumsnet generally makes me very grateful for my husband!

but the threads that have stuck with me, are the ones about people wanting to leave their partners / spouses because they want another baby and their partner has said no to more.

We always planned two, but I had significant injuries with the first and have said no more now. My husband comes from a big family, would adore a second baby, and is still young enough (in his late 20s) to start over with someone. I am as certain as I can be that he would never leave me and his gorgeous toddler for a chance to have a second hypothetical baby, but you never know! And it had never even occurred to me that it was something people did until I'd read in on Mumsnet!!

For me it highlights what I have been thinking for many many moons;

Men’s abuse of women is a far far bigger problem than anyone really wants to admit. It goes way beyond physical or sexual assaults. Bullying, intimidation, manipulation, coercion, control, objectification and disrespect are so commonly part and parcel of so many relationships now. Men tell themselves that because “I don’t hit her” or the wife says, “he’s a good dad and doesn’t put his hands on me” that they are not suffering ‘real abuse’.

I have a wonderful DH and DS so this doesn’t come from a place of man hating at all but I find it interesting that we get a few terrorist attacks over the past few years and suddenly people think we have a ‘problem with Islam’ Yet day after day, week after week, every year of our lives we see everything from the big stories in the paper about rape, murder and abduction 98% of which are female victims with male perpetrators, to the endless relationship issues on here where men are treating women as ‘less’, and it confirms that we have some sort of collective blindness to how bad things really are.

I get most depressed at how difficult and unlikely it is to fix some of the awful relationships people are living within. They did not make good choices, not really their fault usually due to various reasons, their choices AND their personality+past experiences trap them. It’s an utterly vicious circle. And having had good role models and a safe, supportive upbringing (basically privilege) it’s hard not to tear your hair out at the bad choice after bad choice people make. But it’s really not their fault at the root of it all.

I suppose if you have a good relationship with your DH/family you aren't going to write a thread about it. Like PPs have said, it makes me grateful for my wonderful DH.

It has made me question family relationships. I'm sure I'd be told to go NC with certain family members if I posted about them on here as actually trying to communicate and resolve differences doesn't seem high up in some MNers priorities. Walking away is often the default solution.

Hearing some of the horror stories on here really affirms to me just how brilliant my own husband is, because a lot of the time I can’t begin to fathom what some women are putting up with

This for me. Also makes me realise how easily I could've been in a shit relationship if I'd stayed with my ex!

And it had never even occurred to me that it was something people did until I'd read in on Mumsnet!! It is only "a thing" on MN.

I would harshly judge any person who left their spouse in search of another child, and demand large dollops of child support for breaking up a family on such a spurious reason.