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!

Do you know I’m grateful for my DH but I choose him so I can take the credit for that. But what I can’t take credit for are the wonderful parents I lucked out with. That is what has given me the good life I have. I WAS in an abusive relationship with a man who asked me to marry him over and over but thanks to my upbringing in my head I could NEVER consider marrying anyone who treated me like he did occasionally. It just didn’t fit with my expectations AT ALL. Despite getting tricked into loving him for those first years he behaved correctly. So I extracted myself. And found someone who did fit the profile of a good husband.

So the greatest determinant of anyone’s future is their parents I believe. Not their DH. He is just a symptom of the persons parentage.

Say, not day

One thing it does make me think is that some people are bought up with so few life skills they don't manage life well because they actually can't. They've rarely seen negotiation, cooperation, sharing, budgeting, waiting and saving, hard work, valuing yourself, self-control, fun, ambition, fairness. That makes me very sad.

Yes it did and I left my ex partner in part because of the shift in awareness I had thanks to mumsnet. Obviously mumsnet wasn't the sole reason. But I certainly started to see the cracks much more clearly and much faster once I was on here.

I think it made me more picky and raised my standards WRT relationships as well. I am with a lovely DH now but there was a time of my life that I too would have wondered about the "fictional men" who cook, change nappies, clean, and have equal relationships where you're on the same side.

I think MN partly also gave me the confidence to be single and that is what led to me being in a happier relationship overall. Because I wasn't afraid of (and was actually quite happy) being single, it meant anyone who wanted to be in my life had to be pretty bloody stupendous to be better than that standard. I certainly wasn't going to get into a relationship that was going to cause me MORE work, more stress, more anxiety etc. I decided a relationship was only worth it if it reduced those things.

Despite being (I thought) well informed around domestic violence and women's issues, I didn't even know what coercive control was until I read about it in the newspapers as part of the discussion around making it a crime. That was when I realised what my husband had been doing to me and why I had been driven gone mad.

It was reading mumsnet which helped me put The Script in focus and realise that abusive prat was also having - likely multiple - affairs.

This was the point I began to regain my sanity. The gaslighting didnt work (much) anymore.

I'm willing to bet there are many women whose eyes have been opened on here in similar ways.

*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 totally agree with this. I think a lot of women are in shit relationships and simply don't realise it, because so many of their friends and family are in the same situation. So it is normal to them. But even if something is normal it does not make it right.

If you were living with a friend would you put up with them not doing their share around the house? Would you put up with being put down or treated as less? Hopefully you wouldn't. So why pout up with it from a partner who is supposed to love you?

It makes me look at people in real life differently.
Its proof that no-one does know what goes on behind closed doors.

I'm sometimes a little envious of others' lives, but mine (although lonely and sad) doesn't seem half as bad as women who are regularly putting up with mind games, affairs, lies and the rest.

Not question, but we are happy and been together 30 years.
Some of the stories on here make me realise what I've got and appreciate my life.
There are some awful men who don't deserve a partner, I'm often still surprised at some things posters write.

Parrot yes my eyes have been well and truly opened to the extent of abuse inflicted on women at the hands of men. The stories I've read where it screams that the poster is being controlled, I don't think I ever realised how widespread it was.

So no, MN does not make me question my own relationship. It has helped me see better those very poor relationships that friends and family members are in.
And OP if it seriously is making you question your own relationship, then maybe Relate might be the answer? At least to explore those issues.

I have found myself getting cross with DH about household related stuff as a result of threads I've read on here. My vigilence to call out gender related differences has been heightened by some if the awful relationships I've read about in here. But also reading about other people's household standards has raised my own in some ways and I get cross that he hasn't similarly changed.

@ParrotWithACarrot - excellent post.

It makes me wish I'd found MN earlier - my ExH used to think he was perfectly adequate as a partner as he didn't gamble heavily, cheat or hit me, and seemed confused with the concept that that's what I expect as a basic minimum in a relationship. But it definitely makes me appreciate my DP even more than I would anyway.

Lots of mumsnetters would stay away from dating me and I was even told I was selfish once.

Because I think that on a date the bill should be split equally, or the person who invites should pay rather than "the man should pay" which I see on here quite a bit

Like a pp it has reaffirmed my relationship with my DH especially, I'm shocked at what some people put up with and the level of normalisation around it. That said, it has made me reflect on my own actions sometimes.

I always thought I've married one of the good ones, MN confirmed for me that I married a brilliant one!
It has helped me be more aware of how I might have taken it for granted.

MN has also made me realise how common financial abuse of women is. Women saving up for maternity leave because they still need to financially contribute when on maternity leave, rather than their partner funding it. Women having much less personal spending money than their male partners. Women who are having to scrimp to pay for things for their kids, while their male partner has plenty of money to spend on themselves. That has shocked me. Both DP and I come from families with issues, but financial abuse was never an issue.

SneakyGremlins, it's not often the term "male privilege" deserves an outing, but your post does it.

Do you honestly think that your harrowing, wretched struggles with dinner payment etiquette even begin to compare with the sort of abuse that a very very large proportion of women encounter in their everyday, domestic lives? In their own homes? In their own beds? As they attenpt to sleep?

SneakyGremlins We used to split the costs. But we both were earning about the same. If one was earning more, then I do think that should be part of the equation.

I'm another one who agrees with IsYourGoogleBroken.
Having endured a first really traumatic marriage "because of the children", and now TG with a good man. Though he has his faults, as have I.

Ah sneakygremlins is a man? That makes sense. Yeah it is a minor issue.

It made me realise how abusive my partner was and to do a clares law disclosure and find out his long history of abuse, stalking and harassment. I was able to get out safely to a refuge because of the help from lovely people from Mumsnet.

Reading and posting on MN gave me the strength to leave my abusive relationship. My ex wouldn't let me leave the house and isolated me from friends and family over the years, so all I had was my phone and the internet, I read hundreds of threads and recognised what was happening to me was abuse. Sometimes LTB is thrown around inappropriately, but I think that women put up with too much shit from awful men, especially when children are involved. 'Breaking up a family' is not a terrible thing to do when the relationship between parents is abusive, but societal stigma around single mothers and financial inequality means women stay.

I had a very happy childhood, and wonderful parents who respect and care for one another after 30+ years of marriage, so I naively thought I'd never end up in an abusive relationship because I've only really seen good relationships modelled in my life. But abusers don't start out being horrendous, the build up of abuse is insidious and then you can easily find yourself trapped. I didn't ever think I'd end up as a single mum on benefits living with my parents, it's so so hard, but I am thankful to be out of the relationship and I know now that I won't find myself in that situation again because I can recognise red flags and would have the confidence to end any future relationships that showed signs of impending abuse. I really think there should be education in schools in PSHE about abuse in relationships, I thought it was purely physical violence and had no idea about coercive control, financial abuse, emotional abuse the list goes on.

I think there are quite a few creative writing exercises on here but this makes them no less interesting as scenarios. There are also some tragic stories of real abuse, and the site also makes clear how shockingly pervasive this is in our society. It also shows how conditioned to it people can become. That moment when the scales fall from someone's eyes is very painful for them, but it can also be an awakening into what is definitely not normal, and a step forward into a better life. Mumsnet has clearly made this possible for some people, and this has to be positive.

In families, it's the implication that the DiL is mostly being unreasonable that's quite interesting. This is usually couched in such language as 'MiLs are hated on this site'. I've personally detected perception that there is gives an insight into the site's demographic and some quite ingrained views relating to females and familial relationships.

Re. 'walking away is often the default solution': this may be true to a point when 'tit-for-tat' or the grand gesture is used as a means to exert power or to punish other people. That's simply childish. But I think the threads indicate most people are agreed they wouldn't want toxic, potentially abusive people in their lives, and that people have a right to self-preservation. The decision to walk away from someone, especially if they're related, is rarely done lightly. Some differences are irreconcilable when people are childish, passive aggressive, will not communicate directly, undermine the parents, or are potentially participating in parental alienation.

Sometimes NC really is our best hope of minimizing the conflict in our orbit and having a peaceful life.

No, Mumsnet hasn't affected my view of my own relationships. But it does give me food for thought.

I've personally detected no particular bias, but the perception that there is gives an insight into the site's demographic and some quite ingrained views relating to females and familial relationships.

Sorry - missing words.

@PicsInRed

Not at all, and reading back I apologize if I came off flippant. I had the thread open a while and there was only the OP's post, so there weren't any more serious responses yet. I apologize, I do realise what women go through and I've seen friends of mine realise that they are in terrible relationships thanks to MN and sites like it showing them what is and isn't normal.

I do apologize if I came off like I was making fun of people's experiences, that wasn't my intention.