To think lots of women have very low standards for relationships?

[clairemcnam]

So many women seem to put up with terrible behaviour from their partners/husbands. And other women minimise this behaviour. I know it is difficult to find decent relationships, but having low standards of acceptable behaviour is setting you up for being with at worse someone abusive and at best a total prat.

I am probably someone who from the outside puts up with rubbish behavior from dp, and I am aware he does often treat me quite badly and hurt me emotionally never physically, but these people who judge him and probably me do not know our history, we don't share it.

I love him totally, I'm fairly sure he loves me, he is ex services, saw some horrific things, was seriously injured physically and has suffered ever since psychologically. Mostly he is a lovely kind gentle funny man, who is fiercely protective of our family, but sometimes he cant cope and is utterly vile to me. I cant and wont leave him, he is not the same man I started the journey with, but he is the man I want to continue with, I hope that with love and support from me the dark times will reduce

Geez..

Thing is though, not knocking your journey, but being utterly vile to somebody is a coping mechanism for him. It is not one that will help him heal from his experienced. It is just a temporary sticking plaster - for him.
Being on the receiving end of utter vileness cant be good for you but i suspect you will contain the wound his treatment of you causes you and not be vile to somebody else.

YANBU, OP. My DH is amazing, but I had two toxic long term relationships before I met him that did a lot of psychological damage to both parties. Looking back I could kick myself for not walking away before I did, especially now I know what a decent, healthy relationship looks like, but hindsight, maturity and wisdom are wonderful things.

One of my best friends is a good deal younger than me. She is in one of these shitty relationships now, she tells me she loves him, but the main reason for not leaving him is she has nowhere to go and is financially dependent on him. There are lots of grey areas and I think it is easy to judge. In her eyes, being in a low quality relationship (think frequent gaslighting and stonewalling) is a better option than having to go back to the burbs and live with her parents.

I don;t know about lots of women and relationships. But what I do think though is that far too many women have children with a wrong man, at a wrong time or one too many.

A lot of women stay in a marriage that is a bit shit, because as some posters have said; they get swept up in the early throes of a relationship that's pretty decent (as the man has not shown his true colours yet,) and before they realise what a twat he is, they have often got financial ties with him (debts, loans, mortgage etc,) and also children.

Also, women, in most cases, earn less than their husband, and their life - and career - is often affected much more than their husband. A woman's earnings often drop even more after having kids (some even lose it if they become SAHMs,) making it much harder for her to leave.

A mother is often the default parent for the kids to stay with when the marriage breaks down too. I have known many men leave their wife for another woman, and they NEVER want to take the children. Funny also, how they only ever leave their wife when they have someone else to go to...

Many jobs pay shit pay, (especially ones that women are usually expected to have,) and many people are lucky to clear a grand a month. With private rent often costing two thirds of that, and council tax costing £150 a month plus, there is very little left, and no WAY can a single mother survive on that, let alone be comfortable ...

That's why many women stay in shit, dull, boring marriages with men they fell out of love with many years ago, because it's better than living alone and being below the poverty line. I know/know of about half a dozen women who are just sitting there, waiting for their husband to die.

They don't even like him, haven't had sex for more than a decade, and have hardly anything in common. But they are financially comfortable, with a nice lifestyle and refuse to give that up. A couple of them don't even work. They just live off his money. They're not going to give that up, just because their DH is a miserable grumpy fucker who they haven't fancied in YEARS and who bores them to death.

If there is abuse that's different, but many women stay in dead, dull, boring marriages to men they don't even like, because they would never survive alone, and they like their lifestyle. It's much more common than you think!

A lot of women think they deserve to be in bad relationships and this is compounded by society that treats a women as selfish if she decides to leave for anything other than abuse.

Bad relationship is such a subjective term. I’m sure lots of people would think ours is but it works for us. I completely get you @Dippy, similar background and has witnessed some dreadful things, with the screaming nightmares to prove it. There have been times when l’ve walked on eggshells. I just wanted to tell you that for us it’s got better. I hope it does for you too.

I know of one woman who's husband has property and money. She won't split up from him for this reason.
I also know several woman who think they are nothing unless they are in a relationship or get married. They are willing to put up with any shite from a man ie heavy drinking, gambling, lazyness, physical and or verbal abuse because they don't want to be on their own. As a previous poster said here walking away can led to poverty and housing issues.
You have to like yourself or be happy with who and what you are before you meet a man. I know woman with not great looks, poor self confidence ect The wrong men are drawn to them because they know they will be happy with a bit of flattery and will put up with things that other woman won't.
I have seen men and woman rush into relationships because they don't like been on their own. I know one man at the moment who rushed into a relationship. He was in his early 40's, has his own mortgage free house and money in the bank. He met this lady and within a few months she was pregnant. He was delighted when the child was born. Now the child is still quite young. She is very bossy. Him and her are fighting a lot. He has lost friends due to her. Also some of his friends think the child is not his. Before he met this lady he turned down a friend of mine. My friend saw him recently and said he has got very old looking and he does not look well. She was very upset in the past over him as they had been great friends for years. He knew she wanted a relationship with him but he did not want this. She realises now that she had a lucky escape from him.

When I was a teenager in the UK in the 1990s I remember watching as the girls around me flocked to date boys who I thought were grunting Neanderthals. I remember thinking that those boys exhibited a lot of the vices being complained about on this thread. They sat there like lumps letting the world, including girls, revolve around them.

A couple of friends of mine in particular were treated just awfully by their boyfriends; lending them money, engaging in sexual practices they hated, generally just allowing themselves to be messed about, but they'd simply give me a blank stare when I said "dump him, he's a shit".

I, and friends like me, lost out time and again, and with hindsight I reckon lots of girls thought we were wet blankets. Being short and skinny probably didn't help either but it's always struck me how little being nice seemed to matter. It was as if it disqualified us as boyfriend material.

I ended up marrying someone not from the UK, who says she likes me because unlike most of the men from her country I'm not a grunting Neanderthal.

It didnt take long for posters on this thread to be proved right about attitudes towards women when they leave

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3591791-Council-house-waiting-times?pg=1

I have standards of the very highest order: which is probably why I'm single (ish)

I know plenty of women, myself included, who have/have had really low standards at one time or another. I still can’t believe the utter shit I put up with when I was younger. Not just actual abuse (of which I not only put up with but excused) but cheating, thoughtless behaviour and poor personal hygiene on their part.

Other women rolling their eyes and saying “oh typical men, what are they like?” When their partner/another man has behaved in a thoughtless/lazy/selfish way pisses me right off as well. In my experience the same women would crucify other women for doing what some of these men do.

My first boyfriend threw me against the opposite wall when I didn't get out of his way quick enough, in front of my two 'best' girlfriends.

They told me it was my fault, for having annoyed him.

His best friend came home, and found me crying. He went and explained in words of one syllable, and there might have been a fist involved, because the dude had issues when it came to men getting physical with women, to my boyfriend, that one does not do that.

I was very grateful to him.

Stupidly I still stayed with the git. Who treated me like a cross between an appliance extension and a blow up doll.

It took me another year and a half to disengage, and end up with the lovely bloke I'm with today.

I was seeing a guy I thought was perfect and had never shown me anything to be concerned about until I related a story about a friend's father being verbally and borderline physically abusive towards her until we intervened. I stressed friend had done nothing to provoke him. Mr Perfect said "oh come on, she must have done something to noise him up". I finished with him swiftly.

You did come across as smug and superior op , I wonder why I am with dh .
Things were once different, but people change . Circumstances change, add in a lot of things and you both become v different people.
Do you leave because of depression? Or do you realise that underneath the pile of crap life throws at you , you still care for one another.
There is no off switch in a relationship .
Op you must be very fortunate to have such high standards and all in place .

There is no point in being defensive to the op. She asks a valid question.

Yes there is shades of grey, but we see it on here daily. Women who get involved with abusive wankers. Who ignore the warning signs right from the start. The red flags. They don't get out when they can. They burrow in deeper. Having a child they can't support. Quitting their jobs. Moving into the mans homes with no security.

Yes for many there comes a time when they are in too deep and can't get out. For some it maybe mental illness. Or It's too scarey to go it alone. But for many, without a shadow of a doubt, the warning signs were there from the start. You see it on here daily.

What Scottish doll said.

Kids absolutely should have some lessons on how to have healthy relationships. I know that this is something that should be taught at home; but some families are not a great example.

My husband is an excellent husband and father. When I look at his parents; it’s really clear where he got that from

My family were sometimes dysfunctional. They had anger issues, and my mother can be a right bitch in arguments. (I love her dearly though).

In early relationships I was the same, and chose the wrong partners.

Thankfully I learned that this wasn’t a healthy way to behave and although DH and I still have the odd healthy argument. Neither of us have ever said anything hurtful or hateful (or bring back any old rubbish)

But for many, without a shadow of a doubt, the warning signs were there from the start.

That's assuming they are able to recognise the warning signs.

I think some women have a shit selfish teenage boyfriend and then they think that's what men are like - out 3/4 times a week, drunk/high a lot, boy racer car, showing off in front of their mates. It's worse for those who stay where they grew up and end up marrying someone they've known since they were 12, who has dicked about with the same mates since HE was 12. I know a few girls from school who married classmates as there was a somewhat limited pool of choices and none lasted.

That's assuming they are able to recognise the warning signs

Ok, let's take the woman posting yesterday and today. Been with her partner a year, don't live together. Just dating.

He's sending random women on tinder sexually explicit texts and unsolicited pics of his dick. Then he wanks off to his sexual harassment of these women, and deletes them. He's prolific at this.

She didn't only need to ask should she leave him. She's praying for the strength to end it because she "loves" him.

How hard a warning sign is that to miss?

Let's take another example from yesterday.. First date with some random from twitter. He acts like a deranged stalker telling her he loves her and all other forms or random adoration, he's thirty six, never had a relationship longer than six months, lives with his dad. The op is 47 with kids and her own home.. One female poster responds with, ( and I paraphrase) but do you like him other than this weird shit, because then you should still go out with him.

Aye that's what she should do.ignore the red flags and get stuck in there.

None of this shit is subtle. These aren't hard to miss warning signs. They are the right there smack you in your face totally unmissable sort of warning signs.

What Bluntness100 said.

To revert to my previous post, the boyfriends of the girls I knew back in my teens: the signs were really very clear. They were any one or more of violent, contemptuous, emotionally unavailable, or badly behaved in all manner of other ways. Back in the 90s I once sat on a long-distance bus next to a couple. He spent his time ogling his way through the topless women in the Sunday Sport, her sitting next to him. Plain humiliating for her, but she seemed not to notice one tiny little bit. I've sometimes wondered why I didn't say something to him, but I think it was clear to me at the time that all I would have got would have been a funny look from her and perhaps a threat from him.

Or alternatively the boyfriends were pleasant but useless. My elder DBs for example: both spent long periods of time unemployed and being more or less incapable of organising themselves out of bed in the morning, yet they had absolutely no trouble getting girlfriends. One of them shaped up eventually; the other never will, yet he now has children. My mother was somewhat baffled too, and said that her best guess was that the girls thought him helpless and wanted to care for him.

Various male friends of mine (and myself) heard a lot about the bad behaviour and the complaints because the girls (and then later on the young women) would tell us all about it, but they never seemed to consider us as viable alternatives. It was all really puzzling. I am more than a bit jealous, to be honest but I don't think that invalidates my point.

They knew what was going on, but decided to tolerate it. Perhaps it's because some of their fathers behaved the same way, but my view is that they all wanted boyfriends like their peers, and if that meant someone unpleasant or unreliable, so be it. There is a lot of research about the teenage brain's desire to conform and perhaps that set the pattern for adulthood.

I wonder how many of those women would say now that they didn't know any better. Because I would tell them in response that actually they did, but they made their choice anyway.

Yes very obvious red flags to you and me. Possibly for many more other women. For whatever reason the women in your example are either unable to see them or accept for what they are. But I don't know what that is, what their past is,previous experiences or mental health status is.

If it really was that easy we wouldn't have policewomen,doctors,counsellors etc( all trained and painfully aware of signs of abuse) ending up abused themselves.

I had an emotionally abusive relationship years and years ago. I didn't even know that was a thing. Even worse I didn't realise that I was emulating my relationship with my mother and that he was using what I told him about it to manipulate the shit out of me.

They knew what was going on, but decided to tolerate it

I think this is key, I think some women prefer to be in a relationship than not, and will put up with the shit to stay in one. Low self esteem, thinking this is it for them and the best they can get, gratitude that some man is actually interested, I don't know, but I think some do decide to tolerate it in full knowledge.

For whatever reason the women in your example are either unable to see them or accept for what they are

I'm not sure that's true, I will move away from talking about these women as that was just examples. But I think very often they do see it, but they decide they'd rather stay in it, than be single.

ScottishDoll makes some excellent points. I don't know what a good relationship really looks like. I think now that maybe my own was not good - although much of it was nice, more of it was unhappy.

I wish I, (and he), had been taught.