Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

AIBU to be sick of my 'D'H's mansplaining?

104 replies

Petsr4life · 07/09/2019 15:06

He does it all the time. He seems to think he is the expert on everything. Can't back it up with evidence/sources either. He just 'knows' E.g. we are in the process of selling our house. I mentioned that we can't take bolted on shelves. He is adamant that we can, despite never having done any research. He will then get angry with me and then eventually look it up. After which I've 'misunderstood' him. I'm sick and tired of this. Once in a while I wont back down and we'll have a big argument where I accuse him of gaslighting. He will eventually apologise and promise to never do it again. We have had this exact same argument hundreds of times.

What happened today takes the biscuit. We disagreed over the area equaling 10 square meters. He got angry with me and then looked it up. Which showed him I was right. Apparently I misunderstood him. Thing is, I have a maths degree, he doesn't... so why on earth did he try to argue in the first place.

AIBU of being sick of his mansplaining?

OP posts:

chickenyhead · 07/09/2019 17:14

And the feminist arrived, thank fuck

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 07/09/2019 17:21

Are you married to Donald Trump?

DH started to do this around the time that our marriage was going to shit, he never did it in the first decade or so of marriage. It was just one of many things and I mostly ignored it. We had counselling, I loved counselling, it was great for being able to say things and the counsellor would make him address it instead of his usual response of "you're just being over-dramatic/silly/you don't know what you're talking about/making it up".

So in counselling I said to him that everyone gets things wrong sometimes, and I would never think less of someone or think that they are stupid because they have a gap in their knowledge. But when he is so insecure and overbearing that he can't accept that he's not always right, and he's prepared to lie and bully me into his point of view, then I do think less of him. And just because I appear to accept that I was wrong or misunderstood him in order to avoid a long argument, it doesn't mean that I believe it and I am definitely silently judging him and finding him wanting.

It was one of the things that he totally changed about himself in order to stay married. So it can change.

CassandraCross · 07/09/2019 17:21

I remember Gary Richardson mansplaining to Sarah Montague which questions she should ask Adam Peaty's mother, and his confused reaction when he was called out on it. There is no way Gary Richardson would have made that patronising suggestion to a fellow male presenter.

june2007 · 07/09/2019 17:22

The trouble is with the term Mansplaining is it makes it sound like it is peculiar to men. My point is no it def is not. It isn't acceptable in any relationship but yes women can be responsible too. (and yes I have experienced this and witnessed it) But I degress from the post.

JacquesHammer · 07/09/2019 17:23

but yes women can be responsible too. (and yes I have experienced this and witnessed it

Ah the MRA fight song.

RedDogsBeg · 07/09/2019 17:29

Mansplaining is peculiar to men and the men that do it only do it to women. I've heard men mansplain giving birth, having periods, menopause, things that NO man has ever or will ever experience and knows the sum total of fuck all about. I've never heard a woman womansplain erectile disfunction or any other exclusively male experience.

eurochick · 07/09/2019 17:45

He might be annoying but he's right about the shelves. You just have to specify you are taking them on the property information form or it will be assumed they are stating.

Rubicon80 · 07/09/2019 17:49

@RedDogsBeg Mansplaining is peculiar to men and the men that do it only do it to women. I've heard men mansplain giving birth, having periods, menopause, things that NO man has ever or will ever experience and knows the sum total of fuck all about. I've never heard a woman womansplain erectile disfunction or any other exclusively male experience.

An absolute fuckwit in our antenatal classes explained that "humans are the only animal that feels pain during childbirth" and that it was just an illusion. Stupid women ignorantly imagine that we feel pain in labour just because of cultural expectations.

And that was why "we won't be using any pain relief".

Not only was he not a woman (obviously) but his partner hadn't even had their first child yet. In the end she had all of the pain relief available and then some (good for her).

PettyContractor · 07/09/2019 17:57

Mansplaining is peculiar to men and the men that do it only do it to women.

I agree it's mostly men who do it, but I don't think they only target women, they will bend the ears of anyone who'll listen to them. I can believe that they're far more likely to think a women needs the benefit of their wisdom though.

I'm not sure what drives them, maybe it's a form of thinking out loud, rehearsing their knowledge so they can reinforce it in their own mind. I once knew a guy who I reckon if you left him alone in a room long enough would start explaining tyre sidewall stiffness to the cat.

LesserofTwoWeevils · 07/09/2019 17:57

Oooh, I was sure someone else would have posted this by now.

Mansplainer of the year:
www.scarymommy.com/vulva-versus-vagina-twitter/

BuildBuildings · 07/09/2019 18:03

Jesus this sounds like hard work! It's also grim to see how rife mansplaining is. As pp's have said I feel like the only way he will learn is if you point it out every single time.

hazell42 · 07/09/2019 18:08

I have a 2 volume extremely large dictionary on my coffee table (the shorter oxford, if you're interested) because I like to look up words I'm not 100% sure of the meaning of, or want to find the origin of.
Without fail my exh used to ask what I was looking up. If he had never heard of it, he would scoff and say I was trying to be pretentious.
If he had heard of it, he would scoff and say, dont you know what that means?
If challenged to give me a definition, he would say, well I know what it means, but it's hard to explain.
Exactly. Which is why I'm looking it up in a dictionary
knob.

badgermushrooms · 07/09/2019 18:08

The only way I got DH to stop doing this was to call him out on it every time and not to be afraid to fall out over it. "Are you seriously explaining my own job/degree subject/car (he can't fucking drive but did that stop him? Of course not) to me?" First he was very apologetic, but didn't stop doing it. Then I was using feminism as an excuse to shut him up/suppress his views/whatever Now he gets it and even spots it happening elsewhere.

When I'm feeling charitable I put it down to toxic masculinity: they're raised to believe that men know more about everything than women and that if they aren't able to talk authoritatively about every subject under the sun they've failed as men. It must be a bit of a burden if you're actually a bit dim.

Bookworm4 · 07/09/2019 18:10

Mansplaining is a polite way of saying arrogant misogynistic dick.

Rubicon80 · 07/09/2019 18:21

@LesserofTwoWeevils Oh GOD i followed that at the time. That guy really does personify mansplaining.

Did you see that he is STILL insisting he's right and has written an incredibly long pseudo-academic paper to justify it?!?

PresidentBeeblebrox · 07/09/2019 18:26

As long as you make good any damage caused by removal you can remove them.
misses point of thread

JacquesHammer · 07/09/2019 18:28

As long as you make good any damage caused by removal you can remove them

As long as you’ve specified you’re removing them in the Sellers’ Property Information Form you can.

powershowerforanhour · 07/09/2019 19:11

I think this is true.

In situations where the outcome of the argument doesn't change what you do, and you can't be arsed arguing your point against the brick wall of his forehead, you could try just smiling blandly and saying, "We'll have to agree to disagree" and go back to what you were doing. Of course he won't be able to bear that as an answer so when he follows you around the house arguing at you just repeat the phrase in the same bland tone till he stomps off, googles it and proves himself wrong.

WhoKnewBeefStew · 07/09/2019 19:14

My exh used to do this, and every now and again I'd make him write down what he was trying to tell me, we'd then look it up, and when it transpired I was right, and he'd then try to tell me I'd misunderstood, I'd show him his initial argument that he'd written down. Sounds very petty but it would severely piss me off

DampInTheLakes · 07/09/2019 19:18

This kind of man-shit is one of the reasons I've stayed single 10 years.

MrsWooster · 07/09/2019 19:20

I refer you all to the “I’m Barry, AMA “ thread...

HollowTalk · 07/09/2019 19:25

It's unbearable, isn't it, @dampinthelakes?

marvellousnightforamooncup · 07/09/2019 19:35

You can take the shelves/curtains/whatever if you tell the buyers and agree it. I've just filled in a long form for my solicitor telling them room by room what's going/staying.

marvellousnightforamooncup · 07/09/2019 19:46

Mansplaining isn't something women do. They may talk shite and be patronising, but mansplaining is to do with innate sexism. It's the assumption that the man knows best and infantalises women no matter what her qualifications are. It's their presumption of superiority due to their sex, or that as a man they have to look confident and in control even if totally outclassed by a woman.

Mxyzptlk · 07/09/2019 19:50

He has the same qualifications but less experience. If someone could tell me how to deal with him I'd be very grateful.....

"Joe, I know how to do my job"

Flip

1 2 3 4 5