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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Mumsnet hates DH!

252 replies

BesottedTurnip · 14/12/2020 15:21

My DH is an absolute delight! He is kind and thoughtful, does his fair share of the household, thinks up lovely surprises for me, no one's perfect but he's pretty good! I have zero major concerns about our marriage but from time to time ask on here about minor disagreements / discussions we're had to garner wider opinion.

Every time I post about him on mumsnet though, he seems to come across to others as horrible. At best pathetic, and at worse manipulative and abusive. Someone even flowered me the other day!

Is this just me? Has anyone else posted about their lovely husbands and had lots of replies suggesting ltb?!

OP posts:
PrincessNutNutRoast · 16/12/2020 11:34

@borntohula

MN hates ALL DHs.
Absolutely. Damn straight. Hate them all, without reason or exception. I'm going to set up a tripwire for mine right now and I expect all other married MNers to do the same. It'll take a while, though, because there are quite a lot of us.
lazylinguist · 16/12/2020 11:35

MN hates ALL DHs.

MN doesn't have an opinion about most DHs, because MN only really ever hears about the ones who are a problem.

arethereanyleftatall · 16/12/2020 11:43

@borntohula

MN hates ALL DHs.
😂😂stop being silly.
Bibidy · 16/12/2020 12:04

I definitely think there is a tendency to see abusive behaviour in everything on this site. Also very much a tendency towards seeing partners as adversaries and people to teach a lesson to rather than discuss and compromise.

Nore · 16/12/2020 12:05

@lazylinguist

MN hates ALL DHs.

MN doesn't have an opinion about most DHs, because MN only really ever hears about the ones who are a problem.

And an awful lot of the time, a woman posts about some comparatively minor issue, like her husband continually waking her up when he turns on the bedroom light when he comes to bed, much later than her bedtime, and someone asks a side question like 'Do you have a baby? Who does night wakings?' and an entire horror story will emerge of a deeply unequal dynamic that crucially the ground-down OP has no idea is such an unhealthy relationship.

Obviously sometimes an annoying or selfish habit is just that, but quite often these are the tip of a large and nasty iceberg and are posted about by someone who has no idea that relationships aren't supposed to be this grindingly awful.

You know all those cheery threads about 'What have you learned from Mn?' which usually feature the usual nonsense about pineapples, Gibraltar, arrows on your car dashboard, 'envelope' necks on babygros etc?

The major thing I've learned on here is that an awful lot of ordinary women are living in grotesquely unhappy and unequal relationships and think it's normal to do all cooking, childcare and housework on top of working FT with an able-bodied partner, or to have to tiptoe around the addicted gaming habits of a man who has checked out on family life because you can't interrupt a 'live' multiplayer game for anything as banal as doing bath and bedtime with your children, or to be begging someone they've had three children with to marry them, but l to have to wait for a man they invariably describe as 'traditional' to propose in his own time, which seems to involve him dangling it like a good-behaviour carrot in front of them...

Frankly, if Mn manages to open one woman's eyes to the fact that this isn't normal to the fact that, yes, men can see dirt and cook dinner, that being a CEO doesn't give you a get-out clause from family life, that women's jobs are as important as their spouses', that childcare and domestic gruntwork aren't 'women's jobs' etc, that marriage isn't a prize men grant to compliant women, that having sex you don't want isn't OK etc etc it's doing a good thing.

borntohula · 16/12/2020 13:14

Nah, I maintain that MN is rarely positive about relationships. Often, justifiably negative but sometimes screaming 'abuse' when there is none.

PrincessNutNutRoast · 16/12/2020 13:20

@borntohula

Nah, I maintain that MN is rarely positive about relationships. Often, justifiably negative but sometimes screaming 'abuse' when there is none.
Well sometimes the sun goes round the moon, sometimes the snow comes down in June. The idea that we hate ALL husbands is ridiculous and yes I'm allowing for the rhetoric and taking that to mean "more often than not". If we hated husbands so much on principle, we wouldn't spend so much time explaining to so many vulnerable women why marriage is important.
lazylinguist · 16/12/2020 13:31

Very well said, Nore.

I definitely think there is a tendency to see abusive behaviour in everything on this site.

I think that debating whether MNers (or anyone else) can call something 'abuse' is often a red herring. In a way, what does it matter what terminology you use to describe a partner's behaviour? There are approximately a gazillion traits I would be totally unwilling to tolerate in a partner. I don't give a monkey's whether they'd fit someone's description of abuse, because I'm happy to rely on my own boundaries.

I can see why having someone else point out that a partner's behaviour is abusive might be helpful to a woman who is sadly so used to being treated badly that she can't see it. But it would still be better for her to gain the confidence to say "No - this is behaviour that I personally will not tolerate, regardless of what anyone else would call it".

Ultimately, arguing with someone else's call of 'LTB' just means you have a lower bar than them. I can't see why that's something to be pleased about.

borntohula · 16/12/2020 13:51

@lazylinguist nope, it means you have different ideas of what would make you 'ltb.' From my point of view, the amount of people here who think it's ok to go through someone's phone is shocking but hey, if your husband ever gets insecure, 'ltb.'

PrincessNutNutRoast · 16/12/2020 13:53

[quote borntohula]@lazylinguist nope, it means you have different ideas of what would make you 'ltb.' From my point of view, the amount of people here who think it's ok to go through someone's phone is shocking but hey, if your husband ever gets insecure, 'ltb.'[/quote]
Do you think that women in happy, healthy relationships will dump their husbands because people on MN said they should?

borntohula · 16/12/2020 13:59

Princess, I think it will make them question their relationships if they are impressionable types, yeah. I've literally seen a comments that support this.

lazylinguist · 16/12/2020 14:03

nope, it means you have different ideas of what would make you 'ltb'

Yes, exactly - that's what I mean by having a lower bar.

Do you think that women in happy, healthy relationships will dump their husbands because people on MN said they should?

Good point - of course they wouldn't.

I suspect that what a lot of women posting about their problematic partners are wanting are not LTBs, but replies which will give them hope that they can get their partner to change his behaviour and be the man they thought or hoped he was. But I don't think that's often very realistic tbh.

PrincessNutNutRoast · 16/12/2020 14:05

@borntohula

Princess, I think it will make them question their relationships if they are impressionable types, yeah. I've literally seen a comments that support this.
And do you think it is a bad thing for women to question their relationships?
borntohula · 16/12/2020 14:07

Lazy, pretty sure you know that with 'lower bar,' you are being condescending. Anyway, agree to disagree. MN is full of helpful advice but it's also full of histrionics, in my opinion.

lazylinguist · 16/12/2020 14:09

Princess, I think it will make them question their relationships if they are impressionable types, yeah

So they've posted on a forum about problems with their partner, but you think it's a bad thing if people's advice encourages them to even question their relationship? Wow.

borntohula · 16/12/2020 14:09

If the only reason they are questioning their relationship is because a few forum users got overexcited/started projecting then yeah.

lazylinguist · 16/12/2020 14:10

Lazy, pretty sure you know that with 'lower bar,' you are being condescending.

No, just honest. Some women are willing to tolerate behaviour that other women would not. It's a fact.

borntohula · 16/12/2020 14:10

@lazylinguist

Princess, I think it will make them question their relationships if they are impressionable types, yeah

So they've posted on a forum about problems with their partner, but you think it's a bad thing if people's advice encourages them to even question their relationship? Wow.

🙄 OK.
borntohula · 16/12/2020 14:12

I also think it's extremely questionable behaviour to suggest that anyone's partner is having an affair when there's absolutely no indication of it in the post. That happens all the time on here, is clearly projection and so unhelpful, I can only imagine those particular posters get off on making people anxious.

PrincessNutNutRoast · 16/12/2020 14:13

@borntohula

If the only reason they are questioning their relationship is because a few forum users got overexcited/started projecting then yeah.
And at the risk of making this a circular argument: do you think women in happy, healthy, loving relationships are likely to sabotage them because of overexcited and projecting posters on Mumsnet?
lazylinguist · 16/12/2020 14:20

If the only reason they are questioning their relationship is because a few forum users got overexcited/started projecting then yeah.

I'd say that there is never anything wrong with questioning something. It's a healthy thing to do - take stock of your life/relationship etc, look at things in the cold light of day etc. And sometimes comments or advice from an outsider can help you do that. Then once you've questioned and thought it through, you are better able to move on with the relationship/situation (maybe with some ideas about how to make it work better) or end it, in the knowledge that you have really given it some proper thought. Following a few posters' LTB advice would be idiotic if you genuinely don't think there's anything wrong with your relationship.

MrsTerryPratchett · 16/12/2020 15:32

@borntohula

I also think it's extremely questionable behaviour to suggest that anyone's partner is having an affair when there's absolutely no indication of it in the post. That happens all the time on here, is clearly projection and so unhelpful, I can only imagine those particular posters get off on making people anxious.
I've read more than one thread entitled You Were All Right He Was Cheating. After six months or a year of denial on the part of the OP.

And low bars are weird. DH and I went halves on our dating. Some women would see me choosing a man who doesn't pay for dates as a low bar. He does tons of housework, that's my bar. Horses for courses.

switswooo · 16/12/2020 15:45

DH and I went halves on our dating. Some women would see me choosing a man who doesn't pay for dates as a low bar.

On reflection, I should have taken exH’s refusal to ever let me pay for a date as a red flag back when we were dating, despite multiple attempts from me. On the surface it’s generous but he turned about to be controlling. Also, I think him always paying for dates made me feel beholden to him
subconsciously.

Waveysnail · 16/12/2020 15:53

Its aibu - you know for people who are having problems 🤦‍♀️

Googlebrained · 16/12/2020 16:14

I've read more than one thread entitled You Were All Right He Was Cheating. After six months or a year of denial on the part of the OP

And add to that, abusive, controlling, selfish etc

I've never seen one say, I LTB because MN told me too and it turned out he was actually lovely and I really regret it.

I think I've learnt a lot by being on here about what other people consider acceptable or not. As you tend to get polar opposite views if you read enough threads, it helps you to see both sides and to form your own viewpoint. It's certainly helped me to see the difference between a people pleasing, assertive and aggressive response to situations; to consider what might be a red flag; and to have better boundaries with others and not feel guilty about that.

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