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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Why do people manufacture stress for themselves?

86 replies

Ori21 · 09/03/2021 13:17

Surely life is hard enough without voluntarily doing any of the following:

Affairs (they're not fun, they don't provide escapism & you can't run away from the person you've become by having one)

Sacrificing too much to pursue stressful, demanding careers that put £££'s in the bank but ultimately give them no real quality of life

Taking on relationships/friendships they know are going to be trouble.

Just why? It's quite obvious these things are self-destructive. They don't lead to happiness, or peace.

Money is money, beyond having enough for the basics it's an obvious slippery slope of constant comparison and resentment. Not worth literally selling your life for surely?!

Affairs..........people run from things, not to things. It's just a physical manifestation of your own inadequacies that you've failed to deal with. Always ends in tears or nearly always.

And doggedly remaining in/seeking out destructive, shit relationships or remaining in broken marriages, most often "for the sake of the children." Children are astute, and will model what they see.

Is it just a human flaw to knowingly seek out attachments that will increase our suffering? We have free will, and the ability to make our lives simple and thus, happier, - but not many people choose it. Why?

OP posts:

thepeopleversuswork · 09/03/2021 14:09

@Ragwort

I think some people thrive on making their lives as complicated as possible ... you see it frequently on Mumsnet, scenarios like 'I home school three DC, have a busy, demanding job, grow my own food, cook everything from scratch, have three dogs that need walking every day, have to get up at 5am to keep the housework under control, must have a 5k run every day for my mental health, a frantic social life etc etc etc'.

Missing I keep my life as low key as possible too - part time job, chose to have an only DC, wouldn't dream of having pets, rarely exercise, my 'social life' is going for a pleasant walk with a friend .... I love my life .

OK if you're framing it like that and the OP didn't then I'll bite.

I'm not quite as bad as that example but I suppose I do thrive on what some people would see as stress to the extent that I find being busy much easier than being idle. I find downtime really difficult and my biggest phobia is around wasting my life. A day in front of the TV would absolutely excruciating for me, for example.

But I don't see it as making life complicated or stressful: I put a premium on using every minute of my life valuably and dead time actually stresses me out much more than being busy.

It's not how everyone wants to live but its how I want to live and I don't see why I should have to justify it? It also has some upsides: it means I'm able to get more done/be more productive etc and has led to more self-reliance.

But the way the OP framed her post was to lump this sort of behaviour in with what I would see as very self-destructive behaviours, such as having affairs or remaining in bad relationship. I don't think these come from the same motivations at all. If anything I'd say they are polar opposites. Remaining in bad relationships I would see as a sign of passivity and lack of motivation, not of a highly motivated individual.

I guess I just found that aside from the post being goady and tactless it also lacked any intellectual rigour or consistency.

ParadiseIsland · 09/03/2021 14:15

@Ori21 I’m sorry but you are a.... well you are wrong let’s put it this way.

Can you explain how you can TELL that someone has chosen to make their life difficult and would have had no issue at all to make another decision?
There is no ‘free will and choice’ as such because we are all constrained by our past, self beliefs, health etc...
Constraints also are also about the fact we are all making choices and trying to find what will be the best/easiest/more manageable choice for ourselves.

So I have stayed in a bad relationship because I was ill.
The choice was leaving, having no income at all, no support at all in the country whilst actually needing a carer to cook and clean for me. Oh and looking after two young dcs.
Or staying, having some financial protection , not seeing my dcs having to go without and caring for me. And of I urge not having to deal with the emotional fall out of a divorce, which I couldn't contemplate at the time.

A third option would have been to leave the U.K., go back to my home country, wo the dcs and be pampered by my parents until I was better. Very good option for me as a person. Maybe not that good for the dcs who were not primary age then.

There was no easy choice. And certainly not using my free will to make my life harder for myself.
That sort of talk is disingenuous tbh. And show you have no understanding of how and why people can struggle or make different choices than the ones you would make.

Original poster

Ori21 · 09/03/2021 14:51

@AIMD

Interesting point. Almost like a chemical addiction to a level of stress

OP posts:

JudgeRindersMinder · 09/03/2021 14:53

Because life is always that simple isn’t it

CSIblonde · 09/03/2021 15:34

I did child psychology as part of my teaching degree. Your behaviour template is set in childhood. You model & repeat the behaviour patterns you are around day in day out, it's your 'norm'. It takes a lot of self awareness to realise you are repeating dysfunctional behaviour if that was the norm you grew up around. As to experiencing abuse , you aren't condemned to repeat it, but some abused people can go on to abuse in an attempt to take back their lost power & avoid their victimhood. I believe many sex offender research studies found abuse,social isolation & MH issues were a hugely common childhood experience for a very large percent of them.

LexMitior · 09/03/2021 16:04

It’s pretty easy to predict isn’t it? All you have to do is look at their parents abs relevant upbringing. People can never really hide that from you for long if you have any kind of relationship.

There are some special badges for women though which appears to be “martyr”. Honestly they just want your engagement which is pretty juvenile - if they had the drive or self actualisation they claim, you’d never hear anything about it!

Iamthewombat · 09/03/2021 16:10

Sacrificing too much to pursue stressful, demanding careers that put £££'s in the bank but ultimately give them no real quality of life

I think that the ‘quality of life’ afforded by demanding, highly paid careers is rather better than it would be for someone working down a coal mine, or cleaning toilets for minimum wage, or delivering parcels for Hermes for a pittance, don’t you?

VestaTilley · 09/03/2021 16:11

Your point on destructive relationships is simplistic and unfair.

Often women don’t know any better because nobody has ever modelled a healthy relationship to them. Abuse is often cyclical (and no you can’t “just leave”) with children who witness abuse growing up to be abused as adults. Often women are just desperate to be loved, and when a manipulative and calculating, controlling man tells them he loves them they find themselves in dangerous situations quite quickly.

Try and have a little compassion.

It’s a completely different issue from people who have high stress careers or have affairs. Your post smacks of naivety I’m afraid.

iamruth · 09/03/2021 16:11

Having just endured the single most stressful day of my life trying to work out if I will move house this week or not, I genuinely thought this was about why would anyone move house!

Original poster

Ori21 · 09/03/2021 16:12

Interesting contribution @CSIblonde

OP posts:

LunaHeather · 09/03/2021 16:15

I find it interesting that you first comment is "affairs aren't fun".

Maybe you're doing them wrong

LunaHeather · 09/03/2021 16:16

@iamruth

Having just endured the single most stressful day of my life trying to work out if I will move house this week or not, I genuinely thought this was about why would anyone move house!

Oh mate...are you waiting on exchange etc?

It is so hard. I'll cross everything for you.

LunaHeather · 09/03/2021 16:17

@CSIblonde

If only. I'd love to be like my parents.

EssentialHummus · 09/03/2021 16:20

I think societal expectations / the particular versions of them that we swallow in childhood play a huge part. What does a loving relationship look like, what does success look like, what does a good time look like? I think very few people really stop and ask what they want; even as adults it’s usually influenced to some degree by peers.

suspiria777 · 09/03/2021 16:23

@Ori21