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 6

Original poster

to question a man’s character based on the type of woman he’s married to?

133 replies

PostingOnMN · 03/10/2021 00:50

There are these two women I know personally and I know for a fact they are not nice people. I don’t know their husbands personally but I’m questioning the character of a man who willingly marries someone who is rude/mean to people for no reason at all. Like what kind of man are you? Not just that on social media they (the women I know) post endless social justice-y stuff that I know in real life they don’t actually live according to.

OP posts:

Janaih · 03/10/2021 08:36

Also not wishing to derail the thread but the dogs judging character thing real annoys me. I hate dogs but will always pretend to be interested when presented with one. The dogs always seem keen on me. So therefore dogs are not reliable judges of character they are easily fooled.

DrSbaitso · 03/10/2021 08:43

I personally have never known a situation when that quote was true.

Well if it's true, you wouldn't think so, would you?

LordEmsworth · 03/10/2021 08:50

Presumably it works both ways round, being married to someone horrible means you must be at least a bit horrible?

So you also believe that only women of "questionable character" marry men who abuse them. If she gets beaten to death, we can assume she wasn't actually a very nice person, because a nice person wouldn't have married him?

TheGrumpyGoat · 03/10/2021 08:54

So all women married to abusers must be bad people, by your logic OP?

TheGrumpyGoat · 03/10/2021 08:55

@DrSbaitso

I personally have never known a situation when that quote was true.

Well if it's true, you wouldn't think so, would you?

Exactly what I was thinking!

Macncheeseballs · 03/10/2021 08:57

Maybe they're good in bed

Rosesareyellow · 03/10/2021 08:59

Weirdly this post makes me think of Cinderella. I don’t think her father was a nice as he’s made out to be based on his second marriage 🤷‍♀️
But in all seriousness no, I don’t think that’s how it works in real life.

RubyFowler · 03/10/2021 09:00

One very strong reason for me eventually leaving my ex was that I hated the thought of people thinking I was like him or shared his views.
Or thought I was a total wet blanket pushover for being with him.
However...it took a loooong time for me to do it so I wouldn't judge someone married to a horrible person, no.

On the meeting twats all day long quote, he definitely met twats all the time. Everyone was a twat according to him.
In that case it definitely was him.

WhyOhWhyOhWhyyyy · 03/10/2021 09:02

I sort of get what you mean OP. I wouldn’t 100% judge a person by the behaviour of their spouse but there are certain situations in which I do.

The example that I think of is a woman I used to work with who was a horrible bully to anyone ‘beneath’ her. She ended up in a relationship with another manager who had always seemed to me to be very kind and compassionate. I couldn’t helping judging him, like he’s put his own values aside for someone that he fancied. They’re married now. I guess there is a chance that he’s oblivious to her behaviour but I really don’t think that’s the case, I think he overlooks it because she’s nice to him so he doesn’t care how she treats others. It says a lot about him as a person I think.

3scape · 03/10/2021 09:04

I wouldn't be sitting around giving any headspace to people or acting like judge and jury as to whether anyone was ,"nice". People are entirely transactional after all. I'd guess these women have no reason to be nice to you. Neither does anyone owe you that.

Lanique · 03/10/2021 09:07

I have observed that the partners of 'difficult' people are often very laid-back types that never challenge their OHs for acting like pricks.

Nightbringer · 03/10/2021 09:09

Op, you wouldn't believe that saying is ever true....if you were the asshole and refusing to believe it.

This sounds like 2 women don't like you for a reason and you not only give them to much head space, but now giving head space to their husbands and wether they are decent people or not.

Its not healthy.

RedToothBrush · 03/10/2021 09:13

No.

Yabu.

Some people are very good at hiding a certain side of themselves to their nearest and dearest. They also have a particular type of victim and if you aren't that type you may never be aware of that behaviour.

Have an ex friend like this. Partner really lovely and sees the good in everyone else. Sadly impossible to maintain the friendship with other.

CityMumma78 · 03/10/2021 09:18

Maybe you just bring out the worst in them!

WineAndMassage · 03/10/2021 09:24

YANBU.

Macncheeseballs · 03/10/2021 09:26

Roses, you are right, cinderellas dad was a twat wasn't he

Eve81 · 03/10/2021 09:26

I work with 3 absolutely awful women and I have often said to my husband I wonder what their husbands are like, how the he’ll are they even married!

Anordinarymum · 03/10/2021 09:30

I have been with my bloke for the best part of twenty years. He is kind and thoughtful and I am glad to have met him and known him.

His wife (they are divorced) is the most awful mean and spiteful person I think I have ever had the misfortune to have come across even though I have never met her, I am fully aware of everything she has done to him (all relayed to me by others and witnessed by myself to a large extent)
He said she was not like that when they first met. It only started after they were married. I don't believe this. I think he was too young when he met her and did not know her properly when they got married.

His father had her worked out though - he told him the night before the wedding that he did not have to go through with it. I think that was the eye opener for him albeit too late.

AlternativePerspective · 03/10/2021 09:31

What a bizarre thread.

I have wondered what someone’s partner must see in them, based on how they come across, but that’s entirely different from judging the actual partner.

In fact I have felt sorry for people who are married to complete twats.

AlternativePerspective · 03/10/2021 09:40

I remember reading a thread during lockdown, from an OP who said that since her partner worked from home she had changed the way she thought of him, because the lovely man he was at home was completely different to the work him who shouted and screamed at his staff.

Interestingly an awful lot of posters defended him, saying that it must be the stress of work.

CounsellorTroi · 03/10/2021 09:56

A very long time ago a work colleague played a nasty practical joke on me with regard to another guy at work that I fancied. They ended up together soon afterwards and have grandchildren now and I wondered at the time how he could have fancied someone capable of being so bitchy? She was a.very pretty girl so there you go. I think I eventually did a lot better than her DH though.

Meripenopause · 03/10/2021 09:58

I actually think there is quite a lot of truth in what you say, OP.
Of course many spouses / partners are more like captives (or that's how they feel) and stay helplessly with in their awful relationships.
However the older I get, the more I think that the 'lovely' partner gets their nasty side released for them by their DH / DW. They get vicarious satisfaction. And I know a couple of decades-married couples get on so well because they both seem to really enjoy judging people. Every day brings them lots to talk about.

DrSbaitso · 03/10/2021 10:02

@CounsellorTroi

Sounds like he probably fancied her too at the time. She might have been trying to head you off. Maybe you didn't know his character as well as you thought.

Ponoka7 · 03/10/2021 10:02

"Are we saying that the partner of a murderer is just the same as the murderer then in terms of thoughts, personalities, values?"

If they stay with them then yes. Fred and Rose West were as guilty as each other, even if she hadn't have killed anyone. Women who cover up the violence by men who abuse their children are now considered to be enabling and colluding in the abuse.
I agree that for many people, their childhood is the biggest influence in their relationship decision making.
I always felt differently about Kelsey Grammar when his wife was on American Housewives. But I'd been seeing him as Frasier Crane.
I also agree that it takes time for the mask to fall off. One of my exs turned out to be a vile person, he was also abusive and nothing like his public face. But then I'd judge someone who gets in too deep into a relationship and gets trapped before they know the other person. Having suffered from infertility, I can understand a woman doing that because she's desperate for a child, though.

GoOnDoAnASEyeroll · 03/10/2021 10:08

@TheGrumpyGoat

So all women married to abusers must be bad people, by your logic OP?

It's only bad if they stay with that abuser knowing who they are. Unless they're being abused too and can get away (but they want to), then they're either similar or enabling the abuser, which is more or less the same

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Swipe left for the next trending thread