Does the sheer volume of miserable women living their lives in service to men get you down

[BeMoreQueer]

In the many years since I first came on mn the same threads come up time and again

1. trapped in a loveless marriage, is this all there is?
2. I do everything for the kids/ house, he does nothing, im pregnant how can I get him to step up?
3. I gave up work to be a sahm and now I am treated like the nanny/ bang maid but can’t leave because I have no income or safety net

The sheer overwhelming cumulative volume of threads on these general themes make me despair for the women who don’t believe they deserve better, for the men who don’t seem to know how to be a meaningful part of family and for the generations that have grown up seeing this and are likely doomed to repeat it

Aibu?

Yabu = not my experience of mn / life
Yanbu = despair is reasonable response to unreasonable circumstances

Yes, it’s on here time and time again, it’s very sad, but what’s worse is when women post that they are about to give up work ans basically it will never happen to them.

I've read these SAHM vs WP threads over the years & used to be quite dismissive of some of the warnings. A friend then went through a brutal divorce pre covid & it was a complete shock to all of us how her DH behaved. She has always worked & the freedom & power that gave her when everything else was crumbling was invaluable. It's hugely helped her put her life back together.

I really agree with MatildaIthink. It works 2 ways. My DH is amazing with our DC, does more than his fair share of housework etc. I think people on MN will be more likely to post if they feel they are doing more than they should (biased cohort). I also note previous poster thinking a loveless marriage is fine if they get a lovely house!

For me the most I feel the most unpleasant , gaslighting individuals I have had the misfortune to meet are females (but that is just me).

"For me I feel the most ....."

I agree with @FlatteredFool and to a certain extent with @PicsInRed

I read some threads in Relationships and am just shocked at how much bad behaviour some women will put up with and how far some women will go to defend bad or feckless behaviour.

I think the most depresing thing is when women descibe abusive men as good fathers who's children love them. All young children adore their parents, unfortunately I know a lot of people who had toxic relationships with their parents but it wasn't until at least late teens / early twenties before they started to understand how bad those relationhips were.

I think its kind of a biased selection thing though.....people don't come onto places like this to post that they have a lovely partner and a normally nice life

I think sometimes it's the "any man is better than no man mentality". My mother was like this. Loathed her husband (my SD) and they made each other so miserable but wouldn't entertain for a moment leaving him and going it alone

@PicsInRed

I've thought for some time that many of the cultural advances of the women's movements of the 20th century were gradually lost in the misogyny of the 90s and 00s media and internet culture, so gradually we didn't really notice at the time, and we're now living in a sort of 50s "ideal housewife" cultural reality.

In some ways, culturally, I feel we've fallen behind even the war and post war period in terms of attitudes to women as people, workers and citizens, generally. Present day legal protections of women are as worthless as the paper they're printed on, totally unforced by law, until a women lies dead in her own home at the hands of her own husband. Even then, he merely needs to claim he raped her before she died "sex game gone wrong" and he's let off with a slap on the hand with a wet bus ticket.

Sure women used to need a man to get a bank account, and rape was legal in marriage, but now a man gets a free murder if he rapes her first - and a heavy discount on the rape too. This is all cultural and it seeps into the pores of everything, including the attitudes of the "good ones" in the home.

As they say, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.

Absolutely - bears repeating.

Male entitlement and female compliance seems to be off the scale these days, if MN is anything to go by.

Women were in many ways less 'liberated' in my day, but boy, most of us would not have put up with some of the shit one reads about here.

@PicsInRed makes some very good points.

I also despair of the women who post “why do women allow xyz to happen”, “women should be more…”, “I would never allow” and all of that. It’s the men who are to blame here! You don’t know what you’d do until you are in that situation. You don’t know how women are drawn into abusive relationships.

I’m another one who’s out the other side of this, and did leave. You just really want to get the women out, but obviously there’s little you can do from the other side of a keyboard.

@GoldenOmber - yes that’s what makes me ache for them, the perception that if they could just line up the right words in the right order their partner would see the light and take their share of the load

Like the failing is of THEIR communication as opposed to their partners selfish attitude

Without the wise ones of MN I would've been in my marriage longer. I probably would've left anyway, but threads like the ones you describe helped me put things into perspective. So thank you mumnsnet!

While I was writing that, I agree with @GoldenOmber

I spent a long time myself thinking the right combination of words would change things. It’s incredibly hard to realise that they don’t think you matter in the same was as they do. That you’re basically a resource to them.

Yes and there is one underlying theme. Many women let their desire for children overshadow the fact that the partner is a waster.

Can’t agree enough with this. Woman wants a baby, man wants sex. Result? Crappy resentful parents and a miserable upbringing for the child. Shame the woman didn’t think about the child’s quality of life rather than her own desire to reproduce.

Personally I think the one underlying theme here is that there are men who do think of women, or at least their partner, as fully human. And those who don’t think of any other humans as mattering as much as they do.

@Piccalino3

Yes I find it so depressing, but also I take heart from the growing number of woman who seem to realise that they don't need a man to share their home and would never live with one again.

I think the problem is children. It's difficult to have them without involving a man in a meaningful way, I don't mean for conception, I mean for finances and sheer practicality (although there seem to be a lot that are a hindrance). As I've got older I've noticed just how boring most men are. Unless they're talking about themselves, work or their hobby they have very little engagement or interest.

I do worry for my daughters. The thought of them going through all of this makes me sad. The only thing I can think is to make them financially independent - that way they have choice , to have a man, children with a man or not.

The problem is indeed children ; like it or not they’re hard work. And they benefit from the influence of both parents. It’s unfair on a child to have it just because a single parent wanted a child.

Also a certain a category of people are boring , not just men. Most people I know are curious about the world around them and wider affairs of politics, finance and technology. This is why I have very few friends cuz the majority of people are boring

I don't know anyone in RL like most of the people on here. I find it shocking so many women find it difficult to make simple decisions.

I find it sad that parents who now have adult kids in relationships that are shit haven’t taught their kids how to be thoughtful, proactive partners, or to expect more from a lazy partner . None of these parents are from an ‘old fashioned’ generation where the wife stayed at home and did wifey stuff, We just don’t seem to have moved on very much.

"Shame the woman didn’t think about the child’s quality of life rather than her own desire to reproduce."

But then the societal message to men about how low the bar is for being a good dad is internalised by women. We are told that it's ok for Dads to be nowhere near Mum's, in the parenting stakes. If your peer group and family aren't telling and showing you different, then you will think that it's a good enough upbringing. The resentment is caused by men not stepping up. The woman then generally does her best.

Yanbu. On MN, yes. More that it makes me furious than gets me down.

I've had the Relationship board hidden for so long, I often forget it exists (although some threads still escape the board and find themselves on aibu or chat).

I know I didn’t have a very healthy relationship modelled at home. I thought frequent shouty arguments were normal, so didn’t spot that I wasn’t in a healthy relationship to being children into.

I thought that just saying “I never want us to argue in front of the children”, would make it happen, rather than exh taking in board that information and using it as a weapon.

I left my marriage over 3 years ago. He was an absolute shit to me and our relationship was toxic. It was MN who made me see what was really going on as I was so entrenched and unhappy I couldn’t understand what was going on. I couldn’t believe how I, a strong, confident woman ended up in this shitshow. If you met me you would never think for a second I would have put up with the crap I actually did.

When we split the amount of women who came up to me to tell me how brave I was and that they would love to be able to do the same was utterly depressing.

I really think we need to be educating girls (and boys) from a young age about boundaries, respect and what to look for in a life partner. We also need to educate girls that you don’t have to have kids, a husband and a white picket fence, that it isn’t the be all and end all to life.

@OverweightPidgeon, my DD was in an abusive relationship. I was a widowed LP. My sister was happily single. My eldest DD was financially independent, owned a house that she alone bought and her DP did housework/cooking. We are a family of strong, emotionally independent women. We told her months after having her first baby that her relationship needed to end. He was one who changed after birth. We would have fully supported her. She chose to stay and have another baby. After splitting she did the freedom programme via DV services. She got into another abusive relationship.
You can't point fingers at the parents of these women. It's very complex.

It's a cycle, children see their parents in those roles, they replicate them when they're older. Women think they're supposed to take on the lion's share and accept it, men don't think to take a more active role (at best) demand it (at worst). It's not my experience thankfully, both DH and I had somewhat unconventional childhoods with a lot more proactive males and as such we slipped into family life with relative ease compared to others.

Yes I agree with you and I also despair OP.

It is true in "real life" as well. I know of loads of women in shit relationships with shit lazy useless men, having kid after kid. Any man is better than no man eh.

And those saying it's not like that in R.L. are being incredibly naive and sheltered (most likely ignoring what's in front of them), it is a fact women do the lion's share in the majority of cases, there are plenty of studies and statistics out there if you can't see it for yourself.