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

@MissChanandlerBong81

I find those threads very depressing (and eye-opening) reading on MN. But it isn’t my experience of real life.

Admittedly there’s only so much you can know about what goes on in people’s houses behind closed doors so perhaps lots of my friends and acquaintances are trapped in loveless marriages and I don’t know about it. But I don’t know anyone who I think falls into categories 2 or 3.

I suspect that might be because we live in an affluent commuter town outside London (you can probably narrow it down to a list of 3 or 4 if you’re familiar with the Home Counties!) and all the women I know with young children work, usually in professional jobs. Some are FT, some work 4 days and a handful work 3 days. If you get chatting to someone at a soft play or somewhere like that you can make a reliable assumption their child goes to nursery - ‘what nursery does your little one go to’ is a routine opener.

I found my real life experience to be in sharp contrast to MN where mothers who work and use nursery are often asked ‘why did you bother having kids?’ and other cliches like that.

MN is a parallel universe.

It often bears no resemblance to real-life - AIBU doubly so.

Take every comment here with a pinch of salt.

YANBU

So many scenarios shared on Mumsnet.

What I find particularly depressing is when poor behaviour is justified by other women. E.g when are sooo busy with their Big Important Jobs this is often a narrative spouted by other women. Conveniently, this often sadly means dad's are unavailable for bedtime duty and the OP is totally unreasonable to ask. But funnily enough The Big Important Job does allow for a time consuming, unique, outing hobby. Meanwhile SAHM or WOTH - does the equivalent of a 80+ hour week and can't go to the loo in peace but is totally U. I have an career job too, funnily enough I manage my family and work commitments, as do my peers. I see the Big Important Job pop up most frequently where the DW isn't working, or working reduced hours. This seems to have a direct correlation with how much the 'D'H is required at his crucial role.

The Step-Mum / ExW situations with children. Most posts are missing a seemingly crucial element, the dad. He is somehow invisible, voiceless and yet omnipotent all at the same time. The Big Important Job often rears its head here too, usually to excuse childcare requests on Step Mum or to excuse absence (useful this Big Important Job isn't it?).

Finally the ones where the 'wife' work is simply a given, without question, it isn't the point of the OPs post even. "So I'd just prepared a brunch for 7 of my husband's secret, outing hobby friends when as it was 'his' turn when..." Another 'great' example was when a poster wondering whether her DH could do more was told off by a mum as she did all the chores/facilitated DHs running/childcare. They both worked full time but seemingly lecturer trumped teacher. Her DH was wonderful though because he appeared at home for family film night on a Friday!

Generally, the st

@AICM exactly.
While I've received really good advice here on certain things some threads are just mind-boggling....

Generally the standards placed on men are lower for domestic participation...

MN is a parallel universe. It often bears no resemblance to real-life

Alternatively: MN has a larger cross-section of the population than we individually see in our own real lives, so if situations you see here aren’t represented in your direct experience, that doesn’t mean they’re not out there.

Not that MN can’t be utterly ridiculous sometimes when the loudest/most extreme viewpoints all pile in and the normal people wander off, mind. But I don’t think “all mums in my real life work while MN has more SAHMs, so Mumsnet is not like Real Life at all” quite follows.

Also, the useless men who lump all the work on their partners don’t all have SAHPs financially reliant on them. Plenty of couples where both work, similar hours, similar pressures, yet Mum’s doing 90% of the housework and night wakings. Or all the families where both WFH over lockdown, yet Mum was posting on here asking how to manage her job from the dining table while homeschooling because Dad was upstairs with the door shut and couldn’t be disturbed from his Big Important Job.

“men who lump all the domestic work on their partners”, that should read.

MN is a parallel universe. It often bears no resemblance to real-life

I don't think that's true at all tbh. I don't very often read things on MN that I find outlandish or that unlikely. People are different and have wildly different lives and experiences.

You say men never got the memo, then you say you know many couples who split things fairly. Which is it? Your thinking is muddled.

That poster said that many do split things fairly and many don't. Lots of men didn't get the memo. Some of them presumably needed telling by their partners and got it eventually. Others didn't. It wasn't a hard post to understand - maybe it's your thinking that's muddled.

@lazylinguist

MN is a parallel universe. It often bears no resemblance to real-life

I don't think that's true at all tbh. I don't very often read things on MN that I find outlandish or that unlikely. People are different and have wildly different lives and experiences.

Many people would agree with you.

That's part of the problem! There's none so blind...

@lazylinguist

You say men never got the memo, then you say you know many couples who split things fairly. Which is it? Your thinking is muddled.

That poster said that many do split things fairly and many don't. Lots of men didn't get the memo. Some of them presumably needed telling by their partners and got it eventually. Others didn't. It wasn't a hard post to understand - maybe it's your thinking that's muddled.

Err.. her post didn't say lots of men it just said men.

It was an easy post to understand, you just misunderstood it.

Just picked up the active thread where it's the poster's birthday and she was given the 'choice' of dinner with the DP or lunch with her friends.

She couldn't apparently have both because of his hobby. Now she can't have either because he's in a mood about her asking him to miss his hobby for one time.
Men's jobs and hobbies are sacred, apparently.

I bet the abusive men are loving so many posters blaming the abused woman!

There are a lot of threads with women seemingly trapped in miserable, unbalanced relationships. I feel sad for them, but the women I know irl aren't in those kinds of marriages, to the best of my knowledge. They don't seem to be unhappy or taken advantage of by their husbands, though obviously no-one knows what people are privately thinking or saying behind closed doors.

Men's jobs and hobbies are sacred, apparently.

And this is a classic example of lazy extrapolation on MN. All that thread demonstrated is that the OP is married to a selfish entitled dickhead, not that all men's jobs and hobbies are sacred. Using MN as some kind of barometer of a nations relationship health is just moronic. Plenty of couples have 'hobbies' that need to be juggled around child care and other commitments, from my observations they tend to have grown up conversations about how they split their time to ensure both parties get some quality down time and don't neglect their duties. On MN it seems every bloke is training for the tour de France or playing 5 back to back rounds of golf at weekends.

Husbands and wives feel trapped in miserable marriages because it is so expensive and stressful to get divorced. They see it as the least worst option to stay.

Err.. her post didn't say lots of men it just said men.

It was an easy post to understand, you just misunderstood it.

I understood what the poster meant. You failed to, because you're quibbling over wording, and seeing a contradiction where clearly none was intended.

She did indeed say 'men', which was very clearly a generalisation and didn't necessarily mean every single man. Plus there will presumably plenty of men who didn't initially 'get the memo', but subsequently mended their ways, grew up a bit and learned that they needed to pull their weight, hence eventually being part of the many the poster knows who do share the load equally. Of course, the people the poster knows may not be representative of men in general.

Too many young girls, with low confidence and self esteem, desperately looking to be loved and cared for, get into relationships too quickly and go on to have kids to hold on to their men.

Two things we should teach every you g women. Get some form of secure and career minded role, whatever it is and ensure you give enough time to really get to know your oh before having children with him. That means wait until you are both challenged and under pressure to see how he reacts when things go wrong. That's when you get to know him (and vice versa).

Ideally, get onto the property ladder before you have kids.

@DillonPanthersTexas resorting to insults and offensive labelling isn't my style of debate. I prefer critical thinking and on that basis I'm not going to engage or debate your comments.

@vivainsomnia yes exactly this. This is the power of Mumsnet I think and on occasion it's collective wisdom. Not everyone has supporting family around them to teach this stuff.

I've enjoyed your.posts, goldenombre. I've always been staggered that one can do something as life changing as getting married, sharing finances and having DC, without any kind of compulsory course first (except the odd religious one - hopefully not too focused on the old 'wives, submit to your husbands' bit).

Although goodness knows how you'd get agreement on a secular course.

As a teacher, it's interesting that a few posters have suggested education on this in school. There is some in PHSE (and much more than when I was at school in the 80s) but I think if it were truly effective then you'd get strong pushback from parents. Some would see it as critical. Which of course, it would be!

Far too many in sad, dangerous, miserable relationships.

I see far too many say he makes twice as much as I do.
Why is that still happening?

Why do so many men turn about to be terrible in relationships?
Is there anything that can be done for them to turn out better?

It does get me down, it’s not just on MN. Quite often I come across stories of women whose partners don’t seem to respect them or their time.

I will never again allow a guy to buy his free time with all MY unpaid domestic labour.
My ex was one of those “Oh well you’re better at it” or “I was JUST about to do it (after leaving it for a week)”. Not gonna put up with that ever again. If a man says I’m better at housework, oh well, sucks to suck, get better at it.

It’s a large part of why I have no interest in dating.

It isn’t my experience of real life but mumsnet is the most depressing read ever. These women are ALWAYS pregnant or have multiple kids to these absolute losers and I can’t understand why. I wouldn’t date someone who treated me so badly never mind marry or co habit and have loads of children with them. I know some men can change once kids arrive but for most of these men it seems fairly clear they’ve always been like this.