To think MN is full of really stupid advice/ideas?

[StupidAdvice]

For starters:

"Kick him out and change the locks" (you mostly can't just do this - especially not if you jointly own the property).

"You're his common law wife so you are entitled to half of everything" (no, no, no).

"You're entitled to stay in the family home if you separate" (maybe, but probably not).

"Keep all the evidence of him cheating because you'll need it when you negotiate a settlement" (no you won't, and you're wasting your time: the law doesn't care who cheated or why or when).

"Just take the kids and leave him" (it's mostly not that easy).

There's lots of brilliant advice too, obviously - but AIBU to want to bang my head on the desk when people repeatedly trot out a pile of bollocks as if it were fact?

'Get yo ducks in a row'

It’s the employment advice that baffles me “this is highly illegal, they can’t fire you for being ill” type responses - almost always completely inaccurate.

@sadpapercourtesan

I always see the "MN tells people to LTB for farting in the car" thing and I just don't agree at all.

MN is such a vital resource for women in abusive or unhealthy relationships because it gives them a massive instant peer group of other women. Bad relationships can be very isolating and abusive men, having isolated you, can then work to skew your perceptions of what is normal and what is not. MN can offer a reality check and a reset of expectations where it's desperately needed. I've only ever seen a thread peppered with "LTB" posts where the OP really does need to hear it, and every time I do see it, I think "Thank goodness she posted here, and I hope she gets out".

Overall I do agree with this.

Claiming that 18 is a ‘grown adult’.
Is it fuck.

Mainly yes. BUT actually leaving is also easier than you appear to think.

If you're feeling trapped in a relationship it's not the right one is it.

On LTB… it’s become a bit of a truism that people are too quick to say LTB. I disagree. I can count on one hand the times when I think the LTB judgement has been unwarranted.

By the time people get to posting about their relationships on MN they are normally royally fucked off but have been like the proverbial boiled frog and lost touch with their own instincts.

Women are conditioned throughout their lives to accommodate men, to consider their needs, to look at things through their eyes. Even now after 50 years of mainstream feminism it still takes balls to decide you have had enough, to follow through and to put yourself (and often your children) first.

We could all do with slightly lower tolerance of shit male behaviour and no one ever left a bloke purely on the basis of an overzealous LTB. If anything I think it allows women to develop the confidence to know their own minds and stand up for themselves.

More LTB, not less.

The employment law advice is generally woeful on here. A little knowledge is so dangerous.

@cuno

I've been on mumsnet a while under different usernames and I've never once seen anyone advise they're a common law wife and entitled to half, yet I have seen multiple posts complaining about people wrongly advising this. I must be looking on different threads to everyone else!

But yes of course there's going to be some shitty advice, but if you asked friends and family or anyone really for advice there'd always be people with bad advice no matter how well intentioned, mumsnet is no different, plus the forum is anonymous so some people do throw out some ludicrous suggestions. I usually find though that the consensus is pretty much right, so if you ask for advice and get dozens of responses, it will be helpful as you can usually see a clear consensus. But if you only have a couple/handful of close friends to ask for advice on something, it's much harder to gauge, especially if they're trying to be nice about it.

Really? The first thread I looked at tonight has someone telling the OP that she’s a common-law wife.

Here at 19.12
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4477187-My-name-is-not-on-the-mortgage-and-I-pay-him-700-per-month

@PurpleDaisies

You should read some of the things posters tell others to put on burns…

Oh god, yes.

One of my favourites I forgot : If your neighbour is threatening you bake them a cake or bring them flowers. It's up there with give your house to the tenants as shittest advice I have seen.

@OfstedOffred

I find it depressing how many women genuinely believe there's some sort of common law wife status whereby if you just stick with a bloke long enough and have kids you get actual legal protection.

No, no, no.

Don't think I've ever seen that on here, Facebook maybe but the demographic of posters on Mumsnet means people know that isn't true

@pictish

Claiming that 18 is a ‘grown adult’. Is it fuck.

18 is the legal age of adulthood. MNetters are obsessed with the 'frontal lobe doesn't mature until you're 26' factoid. Throughout history, people of 25 and younger have successfully raised families/held down jobs/functioned as adults.

@VodselForDinner so one poster amongst a hundred responses telling the OP to seek legal advice. 🙄

Don't think I've ever seen that on here, Facebook maybe but the demographic of posters on Mumsnet means people know that isn't true

Don't know abour Facebook, but my effing husband used to believe it was a thing until I quoted Wikipedia back at him. At least three of his female relatives also used to wrongly believe they were in such relationship. It is an enduring myth, for some reason. I bloody hate it. So damaging. Almost made one my in-laws homeless, as a matter of fact.

(The common law marriage myth)

@whirlycarly

The employment law advice is generally woeful on here. A little knowledge is so dangerous.

I see you employment law, and I raise you the DPA 2018/GDPR and the Postal Services Act 2000, section 84 (3)

@VodselForDinner

Thank you for the link, that is genuinely the first time I have seen that trotted out as advice on here! But everyone else on that thread is at odds with that, so I don't think this counts as typical Mumsnet advice.

It's the frequent advice to take action that will destroy entire families , that really bothers me. MNers love to wind people up and advise really confrontational responses to things that would eventually burn out otherwise. And it's advice that would almost certainly cause a rift that would never heal.

The recent one about the wedding that a DSis was threatening not to invite a step nephew to, that was awful to watch. The OP started out with her DM and DSS's feelings to the fore, and being quite calm and measure. By the time the thread was over, she'd got really wound up, taken advice to stir the pot rather than let it blow over, and when last seen it looked as though she, her DH and the DSS were going to refuse to attend. And of course she would end up being painted as the villain, while the DSS missed out after all, and the mum's mental health would further deteriorate.

[quote frazzledasarock]@VodselForDinner so one poster amongst a hundred responses telling the OP to seek legal advice. 🙄[/quote]
The poster I was responding to said she’s never seen it despite being here years. I pointed out that I have the opposite experience, see it all the time, and even saw it as recently as tonight.

What I said was the first thread I looked at tonight has someone telling the OP that she’s a common-law wife, not the first thread I looked at tonight has every single poster telling the OP that she’s a common-law wife

Calm your jets with your rolly eyes.

I hate how much advice is bacially to be passive aggressive rather than to confront things by having an honest conversation

The Relationship Board on here is a thing to behold. Not.
Some of it is good, but some is downright awful.

Legal advice from a whole bunch of Mumsnetters who have no legal knowledge, is not far behind.

And even I know, as someone who doesnt post much, that there are a handful of posters who regularly give their two penneth rubbish advice, across the MN Board.

"Trust your gut" is generally questionable advice.

I only see really stupid advice from the obvious trolls and gfs. Ironically, or not, some are already on this thread.

Of course there are also the posters who assume everyone is in England and confidently call legal advice correct or false, without ever bothering to determine where the MNer actually lives.

There's a lot of excellent advice on here. And even the ltbs are worth it because no-where else tells women it's ok to leave. There is massive cultural pressure in every patriarchal society, telling women they have to stay. All research on relationships and DV shows that women stay in bad relationships longer than they should. I love that MN acts as tiny beacon offering the opposite advice. It's not going to outweigh the patriarchy (so the hand-wringing over it is pathetic) but it is valuable to have one place telling women it's ok to leave.

Legal advice from a whole bunch of Mumsnetters who have no legal knowledge, is not far behind.

I marvel at the legal "advisors" who start their posts with things like "I would imagine that ..."

What the fuck use are the the vivid imaginations of anonymous unqualified randoms?