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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to be seriously fed up with mansplaining, knowledge flexing partner on holiday

155 replies

Woolyminded · 12/08/2022 15:14

I've just come back off hol with my partner and kids.

He is a terrible mansplainer and correcter. This holiday I've just realised what a smug knowledge flexer he is too.
A few examples- I was telling my DS that mallorca is majorca but the Spanish spelling. DPs ears pricked up, he's almost gleeful when he thinks I've said something wrong, he said 'well actually, mallorca is a different island' and proceeded to show me a map on his phone to prove it. He shows me menorca on a map. I say that's menorca. He then realises hes talking crap and starts telling us about menorca being a separate island.
I've pointed his habit out to him before, he knows its something that really starts to wear me down when I feel like he's constantly poised to disprove things I say. If I say something that he doesn't already know, his first reaction is to query it and Google it to find out if its right. Its incredibly demeaning.
There was a particular moment this holiday when I had a moment of realisation that he gets on my effing tits.
We were at the lunch buffet and I was doing the usual trying to spark up a conversation to involve everyone, my ds and dd, 11 and 14, and dp and his 12 and 15 yr old. DP and his DS starts quizzing everyone on the periodic table. 'What elements make up salt' or something like that.
I said it wasn't a fun conversation, it was just a knowledge flex. He looked surprised and carried on, started asking who knows the characteristics of cells. It just seemed like it was showing off and highlighting how little I've got in common with him. I like a niche random intellectual conversation if its interesting but it felt like I was taking an exam that I hadn't prepared for. Is this normal dinnertable chat and am I weird for not wanting to talk about chemistry? Or be involved in pretentious, dull knowledge flexing? I'd sat through a monologue on the causes of the cold war the previous day.
I know I'm in a bitchy mood cos of holiday tiredness but I found it as irritating as a bad case of thrush.

OP posts:
Petros9 · 12/08/2022 16:56

Is 'mansplaining' only perpetrated by men?

Woolyminded · 12/08/2022 16:59

I think I need to have another chat with him about how he makes me feel. I'm writing stuff down because I get really panicky and my mind goes blank in stressful situations. I need bullet points!

OP posts:
creamwitheverything · 12/08/2022 17:01

Ask him to explain the absorbancy rate of different sized tampons then dump him!

Woolyminded · 12/08/2022 17:02

I've muttered 'Jesus fucking christ' a lot this week

OP posts:
catandcoffee · 12/08/2022 17:03

Thank god you don't live with him. He sounds such a boring prat.

MuchuseasaChocolateTeapot · 12/08/2022 17:06

next time start your own conversation minus the dick swinging pair and let them carry on. If you do that and blank him perhaps he’ll get the message? If he questions it just say it’s the kind of topic they enjoy, not the rest of you and leave them to it.

Woolyminded · 12/08/2022 17:06

Just to clarify, I've got nowt against the periodic table or science in general 😂. I love a quiz, crosswords and I'm a bit of a nerd. Its the showing off, always being right and making other people feel excluded or less intelligent that I don't enjoy.

OP posts:
LoobyDop · 12/08/2022 17:06

I have an aunt and uncle and cousins who are like this, they’re all in the same profession / education and every discussion around the dinner table is like a dick swinging contest of who is the most intelligent. It ruins any decent conversation cos everyone is just poised to point out the error in what someone else says

I have several relatives like this. It gets really fucking tedious at Christmas, when they ruin those games where you have to do a mime of a famous person etc- they all compete with each other to put in the most obscure mathematicians and philosophers. The rest of us just shrug and go, it’s another dead Greek guy, same as the last one. I don’t know what they get out of it or why they care; there’s always going to be someone smarter than you somewhere.

Treacletoots · 12/08/2022 17:07

My exH would respond to everything I said ever with a "not really" comment as he had to disprove or belittle me every single moment of his life.

When challenged as to why not he had absolutely nothing to say, ever.

Needless to say my life improved immeasurably after I divorced the fucker, and enjoyed stating exactly what I've put above on the reasons for divorce.

They don't change. At least thrush can be treated. He can't.

mamabeeboo · 12/08/2022 17:08

OP, you should have asked how he knows so much about tampons...personal experience? 😂

Treacletoots · 12/08/2022 17:10

P.s. having a chat with him will achieve precisely fuck all, because he doesn't care about your opinion or feelings. Just wanted to save you some time, I waited 5 years to get rid of mine. Don't be me.

IWentAwayIStayedAway · 12/08/2022 17:17

why do you need to have another conversation. he doesn't listen to / doesn't care. call it a day. life is too short to put up with a holiday being ruined!

KettrickenSmiled · 12/08/2022 17:17

Fairislefandango · 12/08/2022 16:06

Dear lord. How have you not actually strangled him?

With a tampon string?

The mumsnet posse will provide your alibi OP.

Woolyminded · 12/08/2022 17:18

Treacletoots I'm sorry you had to endure that awful man for so long. Ugh
Mamabeeboo I think he just assumes he automatically knows more than me about everything. The more I think about it the dafter it gets, if the string is unnecessary why is it there?! A decoration?! Fanny bunting?!

OP posts:
Woolyminded · 12/08/2022 17:18

KettrickenSmiled · 12/08/2022 17:17

With a tampon string?

The mumsnet posse will provide your alibi OP.

Omg thats funny

OP posts:
GreyTS · 12/08/2022 17:18

Softplayhooray · 12/08/2022 16:47

I am being genuinely honest when I say my kids love a quiz about the periodic table 🤣 But sounds like posturing pretentious hell the way your partner does it. I am sure he would have ripped the fun from it for them by going on until they got one wrong then lording it over them. He sounds insufferable. Well done for getting through the holiday!!

You sound fairly tedious yourself 🙄 ooh we do this but in a fun way....yeah right!

GCAcademic · 12/08/2022 17:20

Strangulation with a tampon string would be the very definition of poetic justice.

MsTSwift · 12/08/2022 17:23

The really clever people who know stuff aren’t like this only the knobs.

KettrickenSmiled · 12/08/2022 17:25

GCAcademic · 12/08/2022 17:20

Strangulation with a tampon string would be the very definition of poetic justice.

Is it wrong that I am imagining his strained little speech as he gasps his last breaths? "Your technique is all wrong, I know a much better one, if you'd only listen to meee-arrgh".

Longdistance · 12/08/2022 17:25

Oh gosh! You can’t be desperate to be with that complete twat?! He’s been wrong on so many occasions too, like a know it —nothing— all.

My dh tried to tell me how to drive the other week, I told him not to mansplain me or he will be fucking walking home.

Jimmyneutronsforehead · 12/08/2022 17:25

Featuredcreature · 12/08/2022 16:31

Can you really not infer the meaning in the words knowledge flexing? Sorry to be a twat but it's self explanatory

😁 this made me laugh a bit

Hopeandlove · 12/08/2022 17:29

Could you not write Dear John
Here is a tampon. Wrap cord around neck, put tampon in mouth. All the best Alice

Glwysen · 12/08/2022 17:33

Years ago I did some maths courses with the Open University, I really enjoyed them and I did quite well. My partner at the time had a maths degree and would ask me questions like it was a quiz! I would get flustered and provide a bad answer and that was then evidence that the course was poor, I was thick…. My self esteem went into the gutter, you sound like you know the score OP, good on you!

Softplayhooray · 12/08/2022 17:38

creamwitheverything · 12/08/2022 17:01

Ask him to explain the absorbancy rate of different sized tampons then dump him!

This needs to be more evidence based. Tell him to insert it up his butt, then see how easy it is to remove without using the string. (sorry, lowering the tone!)

FetchezLaVache · 12/08/2022 17:39

KettrickenSmiled · 12/08/2022 17:17

With a tampon string?

The mumsnet posse will provide your alibi OP.

I'll help with an alibi! I would have said let him live, just dump him, but not saying Ah no, sorry, my mistake, you were right, Majorca and Mallorca are the same place, means he deserves to be under a patio.