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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:
Snazzysausage · 12/08/2022 23:44

Fairislefandango · 12/08/2022 16:06

Dear lord. How have you not actually strangled him?

With a tampon string

coodawoodashooda · 13/08/2022 08:57

Mookie81 · 12/08/2022 22:48

Another item on my 'Daniel Radcliffe is a cunt' list.

What else is on your list? I feel that it is so unfair they are so derogatory about jk these days. Is that it?

Wiccan · 14/08/2022 20:00

Softplayhooray · 12/08/2022 18:47

@Wiccan what's so funny to you to use 5 laughing emojis? My ND kids love science and the periodic table so they talk about it and play games about it. We have the periodic table Top Trumps out all the time. Who cares if they're Peppa Pig or football top trumps? We don't. But they happen to be about the periodic table because that's what my kids like. There's enough bullying they've had to endure in their lives because they're different and because they're 'nerdy' - bullying from kids. But you're an adult and clearly enjoy putting the boot in too.

As it relates to the OPs partner and which I've already commented on...there's a difference in talking about things to be pretentious (like he does) & talking about them because you love them (as we all do).

My laughing emojis were for greyTs post who said you sounded tedious as well.
I or greyTs made no comment at all about your children or autistic kids . Get your facts straight before you accuse people of being bullies .

Mookie81 · 15/08/2022 09:11

coodawoodashooda · 13/08/2022 08:57

What else is on your list? I feel that it is so unfair they are so derogatory about jk these days. Is that it?

The top of my list is they way he has thrown JK under the bus, especially the way he 'apologised' for her comments; that really gets my goat.

KettrickenSmiled · 15/08/2022 13:31

That said it's like going to dinner with Sheldon Cooper and the group and not knowing anything. With all due respect, I think a general knowledge book,.may help from the point of helping each of you know a bit more about different topics.

Women!
Fed up with mansplainers?
It's all your own fault. You just need to do more homework - after all, it's YOUR responsibility if he drones on & on interminably about subjects nobody else wants to hear.

@Hawkins001 love your Sheldon Cooper analogy though.
However, it doesn't help with the real mansplainers, who tend to explain things women already know, at length, without invitation.

If you're interested, scroll down the link to Rebecca Solnit's essay, which is a story about being lectured on her specialist subject by a mansplainer who could not accept either her expertise or the fact that she was the author of the book he was mansplaining at her.
www.huffpost.com/entry/men-explain-things-to-me-_b_1811096

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