To find my local Mums' FB group so depressing?

[cheatingcrackers]

My local Mums' FB group has regular posts from people seeking advice on their relationships and SO many of these involve abuse of some sort - financial, emotional and most often physical.

That in itself is really sad but what is worse is that the majority of the responses will normalise the man's behaviour. One or two respondents will signpost the OP towards our local Women's Aid but many more will excuse the man.

I know I'm not BU to find it depressing but I just wonder why abuse is so normalised/accepted in some parts of society (it's obviously very different on here... maybe a different demographic?)

It’s so common that people have a very l skewed view of what’s acceptable. I don’t know one person that hasn’t been abused in some way in a relationship to varying degrees.

It is depressing because it puts me off men. I know women can be the same but it’s way disproportionate IMO.

Wow. I only know a handful of people that have been/are in abusive relationships. If I didn't use social media I really wouldn't be aware that it was so prevalent.

Abuse can be very subtle I suppose, but I see it a lot. Maybe it’s just the type of people I know/area I live. Who knows 😂 but yeah, I think it’s way more common than a lot of people think.

I think women’s standards in general are very low. I know this is an advice forum so you will get more people with shitty partners posting on here but even so I’m always quite shocked what some people question whether it’s abuse or not when it very clearly is.

I think a Facebook groups for 'mums' is going to attract a certain type of person. Something focused around being 'a mum' usually means a loss of identity, no great job or career, prime target for poor relationship behaviour. They're unlikely to have access to outside support (or they'd already know what to do) nor be particularly tech savvy (tech people don't use Facebook.)

The fact other users see this behaviour as normal does suggest they have similar views. My own mother is only 60 and thinks financial abuse is fine and women shouldn't go out and see friends after marriage, so it's not as if these views have died out.

Well, even Mums with good careers and strong identities might want to use such a group (as I do!) for things like what's on for kids at the weekend, nursery recommendations etc. However, I hear what you're saying.

Where I live there is an attitude to look after young working men (white van types typically). We're a northern mining town which is fairly isolated and a living museum. Women here take pride in prioritising the men - those in their family but also any working man out and about. They are mothered, mollycoddled, and any poor behaviour is tolerated / excused / minimised. They are cooked for and the houses are spotless. The traditional family matriarch somehow fulfills the female role and yet stays very much in charge 'No mucky boots on my floor!' types.

I am utterly baffled by it all

My local fb group is very a much a ‘you go Mama!’ And ‘hugs’. But no actual constructive advice.

I learnt quickly that Facebook mums groups are not good places to be. Terrible advice from unqualified people, begging posts, and general OTT discord. My advice: ditch the group!

Haha! There are lots of begging posts and bad advice but no discord interestingly. I find the group really useful for a) local business advice and b) recommendations for interesting things to do with the kids. It's just the relationship posts that get me down. The normalisation of horrendous behaviour.

That is awful really. I wouldn't say it's a characteristic of where I live in the same way.

I think the answer to your question is because women still have very little economic power in society, relatively speaking, and in the majority of cases they don't hold the economic cards in their marriage or partnership.

For all the change that's happened in the past few decades, men earn more than women and usually earn more than their partners. This is changing, slowly, but a lot of attitudes towards the dynamics between men and women in relationships are still framed from an era where women were not expected to have economic power. A lot of women have yet to acquire the language to express what they need, financially, sexually, emotionally.

There's still very much a mindset that dominates in many family dynamics, whether spoken or unspoken, which says that the man is "in charge" of the family. In a lot of cases he is the person who calls the financial shots but even when he doesn't there is often an assumption that the woman's job is to appease him in various ways and keep him sweet per @GramCracker 's post because "keeping" him is priority number one.

Because so many women have been socialised to believe that their primary goal in life is to keep their menfolk sweet in order to be supported by them as opposed to earning their own money, a lot of women don't have any expectation of being financially independent or any idea how to go about achieving this. If they then shack up with or marry someone who doesn't have their best interests at heart it's difficult for them to process or act on this realisation and they don't have the mental or emotional equipment to challenge this.

I'm always shocked when I go on these boards how many people minimise appallingly abusive behaviour by men and try to minimise or deflect this behaviour with questions like "is he just stressed at work?" could he have ADHD?" etc etc. It's as if admitting that a man can just be an arsehole to a woman is too difficult to contemplate.

You think.
Nobody knows how my ex was abusive. He's still in my life as we share a child and it's nobody's business. You wouldn't know. Even my current partner doesn't know details because it would only complicate matters.

Must be the ones you’re on, I’m on a local Facebook mums group and no one ever posts about their relationships

That’s depressing

Alternatively I don’t know one person who has been in an abusive relationship.

Might be a birds of a feather situation

I've found exactly the opposite with my local FB group - most people asking for help with abusive partners are given advice about lawyers, becoming financially independent, charities to access and single parent FB groups.

It must depend on the demographics of the area.

That's brilliant @walnutmarzipan and yes probably a question of demographics, which of course ties into everything that @Thepeopleversuswork posted.

I absolutely understand why people stay in abusive relationships once they're in them - for economic and many other reasons - but I suppose what I really struggle with is just the normalisation of that behaviour. To me, it feels like it's one thing to say 'my husband slapped me last night but I want to believe that it won't happen again/I don't want to break up my family/I'm on a low wage and wouldn't be able to afford my own accommodation' etc and quite another to say 'oh men are always like that, he was probably just stressed from work' etc - but then I guess maybe if we can normalise our own unhappiness in other's situations then it makes it easier to cope with.

Is that the real example?
Somebody actually posted that they were slapped, and the replies were he was probably stressed? 😳😡

That has been one of them, yes. I've also seen coerced sex, holding against the wall, total financial control, shaming in front of the kids - all normalised. That's off the top of my head!

I'm well aware of domestic abuse as my daughter was a victim and I'm very sensitive to abusive behaviour. However I have never been abused by myhusband of almost 4 decades and I know lots of marriages where there is no abuse. You have been incredibly unlucky not to know any stable, happy, or at least not abusive, relationships.

@Testina

You must have seen this in play on here though. Maybe not to the extent of excusing DV but every time someone posts on here about bad behaviour from a man a good quarter of the posts will say: "he's stressed/worried about money/could he be autistic?" etc etc.

Like the people who start threads saying how irresponsible it is to say "LTB" and how marriages involve hard work and sacrifice and vows should be for life (ie your job is basically to sit back and keep taking it). It's incredible how thoroughly brainwashed many women are to believe that losing a man is the absolute last resort.

What on earth!?

is this a ‘chav mums of grimsby’ page or something?

I don't want to be too depressing and like I said, I know lots of non abusive relationships, but there will be abusive ones amongst some of the people around you. It might be a casual acquaintance or your neighbour or the woman at the school gate, but I can guarantee that you do know someone.

Hence why I used the term ‘know’

If my neighbour down the road is impacted that sad but I don’t ‘know’ them

Also 5% of adults suffered domestic abuse last year, it’s very uncommon irl compared to the stories you hear on here.

No. It's a region with pockets of wealth and pockets of deprivation. I think most of these types of posts come from the latter but that's just guessing based on language used etc.

I live in a place where until very recently a woman’s place was to “keep house”.

Things are changing though and there are now 3 single mums in my tiny, traditional outpost which simply wouldn’t have been heard of 20 years ago - and I hope us 3 musketeers can give hope/encouragement to those who are being abused.

The older single women here are widows…