To think some people are taking life advice from dysfunctional people and wrecking good relationships?

[YourJadeLion]

I’m seeing more and more women online and in real life leave loyal, supportive partners because someone on the internet told them they “deserve more” or “shouldn’t settle.” And the people giving that advice are often living chaotic, emotionally unstable or completely unaccountable lives. Some of these women had husbands who were faithful, consistent and kind but got convinced that because their relationship wasn’t hyper-romantic or perfectly Instagrammable, it wasn’t enough.

I’m all for leaving toxic or abusive relationships. But AIBU to think a lot of women are being manipulated by dysfunction disguised as empowerment and they’ll end up lonely, regretting it and wondering where it all went wrong?

(Not anti-feminism. Just pro-critical thinking.)

People who have therapy and become able to prioritise their own needs are entitled? Good grief. Sounds like you could do with some therapy!

People who have therapy and become able to prioritise their own needs are entitled? Good grief. Sounds like you could do with some therapy!

I think this is the more common scenario..

the poster will start with a tale about some minor thing and my first thought is ‘ that isn’t too bad- just talk to him’

but then as the thread goes on, the poster starts mentioning huge red flags that are way worse than the original complaint.

the reply to ‘just talk to him’ is answered with- ‘I can’t - he doesn’t let me speak to him when he’s gaming and he spend the rest of the time at the pub with his friends… ‘

or ‘I’m struggling with the cost of living’ becomes ‘ my DH doesn’t work or do any housework and I’m paying for everything’

I happen to believe that life goes better when everyone's needs are considered, yes.

I don’t think telling people to implode their life & that of their children’s on a perspective of one side, without knowing the poster personally is good advice. We all know a drama queen. My friend found some dry cleaning in the boot of her husbands car. He had lied & he had dropped it off. He hadn’t & obviously forgot. Well this meant his a lying b & can not be trusted was her take. Our other mates nodding along & saying you can’t trust a liar. With one actually saying how would you know if he cheating as it comes so easily to lie. Until I pointed the difference in the lie. Being deceitful is more than telling a white lie. I also pointed out that my dear friend is a hot head as much as I love her. I said this is possibly the most obvious scenario. Hubby was asked to drop off some dry cleaning for a do that’s over a week away. He said yes. Put garment in boot. It’s not in his eyesight etc. he meant to drop it off after work. Comes home & wife says did you drop the dry cleaning off. He is faced with 2 possible choices. Be honest, she throws a strop. Goes get dry cleaning & goes herself & spends the rest of the evening in a grump (which is what happened anyway) or tell a white lie where the chances of being caught out are low & save the drama & remember tomorrow to drop it off. The turnaround is a couple of days so still in plenty of time before needed. She had to retrieve something from his car & finds the dry cleaning. All hell breaks lose they’re both now not talking & it’s bigger than it needs to be. I said you kick off to easily. If uou don’t want him to ever lie then you have to be less angry when he tells the truth. Be exasperated that he’s forgot don’t fly off the handle. She sat there for bit as the conversation went to something else & she turned around & said you’re right. It’s a stupid white lie & him telling the truth would still have seen me overreact. So for the peace of the house & out kids evening he lied. She ended up apologising to him & then he apologised to her & out of goodwill went to collect the dry cleaning she dropped off & incidentally was her garment

I see that no one stops to consider what issues may lay behind the partners’ unwanted behaviours. Men suffer from ‘life’ as much as women.

My Mum did.

It was years ago so not influenced by MN but she had an early midlife crisis stoked by a new job with new friends who were all younger than her, single or gay who were constantly telling her she could do better, my Dad was controlling and all sorts of shit that wasn't true. They were self-proclaimed feminists with their version of feminism being that men are lazy shits trapping women in marriages and dimming their Goddess life.

The reality was she was bored and felt like my Dad was holding her back from acting like a single 20 something when she was a married Mum of 2 in her late 30s.

She kicked him out and went on the piss with her mates for years and went from a loving Mother to an emotionally neglectful, selfish bitch.

Within 5 years the new friends had faded away as they settled down, meanwhile my Dad was happily remarried.

Other than a few short-lived relationships, Mum has remained single.

They do, but my sympathy is measured when that ‘suffering from life’ is dealt with via abusing women, physically or emotionally.

When someone’s fist connects with my face, forgive me for not pondering sympathetically the source of his unhappiness.

People who have therapy and become able to prioritise their own needs are entitled? Good grief. Sounds like you could do with some therapy!

I think people (myself included) shy away from hard conversations with partners or indeed with other people.

Your relationship - especially if it isn’t working - is one area where you need to put yourself first (I happen to believe everyone, especially women, should put themselves first most if not all of the time but we clearly differ). If you’re unhappy in your relationship for any reason, there are no prizes for enduring it when you could just set yourself free

I think the emergence of random coaches is more concerning.
empowerment coach, life coach, burnout coach, parenting coach are more dangerous.
There is a coach for every imaginable angle, waffling on, selling women the dream. They are not qualified to meddle in the way they can.

I think it is more a case of bad behaviour being called out more now.

There were the days of 'put up and shut up' and also one partner not working and therefore tied financially.

But times have changed and more people are seeing that they don't have to stand for being treated badly. And what we all call being treated badly can be very different for many people.

Some things that would be a deal breaker for me, would not bother some.
But then again, there are some things that would not bother me too much, would be a big deal for someone else.

So, I guess the 'advice' being dished out, is from very personal point of view.

It is up to the personal involved and to what their deal-breakers are.

People don't tend to leave happy relationships because strangers on the Internet tell them to.

By the time someone takes to the Internetto splash their business on the www, they already know what they want to do.

I would also be wary of painting women as so weak and feeble minded that they can be manipulated by strangers into walking away from a happy, fulfilling and loving relationship or suggesting there's something wrong with leaving a relationship they aren't happy in unless they are being abused.

Yes. My SIL has had therapy where the outcome was to get rid of toxic people from her life. That her boundaries are not for bending etc. which has resulted in her being a somewhat toxic person herself. Her SC aren’t allowed in her house as they cause her stress & anxiety & her sanity is of higher value than the needs of her lovely H relationship with his kids. All this because his 13yo told her to F off you’re not my mom. After an incident that I thought she bought on herself.

i have a mate who suffers with PTSD from an accident & from her therapy she now has a high expectation from friends. It was insinuated she wasn’t being supported by her mate enough. A woman by the way that had lost her mom & dad within a short time whilst my friend was having therapy. The bandwidth her friend had to discuss this therapy wasn’t up to standard & she fell out with her. Her bf telling me what the hell is going on in those sessions. You used to be able to discuss your opinions & either have honest debates are conversations. You can’t now. I literally have to watch what I say & if my opinion deviates from hers I find myself changing the topic. It’s oneway radio. There is nothing wrong with having boundaries & expressing your opinions. You have to accept others do to & learn to not be offended if you don’t align.

So you think that the possibility a child may be being harmed should never even be raised? Children are more likely to be harmed by trusted men in their lives than by strangers, so clearly 'sinister' things happen in households where mothers haven't had 'a sniff of anything untoward'.
It's also perfectly normal when approaching a patenting problem to take an holistic view and consider whether there could be external harms behind the child's behaviour rather than simply defaulting to the child as the problem to deal with in isolation, so of course the role and behaviour of adults will be explored.
If people have suggested the OP consider that her partner may be abusive to the child, the OP will either dismiss this out of hand or something will chime and she will decide to explore further.
'Allowing her trust in her partner to be broken' isn't possible. She will either trust him and dismiss the comments as ridiculous or they will resonate because she doesn't trust him. That will be an entirely internal process based on her experience.

I agree with this.

A lot of the time, when someone makes a post it is a last ditch attempt at trying to work something out for themselves.

A lot of the time it is just a reassurance of hearing from someone else. Someone who may have been in that situation. And am I doing the right thing?

She can’t but how do the people giving out the advice know that the OP isn’t prone to exaggeration & can be a pain and unreasonable themselves. Yet people are quick to say leave. I would say the people jumping to LTB are possibly more chaotic & emotionally unstable because they’re not trying to be more nuanced & stable in their responses. Isn’t suggesting therapy a more balanced view than to say go & press red button on your life & see where the consequences fall.

I consume a lot of that type of content and don’t see anyone saying leave a long term partner over small issues or if it isn't exceptional. I’d say that it should be easy and exceptional in the first, say, 6 months to a year though - in the honeymoon period. If massive problems are coming up then that are hard to resolve then that probably signifies incompatibility.

I do see a lot of women staying in horrible and even abusive relationships as either they don’t realise the extent of how bad things are or they don’t feel they can leave (for the kids, because they’re scared, financial issues, feeling a need to keep the family together etc). It’s still very hard to leave a marriage or very long term relationship and women are still expected to put up with A LOT.

Yeah I wasn't suggesting telling people to leave their partner over a load of dry cleaning is a good plan.

But that would be shit advice even if it was from someone who's life seemed really together and successful.

And I do know plenty of drama Queens who I would never go along with their suggestions. I feel I can tell if something doesn't seem right I'm not suddenly going to do it because someone on MN said so.

Bad advice is bad advice, it doesn't really matter who's offering it. Same with good advice.

I do think there's not enough realism about what life after LTB would be like. There'd still be co-parenting challenges to navigate and no control over a new partner being brought into your child's life. It could involve poverty, loneliness etc. If it's about a lack of romance that implies going back on the dating scene with potential for more drama with a new partner. I think people also downplay the impact on children with true sayings like "happy mum happy child" and "out your own life jacket on first" etc.

I think it's probably quite a privileged and/or potentially selfish position to be able to say "life is too short" to settle for a life with a partner that's comfortable but not sparkling. And I agree with OP that you do see this narrative as well as the advice to leave abusive situations.

I also do think a bit of self reflection is also possibly worth doing. Everyone has flaws and if someone were to describe your worst flaws with no mitigating context you might sound like less than the perfect catch as well.

Ultimately there's not a right answer but I recognise what the OP is saying. Sometimes it can feel like the sisterhood wants you to be angry at your partner for not being perfect.

Of course they only got your mom’s side. There are very few things that I think it doesn’t matter that the situation is you should leave & that physical & mental abuse. If your husband is lazy, not affectionate enough or you’re just plain bored, these are things that can be dealt with when both sides make the effort. Some of the advice I see my friends give to others really baffle me. I was often criticised for the advice I would give. Thats changed over the years as we’ve got older & my friends have actually admitted that they should have taken my advice and not those of the majority. The difference being mainly that facts don’t care about feelings. What you feel & what is true arent mutually exclusive.

I haven't read the thread but what you see is loads of people online telling other people to LTB. Mostly for justified reason but whatever. You don't see loads of people actually breaking up their family because someone online told them to because you don't see what happens after the thread! I bet usually the woman just carries on taking loads of shit until one of them dies.

When a woman does summon up the strength to do the extremely hard work of leaving she is maybe given extra strength and validation by people online to do what she already needed to do.

Not sure why you are talking about my relationship, which is based on mutual respect and mutual recognition of needs. But as they say, you do you (without insulting other people for their views preferably).

Well said! Standards are too low, not too high!