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.)

Nobody leaves a happy, stable, settled relationship because MN told them to. Women are far, far more likely to stay in miserable or abusive relationships for years or forever.

In most cases, the event that sparks them to post is just part of a larger picture, and as the thread develops, more and more comes out. The argument is often not about what it's about, if that makes sense. I've noticed that "had our ups and downs" always seems to be used to describe an absolute car crash of a relationship. Don't get me started on "great dad".

Yes and the likelihood of meeting someone older involves more baggage. They have kids, differences in parenting is far bigger than that with you children bio dad. The main thing being the love you have for you child means you’re more flexible in their rules than you are with a kid you’re not that emotionally tied to so any bending of the rules see you thinking about them being spoilt & indulged. Or the 40 yo with no kids & little responsibility will have no clue of the burden you carry. You’re not free you’re tied & if they have hobbies& mates they’re used to seeing & partaking in the idea of movie night with a 5 & 7 year old is about as appealing as having a root canal. For those that fit a square peg into a circle are extremely lucky. For most they have to keep banging on that peg until something breaks

They don't even listen and leave when they are in an abusive relationship, you think they listen and leave a good one??
OP's always end up doing what they always wanted to do all along anyway. They just like to type it out and air their issue.

i Think that’s a rather sinister way to go IMO. People suggesting abuse are completely negating the child’s age & the classic troupes of kids being asked to do a boring thing like tidy your room & do your homework. If we went around pointing abuse at everyone who upset an 11yo everyone would be under constant scrutiny. Abuse happens but that doesn’t mean you point that finger at something because an 11yo is acting as 11yo do.

I’ve seen this - and in real life too.

Often had coffees with female friends who are going through a rough patch and feel dissatisfied. Been there myself several times. The ones that egg each other on often do eventually split up - one such friend now mentioned that she wished she had had some therapy and found a way to ride the rough patch out as the divorce was acrimonious and her kids were severely damaged by it. And the quality of her life as an older woman with no joint income stream, completely alone, is pretty poor compared to what she had before. Yes, her DH was a bit of a plonker and always working, but so was mine at the time.

Both our DHs struggled with trying to make progress in their careers and be present as fathers, especially when the kids were younger. We bought into the middle class thing of after school clubs/music lessons/sports training that, frankly, was a waste - my DCs gave it all up by GCSEs and have no interest in resuming any of it at uni or beyond. Waste of time, money and effort that also feeds the dissatisfaction cycle if your kids are not in the 1st team or make it to county level, or didn’t get a distinction in Grade 8 by the time they were 11… mainly because they didn’t really want to do any of it.

Just this morning my DH expressed via text the feeling he was a shit dad as he is in the US all week with work and our DS has A Level mock exams and he can’t be here to help with college runs and moral support etc. He’s also feeling guilty that I have been left with having to do all the Christmas shopping for this family as a result.

If I had listened to my friends - or the advice pages of the DM or MN trends - and left him like they had left their DHs our life would be shit now too, but we rode it out and are now closer than ever and looking forward to retirement one day as we have so much we want to do together.

I think there is definitely a narrative that mundane, safe, family life is somehow ‘settling’, that women deserve to be treated like princesses (seen that a lot on here) when actually emotional stability, mutual respect, shared values and being treated like an equal partner in your marriage are actually the most essential components of a long relationship. Obviously abusive relationships should be ended asap, but bickering and stressing over transitory family stresses are all part of the ‘for better for worse’ bit. You can’t have the ‘better’ without an occasional ‘worse’ bit. You can’t be ‘happy’ all the time. And would you really want to be?

Do you not think the recipient of the advice is capable of weighing their options carefully and will have the intelligence to make their own wise decisions for themselves?

How many people do you know personally that have been affected by this? I know of none.

People will seek advice when they need it, it will be varied and comprehensive on here for example. In real life the conversations are more nuanced and gentle.

I see a more worrying trend of rape in relationships not being acknowledged as rape, violence being minimised against women and children. Women that are genuinely being used and abused in all ways including financially. Others getting involved with pregnancies with men with zero safe guards financially, because they give up work and are not married. The list goes on.

Poor behaviour is subjective, and what is acceptable to you might not be acceptable to me.

I feel generally that the advice on MN at least to be both, on the whole, honest and informative. In some cases it’s extremely valuable and life changing for those that use the site. Not withstanding obvious exceptions.

Sounds a bit like a friend of mine. She doesn’t have a great family- is now NC, but then is hyper critical of her friends.

if they don’t behave like her new family, then you are failing as a friend.

also, conversations are exhausting. If you challenge her world view, it’s met with arguments and falling outs. Even if her view is damaging herself more than anyone.

This is part of the problem here. I am extremely sorry if you've suffered from domestic violence. But this is a classic example of going from zero to 100 that you see all the time on here. No one is suggesting sympathy for abusers. The OP pointed out that men are also people with their own issues and problems, and you took that to "I won't feel sorry for abusers". There's no need and I'm sorry but if that is where your brain goes first then you're projecting massively.

I cannot imagine that there are many people who are such sheep that they would actually divorce or leave their partner purely on the back of advice from a random internet stranger.
Usually if their problems aren’t that big a deal, they’re looking for an excuse. The bottom line is they want to end it and why is immaterial.
I’ve spent a lot of time on the relationships board and can only think of literally a couple of instances where the op has come back and said they’ve split up. Sometimes they say they’re going to work through it. Most often they don’t update at all. You can’t count online examples from an anonymous forum anyway - the whole thing could have been bollocks from start to finish.
Some posters are very quick to advise ops to ltb simply because other people’s problems are always easy to fix especially when you have no skin in the game and can’t get blamed for any crap advice. That’s true of literally every type of problem that comes up on here.

Totally agree
So many people here seem to have a hatred for all men
To listen to some on here all men are scum, cheats, potential rapists or murderers, liars
I must be lucky I have many male friends and neighbours who are wonderful as are my male relatives and colleagues
As soon as someone has any minor issue he is a cheat she deserves more- bin him off etc
I find it very sad that people have such a warped view of 50% of the population

I don't know anyone that has left a good relationship because someone on the Internet told them to. I often see the opposite, women who are staying with awful men who don't do their share of anything, because 'they don't want to break up the family' or 'it could be worse, he doesn't hit me'

I think that this problem - and I largely agree with you - is the problem that married life with children and jobs is generally much much harder on women than on men in practical terms. That's not to say it's all men's fault because I'm sure it's much less easy for men to be successful at work if they are serious about being present for their children, but none the less the unpleasantness of juggling conflicting responsibilities falls mostly on women and leaves them very little space to look after themselves.

Maybe it's not enough that women should just head down and press through that stage. I'm through it now and life is much easier and more equitable but I have certainly paid a price in my body and mind which DH categorically did not. I don't wish I had left but I wouldn't have blamed myself if I had tbh.

I’m suggesting the OP maybe the drama queen. Do you think that every action you’ve ever done & or said hasn’t offended anyone ever including your partner. You don’t go through life like that & setting bars so high they’re exhausted trying to stay above it is unreasonable. Some people even post an accumulation of minor incidents & I sit there and think really. I’ve seen posts from women on here saying the left their husband, have no family because they haven’t spoken in years and now their friends are doing them wrong & people going your friends are rubbish. Have higher standards etc. whilst I think there’s common denominator in this breakdown of relationships & yet people advice is still you’re being wronged, have higher standards you should cut them from your life. Despite the post saying she literally has no one in it except these friends & no question is asked why they’ve had such bad luck in their relationships

There is a place between pointing a finger at someone and accusing them, and recognising that children can be and are abused by people trusted by them and their parent. And that there is no way of knowing for certain which child will or won't be a victim. If there was, there would be no victims.
I see no issue at all in offering a child a place to disclose any harm being done to them. Indeed I think its an essential part of parenting that a child is encouraged to do so and knows they will be believed.
It's not necessary to say "Is such a person abusing you" in fact that would be an entirely wrong approach. It's just ensuring a child has space to disclose if they need to.
If there's nothing to tell, obviously no accusations will be made and no harm done to anyone. Far more harm is done by refusing to even consider the idea your child may be being hurt because you value the idea of trust and preserving your relationship over all.

The brain does this confirmation bias, they pick and focus on what they already believe consciously or subconsciously. The OP doesn't present to MN as an empty recepticle, they come with preloaded decisions and ideas and they know what they want to do, but they are scared and want someone else to say it outloud so if it goes wrong they can blame the bad advice.

And how do you know all this?

How do you know strangers on the internet have loyal supportive partners and that they left them
because a rando fellow internet stranger told them to?

The issue here is historically and even to this day women’s needs and safety are consistently compromised, minimised and unheard in our society. Therefore this site is going to lean toward those women and how they can be best supported, and listened to. It’s not a site for men, and to feel sorry for them here. Although we know they suffer too in life of course.

I understand you/the op were highlighting there are two sides etc etc. but the needs of men are secondary on here to the needs of the women using the site, and I for one am happy about that.

I don’t want to talk about the needs of men.

Our focus on women is one of the site’s strengths, and it’s rare and can be eroded sometimes - hence the sharp response when male privilege comes up or the ‘poor men’ narrative.

Completely agree. Fairly new to MN and I genuinely feel horrified that the benchmark for far too many women on here is so low.
I celebrate the fact that women can be and are more empowered now than ever before in history, and thankfully more and more women realise they don’t need to tolerate shitty men in shitty relationships.

OP I really agree with you. I’ve noticed similar recently with divorce. Again echoing everything you’ve said about leaving abusive relationships etc, but I think divorce has become glamorised, ignoring the realities of being a single parent.

However there is a balance, there are way too many women that put up with awful treatment by men because they feel they should, I guess if it empowers just a few of them to leave then that’s a positive.

I think divorce has become glamorised

Really? How so?

I don’t think anyone ‘glamourises’ divorce. I do think that it has, thankfully, lost its former social stigma, which was strongly gendered.

100%!

And I think there's a lot of frustrated whinging men on here throwing tantrums at the idea women might be listening to each other.

I think there is definitely a narrative that mundane, safe, family life is somehow ‘settling’, that women deserve to be treated like princesses (seen that a lot on here) when actually emotional stability, mutual respect, shared values and being treated like an equal partner in your marriage are actually the most essential components of a long relationship. Obviously abusive relationships should be ended asap, but bickering and stressing over transitory family stresses are all part of the ‘for better for worse’ bit. You can’t have the ‘better’ without an occasional ‘worse’ bit. You can’t be ‘happy’ all the time. And would you really want to be?

I didn't want to quote all of the post earlier from @CautiousLurker2 as it's very long, but it is also very true and this paragraph sums it all up beautifully for me. Far too many allow the unlikely prospect of perfection to push out the perfectly serviceable reality of good enough.

For me there's two things. One is that my generation (I'm 50 so Gen X) is the first to grow up in a time where divorce was so widespread as to be largely unremarkable. Quite apart from it being normalised, there are an awful lot of people who have never had working through normal relationship stresses modelled to them; what they have experienced is walking away from it, so they are much more predisposed to listen to advice that reflects that experience.

The second is that most ordinary folk are really poor in general at giving advice on anything personal. It's almost always what the advisor would do (and also, often, about themselves) rather than someone genuinely trying to understand the particular nuances of the advisee's particular situation and framing it to match.

But then no one would give advice. As none of us can truly know the complexities and history of a persons life from a single post, it’s just a snapshot.