Aibu to think attitudes towards women who have left their husbands have not changed radically

[Ricecakes101]

Inspired by a thread bemoaning cultural attitudes of the 80s and how difficult it was for women to leave - true. But in my experience recent attitudes were awful.

I left my abusive husband 10 years ago when my children were young and I was stigmatised as a single mother by all the women at the school gate who had genuine concerns I would try it on with their husbands and so wanted me nowhere near. I was left out of social gatherings cliques and my children were not invited to parties. The few and I mean few people who were friends with me I will forever be grateful to.

I was treated in a mysogynistic and sexualised way by many many men I met in literally any capacity once they realised I was a single mum as someone they thought would be grateful for sex and attention - so disrespectful and gross. Very close friends did not believe he was capable of what he had done and implied it was my fault. These attitudes towards me were heartbreaking during a very painful time.

This honestly occurred over the 5 years I was single until I was in an established relationship with my new partner. I'm sure you'll all say well you must be a wanker then but I'm not sure that's completely true - I always had a thriving social life in my home town, with lots of friends from all contexts. I moved counties for exh work and left him due to abuse within 2 years so I had no established friend group around. Since being ina long term relationship since with a blokey bloke , guess what invites all back on the table, social life back on.

So for all of you saying -attitudes have changed - have a think about anyone you know who has actually left someone in clearly difficult circumstances and how you treat them - are you threatened, are you jealous, do you think they will be desperate for a shag, do you want to steer clear? As your it's your moment by moment actions and judgements that make up social attitudes. Rant over.

This happened to my sister in a home county village she moved to. She split from her partner and then the mums started to say she was trying it on their husbands and made them ignore her too

Your poor sister im so sorry to hear this - I hope she's ok now?

Yeah she moved back to London with the kids.

I agree, my couple friends quickly ditched me when I became single in my late 30s, as soon as I met my current partner and their overweight, boring husbands were safe from my clutches again the invitations miraculously picked up.

Many of us who have been single in our 30s and 40s have noticed the same thing-the happily marrieds will deny it and say that they would never do it or have noticed it….but there are plenty of us on the receiving end who are well aware

I agree. Also from family, who felt I should suck it up or stay together for the kids. Some assumed I was having an affair. There is little sympathy for women who leave ‘just’ because they’re unhappy

Maybe I’m just quite unaware, but I’ve no idea which of the mums at the school gate are single and which are in a relationship, and whether that relationship is with the father of the child.
Obviously I know for the ones I’m specifically friends with. But not a wider sense of people’s relationship situations.

Im really sorry to hear that.

If we are going to empower women to not tolerate abusive relationships we also need to move on from these sexist and I think mostly baseless tropes about single women pinching husbands.

I can very much relate.

It never fails to shock me how many married men message me, if only their wives know what kind of men they are really married to.

I have been in social situations where wives literally stood between me and their dh 🤣

I have stayed single and the only people I socialise with are women.

Even within my own family, I'm seen as a failure for being a single parent.

@WhatAMarvelousTune yes I would have said the same. And then I became single in a really shit way and I felt the mysogyny. I guess you don't notice it till you've been in it maybe but I think that calls for looking at internal unconscious biases just like any other form of discrimination.

@1990sMum I'm so sorry to hear this.

I had this about 13 years ago. I was stunned! My best friend did a slow fade (she was always a bit paranoid about her husband), some family members were completely and suddenly absent- but kept in touch with exDH (who they had told me before was unkind to me). I was so shocked and upset that women are treated so unfairly, when men seem to be cared for as if they're grieving. Even my ex said it was shit that he was getting all the care and love!

Id also like to say that attitudes towards single women are shit in general but the load does get heavier once you include the fact the woman left the man, for reasons that are not always obvious, there are kids so she is a single mother, she's skint as there's always financial abuse, she's probably got a stress related illness from what she's trying to protect her children from, the courts weigh in favour of 50 50 so the prick is at the gate half the week doing half arsed parenting to avoid CMS. Etc.

About 12 years ago I used to be in a friend group of four couples and we would take it in turns to host the others for dinner. Then one couple split up (acrimoniously) and that was it - we never had another dinner party because it was too awkward to know who to invite. I found out years later that the woman of the divorced couple assumed that the three other couples were still getting together and not inviting her, but actually we weren't - none of us ever met up for dinner again!

Looking back I do realise that we all handled it badly. But this is just to make the point that things aren't always as they may appear.

@KimHwn god that is awful. And those people are not worth keeping in touch with ever again in my opinion. Hope life is better now?

@RoyalPenguin too awkward to message her and find out how she was doing? Or not really real friends in the first place?

@Ricecakes101 I thought we were friends. But she didn't tell me about the split herself, she kind of went to ground and didn't make contact. I didn't like to message her because I thought that would give the impression that we were gossiping about her behind her back.

As I say, looking back I realise I handled it badly and I do have regrets.

I think women who leave their husbands are expected to disclose either abusive situations or his cheating to justify it. Where a woman leaves but chooses to keep her reasons private she is often the subject of gossip, speculation and judgement. She is often considered to be of dubious morals (who would break up their children's home, and Steve seems such a nice guy...) and basically guilty unless she is prepared to convince that she is innocent.

My experience was totally different. This was 20 years ago. I was very humbled how included I was in groups and social events by schools mums who were all married. I never felt treated differently despite being the only single person. And without sounding big headed, I was quite an attractive young looking woman. They never felt they had to keep their husbands away from me.

I am still friends with the main group all these years later.

I can imagine that could happen but wasn't my experience, 13 years ago. I left my ex when DS was 1. It may be because I keep myself to myself a bit anyway and not in the popular crowd so I didn't notice. My boss said "oh, you'll be shunned at the school gates...!" but I didn't think so although now I'm wondering if my parenting life would have been completely different if I had been with DS's Dad! I did meet someone when DS was 4 who I am still with but he didn't feature heavily in DS's school life so people didn't necessarily know about him.

Not only have they not changed "radically", OP, I don't think they have changed at all.

This 100%!!

I have had people tell me i made my own life difficult for leaving...

Yep like that was an easy choice with 4 dc ranging from 5 to 17.

Interesting responses - @Mosaic80 where you in a city, were these friends you knew since childhood? It seems that as everyone is so keen to say ltb and raise your standards that there does actually need to be a shift in the general internalised mysogyny about single mothers who have left their husbands. Otherwise what is the point of all the progress we are making at identifying abusers and removing ourselves when maybe 20 , 30 years ago it was much more prevalent for women to internalise the abuse and believe it to be our fault, but now we ltb and get pilloried

Also @Passaggressfedup where you in a city or around old friends? Why were these women kinder, more open minded?

@5128gap yes I agree. And then if she does say I was a victim of domestic violence it's been horrific inevitably people say - urgh don't over share or I wonder what she did to deserv it. It's really cruel.

Urgh! Been single 17 years, although my ex husband left me. Heard it all. As a society we don’t cope well with women who cope without men. Almost like it goes against nature. Women in particular can be very, very rude, make disparaging comments and take every opportunity to point out that they have a man. I cannot cope either with women who can’t talk about anything other than their husband and their children. Like they’re just an extension of a man.

overall, my life is happy, peaceful and quiet. I enjoy it. It would be lovely to have a male companion but can’t get excited about the lack of one!