Coming Clean by Liz Fraser

[RhinoRhino]

A couple of threads that I had posted on relating to the Memoir ‘Coming Clean’ by Liz Fraser have been deleted from the MN site, apparently due to non-compliance of the MN guidelines from the posters. MN are obviously well within their rights to delete threads if they demonstrably fail to comply with their guidelines, nevertheless I feel strongly that MN posters are given a platform to critique this book, and also any other public ventures by this author. It would be neither fair nor right that posters are completely silenced in this particular matter.

As such, and in line with Mumsnet not seeing “anything wrong with honest feedback” I would like to make the comment that Coming Clean as a Memoir falls short due to the shaky and not entirely truthful narrative. There are certain facts contained within this memoir that are easily disprovable (for example, relating to the marital status of both author and her partner when they started their ill-fated affair), which leaves a massive question mark over the rest of the book. Is it entirely reasonable to make money from something that is promoted as truthful when it is, in fact, not entirely true?

I think there are people whose lives have been negatively impacted by the book and its subject matter, and I hope that MN will agree that these people should have a voice, as should anybody who wants to comment on a published piece of work.

As long as posters align their comments with the MN guidelines, this is a topic that people may wish to keep discussing, and also keep in the public domain. And if MN wants to provide a set of rules particular to this thread – certainly if they are arbitrary and differ from the general guidelines - I am sure it would be very helpful.

Mumsnet, please help us to help each other by keeping in the public domain something that us silenced mums feel should be out there.

Did he raise his Lego Champagne glass and declare, Ms Fraser, she has arrived. Let’s hygge? While of course being gigantic, blond and athletic with a jaw chiselled from granite and a two horned helmet.

@Raydt 🤣🤣🤣🤣👌

Hmmm. Passport control man smiles at her proclaimed 'new life' and let's her in. Somehow very reminiscent of 'Good on you!' from the postman when her other most recent 'new life' began with Edgeways Press.

She's not a 'girl'. She makes me cringe.

Message to the Tattlers ..... (apologies, but I seem to have messed up my registration on TL so cannot yet join you lovely tattling cleaners over there) .... but has anybody got the "holiday naked selfie" in their bingo card? Complete with self congratulatory words about age, what said body has achieved and how proud its owner is of it?

She is not. She is a nearly 50 years old, independent mother of four, an author, publisher and….

Did she not run to Denmark for safety when the horrors of all horrors (ended because he returned to England)? I’ve never worked this bit out. Surely Venice was then safe and better for the wellbeing of her child than sofa surfing unnecessarily? If Denmark therefore not a PTSD trigger zone? More so while in the middle of EDMR (if she is in the middle of her world record length treatment that the NHS would not provide.)

If she had genuinely been in anyway worried about Mike’s parenting, why then go on a foregoing holiday as soon as the child is there overnight . Makes absolutely no sense at all

Absolutely nothing makes sense.
But I think for the child to now have time with her father is a long time coming. It will only benefit her long term.

Going away without her daughter is her new life and freedom and she is so excited, doesn’t bode well for her daughter if a new man comes along. although Copenhagen looks lovely I want to go

I think a lot of the excitement is bravado tbh to give Mike the impression that she's fine and not seething that he has shared custody of Scout. Just like all the crazed smiley nights out now that she has her freedom on the week nights that her daughter must be with her father.

She actually comes across as desperately lonely, and the softer side of me thinks it’s incredibly sad. For some reason, she’s unable to stay in one place. As soon as she can, she leaves her Oxford house.

With all the fanfare ahead of this trip, I assumed she was away for at least a week. It’s actually just two days. Why not chill at home, explore some of the UK with her son, and enjoy some one-on-one time with him?

She never spends one-on-one time with her older kids. She hasn’t visited them during their travels, even when one was in France for six months. She never has a friend to stay. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but there is something that keeps her running from places and people or is it from herself?

She’s taken a selfie of herself “swimming.” She’s unable to enjoy the moment.

@Melszone I'm sure that the kids are in some part responsible for setting boundaries given how they were a) treated and b) written about in earlier books.

And also as you can tell by the ridiculous number of posts, Liz seems to be incapable of not posting every single brain fart on social media. She’s made it abundantly clear that she hasn’t got a basic grasp of online security; I suspect her children are a lot more switched on and don’t want their details flung all over the internet.

As for the lack of friends, I think that’s VERY telling…

It’s like watching a one woman “look how bloody HAPPY I am without you show’ if you were really having such a blast wouldn’t you be too busy to pick up your phone? My best days end with me picking my phone up around 2am to check the time
because have been too busy having fun to even look
or photos taken but not even looked at until after the fun!!

Agreed. I think she just has to be 'seen' at all times. An addiction to attention. And I think she possibly second guesses people's reactions to what she is doing when they a) probably aren't watching and b) just don't care. Particularly those she really wishes did care. I think as someone said upthread that it's a shame she can't just be with herself, at home, stop preening, stop pretending. Just relax and basically shut up.

@Raffington55 Are you wanting Ms Fraser to silence herself?😂

Today’s instalment of the never-ending story is priceless! Just me sitting here, in my undies, in a beautiful room, just writing a short story (with no end, in case anybody is RUDE enough to enquire how it finishes), just photographing myself, just uploading it to SM, just commenting on myself and what I am doing. Soooooo funny. @Raffington55 you must never shut her up. When she's not actively hurting others, her posts are too hilarious!

The MN comments on attention-seeking are so on the money, though. I’m reminded of my kids when they were younger: “mummy, watch me do this”; “mummy, watch me do this”; “mummy watch me come down the slide”; “mummy watch me climb the tree”; “mummy watch me jump in the pool”; “no, that wasn’t the one. Mummy watch me THIS time”; “Mummy watch me again”; “mummy watch THIS one”; “Mummy, mummy, mummy”; “Mummy, WATCH ME!”.

It's fascinating that some adults do not seem able to grow out of this child-like desire for constant attention. I'm sure there will be psychological reasons behind it, which I would put down to nurture rather than nature.

Talking of attention seeking, take my narcissistic former neighbours. They may have been keeping rare-breed livestock in the (out of sight) buildings below our house. They MAY have been doing that. It MAY have been completely innocent. We preferred to ascribe more sinister motivations, and decided they had a pet gimp down there. At one point we realized that every evening when we turned off our bedroom light ready to go to sleep somebody would start up a loud, revving, truck and drive noisily down past our house to see to something, then within 5 or 10 minutes drive back past again, with further loud engine revs. Possibly locking in the livestock for the night. Possibly. We got to calling this activity “feeding the gimp”. And we started to wonder. Why did they have to feed the gimp the second we put out our bedroom light? Why? Why would they do that? Obvious really. For attention, of course. The narcissist thrives on it. They cannot live without it. The specific timing of the gimp feeding was just another way of trying to get our attention, annoy us and negatively impact on our peaceful enjoyment of our home.

One day I decided I would resolve the gimp feeding activity and regain control of how and when we got to sleep, and so, when my husband was working away for a few days I put on the bedroom light at the usual time, slipped back downstairs, slept on the sofa in front of the fire. I left the bedroom light on all night. Four days of that seemed to sort the problem, and any further occasional gimp feeding/lights off synchronisation was put down to pure coincidence.

I’d love to know how long the narcissistic half-wits stayed up for on that first night! Shame I didn’t encounter them the next day, as I could have asked them if they’d had a good night’s sleep! 😂😉

I did wonder how she set that silly writing-in-my-bikini shot up. You are absolutely right that if we silenced her, as she would silence us, we would miss out on all the prancing entertainment.

If she’s that desperate for bikini-led attention she should just go on Love Island, silly bint.

Her oldest children must be so proud…

I’m dying 😂😂😂😂

Just looking at her latest Instagram posts: my god she’s insufferable. It’s all so florid and overwritten. Surely her writing isn’t always like that?

Tbh @JemimaTab yes, yes it is , but there are usually a lot more CAPITALS.

And @Raydt I fear I will forever mentally raise a Lego champagne glass and say “ Let’s Hygge” every time I hear/see anything to do with Denmark.🤣🤣🤣

skål min ven @Beanchops 🥂🫘🪓

Being a local, not a tourist, can be assume a taboo-free weekend has been had?!

Danes prefer not to be touched especially by people who they do not consider close to them. Thus, a firm handshake with solid eye contact is sufficient for introductions. Giving compliments is considered inappropriate. Being overfriendly or overly familiar with casual acquaintances is considered rude and impolite. Asking personal questions about family, religion, and finances is considered intrusive. Talks about personal details are not encouraged unless the local initiates sharing of family details for example.

https://denmark.net/danish-cultural-taboos/#:~:text=Being%20overfriendly%20or%20overly%20familiar,of%20family%20details%20for%20example.

Sadly, yes. Particularly when she's writing about herself. Which is 99.9999999% of the time 😊