Are we causing mental health issues?

[SparklyPombear]

Triger warning: Everything
Beginning of rant:
I have noticed some posts where the OPs were coming to face their wrongdoings and I am always shocked to see how so many responces are so fire and brimstone. I understand "tough love" (I live by it) but this is not that. Even in posts where issues are stemming from OP's partner, the majority always swings right to an immediate divorce. There are many reasons for this:

• Black and white thinking -thinking people are either saints or devils
• Failure to see that the person has a whole life outside of this bad thing/s you know about them
• You likely just read the post, so your reactions are immediate and you did not have enough time to really ponder the behavior.
• Failure to understand that we are discussing couples that are in very different stages of their relationships
• Failure to understand that someone may have a completely different biology and urges than you.
• We judge others by outcome, not intent. (reverse for ourselves)
• We are all shielded behind our computers
• Assuming OP does not actually want help for some reason
• Thinking people cannot change

Einstein was a serial cheater and Hitler ran a no smoking campaign. Imagine those were the only facts you knew about those two.

I am pleading with everyone. Always think of OP as someone who is coming to you for HELP. You are there therapist!!!! You are their first line of hope! Do you know what the suicide rate is? The divorce rate? You can ruin a completelty salvagable marriage by simply telling OP that their marriage is not salvagable. That is how psychology works. I saw a post where OP cheated once 7 years ago (they worked through it) and she just found out that her husband has been sleeping with a coworker for an entire year. Every comment was about how she deserves it. Your comments can be daggers of lifelong trauma. If you judge others who did bad things with compassion, God will judge your own wrongdoings with compassion. Cudos to all who understand these things.

If you came on here with a genuine issue and were looking for support and were instead berated to death, please PM me. Even if you did something bad. I am not so smart but I will actually try to help you.

Whilst I understand your intent and you make some good points, to take advice from a complete stranger on a site with thousands of members is also quite naive.
I understand that not everyone has a family or community of friends but internet advice should not be taken so seriously.

But surely branding everyone who reaches out for help as being ‘naive’ is sort of what OP was talking about. It’s a broad assumption - perhaps they are suffering from poor mental health. Perhaps they are young. Perhaps they do not have much experience with the internet. Perhaps this is literally their only option.
Or yes, perhaps they are just naive with no external factors. Does that mean they deserve a lack of empathy? This surely just places the blame on them, essentially saying ‘they had it coming’. I think the responsibility lies with everyone but the poster, personally!

I completely agree, OP

I do generally agree with you OP. I rarely come here these days and almost never post anymore because people are just so breathtakingly rude and quite frankly mean to the point of bullying on here these days. My child is a teen now and I’m sure it used to be a much kinder place back in the day. It maybe reflects how people are in real life too (but worse due to anonymity etc), I do feel like people are ruder and meaner and more individualistic in real life too. I feel like the U.K. is a very difficult place to live in these days.

At the same time, although I recognise that it seems like very extreme advice to divorce someone, especially if they have a very established life together with children etc, it doesn’t always make it wrong. Having escaped an abusive marriage myself, I am now able to recognise some serious red flags that other people don’t always see, and I am sometimes one of the voices saying to get out now. I wish more people had told me to get out of my marriage at an earlier stage of things. However it’s obviously not always the answer of course, especially for minor issues.

To an extent you also have to understand that people responding to the poster are also whole people with their own experiences and opinions, and they aren’t qualified therapists either, though I take your point about this being many people’s first line and ideally would be a beacon of hope instead of a place to get knocked down even further.

Having been cheated on in my marriage, I’m afraid my sympathy for someone who cheated and is now being cheated on is going to be extremely limited. That person’s previous cheating may be “daggers of lifelong trauma” as you put it to another woman. However I personally would recognise that I can’t be objective or neutral on such a topic and would basically not comment on such a thread rather than say something negative to someone struggling. I don’t totally understand the mindset of people who seemingly come on here just to put other people down.

Maybe we need to ask mumsnet for a specific place for people to post where they know they will get supportive comments in a time of crisis, which doesn’t necessarily mean that people can’t point out to someone kindly where they may be going wrong etc.if it’s generally intended in a spirit of helpfulness rather than mean spirited. Toxic positivity can be a thing too, but I do agree with you that the general vibe on here has become really negative with seemingly hordes of people who just can’t wait to jump on someone and tear them down even at a moment of vulnerability or crisis.

Britneyfan

I see all you are saying and I appreciate your honesty then you say you would have a difficult time showing sympathy to someone who has cheated. I would say to this that we cannot give people lifelong sentences for behavior they clearly changed. It seems unfair and we have all done things we are not proud of. You will never know the brain chemistry, psychology, life events... etc of someone who does something like that in the moment. Odds are, even that person will not understand why they did that.

Also about cheating, it is such a vague word to me and everyone has their own definitions of what they consider cheating. Like some people say porn is cheating, but what if someone comes to be and tells me they ended their 50 years marriage because she found out he cheated 30 years ago.... could that mean he watched porn once 30 years ago? I hardly think so. The same thing for lap dances and things of the like.