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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

"Good relationships don't hurt"

29 replies

meditrina · 26/05/2011 06:08

So said Michelle Obama yesterday to a group of inner city schoolgirls tank to visit Oxford.

She wasn't talking just about DH/DP/BF/GF, but all the relationships in life. "Do not bring someone into your life who weighs you down".

Is this the right message?

OP posts:
Bumfuzzle · 26/05/2011 06:56

I think it is.

why should you have someone in your life who makes you miserable?

There will be times in your life when you come into contact with someone who is horrible, and you will have to interact with them, eg a boss. But interacting for a specific purpose is not the same thing as having them in your life - generally having them as part of your life.

why would anyone choose to keep someone in their life who made them unhappy? Choose to spend time with someone who was horrible to them? Visit someone who put them down? Have someone to stay who was rude to them?

That's just daft.

No, daft is not the right word. From the outside it seems daft, but I think it's either brainwashing or lack of confidence or low self esteem and thinking they have the right to treat you like shit.

niceguy2 · 26/05/2011 08:11

Totally agree! A lesson I'm trying to impart on my teenage daughter who will be dating soon.

And a hard lesson I've learned over the years with my relationships where I've tended to cling onto bad relationships in the hope that if we compromise enough it can be tolerable.

TheRealMBJ · 26/05/2011 08:21

This exctly the right message! Girls in particular need to learn that they are not responsible for other people's happiness, only their own and not to get embroiled in hurtful relationships

AttilaTheMeerkat · 26/05/2011 08:36

Too right. It applies equally to both sexes as well.

NettleTea · 26/05/2011 08:40

Absolutely, and I hope it gets the press coverage it deserves!!

thisishowifeel · 26/05/2011 08:43

I wish someone had told me that. But as a child, what do you do if it's your parents that hurt you? That's where it starts, you think it's normal.

notevenamousie · 26/05/2011 08:44

Also, if you are not giving something positive to someone else's life, then you have the duty to get out of there too, for their sake.

iseeyou · 26/05/2011 08:47

I think indirectly she was also saying this is your time now (when young) take all the opportunities you have and dont be misled, weighed down, waste time with anyone who is just not worth it

girlscout · 26/05/2011 09:03

Totally agree ,but I beleive most of us have partner who at some time or other "weighs us down".

Usually it is the time between birth of kids and first few years .(just the tyime when you need to be boosted).
If we are lucky (lucky to have it at all?)it only goes on for a few months,but it can go on for years and years,while we become "all things to all people"mothers.
I always think for every couple who reach 30 plus years in a close relationship, its at a cost of one of them being miserable for half of it.

MO is right and to encourage girls to stay open tothe wider community and be their own person.

Cadmum · 26/05/2011 09:27

I think that the advice is good but that it is difficult advice to follow.

girlscout 'I always think for every couple who reach 30 plus years in a close relationship, its at a cost of one of them being miserable for half of it.'

I have never seen it articulated this way but the cynic in me is starting to think this may be true as well... Sad

iseeyou · 26/05/2011 09:34

girlscout i agree about the first few years after having babies, but not sure about those who reach 30plus relationship ... surely they would have split up

i think MO was talking to their age group encouraging them to embrace everything, you know dont not do something because of a man when youre not even 20

Bast · 26/05/2011 09:38

I think it's the right advice to give teens, male or female.

As we mature, we realise it's not always quite that clear cut but I think encouraging self awareness, confidence and respect from a young age is a good basis for future learning curves.

freeandhappy · 26/05/2011 10:47

can anyone link to the talk she gave?

Original poster
meditrina · 26/05/2011 11:21

I haven't found a whole transcript on line (pity). I'll have a look at the news reports of it, and I'll be back with links if any of them are reporting more what she said than what she wore!

OP posts:
Original poster
meditrina · 26/05/2011 11:26

Some of it is on YouTube and .

OP posts:
lambethlil · 26/05/2011 11:29

Its a great message.

Tangentially linked, what do you think of this? 'you are not responsible for anyone else's happiness'. I have a big problem with it and complained about a poster with it on.

DoMeDon · 26/05/2011 12:50

lambethlil -But you aren't responisible for anyone else's happiness!? You are responsible for your own actions and should treat others with respect and kindness but ultimately happiness comes from within. If someone does soemthing cruel/hurtful to you it doesn't have to make you unhappy. It is just information about them. For example, I could call someone a name, if they were happy in themselves it wouldn't make them unhappy, they would shrug it off and see it as my problem and not thiers.

garlicbutter · 26/05/2011 13:02

I love the clarity of your reply, Don. The people who weigh you down are the very same ones, who expect you to provide their happiness for them. It is impossible.

MooMooFarm · 26/05/2011 13:11

I love Mobama even more for saying that. It is such a good message to teach young girls.

girlscout · 26/05/2011 13:59

Sorry to be a downer, but i remember reading about a happy married elderly couple celebrating a big milestone aniversary (sorry cant remember details) and when questioned the old woman said yes she was happy but that only happened after the first 10 years or so. Sad
Women who stay in long marriages gain (hopefully)in the later years but often sacrifice themselves to the marriage early on, and dont react to friction/lack of support, in order to keep the peace of a "happy" home.

MooMooFarm · 26/05/2011 14:08

I don't understand the point you're trying to make girlscout.

Do you mean that you believe women who have been married a long time have put up with unhappy situations to keep the peace? That's a very sad and pessimistic view of marriage you have, IMO. And IME, that is not generally the case.

lambethlil · 26/05/2011 15:36

DoMeDon I understand the meaning 100%, it was just a strange ethos to be emphasising in the context I first saw it- at a drop in parenting centre in a deprived area.

The scheme offered very little practical advice, or even positive pro-social modelling. The whole ethos was happy mum, happy baby re smoking, early weaning feeding etc and I felt that the message 'you are not responsible' was not the most important suggestion to make.

To use your example, if I call you a name yes, you can choose not to be hurt, but a small child does not have the tools to do anything but react at a gut level.

girlscout · 26/05/2011 15:37

I'm not saying that long marriages are unhappy, just that marriages tend to get better for women in terms of security,finance,grandchildren etc in the later years, and its not an level amount of satisfaction/self assuredness throughout their life.
I do think that being in any relationship where children and dependence are a factor means that the "responsible"parent sublimates their happiness for security of the child and therefore the continuity of the parental relationship. Just read any message on mn and you can see women trying to manipulate their own lives, to their own detriment, for the good of their spouse.
Maybe, the best way is to live in open communal relationships, where support is from a wide spread of differing people, and not the tight 1+1 set up.
MO message is wonderful but its not new, I aspired to it as a teenager in the 70's,now pushing 50 and 20 years married I can see how insideous notliving up to the ideal is .,
Even so,I will spread the message to my own dds and maybe it will be more susccessful.

kerala · 26/05/2011 15:43

I agree but.....what about people that you have to have in your life but you dont like and are hurtful. I dont like MIL she is odd and rude and has recently behaved appallingly and upset DH. Spending time with her and FIL is never a pleasant experience DH and I dread our time with them BUT they are DH's parents so we have to suck it up. Following MO advice would we just tell them that as they have hurt our feelings so we wont be seeing them anymore and they will never see their small GC again? Would like to but dont see that as a realistic option.

lambethlil · 26/05/2011 16:30

Kerala the 'good relationships don't hurt' statement is just that, a statement.

It may empower some people to leave bad relationships or in your case just give you permision to distance yourselves, challenge their unacceptable behaviour and as the children get older not make excuses for them.

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