To be amazed at how little you all seem to put up with in a relationship?!

[Jazzicatz]

Everytime I come on here and read through this section, most of you very quickly jump in and say 'dump him'. Do you really dump someone for apparant trivialities or just saying it but would never do it yourself?

I don't see why you should have to "put up with" anything in a relationship.

Being prepared to leave is ultimately the only leverage you have. Nobody should stay in a relationship where they are not treated well, even over trivial things.

Because if someone treats you badly it's because they don't love you.

And I'm amazed at the women who seem to think it's fine to be expected to do all the housework and cooking. In my world, that's a total deal-breaker.

Abuse (whether it be physical or emotion, male or female) & cheating is the obvious deal breakers, however other things seem trivial to me imo.
I think most other things can be sorted with good communication.

I'm amazed at how acceptable people think it is to have a partner who binge drinks to the point where they puke all over the place outside a toilet, piss or defecate outside a toilet - and they, the other partner, clean that up as well.

Or financial abuse.

"I think most other things can be sorted with good communication."

Yes, but it takes two people to have good communication.

If one person refuses to discuss an issue, then the other person is fucked unless they're prepared to leave if it isn't sorted.

Why should someone put up with a crappy relationship with someone who ignores them or expects them to do all the shitwork just because it doesn't qualify as abuse?

It shouldn't be about how bad things have to get before you're allowed to leave, it should be about how good things you expect things to be if you're going to stick around.

SCOTT, yup

I can think of a very few examples of what you are talking about OP. More often, the OP starts talking about something apparently trivial but then what comes out is much much more serious.

MN has opened my eyes to how much some people put up with, and makes me very thankful for the relationship I have. Many women are kidding themselves about the seriousness of what is going on in their relationships

Ah yes, 'good communication'. Which always seems to be 'sitting down and talking'. (Why sitting, I always wonder? What is it about this damn sitting that is so relevant to the act of discussion?)

I am not entirely sure what 'good communication' means, apart from stating very clearly 'I am fed up with doing all this damn cooking'. I am quite good at communicating, mind - I am a journalist - but the point is that the other person has to (a) hear (b) accept what is being communicated. And also, if the response is 'but I do not want to do cooking as I am afflicted by a Y chromosome' I have to say my own interest in communication is rather curtailed.

I know lachesis, the excuses made for seriously problematic drinking are a sight to behold.

Motherinferior - I think the "doing all the housework and childcare" scenario is a classic on MN. So many women, especially SAHMs know something is wrong with this idea but can't quite grasp the seriousness of it unless they get lots of voices telling them it's not on.

And the "sit him down and calmly explain to him why he mustn't treat you like shit" suggestion always leaves out that the clearest way to communicate about how you expect to be treated is to make it explicit that you will leave if you are not.

And also women who work. Full-time. And do all, or virtually all, the domestic stuff.

That siad, I think there are short-term stresses that happen when babies are first born that can and of course should be "communicated" about. Competetive tiredness is one of them

Oh, I don't think you should communicate at all when you have a small baby. A sullen co-operation works best, for the first nine or so months. A dogged determination that you will leave each other as soon as you've got the energy. And then things get better and you cheer up a bit . I honestly wouldn't waste good potential sleeping time on Talking Things Through at this point. You'll only resent each other more for the exhaustion.

Still don't get it with the sitting. Peculiarly sedentary, all communication, it appears.

I completely agree with motherinferior.

There are terrible domestic situations described on here. I couldn't put up with the behaviour of some of the DHs described. But then I have back up for leaving....

Whenever people talk about competitive tiredness here, they always seem to imply that tiredness is equally shared and that both parties are equally to blame.

A woman who is doing 100% of night waking, breastfeeding a small baby and acting as domestic slave for a man who feels sorry for himself because he has a job, and who tells him how tired she is and that he needs to stop being a lazy fucker - she WINS the tiredness competition.

It's not always level stevens - some people are more tired because they are having to do extra work because their partner is a lazy, shirking, useless fucker.

totally agree with the remarks on good communication and it has to work both ways.
I remember over hearing an argument between my parents growing up and my mother said to my father often."You never pay me any attention anymore"

My mother emotionally controlled my father for years and still does, i would not blame my father if he left her at all, she knows the right buttons to push!!

motherinferior, yy re the 'communication' and 'sit down and talk'.
How much can you talk to the wall?

And the over-empathy and over-understanding 'oh he didn't mean to attack me, i think its because his dad went to the pub or their car broke or the toaster stoped working when he was 8. i've read somewhere.....'. So many women do this, i've done it myself in the past. A friend in RL told me (and i'm not kidding you) her dh 'cant control his anger because when he was a child he witnessed once his dad and uncle arguing' Yes, very unusual and very traumatic! I witnessed real life war when i was a child, what i suppose to do, feel free to beat up everyone around me?

Why do women do all this analyzing and find excuses?

'He can't communicate', oh yes he can but he doesn't bother. Once you leave them they suddenly can.

I agree with the posters who feel that many women seem to put up with far too much from feckless, horrible partners. There are so very many depressing threads on MN about 'D' Hs who are emotionally abusive, controlling, do fuck all around the house/with the kids etc.

shouldn't the question be why do men behave like that rather than why do women put up with it

they do because they think things will get better, it was not always like that no relationship starts that way if it did they would have walked and they are desperately trying to understand why things have changed they want to find a reason to understand why the man they love is cruel

The only reason is because they get away with it.

Nothing deep and complicating and psychoanalytic.

I think a lot of women put up with it for the same reason this thread was started - because they buy into the "relationships are work" thing and don't know about the "(for women)" parentheses.

You read threads on here where young single childless women are advised to "sit down and communicate" with men who don't make them happy, rather than just walking away.

There is a belief that a relationship has a value in and of itself - not because it is good and brings happiness, but just because it exists. And that the relationship should be sustained at great personal cost because it is more important than you are.

Once there are ickle children who can't be "taken away from their father" the imperative to stay and continue your pointless little chats becomes overwhelming.

The reality - that relationships where there isn't kindness and love are not possible to fix - is ignored in favour of moralising over how weak women are for not making themselves miserable in pursuit of a perfect family life that is never going to happen.

my last post was badly worded, there seems to be a lot of judgement on women putting up with abusive partners. while abusive partners do it because they can it is all about there need to control they manipulate their partners into what suits them and many woman really fear their partners, many feel their partners are right even when they know something is very wrong its not about the woman allowing it to happen is about the man (or woman) doing what he (she) does in order to gain control

This particular Mumsnet board has a bad reputation - and deserves relentless praise! I migrated here from other relationship forums, following my own path, and found a baseline of truth here. There's a lot to be said for cuddles and communication advice but, when a relationship is unequal and it's not a temporary blip, it's time to put a bomb under it.

Like practically everyone else who came here and stayed, I was shocked at first; there seemed to be a choir singing "Chuck him out!" to every tune. I was good at the communication stuff, though, so I hung around. In a very short time I got the true picture of what had happened to me. Once I had that, I was able to perceive the patterns that bad relationships follow - and recognise the myriad forms of denial, all of which I'd used myself.

This is not a tale of someone who came here and was persuaded of her ills - the truths fell into place with resounding thuds of recognition, thread after thread after thread. Suddenly everything made sense, ugly as those truths were.

Now, I see a woman (or man) posting about a single row and I think "Why have they posted that here? What makes this so painful or confusing for the OP that they'll ask strangers for advice?" So I ask a few more questions, and so do others. The story begins to emerge, with its truths. It's hard to ease somebody out of denial. We try. Sometimes we succeed in helping them to see it for themselves, or at least to consult a professional agency. Most times we fail. But for every poster there are nine readers. Perhaps these threads help other readers recognise their own truths - I hope so.

If an OP really is worrying about nothing, we tell them! On a board like this, though, the non-problems are a very small percentage. You'd read a few before you wrote, wouldn't you? So, mostly, you'd be following a feeling that your issue might be a tad worse than you've acknowledged.

Bail, you've only been here for a month or so haven't you? What prompted you to post about DH's night out?

I won't be taking any more abuse - or, if I do, I'll be posting here! I've said it before - I LURVE the women on this board, and am immensely grateful to you all :)