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Relationships

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

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Anyone seen the new MN section on surviving an affair?

273 replies

Dozer · 19/01/2012 21:18

The info on there does not accord with the advice oft given on here.

I don't like it, smacks of pleasing-your-man.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 19/01/2012 21:25

I'd better not look

Dozer · 19/01/2012 21:32

Did think of you AF!

And others here and in feminism section.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 19/01/2012 21:34

If it includes anything along the lines of "put a bit of lippy on and offer more blowjobs" then MNHQ deserve a whole packet of Biscuit

AnyFucker · 19/01/2012 21:35

....or "get some childcare and have a sexy weekend away together"

NormaStanleyFletcher · 19/01/2012 21:37

Oh - I saw a link for that earlier.

Will take a look in a bit

Dozer · 19/01/2012 21:39

It starts with the old chestnut of an affair being a symptom, not cause, of problems, and moves on to say how important it is to move on, forgive forget blah blah blah.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 19/01/2012 21:51

ah

The Stepford Handmaiden school of thought

The "men are visual creatures who can separate sex and love" filossofee Hmm

pennypencil · 19/01/2012 22:33

there is obviously a reason why he has looked elsewhere - see if you can meet his needs more Shock Shock Shock Shock

perhaps a bj before you dish up his gourmet tea?

ike1 · 19/01/2012 22:47

Look no doubt M net has been fab for lots of us but essentially it was put together by some very middle class london based women. With the ethos that goes with that.

AnyFucker · 19/01/2012 22:53

MNHQ, shame on you

really

Lovingfreedom · 19/01/2012 23:05

What needs did your partner had that he was looking to meet elsewhere? What could you do to meet those needs within your marriage?

Christ almighty....who writes this bullshit? Very disappointing.

ClaraSage · 19/01/2012 23:51

How do I access this link, please.

NormaStanleyFletcher · 20/01/2012 00:05

http://m.mumsnet.com/relationships/surviving-an-affair here

I am gob smacked.

Where did this advice come from?

ViendoOvejas · 20/01/2012 00:23

Revolting, retrograde, retarded... Jesus.

ViendoOvejas · 20/01/2012 00:24

"Being constantly suspicious about his movements, trying to track where he was or what he's been doing, isn't just damaging for the relationship..."

For fuck's SAKE.

Charbon · 20/01/2012 00:27

This must be one of the worst 'guides' I've ever read about infidelity. It completely contradicts even the Relate website's advice - and that's not saying much.....only because so many of their counsellors don't follow the message on their own website. Whoever wrote this for Mumsnet should hang their heads in shame, as should the person who signed it off as good copy.

LeBOF · 20/01/2012 00:45

Nice bit of woman-blaming there: "Recognise that an affair is a symptom, not a cause, of a marriage in trouble. You've got to look for the reasons why it happened - what needs did your partner had that he was looking to meet elsewhere? What could you do to meet those needs within your marriage?"

Hmm
Charbon · 20/01/2012 01:41

Just checked again to verify what I was saying above and this is what Relate offers instead:

www.relate.org.uk/common-problem-details/164/index.html

www.relate.org.uk/common-problem-details/6/index.html

Which is much better advice! I hope they take Mumsnet to task about this.

tallwivglasses · 20/01/2012 01:45

Have I lost a coupla months? Is it April Fool's day?

Abitwobblynow · 20/01/2012 04:40

Willard Harley (a man) is about the only counsellor who takes men to task for their misguided and chauvinistic attempts to 'protect' their wife by staying silent and not talking about their hurts and resentments (of which there are many, and which SHOULD be taken seriously).

The two main resentments: that they go to work and bust their balls all day, and this is taken for granted, that the male struggle in the workplace is not understood.
That they lose their intimate partner on the birth of the children, that that relationship comes first and they and their needs for attention, closeness, praise (see above) are ignored.

Now, we have to keep that in mind because actually it is true. BUT to get back to Harley, he says, if you do not talk to your wife and think that she will collapse in a heap if she hears anything painful, you are underestimating her strength AND you are also not giving her the information she needs to negotiate and adjust.

So, getting to the 'symptom' of the marriage, the wife only gets to hear that he might have some disatisfactions when her world is blown apart.

And she is blamed? For his inability to communicate, and she has the responsibility to resolve the damage of his 'solution'? All I can tell you, is that from years back I bust a gut trying to talk to my H. But you can't talk to someone who won't acknowledge any problems or turns it back on to you.

FFS the first person to say 'it's the woman's fault' was Adam. It is profoundly unfair to make women responsible and required to control the outcome.
Why don't we just join the Saudis and Afghans and hang raped women.

Willard Harley talking about adultery on YouTube is quite an eye opener! He says it is so damaging and so traumatic, that he would like it to be made back into a criminal offence! That people are jailed for causing much less hurt in other crimes!

izzyswinterwarmer · 20/01/2012 04:42

[[http://m.mumsnet.com/relationships/surviving-an-affair here]]

"It's a leap of faith, but the only way to move on is to put the affair completely behind you, and to return to trusting your partner the way you did before you found out about the Other Woman".

Leap of faith? Leap of lemming comes to mind.

Other than having a lobotomy, how does the author propose a 'return to trusting' after trust has been nuked?

'You couldn't keep your dick in your trousers had an affair with an OW? That's alright, dear, I'll put it completely behind me and never think of it again' Hmm

Abitwobblynow · 20/01/2012 06:30

Well, wouldn't life be lovely if you could get a little brush of whitewash and gently stroke it over like that 'advice'.

Did you read 'signs of an affair'? Choke!

The biggest sign of an affair: your husband turns into a stranger right in front of your eyes, which go dead like a sharks. It looks like him, walks and talks like him, but it is like some alien took his brain which is stored on some mother ship above.
Coupled with: increased criticism of you, what an awful person you are and how you hang up the towels [put equally ludicrous criticism here]

Why? of course, because his emotions and his brain is now in his dick which is now in OW. Who is the most wondrous exciting thing that has ever happened to him and you, the hideous troll who has made his life miserable and FORCED him to do this, are just in the way of their beautiful beautiful.

Except that he needs you to wash his laundry clean his house and look after his kids. So whilst he despises you and negatively compares you to OW, you have your uses as a housekeeper so mustn't be got rid of.

Get real. If Mumsnet wants to put up an 'advice' thread they should ask us educated eloquent troops in the trenches not some vacuous journalist who doesn't know sh*t. Grrrrr!

giraffesCantDonateBoneMarrow · 20/01/2012 06:52

what needs did your partner had that he was looking to meet elsewhere? What could you do to meet those needs within your marriage?

Bloody hell! translate - It is your fault, have you got a bit fat, spent too much time looking after the weans, don't listen to him much when he want to talk about football, are you too tired from being up all night with the baby to have wild arse sex? Well you lazy fat cow its your fault, shag your hubby and cater for his every need immediately.

Hmm

Never mind advice page telling men if they feel that crap to talk about it, explain, see what they can do to work together to make time together if thats what they crave. And if all that fails then split up before you shove it in someone else.

JoantheFennel · 20/01/2012 07:10

Mumsnet fucks up again.

SoupDragon · 20/01/2012 07:13

It's nice how, even thought here are a fair number of men on mumnset, there is no mention of how to deal with infidelity on the part of the wife.

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