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Relationships

Why so bitter?

34 replies

MollyBee · 03/03/2013 17:03

I have read the relationship board for a long while now, and what never ceases to amaze me is how bitter some of you are on here. Why?

My OPs come on here looking for simple advice and help in their relationships and most you of come back with the usual, he's having an affair, he's looking at porn, he's exiting the relationship, LTB. Sometimes it's not helpful and I actually feel very sorry for the OP.

When do you feel it's time to stop being so bitter? How do you all live like that?

OP posts:

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ErikNorseman · 03/03/2013 18:42

When I found out about H's affair I posted here saying I had text her to 'warn her off'. Anyfucker pointed out that I was debasing myself and feeding his ego, and he wasn't such a prize anyway. I didn't want to hear it then but she was good damn right.

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ImperialBlether · 03/03/2013 18:54

She's always right, Erik!

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sassy34264 · 03/03/2013 18:57

Oh dear.

Why when intelligent, experienced women give other's advice (who have asked for it) does it mean they are bitter?

It is nigh on impossible to tell the majority of posters on here to keep trying, try another tack, go to relate, because they are not run of the mill problems in a respectful (ish) relationship.

If the partner is treating them dreadfully with abuse, be it physical, emotional, psychological etc, there is no trying to make it better by changing yourself.

It's not the op with the problem you see.

I wouldn't call that bitterness- i would call it, seeing the wood for the trees.

Which i happen to think that MN is absolutely bloody brilliant for. (I can't praise it enough in rl.)

Saying it's bitterness, is like saying a negative opinion on a pretty women is invalidated because we're jealous.

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cory · 03/03/2013 18:59

My posts on this board tend to be informed by the fact that I have never had anything to feel bitter about.

I was brought up by a decent man who treated my mother and his children with respect, I am married to a decent man who treats me and our children with respect, as far as I am concerned decent men are the normality. Shitheads are not.

There is no need to put up with a shithead because "you can't expect anything better from a man". Yes, you can and you should.

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Spero · 03/03/2013 19:16

I think the more interesting question here is why the op never 'ceases' to be 'amazed' by the truly awful way some men behave towards their partners and children.

But no, the focus is on how 'bitter' women are.

Interesting.

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TisILeclerc · 03/03/2013 20:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

badinage · 03/03/2013 23:01

Being in a long and very happy marriage myself, I'm always taken aback by how cruel people can be in relationships and how many people on the receiving end of this cruelty convince themselves that it is normal, acceptable or all they are worth. So I post to reassure people that they are worth so much more than this treatment and to dissuade them from exposing their children to such unhappiness and abuse. I have nothing to be bitter about personally and I also know that good, kind people occasionally fuck up and regret it. But I also have people in my life who've lived in the sort of denial many OPs seem to be in and have then had an awful shock when the truth came out or the abuse got worse/moved on to the children. If a post can help someone like that see things more clearly, I'm glad to help.

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pigsDOfly · 03/03/2013 23:35

I think you're missing the point of why people post on here OP. Women, mainly are using MN because they often have no one else to turn to in RL who they feel they can speak so freely to.

MN didn't exist when I was married but would that it had. I might have been helped to leave an abusive marriage many years sooner than I did.

I don't read bitterness in the advice given on here. I read anger often, but mainly I read caring help, freely given.

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Walkacrossthesand · 04/03/2013 08:23

Mollybee appears to have disappeared in a puff of logic, as Douglas Adams would have said. What I was going to say was, (1) the reason that threads that end well (eg someone posts distressed, quickly sorts things out by communicating, stops posting) is because there's no further need to post, not because the vipers can't crow 'we were right'. Bit like the reason things are always in the last place you look because when you find it you stop looking. (2) I'm currently single, I've had my relationship traumas along the way but have learned such a lot about recognising and dealing with behaviours on these boards. Good relationships unfold easily and pleasantly without advice, that's why we don't need to post about them here - and for the record, there have been threads inviting people to say what's good about their DPs, and they've been long. That's what I was going to say!