I am sooooo sick of the way so many men seem to be treating their wives/girlsfriends on mumsnet these days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Carmenere]

There just seem to be too too many threads about nasty abusive bullying wankers passing themselves off as partners and fathers. WTF!!!

Think it's not just on Mumsnet Carmenere.

I sometimes wonder if we really have had nearly 40 years of feminism, or was that just a media fantasy?

i thinkit is a backlash against feminism

Maybe I'm just naieve but why do men not grow up and want to be pleasant and loving fathers and husbands?

Actually why the hell are women accepting it?

some do others are immature and insecure about their own worth so prove how much of a man they are by being boss at home

Expectations.

But how can you relax in your home if the other occupants are scared of you, it's sick. But I agree with Caligula it is expectations on the womans behalf. If they have grown up seeing their dad treating their mother like shit they think that is normal

Yep, it just shows how much of our expectations are formed by our childhoods. We are bombarded by other information, TV programmes, films, etc., where other relationship models are presented to us, but people do seem to retreat back into the primary model they grew up with, unless that cycle is broken somehow.

To be fair you hardly need to post for advice if you're DP is a love, do you? Most of the posts are bound to be of the negative sort. I'm lucky, mine is, which makes it all the more horrifying to think some women are putting up with such abuse.

Fro any lurkers - my mother was one of them so a word of advice for anyone not leaving for 'the kids sake' - she lost the love and respect of her daughters for not protecting them when she knew her partner was a potential risk. Even when he then became a danger to them she stuck her head in the sand even further. He abused her and she suffered and she suffers now because her family is fractured. If you leave things too late some things cannot be healed. I can only advise you to quietly plan your escape and then get out - or get him out, for good.

It is possible to break that cycle too - I've done it.

I agree.

And I also get surprised with some of the assumptions on MN that 'men are all "like that" - porn users/domestically hopeless/totally in thrall to any bit of skirt that walks past/"just little boys"'. I am not, not, NOT saying that we ask for, or deserve, any of the appalling treatment that gets doshed out. I am saying that quite a lot of women don't seem to have very high expectations of men - which rather ignores, IMO, the fact that men are demonstrably so very powerful.

Wise words indeed from MT.

Yes if they were all irresponsible children, how the fuck comes they rule the world?

And have done for most of history.

That kind of talk makes me lose my patience...

Totally agree. My dp thinks that my expectations of him are too high. But seriously men are generally only expected to be loving and respectful, it's not too much to ask for.

I have a wonderful father and a very good childhood.

I just fell in love with the wrong man.

I wasn't weak, i didn't have low expectations.

I thought that because i loved him i had to forgive him and stand by his side. I put him first and tried to cure him of his anger and not turn my back because he was severly troubled.

I didn't have low self esteem and think what he was doing was normal.

Just don't underestimate the power of love.

to be fair at least there is a forum like mn for women and we are more likey to share with others our concern etc. I am sure there are women who abuse their husbands and are just as horrible as some of the problems we see here. But i dont think it is considered macho discussing domestic prob with you mates in the pub. Is there a fathersnet?

I had a horrible childhood and a bully for a father, still is a bully to this day.

However, I married a man that is in no way like him, he is the most caring and loving man I could ever wish for, never raises his voice at me or the children and never ever speaks to us like dirt, the way my Father did/still does. So it is possible to break the cycle and see that you deserve so much better.. My Mother left him after 35 yrs of marriage, 35yrs and 8 children too late if you ask me.

Fairyfly, I too fell madly in love with a total shit who treated me like dirt despite having had a fairly idyllic upbringing. My self esteem was high when I met him and non existant by the time he finally ran off with one of my friends.

I now have a lovely dp who totally respects me, not because I am lucky but because I have learnt from my experiences and know that thats what I deserve.

Ah, not just the power of love, but the powerful cultural construct of love. Women are taught that love conquers all, and to forgive everything in the name of love - has anyone ever read Jill Tweedie's book of that title? Men just aren't taught that in the same way. Our culture teaches us for example, that when our men let us down, we either stand by them or kill ourselves or die of a convenient wasting disease; when women let their men down (or men think they do), they murder them. It's a very different expectation.

Sorry I'm obviously talking about literature, opera, etc., not real life - but it's part of our psyche and reflects and re-inforces attitudes.

I don't like the threads but I don't think it is really that surprising.

We are community of women (mainly) who know we can post for advise and support whenever we need it, as anonymously as we like.

Of course you are going to hear more of the negatives and they will stand out and appear far more numerous but as has already been said, you don't need advice or support when things are good.

Some of those threads are the same people posting under different names at different times – and that is fact not assumption – so it ups the numbers again.

Some of those women have a past history of abuse, in the family or themselves. It is a sad fact that they get beaten down mentally and emotionally and find it hard to break the loop. They blame themselves for ongoing abuse and for failing into identical relationships again and again. They need massive support and help to break those feelings and see their true worth.

And it is a very sad fact that there are men out there who are nasty, evil, abusive, manipulative etc who will find these women and take advantage of them.

It is an even bigger fact though that there are millions of good, genuine, loving men out there who you simply never get to here about which is so unfair to them.

I apologise for waffling and if I have repeated anything others have said. I just needed to get this off my chest.

And 'scuse any typos or spellings, I didn't preview.

'Maybe I'm just naieve but why do men not grow up and want to be pleasant and loving fathers and husbands? '

Or just decent human beings who think it's wrong to rape, abuse, manipulate and harm someone else.

Here, here, Carmenere!

I find it all really depressing too. Glad you broke the cycle Mammy. It really really depresses me to think that children in these relationships will grow up thinking that's what relationships are supposed to be like and that's what they deserve.