Should strangers really be advising women to leave their husbands?

[mamabrownbear]

On many threads on MN the general default response seems to always be LTB. I find this really sad and potentially dangerous.

Yes obviously there are situations when it would be best for everyone involved to end the relationship.

However, sometimes I think it's tired exhausted women needing someone to understand them, sympathise and help. Not judge on what little facts a stranger gives you and tell them to make life altering decisions.
Personally I don't think I could advise anyone to leave their partner unless their well being or children's is in danger. I wouldn't want to influence a friends decision on that, let alone a stranger.

I get the impression there are a lot of strong women out there and MN is a safe place to discuss problems. But the solutions on offer seem very black and white sometimes.

I expect to get flamed but it does upset me when a woman is told to leave her partner by people who don't know the full story. We used to be able to talk to our partners and figure things out. Yes life is short but its also hard work sometimes but hopefully worth it...

I never just say LTB, except in cases of DV. If a poster comes on and says that they want to overcome an affair or whatever, then they need RL stories and experience and help not LTB.

I came on to MN after my XH walked out with no warning. Afterwards I discovered thousands of texts to OW on his mobile bills. I came on here wanting advice on how to get him to come back because he was obviously having a MLC because who in their right mind just walks out of a marriage and on a 5yo DD with no discussion and no warning. MN opened my eyes to the fact that the texts were not acceptable, were an emotional affair and that my XH had checked out of our relationship. I went against all advice because I wanted to try and save my marriage and MN was proved right and I was proved wrong, when he led me a merry dance and treated me like shit while I was trying to get him to come home.

I wish I had been stronger, I wish I had been able to kick him into touch instead of chasing him, but I felt that I had to do everything that I could to try and save my marriage.

Following his final mean behaviour, thanks to MN, I saw a solicitor and divorced him within months. That meant that I protected my house from the debt that he got into after he left me.

So thanks to MN, I did finally take advice and deal with the situation, but to start with I ignored all the LTB and tried to get him back.

Just because people post here for advice, doesn't mean that they have to take it. You will always get different opinions anyway and can't possibly follow all of them.

"it does upset me when a woman is told to leave her partner by people who don't know the full story"

My observation is that, if someone has come to a message board of strangers with a relationship problem, they are at some kind of crossroads. They are not looking to be told what to do most often, but usually looking for confirmation that 'this isn't right, is it?'

When in the confines of a marriage or a partnership it's so difficult to get a different perspective. They might have no-one to use as a sounding board or, if they have friends and family, these people might not want to get involved or they have their own motivations for wanting one outcome over another. I'm very sure that a lot of the people posting here reveal details that they have never shared with anyone else. We're a kind of 'Wailing Wall'...

So whether the responses are 'LTB', 'stand by your man' or something in between, I think (except in DV cases where I know people have taken away genuinely life-saving information) what we achieve is 'food for thought'. A different perspective.

So don't get upset.

I've been reading the MN/Relationship boards for several years now and I don't recognise what you are saying OP.

I do not think at all that LTB is a general default response here.

I posted over a year ago and was told to LTB. Within hours I had made the decision to leave and posted about it. I posted about financial and emotional abuse. I suspect that to the OP that would look like a decision influenced by random strangers on MN.

BUT I knew deep down that I wanted to anyway, I just don't think I had at that point accepted it myself. I needed a whole pile of understanding and validation for me to believe that a) it was necessary and b) ok.

FWIW I did not disclose at that point that there was also physical and sexual abuse, the physical abuse was also directed towards my dcs.

There was no physical danger in my first thread and yet I was told to LTB. It was the right advice. I suspect I am not alone.

Sadly many of us on here have experienced this and so know what to look for in the stories of others. There is a very well known example of here where a poster came on asking about something completely different yet it soon became apparent through the gentle questions of other members that everything was not ok. She was given the same advice and was challenged many times. She's now out and happy and safe.

If it had remained at understanding and sympathy I strongly suspect that this poster would now be a child fewer than she has. Yet no such danger was apparent. Thank God for those people saying LTB.

People don't post on Relationships about minor niggles with their partner. If it's a small thing that's bugging them, they moan to their friends about it. Unfortunately, women who are in abusive relationships don't tend to have a lot of friends because their partner has engineered it that way.

If dh annoys me, I might have a bit of a moan to my friend or my sister. If I were having major problems. I'm not sure I would. . In fact my dsis was in an abusive relationship for a number of years and I genuinely had no idea. I was one of the people around her who would say "You are so lucky to have X, he's so nice"
What I didn't see was the side of him that he only showed when he was alone with her and their dd, which was worlds away from his public face.
There was no MN back then but if she had come on and described him, she would have been told to LTB and that what she was experiencing wasn't normal at all and that it wasn't her.

Its not just random people out of the blue saying LTB (at least i hope not cause i just LTB). Its people who are very experienced in the subtelties (sp) of abuse. Prob most have experienced it themselves. And alot of mn'netters tell the pattern and how it will continue

This veruses RL people (inc. counsellors) who have not experience of what the woman is going through are completely useless and giving advise. They are shocked and then dont want to say anything negative in case couple work it out, and generally dole out useless advice and misunderstand the situation completely.

I have had my mother telling me she was going my "bang mine and H heads together" when i told her the way he threatened me. And i have even been blamed for marrying him in the first place! Lke i knew this was ahead of me.

Yes, it is true that in the main the people giving the LTB advice are people who have left abusive relationships and are very experienced in the subtleties of abuse.

schooldays that's terrible. I think people mean well, but they find it hard to believe that there are some situations where blame really shouldn't be "fairly" apportioned between a couple, where it really is all one person's fault. It outrages a lot of their assumptions about the world - including their assumption that they would know an abusive monster because that person would come with horns, or a handy sign attached to them.

I'm no longer interested in this kind of thread. It happens every time we get an influx of new members. You're all very welcome, but perhaps you should just watch & listen for a while instead of piling in to tell us we are all wrong.

In my six (ish) years on here, there has only been one thread saying "I LTB after posting on here, now I regret it." That poster turned out to be fake. There have been HUNDREDS, possibly even thousands, of heartfelt thanks from posters who saved themselves and their children from a lifetime of abuse and fucked-up values. Very man come back here, to help others.

All you need to do is read the bloody forum, to see the truth.

I really, really wish someone had told my mum to LTB before I was put through 16 years of abuse at his hands.

She was also of the opinion that she could talk things through, talk him down, protect us by talking and talking but when she wasn't around to do the talking the abuse happened.

I really wish her mother had said 'he's abusing your children! You have to protect them!' instead of getting the 'don't air dirty laundry' and 'well we just have to put up with it' crap.

This is the change; women don't have to just put up with things anymore.

Yes, it is true that in the main the people giving the LTB advice are people who have left abusive relationships and are very experienced in the subtleties of abuse.

And who have first hand experience of how wonderful it is to be without said bastard abuser/or bitch, for that matter.

Also, when posters come with minor niggles, or are in the wrong, they are also told so very clearly. :)

I posted this question after reading a post this morning by an exhausted woman who was quickly advised to Ltb when there was probably so much more to the situation. A few posters were helpful trying to pick it apart for her, others just assuming things and telling her to LTB. It's so hugely important for people to have somewhere to go when they need to talk and its great that this exists so that anyone who has been through similar situations can help.
Some posters have said great stuff, some have said stuff which just confirms a few things for me but I won't go into because I'm not here to "goad" or pick fights. That seems a pointless use of everyone's time.
I'm not in an unhappy relationship. It's hugely happy but it can also be hugely hard. I expect there will always be hugely hard parts still to come. But I'll work really hard make my life hugely happy as much as possible.

If it is the sex pest thread you refer to, no-one has said LTB.

It wasn't

Good.

So, is it one thread or many threads?
And which one, if you want to justify your position?

I think it's also important to let people know that no relationship should be 'hugely hard'. It's another myth that needs popping - 'you have to work hard at a marriage' - in a similar way to 'you must stay together for the kids', 'you're responsible for keeping the family together', 'it's your job to make him happy'... and the other guilt-inducing messages women have been brainwashed with down the decades.

Maybe we need Relationships to be split into 2 topics:

Relationships Abusive
Relationships Rather Annoying

I'm not in an unhappy relationship. It's hugely happy but it can also be hugely hard. I expect there will always be hugely hard parts still to come. But I'll work really hard make my life hugely happy as much as possible.

I'm sure that you didn't intend it but that has come across as really smug and self-righteous. It also strengthens the belief that I should have tried harder. On some level I accepted when I posted the first time that I wasn't happy and that things weren't right but on another level I thought I wasn't in an unhappy relationship.

I worked really hard to make my life hugely happy as much as possible for over a decade and a half. I failed. Not because I'm a failure but because with an abuser you can't win. Fact.

But, TheTitle, not all partners are abusers. Yours was.

No-one thinks they are in an abusive relationship when they are umlungen

And sometimes LTB is entirely appropriate when neither party is a bastard, simply when the relationship is over.

It's not logical to say that everyone who posts in Relationships is in an abusive relationship. I know that has been said upthread, but it's not true.