Is Mumsnet really a healthy place for advice?

[WildBillfemale]

There seem to be several phrases trotted out again and again irrespective of the problem the OP presents;

Red Flag
Narcissistic
The script
Stonewalling
Gaslighting
Porn addict
LTB
Having a breakdown
On the spectrum
Cherchez la femme
EA
E/affair
MH issues etc

Having seen in the last few days a post that presented facts of an admittedly horrible row but a marriage that could probably be saved with some introspection and will (with the OP stating she loved her husband and wished to remain married to him) quickly turn into 100s and 100s of posts telling/ordering her to LTB is this really a healthy place to post asking for objective advice?
Some posters are excellent in doing that but there are far too many whose views are so muddied by their own unique experience that the advice is actually very damaging.............

suggests. I never said I did. so maybe stop the flack :)

I have not distorted it at all. You told us we should consider what others say about MN in the papers. All the negative press. Why should I consider that over my own experiences? You're using the occasional negative report to justify your stance and to argue that the relationships board is not particularly useful.

Who cares how MN is perceived. I'm sure my XH hates it :o I have no respect for his opinion anymore.

This is a place where women in all relationships, no matter how lovely the dh, will be told that if they are unhappy they can leave. I think that makes some people uncomfortable.

It's hard to generalize & obviously depends where on MN people are posting.

I would have said that the Relationships board (as opposed to AIBU) was a pretty good place for advice. However, I do think there have been some pretty nasty posts recently - by which I don't mean people disagreeing with an OP, or even the majority view, but posters who for some reason seem to want to kick a person when they're obviously down & feeling vulnerable. I think it's possible to give potentially challenging advice without engaging in character assassination.

I think it's a bit of a shame, WildBill, that you've referred in such detail to a particular thread in your OP, especially as the thread went to 1000 posts & the OP may want to return. You have also seriously misrepresented it, as others have pointed out.

Everyone posts from their own perspective & in the light of their own unique experience. Nobody is completely objective. I do find this constant refrain that people are seeing abuse everywhere because of their own experience really bizarre, though. I guess you do recognize something if you've had experience of it. But you can also recognize when someone is being treated badly precisely because the things you're reading about are so far outside your own experience of being married to a good, decent man.

As for the list of words / phrases that are trotted out regardless of context - yes, I agree that does happen to an extent. But again, we all have favoured words / phrases & need to ask ourselves if they're really applicable to a given situation. You would do well to do just that about "projection", WildBill!

I think it's great, to be honest. Obviously, you have to filter the 'advice', but it's a very healthy place.

My exH and I found out something about my mother a couple of years ago and we were absolutely stunned. We couldn't seek advice IRL because the law prevented us from talking to anyone about it.

Some of the advice was better than others, we were advised by people who were professionally experienced in the field on here and made the decision to go NC. We wouldn't have had that experience IRL.

Similarly, when I discovered my exH had been on NSA sites. I received a tremendous amount of support on here. Complete strangers told me what would be revealed next, I reassured them that, as much as I appreciated their good intentions and support, my husband wasn't "like that". Guess what? He was just like that.

The difference is that on MN you benefit from the collective advice of people who have been through similar, who work in that field, who recognise the signs, who have seen it all before... in my personal life, I get very different advice. Some of it I trust, but I have to say, that when it comes to the tough messages, MN is actually more reliable and trustworthy for me, simply because people are speaking from personal experience of similar.

Yes, some people project and some people do appear to be playing an online game, as someone suggested earlier, but you get to know the names you trust and the advice you value.

And it's free from the patriarchal misogyny that most of us experience in daily life, even in the advice of well meaning friends.

I sometimes think that posters who counsel women to stay in obviously unhappy and sometimes dangerous situations, and who minimise their unhappiness, either don't really believe that women are capable of making decisions for themselves, or don't think that women should be allowed to act in a way that secures their own happiness if it inconveniences a man.

The only way the relationship could have been saved in the thread OP talks about is if the H had immediately accepted full responsibility for his horrible behaviour, been remorseful and worked to win back the OP's trust. And if you came to any other conclusion about that thread, then I'm sorry but you are an apologist for abuse. Nothing that happened in that thread was the OP's fault. Nor was it in her power to change her husband. Nor was it her responsibility in any way to try to repair a relationship with an angry, contemptous and potentially violent man.

People in RL, friends, family etc. often won't counsel people to leave abusive or unhappy relationships because they are personally invested in not having the status quo upset. MN is valuable in that the posters here aren't personally invested in having someone stay in a relationship that doesn't work for them, and many have experience of DV themselves and can recognise the patterns of it.

Everyone has the right to an opinion but it doesn't mean all opinions have the same validity. If I read MN as a journalist looking for a story then my parameters are very different from a MN user looking for advice, support or/and a chat. It's why market research doesn't work on the basis of 'I asked one person what they thought after using a service once'

Sorry, that was in response to pinkfrock's post about journalists' views being as important as posters' opinions.

Coming from a completely different point of view.....MN has been fantastic for me. I was a complete arse to my gf, EA. This site has shown me so clearly what I was doing and I still read it as it helps keep re-enforcing how aweful I was and how much I need to keep focussing on the changes I've made to my behaviour (I originally signed up for a womans point of view on another issue). I can honestly say that without this site I would still, for the most part, be in the dark regarding the crap I was putting my gf through. Poster after poster comes on here complaining their partner is doing all the things I used to do and it always hits home.

"The only way the relationship could have been saved in the thread OP talks about is if the H had immediately accepted full responsibility for his horrible behaviour, been remorseful and worked to win back the OP's trust."

I haven't read the other thread, but this is a viewpoint often ignored by alot of people on here. People can change and saying that people definatly can't be better people is wrong. On the other hand, people crying out LTB in abuse threads all the time are right. LTB get some space away and end the abuse as there really is no other option.

Not sure of the advice given on suspected affair threads though...

But there is no smoke without fire

That's an extremely dangerous pov. Because there are some things that look wrong and aren't, just as there are many things that seem right (marriages included) that aren't.

No smoke without fire is an easy path down to snap judgements and some serious injustices.

Loved your post rb and I agree with everything you said. Abusive people can change. It's not common I'll admit, or even very likely...but some abusive people do have the capacity to step back and view their conduct not only objectively, but more importantly, from their partner's pov. And then feel genuine shame.

However, the one thing that is certainly true, is that whether the perpetrator is going to wise up and ring the changes or not, the only course of action is to LTB so the abuse comes to an end. That is the main objective every time.

Agreed with rb. It's rare but it can happen. Mostly it happens if the person doesn't actually realise they have been abusive, which does happen!

to be honest, i think the mn relationships board is all about ending damaging relationships.

most posters believe that any issue posted is the 'tip of the iceberg' and that there 'must be more to the story'.

i posted once about a small issue with my dh who is a lovely and loving husband and father and was basically told that if i didn't believe this one incident of thoughtlessness in 8 years was indicative of something bigger then it was because i was opressed and blinded by his subtle abuse of me

i've come to the conclusion that this board is NOT good for people in generally happy relationships who just want to settle a minor friction in an amicable way

Actually, on reflection, I think that was my fault for underestimating the seriousness of the relationship issues that appear on this board. I should have posted in chat or AIBU.
I was quite upset to find myself defending my poor dh on here, AIBU would have been gentler believe it or not.

i posted once about a small issue with my dh who is a lovely and loving husband and father and was basically told that if i didn't believe this one incident of thoughtlessness in 8 years was indicative of something bigger then it was because i was opressed and blinded by his subtle abuse of me

I think this really demonstrates what a lot of posters have been saying on this thread. People do not end relationships just because they are told to LTB.

There is much, much more to it than that.

There is also an MN tradition of adding the word 'lighthearted' in brackets after a thread title as a way of flagging up that the poster doesn't want the full-on cast-iron-knickers 'Relationships' treatment but a jokey exploration of why men can't put down a loo seat or whatever.

MN was a sanity saver for me as I struggled to understand my marriage breakdown and subsequent divorce. For me it was about shared experiences, practical advice to get through the despair to the next day and the humour. Even in the darkest of times those of us on here who were going through the pain together found humour in the bleakest of corners. I had no thoughts of calling the Samaritans. I didn't want someone to just listen I wanted to hear from women who had been there, survived and thrived.

My concern with MN is when I read about someone young and untarnished by hurt and betrayal trying to find a problem because they think all relationships end badly so they're hunting for a problem when nothing's wrong and there are no red flags in sight. It makes me think they're like the worried well who google their cold symptoms.

I'm so glad I found MN at the age of 45 when I really needed the camaraderie I found. I'd have hated to find it at the age of 25 when I was just enjoying the love right under my nose without a care in the world.

Abusive people can change.

Because there is a difference between a person with abusive behaviour and what I would call an abuser.
We all have probably displayed, at some point or another, behaviour that could be considered abusive. But most of us are happy to notice if that behaviour is adversely affecting others around us, and at least try to change accordingly.
I can get grumpy but I'll be happy to tell people that I'm not in a good mood and just leave me for a while, without stonewalling them or having a go at them.

Abusers always think they are right and see themselves always as victims, while having those abusive behaviours. The abusive behaviour may be rare, but having the inability to recognise it as such and thus even apologise, is much more destructive.

Another one here who was buried so deep in an abusive relationship I genuinely thought I was going mad. It took a lot of blunt talking to get me to see what was happening. It all got a bit surreal when my ExH started posting pretending to be a wronged wife and reversing genders to get sympathy for himself. He was told to take legal advice and leave me, but it was me that took that advice instead. I walked out and left everything behind.

Here I am 4 years later happy and settled with a wonderful DP and a new home for my DC and a healthy grasp of what a relationship should be. God bless MN!

cogito - there's a lot of ground between [lighthearted] and being in an abusive or even unhealthy relationship. My thread wasn't lighthearted, I was in tears, but it was the only time in an eight year relationship that my husband had thoughtlessly upset me.
As I've said before, the relationships thread here leans towards relationship breakdown and is great for people leaving relationships or instigating divorce or discovering abuse or infidelity. Chat is for people who want to vent that dh left crumbs on the worktop again. There doesn't seem to be anywhere in between.

museumum,
What a few people realise here is that the one out of character event, is often the first of future out of character events. Even if after 8 years.
It may well not have been your case, but you can always hide or delete a thread, or simply leave it. You don't have to defend your partner.

But I agree that the middle ground between lighthearted and clear abuse is complicated. It could easily go either way.

Oh, actually conversely, MN has also saved marriages. I remember the poor pp who found out something like 20 years later that her marriage had sort of been arranged without her knowledge. She was ready to divorce the guy, from what seemed like a strong marriage (and still is, according to more recent TMI threads).
for the harpies.

It's been said in the past... Some posters pick out details of an OP and suggest abuse. As others on this thread confirm, it is an eye opener and a wake up call when you are in an abusive relationship. And it's great.

However, not everyone who posts there is in an abusive relationship.

And then it's not so great. Those same posters will argue with any posts that disagree with them, many times insulting and belittling another's viewpoint (just short of an actual personal attack).

Insulting and belittling is just the inevitable dark side of public, anonymous internet forums, social networking, Twitter etc. It's not confined to MN or one board. Still don't think it makes the entire concept 'unhealthy'

Very true Cogito.