Why do the only 'healthy' relationships exist on Mumsnet?

[MrsTumbletap]

The relationships I know, see and hear about in real life and the relationships I hear about on Mumsnet seem so different, why?

So for example growing up:
My DF cheated on my DM
Uncle 1 was controlling and left my lovely auntie and cousin and started a new family
Uncle 2 was physically abusive and we took my auntie in covered in bruises, they divorced.
Uncle 3 had two affairs and got the OW pregnant, they divorced.
My grandparents were quite miserable, separate rooms, no love present.
My DH's parents hate each other together for financial reasons

Then I look at my friends:
Friends 1, they don't communicate several affairs, very unhappy.
Friends 2, Abusive verbally, won't leave due to finances
Friends 3, Abusive verbally, won't leave due to children and finances
Friends 4, Controlling, jealous, led to affairs, miserable but pretend they are happy.
Friends 5, Physically and verbally abusive, thinks they are just 'passionate'.
Friend 6, husband is an alcoholic and not functioning, circle of abuse.

Then there are my colleagues, I could go on and on and on. I don't know of anyone truly happy, I don't know of anyone that isn't being cheated on or lied to, or being controlled or putting up with their OH, or isn't miserable, or is in denial of how their relationship is.

Then there is Mumsnet.........where there are so many women happy with their lovely DH, in equal relationships, their OH would never call them names, don't have a temper, they don't ever lie, would never cheat, they aren't controlling, they don't have addictions, they don't say hurtful things, they are lovely.

I don't understand the difference between reality and Mumsnet. It's like there are these amazing relationships on here with amazing men, women are so happy, but I don't see them in real life. How can this be?

But - I do have a happy and loving relationship with my DP of several years now.

I'd already done my years of being with abusive dickheads.

If I'd stayed in previous relationship well then, I'd be like the women you know and describe.

I'm not like them, because I left.

I know happily married couples, I know unhappily married couples. That's life surely, and MN is a snapshot of life, at least partly.

Look at the pool of people on mumsnet thought...what is the membership..must be thousand and thousands compared to your small circle

@MrsSup this is what I can't understand, I can honestly say hand on heart that every single relationship I know 'well' (I cant comment on acquaintances) in my family, or friends or colleagues has a partner that is controlling, says hurtful things, regularly sulks, doesn't pull their weight, has addictions, lies etc.

I haven't even mentioned that partner that was caught arranging to meet up with a sex worker a few weeks after their baby was born
Or the husband that has slept on the sofa for nearly two years but refuses to leave
Or the husband that gets drunk and shoves his wife

And don't get me started on the 'happily' married men I work with that would sleep with a women at work in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it. Busy posting how 'lucky' they are on Facebook with pictures of their wives and kids but would sooner take you to the stationery closet for a fumble if they had a chance.

Erghhhh it's quite bleak when I read that back.

plenty of incredibly happy, healthy relationships that I know of, including my own. I had to go through some shit to get there though

Maybe if these people who won't leave due to finances put themselves and their children first they would find actual happiness too

OP are the relationships you know well springing from the first set that you talk about because in all honesty out of my friends very few have this:
controlling, says hurtful things, regularly sulks, doesn't pull their weight, has addictions, lies etc.
and the one that did left him

That is not to say its all roses and wonderful and there are no arguments etc as there are but that is part and parcel of a healthy relationship but there are none of the above

More importantly which one are you because I think some of your boundaries have been skewed as to what is normal by your family

15 years ago I could’ve written about my divorce from hell from my husband of over 30 years...now I can write about the lovely husband I’ve been with for 10 years and married to for three.

Peoples lives change ...and sometimes it’s none of their own doing.

Op that sounds like a lot of bad relationships - much more than average I would think. I agree with previous posters and think the opposite - Mumsnet appears to me to be full of unhappy disfunctional relationships but in the real world I don't believe there is such a high percentage. The only divorce in my immediate family is the twice divorced looser SIL is married to. Non of my friends are divorced. (Looser isn't my friend so I'm not counting him )

Haven't you read all the affairs discovered this Christmas? Far from happy.

Tbh in real life... I don't know people who put up with such abuse and lazy husbands as I've read on here.

I recall the woman who would be in trouble if her phone was on silent...who had to have sex every day...and if the carrots were not arranged carefully...they'd be down her throat.

The man who's wife had him drop her at her OMs house unbeknownst to him.

The one married to a millionaire...yet she only had a handful of clothes.

Not on MN...but the woman who's DH had cheated with over 200 women and she wasn't leaving him upon discovery.

There are a lot of equal relationships here too... I think if MN was around and I was aware when I had younger DC.... I'd have a very different marriage.

Because the relationships you see around you set your idea of 'normal' in your mind and so your own expectations of relationships and what you will tolerate. The more abusive relationships you see, the more likely you are to put up with that shit yourself.

I grew up with abuse and neglect, lived in a very deprived area full of drink/drug abuse, had friends with abusive partners, and went on to have relationships with abusive men. It was 'normal' and I expected nothing different.

Now years later and living a very different life with a nice guy from a nice background and nice friends with loving families and I know no one who would put up with a fraction of the shit that I previously considered 'normal'.

What changed for me is that thought fuck this shit and walked out of my druggie-on-the-estates life and started a naice clean life in a new city and found new friends and new job and new hobbies that didn't involve drugs and alcohol. But it was a massive culture shock for me and it took a long time to adjust my expectations of other people.

I don’t really know that many people that are happy, I know a lot of people who have settled.
I’m on my own, but I’m shocked at some of the things that go on in relationships of friends, but to anyone on the outside would think they were really happy.
It does make me doubt if it’s ever really possible to be truly happy with someone.
Bit depressing really.

Like I said before the unhappy ones are clear, we can all read them. We see it all the time.

It's the blissfully happy ones, that I don't see in real life. I wish I did, I wish there were more happy couples everywhere for people to aspire to.

I find mumsnet is pretty 50/50 as are my friends and family, relationships wise.

But I think it also depends on age. I'm mid thirties and most of my friends have only been married for a few years with young dc. I think things will, unfortunately, change as we get older.

I think it depends on how one defines happiness, too.

I don’t believe in fairy tales, I don’t believe in soulmates or ‘the one’, I don’t expect life to be roses and honeymoon love all the time.

I am content and happy with the man I love and he is a wonderful, thoughtful, principled and clever man who looks after me well, he adores me and I him. We argue (I’m quite a strong character), but we love each other.

But I certainly wouldn’t be in a relationship for the sake of it. I wouldn’t settle and I’d much rather be on my own if I hadn’t found a man who treats me well. I don’t need him, I choose to be with him because he enriches my life and I his.

@notangelinajolie true, there are so many threads about unhappy relationships, but what do the majority or posters replying to the OP write? "I would never put up with that" " my DP would never do that". "Why are you with him?"
Implying that they don't have those issues in their relationship such as- Sulking, shouting, being controlling, calling names, lying etc.

Even the celebs like Brad and Angelina can't make it work. (Just because of your username )

There's loads of unhealthy relationships on here.
If anything, people who are quite content and getting on with their relationships are underrepresented.

On here you tend to get more relationship issues (understandably as people seek advice) and then a handful of people who are quite smug and like to suggest their relationship is perfect with the six figure salary and DH in a very important and demanding role but also does 17 hours of housework a day.

I had a bit of that op in the early days and.. after the shock..came back and said very seriously that I'd be leaving if it ever occured again. So maybe it's the truth that they wouldn't put up with it?

Having said that I don't give advice on here as I don't think I generally have the experience.

I have had friends in relationships where there has been abuse of one kind or another but most of my friends who are married are happy, they're with good blokes, there's no name calling or controlling behaviour... same in my marriage. Obviously everyone has a moan about their other half now and then but only about relatively trivial things! Most relationships are just somewhere in the middle surely?

the only blisssfully happy relationships I see where there is no controlling, name calling, shouting, infidelity, lying or addiction, is on here
OK take out the blissfully happy. I thonk that's hard Tom maintain every day for decades.

Do you not know ANY relationship where is no controlling, name calling, shouting, infidelity, lying or addiction?
Dsis 1 divorced due to abuse. Dsis 2 happily married. Ds3 mostly happy but no abuse etc. Dsis 4 happily married.
One set of parents happily married to the end, one set divorced when kids were small. One of those parents has had a long happy relationship since.
Of friends, I know one where there are addiction issues but the others are happy, no abuse, no addiction. Annoyed at times, usual arguments about stuff but no name calling, sulking etc.

Sulking, shouting, being controlling, calling names, lying are not normal in a healthy relationship OP. I suspect though the more you're exposed to them in other people's relationships, the less you realise that or act on it and the less support you'd get for walking out because he ONLY called you X, Y or Z

MrsTumbletrap - to answer your question I don't really know if my friends/family are in 'blissfully happy relationships', I don't tend to ask them and talking about relationships is not that high on my agenda of interesting topics sounds like the sort of things teenagers discuss non stop.

I am just commenting on the outwards signs .............. I have been married over 30 years - I am not 'blissfully' happy all the time, neither is my DH, if we separated (amicably) I would not be heartbroken but that doesn't mean to say I am in an unhappy, dysfunctional marriage.

That's my relationship 🤷‍♀️ sure we have our issues too but everything you list as "healthy" should be normal! Something everyone should strive for and not settle for less. I can't say I know the detail of relationships of people I know like you do the people you know, particularity colleagues and friends. All I know is what I'm willing to accept personally.

That's an extremely high percentage of dysfunctional relationships to know in real life.

There's 1 divorce on my side of the family (though you never know how 'happy' people are from the outside) apart from that all my aunts and uncles are still together.

I know of one controlling relationship of anyone I know and its MIL and FIL but that's it.

My husband is divorced so not exactly standard family relationships - but there's no abuse etc etc.

I actually wonder who in my circle of friends and family are the ones with all these dysfunctional relationships. I would say generally 90% of our friends and family seem to have health, happy, functioning relationships. There is a bit of drama, but usually with the older generation who seem to have fallen into much more traditional relationships and there is a lot of tension. But amongst the people we know, most people seem solid with happy, functioning families. I suspect that has to do with the fact that most people we know had long term relationships before getting married (with their current partners) and didn't marry until they were older, with established careers, financially secure, etc. My school friends ('friends' in the Facebook sense only) have all gotten divorced though, but they all got married at like 20 to people they'd known for like a year. I suspect it probably makes a difference.

But I also think like attracts like. We're pretty happy and solid, and I don't think we'd have friendships that would survive long with friends who were full of drama, always fighting, complaining about their partners, etc. So we've probably just drifted away from anyone who was more likely to split up over the years.

I agree very few couples are blissfully happy because well life happens and that is not how life works. Arguments, moments of disagreements happen in relationships

But your version of happy is not including things which arent normal though

I agree with you OP and do not think you have a particularly unusual peer group. Most relationships I know are unhappy or just plodding and the ones that say they’re good/happy clearly have one who is “In Charge” and clearly getting more out of it than the other person or they’re unhealthily codependent. People don’t like to hear of this though, it makes them defensive about their own relationships.