Is someone monitoring this site properly

[Eardropper]

Reading through threads from time to time there is an awful lot of utter tosh on here! This is, for some, a place where people seek advice? Seems to be full of people who hit the ‘leave him/her’ button not knowing anything about the lives of the posters at all. Not one person has suggested anything else.
‘Working on it’ always seems to be frowned upon - why is this? Seems to me that the people giving ‘good advice’ are bitter from their own failings, get over whatever it was before you start ‘giving advice’ out. Good luck to you, but please don’t give others poor advice. Your not their friends and you seem to thrive on the entertainment of divorce or stories of abuse. This section should be removed to stop such bad advice being given and believed by what are clearly vulnerable people. Shame on you mumsnet for allowing this.

Here you go OP!

I know. There's nothing worse than encouraging a woman to raise her standards and impose some boundaries.

This!

It’s said by certain posters that Ltb is advised too easily.

But I’ve yet to see a thread posted about a shitty man where the poster is advised to ltb without damn good reason. More often it’s the case the original reason the poster posted is the straw that broke the camels back and they’ve been putting up with a litany of shitty even downright abusive behaviour.

Ime in real life very few men are truly decent, loving, non-sexist, non-lazy men.

I’ve been single for a very long time having previously been in relationships with shitty men of various descriptions with one exception.

I will never again put up with bad treatment just to not be single!

Maybe you need to consider why you think the onus is on women to “work at it” when the vast majority of the time

1 the women has already been “working at it” for some time with fuck all effort from the man

2 the problem is down to an ingrained issue in the man. Usually massively entitled sexism.

Graphista

Most women who post have reached the 'straw that broke the camel's back's point. Either that or are having reasonable.doubts about a very new relationship.

And, actually, it isnt true that posters always advise LTB. I've posted twice (under different names) over the 10 years I've been on here about different 'relationships'. On both occasions I was told, almost unanimously, that i was overthinking and being unfair. On both occasions, i ultimately did LTB because i disagreed and was happy with my decision on both occasions. I did gain a lot from the feedback though.

Oh sorry, meant to say, Graphista, that your post was spot on!

Awww OP you sound like my ex.

People are too easily wound up. You know your own minds. Drawn in too easily on this post I think. Don’t waste your time

You know we used to put schools out ? Now we need to put works out

But this is just advice. It isnt law, or some sort of compulsory instruction. I could post about a problem with my partner, everyone could say LTB, but (this is the important bit) i dont have to. Because this is just advice given by other randomers on the Internet, and should be treated as such. If the bulk of the advice supports what i want to do, deep-down, then its helpful for me to know that im doing the right thing.

Aw, OP is just bored 😂

A long time ago I started a thread on here when I was in a bleak place. Some of the advice was useless - things like 'Have you no boundaries?' - it was way too late for that. LTB - too late for that too. There were judgemental posts about my behaviour and my immaturity.

Looking back, there was helpful advice. I started the thread because I desperately needed to talk to someone, and didn't feel able to contact friends or family - too ashamed, who'd believe me. It was here or the Samaritans, and surely, I should leave them alone for someone worth listening to.

To those mean and nasty posters who told me bluntly what I thought - you didn't help.

To those who gave good, kind advice -and some of it did contain home truths - thank you for having been here for me when I had no-one

How many people wish they had LTB before they had a baby with him/sunk all their savings into his property/gave up their friends or stop seeing their family he didn’t like /moved away from their family to live in his town/gave up a good job to take a lower paid dead end job or no job at all?

That’s why it’s said sadly.

@Eardropper

I so agree with you. There are some posters who seem to intimately know the personalities and all the past history of mainly erring partners. Without having ever met them they give a detailed breakdown of their personality and actions. Then without fail most posters advise LTB or start planning to break up your family. I sometimes wonder if these posters ever think about the children having to deal with the fallout of all this, or the mother having gone along with all the advice having to cope alone for years to come.
I accept that sometimes the advice to LTB is valid and advisable, but in other cases where the smallest thing brings a torrent of advice to LTB seems totally irresponsible. You have to be a brave person on here sometimes to go against the flow. it's easy and irresponsible to offer life changing advice without knowing anything about the background and more importantly hearing both sides of the story.

Glad you bought this up OP. It's pissed me off for ages.

I suspect you’re new to Internet forums? No one monitors sites to see if the advice is good or not in their view. That’s not how it works.

People post their opinions, and you either agree with them or you don’t. That is the way chat forums work.

@JustTurnedYourBackOnTheCrowd exactly! They're already at a point where they're completely either furious or destroyed at being treated like crap.

Thank you

@BeKindItCostsNothing how could it be "too late" to ltb? Genuinely don't understand that.

@pusspuss9 do you think women should stay in bad relationships even abusive ones simply because there are dc involved? If anything especially where there's abuse if there are dc involved that's actually more reason to leave not less.

@graphista

@pusspuss9 do you think women should stay in bad relationships even abusive ones simply because there are dc involved? If anything especially where there's abuse if there are dc involved that's actually more reason to leave not less.

no I don't, not at all. I do think that before advising ANY major life changing move, one needs to hear both sides of the story and not jump to conclusions after hearing only one side. This is especially relevant in cases where the original poster has said that they think they have a good relationship apart from bla bla and bla and don't want to break up their family and where others immediately advise to start getting your ducks in a row, he's an abuser etc, you know the spiel. These advisors will never have to live with the consequences of their advice. They could just say something along the lines of 'you might need to consider bla bla or bla when making your decision . I've seen cases on here where the Op just wanted advice on how to deal with a minor issue but after a deluge of hearing her OH labelled as twat, abuser etc, ended
up with appointments at solicitors etc.

This is not a court of law so both sides are not represented on here. Very few men post on mumsnet in any case, particularly the relationships forum (It’s called mumsnet after all) so respondents can only go by what the initial poster decides to write. In some instances a seemingly innocuous detail can often lead to far more serious problems within the relationship being pointed out by others.

I doubt very much that many are actually influenced unduly by the replies, if anything it further cements what the op already suspects I,e she is not overreacting here to what is happening in the household.

Women in poor relationships often write the good dad comment or versions thereof when they can think of nothing else positive to write about their man. And how many times do you see the comment that the kids adore their father?

one needs to hear both sides of the story and not jump to conclusions after hearing only one side

That’s a quite bemusing view point in this context. This is an Internet forum. We are never going to hear both sides. The husband doesn’t come on and say, look here’s my side.

As such, people can only give opinion based on what has been posted. They can’t say, well unless your partner posts, we can’t help you hun, off you fuck.

Reading through threads from time to time there is an awful lot of utter tosh on here!

You mean that you disagree with the advice given.

I sometimes advise people to leave when it doesn't seem so bad. I base it on if there is mutual respect. If there isn't then the relationship has no happy future regardless of how big or little the problem is. Mutual respect is the very least you should expect from relationships. I don't always thoroughly explain my LTB though.

It says at the top Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here.

People give advice according to their personal experiences and how they read the situations given - YMMV.

"Working through" things is over-rated in society generally and especially for women. There's a lot of pressure on women to make their relationships work in a way that simply isn't enforced on men. Relationships shouldn't be hard work and painful or in a relentless pattern of shitty behaviour - sometimes it's best to have that pointed out, as you lose sight of it when you're in it.

And you can get better advice and a different perspective when it's outsiders with no skin in the game.

@pusspuss9 Can you give a few examples of actions by erring partners where there was a chorus of LTB, which in your opinion should have prompted encouragement to work on the relationship?

When I posted, the relationship was obviously over and we no longer lived together. Cheating. Confronted him and he turned violent.
It came out of the blue.

I was trying to make sense of what had happened.
How do you tell anyone that the love of your life is a liar, a cheat and beat you up. I couldn't face anyone IRL. Who would have believed me.

I'd bottled it up, sat on it, then desperate for insight posted on here. Some of the replies were not suitable for someone in the state of mind I was in.

The majority of women who post on here, especially in Relationships, have long ago hit the point of No Return but have not been able to see it. They need validation to recognise that their situations aren't normal, that this isn't how relationships are for everyone and that they don't have to put up with it.

Yes, I have seen a few posts where I've thought 'well honestly, you're both as bad as each other', but even there the question to ask is: should this relationship be worth at? There's no such thing as a relationship that is 100% roses and sunshine all the time, but when every day is graft, misery, resentment, it's better to just call it quits while you can still be civil to each other.

And I agree that the 'work on it' demand tends to fall mainly on women. I even had it from my mum, who said that if I could be nicer to my late husband then maybe he wouldn't drink so much . Reader, I divorced him.

@Flowerarranger
Can you give a few examples of actions by erring partners where there was a chorus of LTB, which in your opinion should have prompted encouragement to work on the relationship?

I'm not saying that the women (or men) should work on the relationship. As some personal background, I worked for many years for a large firm in an semi HR role where I was responsible for the well being of employees in their business life. This meant they often came to me with their work issues . I would hear A's story and think 'yes, this is definitely a problem with person B. When I spoke to person B this often shed a completely different light on the situation. This happened in most of the issues I dealt with, so my point is that one should be very careful about advising life changing moves without knowing the whole story.

Obviously if somebody has already decided to leave for whatever reason then that's their choice. I'm most definitely not saying work through the relationship.

I honestly don't think that many posters are going to be influenced to 'LTB' unless they already have it in mind that this is going to be a likely avenue.

People often come on here for reinforcement/encouragement that they are right to be concerned over what issue they are facing.

It's not an echo chamber on here and there are often differing points of view unless there are situations where it is clearly obvious that there is only one course of action. I've seen posts where people have complained about a partner and almost unanimously told that they are not being fair so it's not always a case of 'LTB' at all.

It's not a forum of 'experts' but people drawing on their own experiences of relationships or perhaps those close to them so that is always bound to figure in the advice given out.