Mumsnet double standards?

[Runaway123]

So there are always lots of threads on here about women in pieces with finding out husbands have been messaging other women/having emotional affairs (not talking full on physical affairs here). I myself was one of these asking for advice when I had a situation like this.
All advice on my thread and any other thread like this was the same, LTB, he's a pig, these men are terrible, you'd be better off without them, I couldn't be with someone like this, you'll never trust again, he's disrespected you etc etc.
Fair enough, BUT, there's a recent thread on here full of women who all appear to be having these emotional type affairs, texting other men etc, some of you saying how you can't stop thinking of them. But whilst also having partners and family's (indeed some saying how lovely their actual husbands are) and all supporting each other and going as far as saying it's men your texting that are all to blame. It's always the men's fault!
I don't get it. Why the double standards. Why does it sean perfectly acceptable for women to be having these emotional type affairs situations, but when a man does it, it's awfull terrible, the woman should leave them etc.
Am I missing something? No one on the current thread I'm talking about seams to care how their husband would feel if they knew they couldn't stop thinking about another man, or indeed how these other men's wives would feel if they knew what their husbands were doing with you!
Aware this might cause a bit of controversy, but I'm genuinely intrigued about this. Are there two different types of people on mumsnet? And if so, the women who are in these emotional type things with another man, where are you when someone posts about their husband doing this with advice saying " it's ok, it happens, doesn't mean husband doesnt love you as I'm doing it and I still love my husband"
Does anyone else agree (or disagree ) with me? And if disagree, why? I'm interested in your thoughts munsnetters!

I agree with you. Seems extreme to extreme on here. There are some people who will always find a way to blame the man 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well, it's a site of predominantly women, supporting women which is good. Also - a bit more controversial perhaps - I do think the cause of affairs for women are often different - not always of course. However I acknowledge that I may be falling back on nothing more than a stereotype of women having emotional needs and men having physical - obviously it's not that clear cut. Nor am I sure why there is a moral superiority applied to one over the other - they're both human needs.

I think the issue is as much denying men their full humanity as a thing else. We assume it 'just' sex but we're all complex human beings.

Maybe if a man also said that he works and does majority of housework and childcare too, they'd get more understanding about talking to others for a release? 😉

Do you think maybe different people have different views, and different people post on the threads?

Or are you keeping track of individual usernames and their views to check consistency? Because that's the only way you can ascertain this (and people can change usernames too).

Would actually be interested to get OP's response on this. Otherwise it's "lots of people think X. Lots of people think Y. They may be the same people or there may be lots of differing groups".

No, not keeping track of anything really. Just an observation on how there seam to be one lot of responses to the men doing the emotional affairs type thing and then a thread with women doing the same but getting support and understanding instead.
The totally different view points just struck me really.
That's why I said also are there two different types of people on here. Probably most likely, and they post on different threads I guess.

I haven't seen a recent thread on an emotional affair by a woman. I have seen a number of threads over the years where a woman has admitted to an affair/emotional affair or having an affair with a married man and on all of those threads I've seen the OP be roundly told off for her behaviour. There might be some sympathy for how she got to that point (as a pp here points out - if she's exhausted and tired and feeling unappreciated) but I've never seen anyone say, "oh, it's okay, you're not a bad person". So I don't see that double standard .

Just like I see people complain all the time that men get a hard time on here when they post and that a woman posting the same wouldn't get the same hard time. In reality, when the situations are similar, I see men get treated the same. Where I see men being treated differently is when even just from their post you can tell that they're unhappy because they're being asked to step up and do just a small fraction of what their wife does or because they're not getting enough sex.

I agree OP, it's infuriating.

Moreso the ambiguous scenarios with factual sneery replies from posters projecting their own clichéd prejudices.

There were two threads once a couple of months apart, both by women.

One had opened the door to a strange man accusing OP's husband of having an affair with his wife before storming off. The husband denied all knowledge.

The second thread had it's OP opening her front door to a strange woman accusing OP of having an affair with her husband - of whom OP had no knowledge of whatsoever.

All the husbands involved got crucified.

Why the double standards? Because it's only ok for women to be deceitful. Men are not allowed to.

Tbh often the tone of the op or first few responses will influence the tone of the first 100 or so posts. Just look at how many threads have a goady response a couple of posts in, then 500 posts later people are still replying to it.

That's why I said also are there two different types of people on here.

I'd go so far as to suggest there are even more than two types of people on here. As many as six, perhaps?

Pretty much this, from reading threads on here!
It's always going to be that way on a woman-oriented site, though - just how it is.

I do enjoy the sharp contrasts between the 'I'm a woman cheating, make me feel better' and the 'just found my husband is cheating' threads - one filled with sympathy, the other filled with 'it's harmless, carry on as long as he doesn't find out'.

Women admitting to affairs with married men are torn to shreds on here. Absolutely crucified. And 'karma' is deemed to be the man then cheating on her, despite him being the one who was actually married. So the woman must be punished for the man's behaviour.

The age old double moral standard is very much alive and well on here.

I haven't noticed this myself. On the contrary, I find any time a woman posts about engaging in an emotional or physical affair, she's usually heavily criticized. It's definitely not my experience of MN that it's okay for women to have affairs!

I remember one thread where a woman was asking for advice on how to get over an inappropriate crush on a married dad from school, and she was roasted to shit just for having a crush! She was scolded as though she'd acted on it when the entire point of her thread was that she wanted to get over it.

I will say though, that anytime a woman is shown sympathy for such actions, it might not be a case of double standards so much as a bias towards the OP and the side of the story that's being presented. Whether the OP is posting about being cheated on, or about cheating herself, that's the side of the story and the personal perspective we're getting, so it's maybe natural to sympathise with the person who's posting rather than the anonymous DH in any given situation (although as I said, this isn't really my experience of MN. I do find most users tend to remain fairly unbiased).

Obviously there are not 'two types of people' on MN. There are countless types of people. It's a huge site not a friendship group of 6 with shared opinions and values. I genuinely don't understand the thinking behind accusing an Internet forum made up of thousands of separate individuals as having 'double standards'. If you were vegan and I was a butcher, would MN be guilty of double standards because we might both post on a thread about the ethics of meat consumption?

Perhaps I’ve missed the particular thread you’re referring to. All the threads I’ve seen when women are having emotional affairs or suffering with limerance (only ever seen that word here 😀) every post I’ve read tells the OP to stop, work on their relationship or leave their partner.

They don’t get quite as much vitriol as is aimed at cheating men. I think that may be because a) posters are responding directly to the cheat (although they don’t always hold back) or b) the women who are more angry about men cheating than women may be venting / transferring residual anger from their own experience of being cheated on.

I’m quite new to MN but have found that it is quite extreme. In an affair situation I would say in the majority of cases the issue lies with the betrayer - whether m or f, the one (or both) who is in the committed relationship and seeks comfort elsewhere instead of taking to his or her partner.
If the ow or om started seeing someone who purports to be single when they are not that is not the fault of the new partner.

It can be a grey area - my husband has had multiple affairs and never stopped the charade at home of a decent relationship, plenty of sec etc. if I’d started withholding sex as a punishment then that wouldn’t be fair and I can see why affairs might happen in those situations (say for example if a husband or wife just decided sex was no longer on the cards and withholds for a long period without discussing it with their spouse).

It’s tricky. I wouldn’t always say LTB either - though in my case I am prepping to do so as I’m past the point of trying after his multiple affairs when I’ve tried to hold us together and he hasn’t. There’s only so much effort to make and if it’s not from both sides then it’s totally pointless.

im living life for me and my kids from now on.

Every situation is different.

Utter bullshit to suggest men are made to feel welcome, they're not. Men posting are viewed with suspicion or sometimes even mild amusement. Very rarely have I seen a man's question or issue tackled with genuine sensitivity. Of course there's exceptions and perhaps that's why some still give Mumsnet a try. A man might not have a mother, sisters or female friends to offer him advice at a critical time it's desperately needed.

Anyone can observe the amount of projection and bottled up rage spilling into people's replies to bloke's issues on here. Reminds me of a school playground where boys aren't allowed in the girl's space. There'll always be those too hung up on defending the precious "space" to contribute anything useful. But yeah, it's real.

I enjoyed this recently in a thread about a woman who was rejected by a man so decided to follow him excessively online.

One woman's response was:

"I bet it was a massive ego boost for him.
You’ve stopped now, it’s all good"

Lots of women happily joined in that it was all OK really. I suspect it wouldn't have been if she'd of been a man.

It's fun really. As a man in childcare I get all sorts of shock when I offer advice on behavioural management even though I've got 20 plus years experience.

Women in engineering are pioneers, men who look after children are suspect.

meh. Unless you can show that it is exactly the same posters showing the double standards it's just a thought.

If its the thread i think, you must have missed the posts from people telling that OP, who was deeply ashamed of her behaviour, regretful and stated it made her a bad person, that she absolutely was a terrible person, and enthusiastically portraying her as stalker who would have left the man in fear of his life, then? For every post that tries to make an already shamed woman feel a little better, you can guarantee you'll get a slew of others trying to make her feel worse by exaggerating what she did and the likely impact and creating false comparisons with the sexes reversed to pretend that a man has as much to fear from a woman as vice versa, so it all balances out.

Double standard would be if the man that is been cheated post for advice and he would been told forgive your cheater partner, she is ace and it is all on you matey.

The affairs are not acceptable in MN but this is a mostly women forum where those women that are having affairs also post for advice. Usually they are mostly told leave your husband because you don't love him and take a time for yourself. Forget about the other man if the affair is still in the emotional side and work on your relationship. Etc etc.

MN has many things that can call our attention but in the affairs side I think is pretty consistent in my opinion.

I wouldn't say double standards, just that different people respond to different threads

I think there are quite possibly many more than 2 types of people op.

I also think it very much depends on how the threads are framed.

Someone posting that their DH has had an affair and is in bits is bound to get sympathy and responses from people who are going through the same.

Someone posting that they are having an emotional affair is bound to get different responses.

Also, I just sort of think if men think they get a raw deal on here they can cry about it. There are plenty of corners of the internet where women are given a very raw deal. I don't suppose they give a shit about that.

I honestly don't know why people feel the need to start threads huffing and puffing about double standards and men being given a raw deal anyway.
Even if it is true? So what? If you don't agree with the advice people offer the OP, you're at perfect liberty to offer something different.
"Oh...but you get shouted down by all the man haters..." Again, so what? We're talking about remote conversations that takes place through the written word, so its literally impossible for someone to shout over you or prevent you from saying what you want to say.
Why not just go in and tell the cheating woman she's the lowest of the low, or the betrayed woman she should give her husband a chance if that's what you think, rather than trying to stop other posters saying what they think by this constant moaning about double standards?

Just echoing what some of the above posters have said. People posting about trying to steer clear of an emotional affair, and asking if others have had the same experience, are likely to hear from those in a similar place.

Those asking about what to do when DP has had an affair are likely to hear from those with similar experiences or strong views.

I'd only find it odd if the same person having an affair themselves was saying to someone else 'LTB that's outrageous'.

In general, MN seems to be a pretty harsh place, where the most vehement posters express very black and white views.

Doesn't seem consistent with my experience of the general messiness of human life and interactions. But maybe my perspective is skewed?

Mumsnet double standards are rife and always have been unfortunately. There are a lot of man haters on here and they’re probably exactly the same people that shout ‘misogyny’ at any opportunity.