Can’t stand it when people say this

[emilysgoldskirt]

I’m a single mum and I hate it when people in marriages or partnerships say ‘maybe you should just have some time on your own’ whenever you fancy someone or have a date.

I really wish people would stop saying this. Usually people in my situation have endured a lonely marriage, and now spend every evening alone. It seems so excessively mean for people who are coupled up and have a constant companion to be dishing out this advice. Why shouldn’t you seek out company, sex, love, whatever if you want it?

Bit of a rant.

No one person said it for the first time yesterday. I found it rude.

Also why, because I’m a single mum, do people get to patronise me about what’s best for my kids? Of the same token I think about 50% of my friends’ marrriages are relationships that are bad for their kids. Should I opine this over coffee?

It’s the high-horsery of it I’m objecting to.

I have only ever said this to a couple of my friends who cannot seem to be single for more than 2 seconds and who actually seem to get antsy when they're not coupled up. Even after the most intense of break-ups they seem to be in rebound relationships a week later.

They don't listen to me though. Shockingly the rebound relationships (and the rebounds to those, and the rebounds to those) are also disasters. I've known one of them for 15 years and have accepted she'll never change.

Your first post said

I hate it when people in marriages or partnerships say ‘maybe you should just have some time on your own’ whenever you fancy someone or have a date.

Has one person said it once or multiple people several times?

I’m a single parent and no-one has ever said this to me. Sounds like you have a bit of a history of the wrong partner - or else they think you need to understand yourself a bit more

No, my whole point is I don’t think it’s about me personally, or indeed anyone personally. I’ve heard it countless times directed at other women and then it was said to me for the first time yesterday. I was saying I think it’s something married women say without thinking as a kind of catchphrase or to feel superior or because of their own issues, and I was pointing out that it is rude. I thought yesterday ‘wow, that’d go in my top list of things never to say!’ I’d never say it to someone else, regardless of their situation.

I think it ties in with the status of single mums in general. No matter what the friend thinks, surely if I’m saying ‘I’ve met someone nice’ they should realise I’m not inviting this kind of view — that single mums are not emotionally inept beings who need help and judgement.

It’s akin to them saying ‘yeah, Dave’s packing the car for our family trip to Cornwall, I’m really looking forward to some quality time together’ and me saying ‘I think you spend far too much time with Dave, and that it’s an overall indicator of your instability and bad choices in life.’ I just wouldn’t do it.

OP, you don’t have much posting history on MN; but all of it is about different relationships. It’s entirely likely that you’re also talking far more in your real life conversations about relationship niggles and men than you realise you are, and your friends and family are responding to that by urging some caution. If you don’t believe that to be the case then why not ask them outright why they keep focusing on a view that you should stay single, and see what they actually say.

I suppose so. We’re on the relationships board of mumsnet. In the rest of life I’m a mum and a full time worker in a high powered job. I also ask a different set of people about my career, but nobody has suggested I just spend a bit of time without a job.

If you are getting this from multiple different people in your life, I’d be asking myself why they might keep saying it. I mean, your account of your own relationships sounds as if they last ages but are deeply unsatisfactory.

People are entitled to have their views and you are entitled to disagree. If every time I heard someone talking nonsense I threw a strop, I'd be dead by now.

Are you seeing things differently from the replies you’ve had? You’re very defensive. We don’t know you but this friend does and she said it for a reason.

The example comparing introducing a new man to children who’ve already had lots of upheaval with a married woman spending time with her husband/her children’s father is very silly and more about the chip on your shoulder than anyone else’s relationship. Step parents, especially step dads, are a statistical risk to young children in a way that their own fathers are not. No one is having a go at you for pointing that out.

I'm single, have been for decades, and I'm a mum (DC is an adult now). I've been known to say this to one friend who seems to get into relationships without giving herself space. I feel like she needs to be more comfortable with herself before she can make the most of a relationship. Is it ok if I say it as another single parent? Because it's coming from care and an outside perspective on what's going on.

I’m being defensive on purpose @AnneLovesGilbert to stick to my point: that it is an odd thing to say regardless of context. I was interested to know what other people thought.

I’m never going to have a stepdad for the kids / ever leave a boyfriend of mine alone with them at all because I fundamentally don’t want that for them (for the reasons you describe and some others; personal experience of stepfamilies).

In my own case I suppose it’s obvious to my friends that I don’t automatically thrive in a relationship— I’m a loner by nature. But every now and then one meets someone good who is worth a try. I’ve met someone actually nice! But strictly to meet up with in non-kid places/times. I was frustrated with my friend’s response to what I saw as a nice thing that’d happened. The man is a friend of a friend who I’ve been getting to know better for ages, before switching it to this, so not exactly irresponsible.

And because the friend who said it had literally shagged her way through half of Christendom before her marriage.

Anyway, I’ve found it interesting to read the replies. I can see more clearly now that it doesn’t mean ‘no, we think you should be lonely forever’ and more ‘we hope you’re ok’.

I've learnt to keep tight lipped about my live life, just close down the subject, people are always going to have the wrong opinion, either they think you should stay single and sit at home forever or you're acting like a rampant rabbit and shag around just because you've been on a few coffee dates.

Well, maybe they think you have dreadful, self-damaging taste in men, and it has nothing to do with letting them have contact with your children or being ‘irresponsible’? Maybe your bar for ‘someone nice’ is so low it’s on the floor in your friends’ eyes? We don’t know!

Maybe, @LaundryPond. I also think many of the men they’ve married are just dreadful. Bores, chauvinists, etc. I’d just never say it. Maybe I should! I suppose it feels like they think I’m several steps behind, while I feel several steps ahead. I’ve ended my bad marriage, had a ton of therapy, and know what I’m doing now I think.

(I do realise I’m coming off as very unlikeable, lol)

I agree with you Op.

Well I've never had that, it's always 'when are you getting out there' (I'm a widow, and let me tell you there is not a line of men waiting to date a woman in her 40s with two young children). I'm 62 now and fortunately my friends have given up asking.
Unless you have literally just come out of a relationship or keep diving in then who would say you should spend time on your own? Enjoy yourself (maybe they are jealous).

It sounds like you’ve not had any time on your own in years, so personally I think it’s good advice. Why follow a ‘long, dead marriage’ with an underwhelming, drawn out relationship? Where’s the fun and joy in that? All the language you are using is quite negative.

Yep!

People usually want people to be coupled up. If they’re saying this, maybe they’re seeing something where you have a blind spot.

No, you’re not coming across as in the least unlikeable. It’s just that people’s opinions of other people are subjective. You think their husbands are awful, but they don’t, or at least not enough to end their marriages. You were clearly unhappy enough in two longterm relationships to end them, which makes your unhappiness in them more obvious. Maybe they’re seeing a pattern you don’t?

If you are bemoaning having no one in your life, or not meeting the right person, they may just mean you don't have to have someone to be happy. Easy for them obviously if they do have someone.

Do they really just say that without some lead into it from you? I can't imagine just coming out with a comment like that without having been led to believe that you were unhappy how things are and are looking for 'pearls of wisdom'. Which there really aren't but you sometimes feel obliged to say something.

Yes, generally speaking I agree and think it’s no one else’s business and the statement carries the assumption that the single person lacks self control and is bound to lurch into a rebound, co dependent relationship. This is patronising and unfair.
There might be certain situations where it’s good advice, such as the scenarios others have described (children involved, long history of troubled relationships and bad choices).