Apparently you lot are responsible for the demise of my marriage 🤷🏻‍♀️

[SoggyPaper]

You harpies and the stepmonster book apparently.

According to my husband:

”That book ruined your view on this.”
”Some step mum book”
”And also mumsnet”
”And all the negative weirdos there”.

Clearly the problem is nothing to do with him and his treatment of me as unpaid nanny/housekeeper come scapegoat to alleviate his divorced dad fear, obligation and guilt. Nope. Nor him entirely failing to acknowledge any of my basic needs.

Nope the problem is any source of information that confirmed to me that wasn’t ok, that I could and should set boundaries and not accept any of it.

I’d imagine he’s not the only man who has decided that MN has ruined his marriage. Because women supporting each other to raise our expectations of men is a dreadful thing.

So here’s to you, negative weirdos! 😁

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻To all of you 0h god 7es 9f mine saw my feelings on here that’s it my life would be hell (already is on days like this the moaning day were because nobody is) answering phone. Oh no we’re not allowed to stick up support each other.

"You’re all just bitter and jealous, you know. You want to make everyone as miserable as you are."

It's my sole reason for being here. You'd better all be miserable!

I am at the moment 😂😂and no not joking.

Sorry you’re having a shit time.

No idea why anyone would marry someone with children.

I DO actually want everyone to be as miserable in their marriage as I am - which is not at all

He’s probably right. I can’t imagine many of the women who come here and take the majority of advice to heart have long relationships. OP’s come here feeling some problem and anyone who supports them in that is listened to, because they want confirmation they are in the right. Of course a board of women is likely to be more on your side (and inclined to be sympathetic just to show sympathy even if they don’t really know your life’s in and outs in detail).

Be honest - aside from Mumsnet and a book which confirms your beliefs - have you actually gone to any forums or read any books that didnt seem to support what you wanted and thought about them?

Of course YOU agree with him.

Yeah you're really not high on the list of people to take seriously when it comes to criticisms of healthy step parenting relationships.

I’m just saying it’s hardly a balanced perspective here. That’s alright if you think about other ones too but not if this or similar are the only perspectives you take on board because they jive with your one and “prove” what you think is correct.

I just think things like this are what they are. You have your views and he his and apparently they’re not compatible. People agreeing with you in a place they’re inclined to agree with you doesn’t mean much tbh.

Best of luck though. Just something to think about.

Neither does people agreeing with you.

Obviously I must be in the wrong. I’ve failed to have a long marriage because I just wasn’t willing to put up with being expected to take all the responsibility and do all the work, but with no authority and him, his mother and his ex all doing their best to undermine and scapegoat me.

And as for expecting him to give a shit about my basic needs. Ridiculous.

I should have taken myself back to the kitchen to reflect on how lucky I was that a man would want me.

@aSofaNearYou

I agree with you.

I didn’t need to prove anything though.

Help to see through a toxic situation and recognise that I should and could have boundaries even if he has children is a totally different kettle of fish.

Plus, it’s not balanced on here. There are plenty of handmaidens and posters with an anti-SN axe to grind who are more than happy to tell you that you are wrong.

@SoggyPaper

Im guessing you meant to write it is balanced?
but it’s not. This is a womens forum and you get that perspective - while that’s valuable if you are in a relationship with a man you must see that you are getting a one sided perspective even if there is disagreement because we’re not getting mens viewpoints. It’s inevitable. Also I would say a certain type is attracted to particular topics here and it’s often those in the situation, so again not balanced.

Im not saying that’s bad, just that it’s one viewpoint and others are equally valuable. But if it’s not working for you then it’s not working, I’m not saying you should stay where your not happy or feeling appreciated. You shouldn’t.

Don’t know what anti-SN is, I’m not up with all the abbreviations on this site.

Please tell me he knows we called him a bastard?

I don’t need or want a man’s perspective on my own feelings to balance things out though. As if there is a single male or female perspective anyway.

Support is a different thing.

The fact is he’s annoyed by any source of information that doesn’t tell me to just shut up and put up. Especially if it comes from women. Because there is, I have realised, a huge amount of misogyny there.

And yet strangely you only feel the need to post comments like this "knocking people down a peg or two" to people who disagree with you.

i don’t know if he does. He definitely suspects as much.

I don’t talk to him about MN (although it’s public so he could look it up easily).

I suspect that it’s mostly his assumption that I must have been turned by evil harpies on the internet. And that must mean MN.

I did tell him about the book. But that’s actually research. It’s just he doesn’t like the findings or arguments.

He doesn’t like anything that doesn’t say I’m just unreasonable for not being delighted to be allowed to be treated poorly by everyone associated with his children and the children themselves. After all, ‘they’re my children’ is the ultimate way to shut down any discussion of the effects of his choices.

Oh look its tamzo coming to tell us how were all wrong and why bother with this place

Hope youre ok i cant remember your background but your name rings a bell

There are actually men who do post on MN and women on MN who do post their male partners view. The only issue is we hear one side of the story so we can only respond to what we hear.

Regardless everyone should have boundaries in their relationships with others whether the others are a partner, child, parent, friend, other relation or acquaintance. Where those boundaries are, are up to the individual.

So I don't know why certain other posters are picking on you OP as you decided after communicating with people where you wanted your boundaries to be with your ex.

Sorry😈

@RedWingBoots I suspect it because some people find woman has boundaries a challenging idea. Even more so if other women support her in doing so.

Tbf I agree with Tamzo to a degree. Not just the stepparent board, but most of mumsnet supports women and there's a double standard for men. So on a stepparent forum, your feelings will tend to be validated.

I don't know your personal situation, but one of the good things about MN is it can enlighten you to what is unacceptable behaviour in a relationship, that you may otherwise think is normal.

The most important thing is that you're leaving a relationship that isn't working for you....for whatever reason that is. If you were happy, you wouldn't have come here seeking support in the first place.