When I first joined this page, it was about being there imperfect mum’ - having moments where we felt ‘imperfect’. I’ve scrolled through the page and found so many women are asking the same questions over and over ‘is he cheating?, is it DV?, should I leave?, what would you do?’ I feel like it’s becoming a male bashing forum with the questions and answers! ‘Sounds like he’s cheating, that’s abuse, leave him’ I have a husband of 17 years as well as 3 sons and I feel scared sometimes about raising my boys in this world with what it’s becoming. We only ever hear 1 side of the story. One thing that grinds my gears is DV being thrown around left right and centre. Men are victims of DV too, emotionally, financially and physically. We don’t hear about it because there is a ‘men are strong’ attitudes. we need to remember that. There are men out there suffering more and more emotionally because some women use children as pawns because they know they can. I’d like to see some more positivity on the page and let’s start talking about how we can build each other up as imperfect mums in this community instead of bashing down men.
25 Replies
Well since it's mum's writing in, we can only go on What they have written, even though there are absolutely two sides. Guaranteed his side would be different and if it were him writing in everyone would be giving him the 'leave her' line too with a DV comment thrown in like 'that's DV'. Yeah those comments shit me too. But otherwise we can only go with what's written, what else do you expect? And yes, there are men who suffer abuse too , no one is denying that , and when he writes in with his version or for help, then the advice will be the same for him too. One side.
However I do a agree that there's too many 'leave him' , 'get rid of him', 'kick him out and change the locks' comments. I am so sick of women who jump to the first response advising women to kick their partners out when they more than likely wouldn't use their own advise on their own hard times with their own partners. Not every answer is to kick him out, and the ones that come on here defending this are the actual ones saying it. They are the first to think everything is solved by giving hurtful advise such as 'dump him and chuck him and his things out'. Those comments should never be offered by women in here as the first point of advise unless other avenues have been tried and suggested first. There is sometimes probably no other option than to leave in some cases ( such as drugs or violence ) but without knowing both sides of the story it can be very hard to give the right advise.
But yes, suggesting another woman to leave as the first comment in my opinion is pretty rude and brutal. a lot of women don't want to leave their partners. They just want some advice.
Not only do some women use children as pawns, some men do too. Remember, mostly women write in here so almost all the posting is coming from females. We are fully aware men suffer too, but unless they write in, we can only advise on the side of the story we have read, and that's usually hers.
I would say yes. Sometimes the male bashing is quite extreme but other times I think it's just a horrible situation. But yes... posts are no longer about being an imperfect mum (I.e. having something about being a mum they want advice/support for). Now it's used by everyone for everything. I mean, product reviews (not related to raising a family) and asking for sex advice (not related to conception or fitting it in with kids or anything else related to raising a family)...it's not what this page was for.
The thing is, there is so many women writing in who are very clearly in abusive relationships - be that physical, emotional, financial, combination of the lot. Some are in such dior situations I just want to bundle them up in my car and drive them far, far away.
It absolutely infuriates me that when we're typically discussing specific situations of women in DV situations, someone pipes up with the whole "men are victims too" like you've just done.
Yes, men are victims of abusive relationships. I don't think I've ever seen someone claim that they're not. If you want to start a discussion about male victims of DV/abusive relationships then you should absolutely do that but only because it's something you feel strongly about, not because it's in response to feeling sick of reading so many women in DV stories.
I've given women advice to leave on occasion (it's usually more elaborate than just "leave" though) when they're in DV situations or if they're in very toxic relationships where they're not being respected and I'll continue to do so where appropriate. That's how I empower and build women up, by hopefully helping them realise that they are worth so much more than tolerating consistent abuse and being repeatedly cheated on. Especially when they state they've tried counselling and talking and whatever else but to no avail - what else are you supposed to suggest? Just strap in and enjoy the shitty ride?
You have to remember that we all come from vastly different walks of life, we all draw on our own experiences to give advice. So if you think someone's advice is too extreme, maybe take a minute to contemplate what that person's been through to offer such suggestions.
I have frequently told people to leave . I’m not ashamed of that either.
Women need to know their worth. And tbh to this page is any indication we need to do a lot more work in empowering our girls! Before they step into these relationships!
Beforehand, yes. Some women though have been in relationships many years before things go bad. Its not always easy to 'just leave' a long term relationship that was for many years a good one.
I'm really sick of seeing comments like the ones below.
"That's not what this page is for".
"That question isn't appropriate here"
See, I always thought this page was created as a safe space for women to ask questions relevant to their lives, not just parenting specifically. A community. A village!
This page might be the only avenue for support and advice a person has, if you start turning people away from this community because it doesn't fit in with your ideas about being an IM, it risks isolating vulnerable people who may already be quite isolated. If people are condemned for writing in about mundane issues, other people are never going to feel safe writing in about significant issues.
The only thing that shouldn't be welcome here is judgment and nastiness.
I just want to say a huge thank you for this comment because - to be honest, you've summed it up PERFECTLY!
Especially the last sentence " "The only thing that shouldn't be welcome here is judgment and nastiness."
Are you kidding?
We defend men all the time, read the open marriage question or the cheating questions.
Just recently the unwanted pregnancy question.
Yep, and we’ve defended men who’s partners were going to trick them into getting them pregnant and we’ve encouraged men to take there exes to court for custody rights.
Exactly!
I've read quite a few posts in which men have been getting a really unfair amount of defence too. One that sticks out, a man was by definition of law, committing sexual assault against his partner. The support he got and the attacks on the poster disturbed me deeply.
So I'm not sure where this "man hating" notion came from, especially when sometimes it goes too far the other way...
What is more imperfect mum than trying to parent while living in a toxic environment?
Toxic relationship dynamics effect your ability to parent. No parent can compartmentalise there well.
This whole page is about men hating women that love to label everything dv or narcissism. And I can almost guarantee these women commenting these repetitive bullshit replies have never lived in a dv relationship or know an narcissist. Having your husband say no to something and not agreeing to do what you want them to do isn’t abusive or controlling. It seems a lot of these women see their husbands/partners as sperm banks that have to shut up, do as they are told and make the money.
What the actual?
I have lived in an abusive and DV situation thank you very much.
I often defend men on this page.
I don’t think all relationships and all the posts are about DV at all. I also think there are posts where women have treated there partners abominably.
However where a woman describes DV I will call it out. If a woman is being verbally or physically abused, forced to have sex or psychologically tortured into sex then I will speak out.
When a woman is doing the wrong thing then I speak out too.
Do I think my advice is spot on every time? Probably not, because that would be impossible.
I do think the narcissism label gets thrown around too often, so I personally don’t use the term.
Can I ask why you still continue to be part of this page then, If you truly believe this whole group is about being man haters?
I've seen some really well thought out, intelligent, non biased and empathetic responses lately. For the most part, I feel like the sensible replies far out weigh the ludicrous ones.
Also, I don't think there's heaps of people throwing around DV willy nilly either, I don't think I've ever seen someone suggest something was DV when it wasn't... I'm not saying it's never happened but I follow this page quite thoroughly and I don't think it's a regular occurrence.
I tend to agree. Some of the comments about men are disgusting.
And if I see one more arm chair psychiatrist diagnosing a complete stranger as a narcissist, I am going to scream.
I hate that just assholism or laziness gets labelled as abusive, if we were to swing it the other way around a lot of women would be guilty of the same behaviour. My ex was very abusive over 13 years, but I still don't call him a narcissist. His mother on the other hand is the most evil person I know and ticks every narcissistic trait there is. I'm not talking about those checklists on fb posts either, they are not even close and often false to what a narcissist is. It frustrates me when you see that every ex or family member being a bitch is a narcissist and yet when there are posts here about people who show a lot of narcisstic traits nobody says narcissism, in fact people usually turn on the poster which is what happened on a post here recently. Which is very ironic considering that is another thing about narcissists, the more you try and explain their behaviour to people the less people believe you and write you off as crazy. I'm not a psychologist by any means but I have spent many hours rand days reading what I can about the woman that ruined my life and brainwashed my kids so I do think I know a fair bit about it. Unfortunately women bashing men are not narcissists, they are just assholes.
This may be very naive, but what does TIM mean? Google described it as Time Is Money and somehow I don’t think this is the meaning being discussed🤷🏻♀️😁
The. Imperfect. Mum.
TIM 😊
Thanks. It makes perfect sense now.
Took me a minute too, I was like "who's Tim?" 😂
I think it's time you left this forum.
I disagree on the attacking males but I do think it is a bit of a opinion platform instead of help. The AVO is a prime example of this. There is comment after comment giving incorrect advice and judging the woman instead of what she asked for a correct answer. Very clearly only a small number of respondents had experience in this area because they were ones who gave the right advice - or who bothered to google it.
We need to stop shooting our mouths off about this we have no experience or knowledge in.
I must admit, I have seen a fair bit of misinformation here but that's certainly not specific to this forum, it's the nature of the beast that is the internet. I agree, it's potentially dangerous.
I am often tempted to tell people that it's okay to not know the answer to something but it's not OK to go and make some shit up just because it sounds right.
I'm quite opinionated by nature, I often remind myself that people need advice not opinions (unless they specifically asked for them). A few more people could take that approach I think.
I feel like the forum is way too broad of topics to focus in on it being all about hating on men. I think it's pretty even on that front... lately I've seen an even amount of comments agreeing with woman in a shit situation or disagreeing with her that she may be over reacting.
I have told people often they should leave, if I think they should from the information given. Honestly, you can only try so hard and if a person states they've tried different shit to make a relationship work, then I'm sorry, their partner doesnt want to change and they aren't going to change. That goes for both men and woman in shit relationships that they are unhappy in.
I have a son too. And I think it's important to make him well aware of both sides, both men and woman can be toxic in relationships. I think it's just stigmatized with all this DV stuff focusing on the men (which is still good to weed out trash) but by the time my son is old enough, I feel like with all this equality shit going around lately too, it won't be like that. I think gen x and y men generally are wankers anyway. Hopefully my child's generation is more equal which I thibk it will be anyway.