People who bitch about their girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband.

[Ladeeda]

In extreme cases, venting about a SO's habits is a VERY good way to get an objective view in cases of abuse. A lot of people in abusive (or just not good) relationships are still a bit blind-sided by being in the relationship that they miss when things take a dangerous turn south.

[bhskittykatt]

In extreme cases, venting about a SO's habits is a VERY good way to get an objective view in cases of abuse. A lot of people in abusive (or just not good) relationships are still a bit blind-sided by being in the relationship that they miss when things take a dangerous turn south.

That's a really excellent point. When you're in the relationship, you don't see the signs, but they could be very obvious to an outside perspective. If you don't vent, though, and you stay quiet, there's no one else to give you the alternate perspective. I've had a bit too much experience with this. (Not being in the abusive relationship, thank God, but having friends who were there, and trying to pull them out of it.)

Ultimately, everyone's going to need to vent about their SO at some point. If you don't want to hear about it, you can change the subject or back out. But just because you can choose your SO doesn't mean you give up complaining rights. Conflict happens in relationships (as my interpersonal communications instructor said, a relationship without conflict is no relationship at all), and venting about it can be healthy. I'm sorry, but that's how it is.

[Ladeeda]

It's the stupidiest thing in the world. You want to vent, do it yourself. It's the same thing. Vent in your head, talk to a tree. No different from talking to another person.

Then why are YOU venting HERE? Why not just vent in your head or talk to a tree. No different from telling all of us.

[Eisa]

Why do you have to have hate toward another person to vent? I vent sometimes, too, and I feel the farthest thing from hate. It's just something that frustrated or annoyed me.

ETA: And somehow that's really annoying to have the only choices be "you're afraid to lose the other person" or "you're ungrateful." Not even fucking close. It's better than holding it in. I think it's BETTER than blowing up at your SO for something trivial that you only need to just get out and have someone actually hear your frustration. Seriously...it doesn't mean you're ungrateful or selfish. It means you're HUMAN.

[Ladeeda]

People CHOOSE to be at a job they hate (they can always be unemployed). People CHOOSE the classes they take in school, and in college can pick the teacher teaching a course.

By your logic, Plaidman, no one has a right to complain about their jobs or classes, because they can always leave those annoyances. But choose not to.

Meanwhile, if you have a problem with people complaining about their SOs, why not take your own advice and tell THOSE SPECIFIC PEOPLE exactly why they are ungrateful and selfish for daring to lament about a peeve found in their Other Half? No need to drag us into it. It's not going to solve what you're bitching about.

[Eisa]

People CHOOSE to be at a job they hate (they can always be unemployed). People CHOOSE the classes they take in school, and in college can pick the teacher teaching a course.

By your logic, Plaidman, no one has a right to complain about their jobs or classes, because they can always leave those annoyances. But choose not to.

Meanwhile, if you have a problem with people complaining about their SOs, why not take your own advice and tell THOSE SPECIFIC PEOPLE exactly why they are ungrateful and selfish for daring to lament about a peeve found in their Other Half? No need to drag us into it. It's not going to solve what you're bitching about.

QFT!

So every time your SO say...I don't know, leaves the toilet seat up, you should go tell him, "I really don't like when you do that, it REALLY annoys me and pisses me off, why do you do that?!" instead of like mentioning to your friends the next day, "Hey, you know, it is kind of annoying when they leave the toilet seat up."

That seems a really fast route to getting your ass dumped. You'd be fucking annoying if you vented about every tiny little thing that might annoy you.

[Eisa]

I understand you've obviously had issues about this.

I don't think anyone's arguing that if you're constantly bitching about your SO to other people, something's wrong.

But there's a difference between doing that all the time and doing it every so often to your friends. There is nothing wrong with that.

It doesn't mean you're selfish.

It doesn't mean you're ungrateful.

Again, it means you're human. Things annoy you. It's better to get them out than lock them up inside, and again...if you rattled off every little thing, your SO would get fucking annoyed at you.

So does that also mean that you can't bitch about anything your FRIENDS do, too? You can't ever mention, "hey something so-and-so did was kind of annoying?" 'Cause THOSE are relationships, too. THOSE are supposed to be special, too. Do they count, or is it just "relationships?"

[Ladeeda]

And I think YOU are going to be severely disillusioned when you finally do get into a relationship and find it's just like every other relationship, only with potential sex added into the mix. And your SO, when you get one, is going to be under a LOT of pressure trying to live up to the glorified fairy tale you imagine romantic relationships to be.

And unless you fix that right quick, probably won't be in a relationship for long.

If you can complain about your friends, coworkers, bosses, family, or neighbors, everyone else can complain about their SOs.

Friends annoy you? Dump the friends! Not worth having if they do annoying stuff.

Boss or CWs annoy you? Leave the job! You'll never have THAT stress again.

Neighbors annoy you? Just move! Problem solved.

Family annoy you? Shut up about it, you should be grateful to have family at all.

[Teysa]

Others have brought up an interesting point about possibly abusive situations.
I'm trying to remember if I've ever complained about my SO on here or the other board. I don't think I have. What I know I've never mentioned is that when we were first together he was borderline abusive. Oh, don't get me wrong, he never hit me. But he would constantly yell at me and belittle me. Nothing I ever did was right and I was pretty much worthless. The only reason he kept me around was because I helped pay the bills.

You may wonder why I stayed with him then. I'm not sure myself. He was actually a pretty nice guy when he wasn't being a jerk. Fast forward a few years when he finally sought help. He was diagnosed Bipolar. That explained so much. Now that he's on medication he's a completely different person.

From what you're saying, I had no right to vent about that anyways. I should have just accepted the way he was treating me or left him. This is a man who is scared to death of being alone as much as he tried to push me away. And, to be honest, I was scared of being alone too. However, sticking it out has brought its own rewards. (Mind you if he had struck me, all bets would have been off.)

Still though if I had taken the time to 'bitch' about it more, maybe I would have had the impetus to either get him to seek counseling sooner or would have had the support I needed to go ahead and leave.

In case you haven't noticed, there's still a lot of hurt there in regards to the past. While I know deep down that it was mostly the disease talking, it's going to take time to work through the past. In the meantime he hasn't done anything even remotely worth bitching about.

[AdminAssistant]

Y'know...I'm "big" (wear size 18-20). It's irritating when I hear my much smaller friends complain about difficulty in finding clothes or about their bodies. It's like, "If they think they're imperfect, what do they think of me?"

But I'm not so insecure as to think that they don't have the right to complain, because they do. They do, I do, we all do. They aren't targeting me when they complain, and it would be extremely arrogant to think that they are.

[Ree]

The more I think about this, I do kind of see what Plaid is saying.

I have one acquaintance who does nothing but bitch about her husband.
It's constant.
Every time I hear yet another complaint or example of his faults, I wonder why they ever got together in the first place, and why she stays with him, but she does.
In that case, I want to say, "Put up or shut up. Is he really as bad as you're saying, and if he is, why are you still with him? Quite frankly, I would have kicked his ass to the curb ages ago."

Then, there are those who change partners like they use tissues. It seems like "Person A" will get together with "Person B", and by all accounts, the sun shines out "B's" butt. After a very short time, however, "A" starts to get bored, because that is the pattern, and they are ready to move on to "Person C". Suddenly, nothing "B" does is right. Suddenly, "B" has so many flaws that it's impossible to stay with them a moment longer.

Next thing we know, "A" can't say enough bad about "B", and is suddenly singing the praises of "C", and just as with "B", "C's" butt is lighting the world with warmth.

Fast forward another very short time, and boredom has set in again. Suddenly, all that sunlight from "C's" butt is giving "A" a headache, and along comes "D", who looks rather inviting.

We are then treated to a litany of the sins of "C".
And so on...

For someone who yearns to have even one relationship, meaningful or fleeting, I can see how that could be a source of anger and resentment.

[the_std]

For someone who yearns to have even one relationship, meaningful or fleeting, I can see how that could be a source of anger and resentment.

So... Just because someone who has unhealthy and potentially harmful views of relationships sees someone else with unhealthy and potentially harmful views of relationships and doesn't like it, no one should complain?

Yeah, of course there are going to be people who complain too much. There are people in the world who don't understand how to interact properly with other people. But they are an extreme, one end of the spectrum. I would go so far as to said Plaid's view and understanding of relationships is at the other end of the spectrum, a different extreme. His views also do not represent the whole of people in relationships. Plaid's views are unfounded and unfair to the majority of people, just like A is unfair to B and, quite possibly, C. That doesn't make it okay to tell people that they can't vent about their relationships.

[Ree]

It's in "Things I hate", and Plaid hates when he sees people in a relationship bitching about their partners.

That's his right, just as it is someone else's right to complain about their partner.

Yeah, it's unrealistic if he expects people to just stop complaining and be grateful that they have someone, but as I said, I can understand the sentiment behind his comment.

I agree he has unrealistic views, but I can understand where they come from.

If you are starving and have never had a decent meal in your life, and you see people all around you savouring their food, and going on about how delicious it is, and how marvellous it is, you are going to want to have a taste of that.
If you still don't get a taste of it, but you see someone tossing a half eaten meal in the trash, or another person bitching about how crappy their meal is, you are going to resent the hell out of that situation.

I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying I understand it.

[guywithashovel]

Like Ree, I can also understand where you're coming from, Plaid. I know you've acknowledged several times that you understand that relationships aren't perfect. You just don't like it when other people are always grumbling about their SOs.

This brings to mind something I've noticed over the years. Personally, I've never really understood people who are constantly in relationships, and those relationships change frequently. Yet, they always seem to want to complain about those partners and the opposite sex in general. I knew a girl in college who was like this. She was a die hard male basher, always filling my inbox with all kind of forwards about how men are scum, men are retarded, men can't do anything, etc. Yet, she never went more than two months without a boyfriend. That never made any sense to me.

For someone who yearns to be in a relationship, seeing things like that can be very irritating. It's like, "Why doesn't life give me some of what they don't seem to appreciate?"

[LCK78]

It's the stupidiest thing in the world. You want to vent, do it yourself. It's the same thing. Vent in your head, talk to a tree. No different from talking to another person.

It is human nature to want to vent or complain about something as a form of socialization. Some people do it to try and solve their problems or comiserate with no intent of leaving the other person or find a way to figure out how to not be so angry about it or solve the issue. I say this from experience as some people cannot handle being told hey your normal everyday actions annoy me stop it. So instead the other partner attempts to find a way to compromise without hurting the other person's feelings and one of those ways is to vent to friends without badmouthing their loved one.
Rare yet possible but it still is human nature to complain about what we cannot fix or control even if there is a way.
Not everyone can complain to them selves or write it down, especially when angry.