fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6509 ]

I spent a few years in your shoes and it sucks. I’m so sorry. I still look back on that time and wish I’d gone through with the divorce.

Couples counseling helped us. And I didn’t think it would because I thought he would approach it the same way he approached our shitty attempts to work things out ourselves. Hearing from an impartial party was beneficial to both of us. And our first session was a bit of a shock because we didn’t realize it was basically an assessment to gauge if we were worth the time. That might sound kinda awful but the reality is that some relationships can’t be saved. And by putting us on the spot to convince them that we were genuine got us both thinking about our goals as individuals and as the heads of our family. It got us thinking about what we appreciate about each other, consider reasonable goals, and face our own shortcomings. We went in as opponents because that’s how we’d been living for years and we walked out as two strained lovers not quite ready to believe there was hope. After a few sessions, we were a team again. It took a lot of work and we still fall back on what we learned because life is messy and conflicts can always arise.

In our case, my husband was faced with the choice of picking up the slack at home or hiring someone else to do it. The cost of yardwork every two weeks is a full days pay. The cost of a housekeeper coming in once a week is three days pay. He takes care of the yard now and helps clean the house. And we talk every evening, making sure to collaborate on stuff around the house or in regards to the family, and of course we vent about people at work or whatever, but we also talk about fun stuff, too.

Idk. It isn’t easy to decide what to do. In my case, there was no question about custody or living expenses; he would be alone and he’d have to pay double the cost to support us all than if we stayed together. The realization of the cost of divorce was a huge motivator for him. Plus, like your husband, he loves me more than anyone. But I fell out of love and hated every moment of my life being married to him for a long stretch and I deserve to be happy. I no longer cared if it broke him, I just needed free of the misery. I’m glad I got that freedom by us finding a way to be happy together but like I said, some days I still wish I could just leave and feel like I missed a great opportunity.

I'm so sorry, anon. That feels so familiar. I feel guilty and uncertain about not wanting to go to couples therapy because I feel like I'm giving up? But I've tried talking to him, and I communicate very clearly, and I feel like I've been carrying this marriage on my own for more than a decade while he is a dead weight who wants a happy marriage, but doesn't want to actually DO anything to make it work. He just wants me to be quiet and act like I'm happy and have no problems, like I did before. He says he doesn't want that, but then... he never wants to talk about it. He shuts down every attempt at civil communication. He asks me what he should do, I tell him, and then he fails to do it and blames me for not cheering him on or being more patient with him.

I suspect hearing from a third party would help him, but honestly, that idea pisses me off. He has a big problem with never listening to me, and swearing that he does. He will do that Shitty Man Thing where I'll float an idea and he'll dismiss it as not being feasible or whatever, then next week he'll proudly present me with the exact same idea and now it's totally great and we should do it because he came up with this brilliant plan by himself.

Financially, a divorce would cost him dearly. He does very little around the house and would have to figure out costs of housecleaning (I'm kidding, he'd just live in filth because he can't be bothered to research and engage a housecleaning company), childcare (probably the hardest and most expensive) and he can barely cook even when he's got time to do so, which he doesn't. The longest he's ever "babysat" was 3-4 hours. He has never done the entire day/night routine and would need me to write everything down for him. (I have, because of his work schedule.) But if the financial and physical effort cost convinced him to try harder and actually do the things he's supposed to do, I'd be furious because why the fuck can't he do that in the first place, why does it take divorce and the threat of massive debt and becoming 50% primary caretaker for him to FINALLY get his shit together? Why was he okay with me getting the short end of the stick and shouldering most of the household burden and being miserable and unhappy until he's in danger of losing his free cook, housekeeper and nanny?

That's why I'm not sure counseling would work. I wouldn't blame a therapist for not wanting to invest time in untangling this mess when I'm clearly reluctant to put more work into this marriage and I'm so resentful that my husband wants all the benefits of a happy marriage without any of the responsibility.

You pointing out his flaws is just a wife nagging, a marriage counselor pointing them out is something to listen to. It shouldn’t be that way but it is and not just for men.
The financial fear: in my case, it was because I talked about divorce and he didn’t think I’d ever go through with it. He didn’t think things were that bad. He thought I was exaggerating about hating life and him. He thought I was exaggerating about the effort to do all the yard work and all the housework. I didn’t exaggerate a thing. And I have a debilitating condition that made every second of work 4-5 times harder than it is for a healthy person like him.

Counseling was a wake up call for him. I hate that he needed it and I totally understand your resentment. It shouldn’t be necessary. But sometimes it is.

I hate that this is true. I hate that a man would rather listen to a total stranger than the woman he chose to spend the rest of his life with and supposedly loves and trusts. I hate when men fail to grasp how much work their wives are doing and refuse to take their words seriously. This world sucks.

Anon. Please grit your teeth, get your ducks in a row, get your separate bank account, find all his bank accounts, find a good divorce lawyer, and just fucking go. Chances are your family are willing you to do just this. You get one life. Live it. I wish I'd done the same years earlier; there were reasons why I couldn't, but I did in the end and though I'm disabled, life has been so much better since.

Take a look at the reddits for twoxchromosomes and breakingmom for many, many stories like yours. Look at the 4B movement in South Korea. Many men are deeply shitty and women are waking up to it. Other women have forged a life of their own. You can be one of them.

Hugs.

Oh, twoxchromosomes has been eye-opener. A few anons here like to pooh-pooh it for being all made up stories, but honestly? I think that's only a small percentage of the crazy shit that goes on in peoples' marriages. I think society is just so used to shitty men being shitty that it seems perfectly normal, and that sexism and not believing women is deeply ingrained in people.

I've got the separate bank account. It'll take me a while to save money, and my parents are not in the best of health and can only help me a little. This is going to be so hard on them if I have to move back home. I try not to think about that, but I can't NOT think about it, either.

I've never seen anyone here say that this particular subreddit is mostly made up stories.

Sorry to say, I have. I can only assume it's someone trolling, or someone who's blissfully naive about how a relationship can go downhill fast.

I've seen those comment about other subs but not this one. Oh well, must have been a day I wasn't around.

DA
I have. We have had a couple threads about M/F relationships and FS is apparently full of women who only know men who split home and family duties equally with their wives.

Now you're just straight up lying.

nayrt, eh, not really. I've seen threads here before where women talk about pretty common marital issues and there's always a couple anons expressing bafflement at the idea that there are men who duck household chores, underestimate the amount of work their female partners do while overestimating their own contributions, don't clean, weaponize incompetence. Because their dad doesn't do that, or the men they know don't do that. Which is totally great for them, of course, but... this isn't a rare problem, and it's weird that they've never heard of it even if they haven't experienced it personally.

"A couple of anons" does not "f!S is FULL of these people" make though.

No, they claim AITA is mostly made up stories. So why wouldn't the other subreddits be mostly made up? Why would your preferred subreddit be sacred all of a sudden? Not trolling, just a genuine question.

I'm suspicious of anyone who generalizes any one group. I've been burned by some shitty people but I don't go on to say all people in that group are shit and never do my own self-reflecting.

That said, I also don't automatically assume anyone who shares their story is lying.

And no, I don't care if you get mad at this comment or if you can't believe there isn't a single man on the planet who isn't a complete piece of shit. Just be alone if that's what you believe. And figure out what you genuinely want in a man or even if you WANT to be with a man at all. Because it's fine not to be.

Or keep going with your confirmation bias. Also a valid choice.

"And no, I don't care if you get mad at this comment or if you can't believe there isn't a single man on the planet who isn't a complete piece of shit. Just be alone if that's what you believe. And figure out what you genuinely want in a man or even if you WANT to be with a man at all. Because it's fine not to be.

Or keep going with your confirmation bias. Also a valid choice."

I know that any anger and bitterness from a woman is very off-putting and people are really, really quick to #notallmen, but I want to assure you: I don't think all men on the planet are shit. I do think that the person(s) who expressed skepticism at some of the horror stories are being naive to think that the shit ones aren't out there, and I think that for me, I'm done digging through garbage hoping for a gem. It isn't worth it to me. I know that saying this makes a lot of men very, very angry, and I wouldn't be surprised if it made some women angry too, because misogyny can be deeply internalized.

I urge all women to proceed cautiously and with open eyes. Things can start out looking like a fairytale, and love can blind you to someone's faults if you're not careful.

"Things can start out looking like a fairytale, and love can blind you to someone's faults if you're not careful."

da, but... duh? That holds true for ANY relationship, straight, gay, or otherwise. As a WLW I have plenty of lesbian friends who have ended up in similar situations because they were so blinded by love that they were ignoring obvious red flags. I have a male friend who just got out of an abusive relationship with a female ex but it took me and all of his other friends months to convince him that the relationship was not healthy and that he needed to leave because he loved her and he kept making excuses for her abusive behavior.

It's very, very easy for people to ignore warning signs when they love someone because it's easy to brush it off as not being a big deal. And it's certainly not something that's exclusive to men.

nayrt, but there is much more social pressure on women to “fix” their partners (regardless of the partner’s gender) than there is on men. Women are supposed to be the nurturing, forgiving, self-effacing ones in the relationship.

Abusive relationships are a different matter. Until she reaches Alex Forrest or Annie Wilkes levels, abusive women are still largely seen as quirky or funny and men who are abused by women are frequently not believed or seen as weak.

Re: Venting thread- I've been struggling not to hate my husband.

(Anonymous) - 2024-11-01 22:50 (UTC) - Expand

Talking about a problem that exists in one group isn't the same as claiming that it doesn't exist anywhere else. But it's funny (not in a ha ha way) that every time the issue of men failing to be good partners comes up, someone always pops up to say, "But women do it tooooooooo" and "#notallmen!!!!". Even though nobody said "women never do that!", etc.

Peculiar how predictable that is.

No, in fact, I was one of those anons and I remember distinctly that I said ProRevenge and Traumatizethemback were mainly creative writing exercises and/or wishful thinking revenge fantasies (which they very much are). In general, I think all anecdote subreddits suffer from the "we're only getting one side of the story here" issue.
The other half of your comment/rant, though, feels like you're addressing it to someone else entirely so I'm not going to reply to it because none of it applies to me.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't recall ProRevenge and Traumatizethemback coming up in the discussion. This was largely about AmItheAsshole and TwoXChromosomes, with the implication that AITA was a known place for people to exaggerate or lie for karma-farming, so TwoX must also be suspect. Which I thought was silly because AITA crazy stories are well, crazy. And TwoX stories are so run of the mill, it's depressing.

And here's the thing about family. Mine wouldn't straight up refuse to take me in. They would of course want to help me... but we'd disagree on what was helpful, and they are not going to listen to me. I'd be welcomed back home, but subjected to an unrelenting barrage of "are you sure you expressed yourself clearly" and "maybe you should give him another chance" and "a family needs two parents" and "marriage is hard work, you should be more patient because men just aren't good at these things naturally".

They're not completely in the dark that I've been struggling, but I don't share much because of the above. My father (who means well) offered talk with my husband and I was like, please god no. My father has not cooked or cleaned for his whole adult married life. He's a loving father who'd die for us, but he's never done sole parent duty for even one single day, for one kid. I'm not sure he's ever changed a diaper. He staunchly believes that a man's job is to be head of the family and bring home a paycheck and that's it, everything else is woman's work. He doesn't consider himself sexist in doing this, it's just that he has no notion of taking on household tasks himself. He hasn't mowed the lawn or taken out the trash since his kids were old enough to do it. I don't even have the heart to point this out because he wouldn't see my point, anyway, but he's the last person I'd ever go to for how-to-manage-your-husband advice.

Yeah, sounds like OP has had a problem with the status quo for a while now.

Maybe it's time for it to be the husband's problem.

Marriage is an equal partnership, not a child looking for the next parent to take care of them.

Why do you wish you'd gone through with a divorce if counseling helped and you're better now? I genuinely don't understand, unless you think you had some kind of feminist duty to become happy through divorcing instead of through your husband getting better.

AYRT
Because part of making things work means compromise. Because I miss living alone. Because shit still happens even in a happy marriage and single life isn’t nearly as complicated. Because sometimes I’m just tired mentally, physically, emotionally and I don’t want to have to talk about or listen to anything but in a family things come up that can’t wait for a time when I’m feeling up to it.

Your second sentence makes you sound trollish, but I'm going to assume you're just very lucky and have never had or witnessed serious relationship issues. I haven't gone through counseling OR divorce, but I can guess ayrt's situation.

Sometimes even when you "win", the cost you had to pay was so high that it taints your "victory". I would not be able to look the same on a man who claims to love me more than anything, but who failed to treat me like a human being with feelings and needs UNTIL we paid a lot of money for him to be shamed repeatedly by a neutral third party. Even if my husband got his act together, apologized and improved, that doesn't erase the YEARS of suffering and misery that he was content to knowingly visit upon me simply because he didn't want to be bothered re: being a considerate partner.

All of that doesn't vanish just because things start getting better. Especially if you were the one who had to repeatedly force and insist and pressure the other person to get counseling and do the necessary marriage work because they were determined to leave you holding the bag.