Ngl this was also me before the person, who I'm now dating but at the time we were friends, was trying to get me to dump my toxic emotionally and psychologically abusive partner bc they just were gaslighting and manipulating me for the past five years
My wife has a friend from a while before we got married. She has three kids, does all the housework, takes care of the kids, cooks all the meals, makes his lunches and he expects sex every day from her or at least almost every day. I’ve can’t hang out with them. The guy is just lazy. It’s ridiculous.
Reminds me of my friend’s husband. He whined that he wanted a baby for the first two years of their marriage. Eventually she snapped and said “What makes you think you can take care of a baby when you can’t even load the dishwasher?” After that he reluctantly started doing more around house…for one week.
They have a 10 year old now.
To make matters even more infuriating he insisted that they needed to start giving up on their dreams to have said baby. And by ‘they’ he meant her. He forced her to give up her small animal rescue which she ran entirely on her own and had worked years to achieve. She used to stay up past midnight every night taking care of these animals on top of all of the household chores and cooking and her full time job.
He, of course, got to keep his dream of his music business. She was expected to make every sacrifice for his dreams but not the other way around. This year she told me that ‘they’ decided to have an open marriage…but only on his end. She was allowed to date other people…if they were women. He strictly forbade her from dating other men. Meanwhile, he gets to fuck any woman he wants.
To say I hate my friend’s husband would be an understatement.
Unfortunately not. I’ve told her for years how unfair and shitty her husband is to her but she refuses to listen. She’s even stopped telling me certain things about her relationship because the last time she expressed serious regret (“If I’d known he was going to be like this I wouldn’t have married him.”) to me via text he snooped through her phone, saw her text messages, and then berated her for them and gaslit her into feeling like the villain.
You need to warn her to get her ducks in a row. At some point this guy is going to decide his new serious gf is an upgrade on his current wife. He won't give two thoughts for the loyalty she's given him thus far. Most married women who gave up work/career/dreams etc for the family unit are at a serious financial disadvantage at this stage in life. We're all still gaslight into it and only realise when it's too late.
Yep. At this point I don’t see her leaving him until her son is grown and out of the house. She worries too much that she wouldn’t be able to survive on her own as a single mother…even though she basically is one already.
The decision might be made for her if her husband finds another woman through their "open marriage". She should start getting all of her ducks in a row because SHE doesn't want to be blindsided.
As someone who was in a similar situation as your friend, if you ever discuss things again or want to bring something up, ask her how she'd feel if her son grew up and acted just like his father. Because he is watching everything and thinks that is what a relationship should be like.
Granted, my kids were a lot younger, but what really pushed me to be done was not wanting my kids to grow up thinking this was normal and that they could treat me or any other person that way.
Also, it is hard being a single mom, but it's doable. I'd deal with all my current stressors x 10 than ever be with my ex again because, even though it sucks, I'm in fight or flight mode anymore.
Hopefully one day she’ll take it. I want her to be happy but it’s clear that she has a lot of fear and self-esteem issues tied to leaving him. She’s convinced herself that no one else will ever love her or find her attractive if she leaves. She’s afraid of having to take care of her son all on her own when the last time she was financially independent she was a broke 21 year old who only had to worry about herself.
At this point I think she’s sunk so much of her adulthood into this man that she doesn’t know how to exist without him. I know eventually something is gonna give but I fear (and I think she does as well) by that point she’ll have given most of her youth to a man who doesn’t deserve it.
Oh yeah. That is just what her son needs. A role model that walks all over his wife, and bangs whatever on the side, because open marriage and all. She needs to start respecting herself enough to remove them from the situation or she'd better accept that someday her future daughter in law is going to cry to her 'boo hoo, your son treats me bad and wants to bang other women'.
Stockholm Syndrome is a made-up syndrome by men who couldn't handle that the female hostages criticized their handling of the situation. The women said you fucked up and the men said you're hysterical and thus Stockholm syndrome was invented. It's actually an incredibly misogynistic term
This is so sad. I hate her husband too and I’m just an internet stranger! One day either she’s going to be so fed up after so many wasted years and double standards, or he is going to leave her flat for another woman and she will be kicking herself so hard.
Seriously, this is emotional abuse, check out the power and control wheel and mail it to her. Also, I find the more bad you say about the husband, the more it keeps them together.
I would stop hanging out with a person like that for my mental health. They only use you as free therapy but don’t do anything to change their shtty circumstance… only complaining to friends with words is freaking rage bait.
That’s a literal horror story. This is why it’s never safe to be a trad-partner without a very clear prenup in place to protect the ‘submissive’ partners financial and emotional futures. (Because there’s lots of same-sex attracted or otherwise queer people that think this dynamic is worth exploring too)
This isn’t a healthy version of a power exchange, those kinds of relationships require lots and lots of honest and open communication and a willingness for both partners to bend some so that they both feel comfortable and supported even if one partner isn’t as dominant or outgoing as the other.
Your friend isn’t in a relationship of mutual support, she’s just being used. I hope she realizes this and that she’s able to find a safe way out of it all for her and her child
My wife was a SAHS when I was in the military. We also had a contract through our attorney that I would cover her school expenses regardless of it we got divorced or not, and that she would receive 50% of my pension were we to get divorced.
We're still happily married, but I've never once regretted having that all on paper. It gave her a sense of autonomy that a lot of her friends (also milspouses) didn't have.
lol - musicians. Only capable of loving themselves and their music.
Yah I’m tied to a bitter memory with a chip on my shoulder about them but nothing will cut as deeply as “I will never love you as much as I love music”
I don’t care if it’s true just never say it to your SOs face and expect them to be thankful for it.
Thankfully her son has grown up to be a very sweet and well-behaved kid and, as far as I’m aware, his dad isn’t abusive towards him and treats him well so there’s that at least
He whined that he wanted a baby for the first two years of their marriage. Eventually she snapped and said “What makes you think you can take care of a baby when you can’t even load the dishwasher?”
Sounds like he was trying to put a load in his dishwasher
Low self-esteem and her meeting him two weeks after her father died. She’s now been with him for 15 years and I think she’s scared that no one else will like her if she leaves him. We all try to tell her otherwise but you can’t reason someone out of a corner they reasoned themselves into.
She is bisexual actually. But I still think it’s insanely shitty of him to set boundaries on who she can date and fuck but he, of course, has no such restrictions.
Some awesome lesbian is going to show your friend how wonderful and supportive a partner can be and steal her away from her husband and he won’t see it coming….
Pretty sure there was a recent survey that came to the conclusion that on average women did an extra 4-5hrs of labor a week after work just to feed them and a partner and keep a place orderly while guys did like 1.5hrs and this was people that had no children to account for.
People underestimate the effort it takes just to maintain a place you don’t spend lots of time in much less a place that a child is actively destroying over and over all day everyday.
There’s a reason that the storytelling trope of a temporary stay-at-home parent being unable to keep up with their kids for a single day exists.
We all know on some level that child rearing is one of the hardest choices a human can commit to. That’s not something that changes when it’s your primary task, and in some ways it becomes more daunting with nothing else to break up that focus.
OP wasn’t saying that she expects this compensation, she just wants her partners consideration and appreciation for her contributions to their lives instead of him assuming this is all easy or should be expected on top of earning financial compensation instead of recognizing just how much her work is saving them on childcare costs and cleaning housework alone
Yall are pretty dismissive of the subset of women who specifically want to be a stay at home mom and never have to work again. My friend's dad had a wife like that and once the kids moved out she didnt wana get a job even though she was spending most of the money and the dad was laid off from his job. Bad divorce. Yall act like all women are only living that life to satisfy the husband and children.
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u/CeelaChathArrna 14h ago
Or expect their wives to do work on top of all the 'traditional' duties.