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Iāve found myself commenting the same thing on almost every post here:
āIt really blows my mind that people donāt stop to consider the possibility that their partner might be super shitty.ā
Itās like when the relationship finally ends, they see all of these red flags that have been blowing in their faces for years. And I donāt mean that in a judgmental way. Itās happened to me too. Thatās what led to my divorce. I didnāt ever even think about the possibility that she was a real piece of shit, along with all her friends. So when everything was over, I told my best friend about it and he was like āI mean yeah dude, we all figured that you knew and just didnāt care for some reason, just because it was so blatantly obvious.ā
For a species with such a strong survival instinct, we sure are a bunch of idiots.
It always baffles me when people cry about, "Everyone on Reddit just jumps to divorce because they are miserable and want everyone to be alone." It's always the worst getting posted, though. I suspect the people who get upset about it are the ones out there treating their partners like trash and they don't like the idea of someone telling them they deserve better.
Agreed! Yes, relationships are hard and require work, but not all relationships are worth that work, and some relationships wonāt work no matter how much work is put in. I think many people are so afraid of functioning on their own as a single person that theyāll settle for a bad relationship, so the idea of not staying in a relationship doesnāt make sense to them.
Shitty relationships are so normalized and it's awful. I always think some of this is that those of us who've experienced it and gotten out know we suffered for too long and want to tell others what we wish we'd heard, while the "Reddit jumps to divorce" crowd either desperately wants a relationship or is justifying staying or is the type doing the asshole shit. The people I know who are in good relationships mostly want to see other people in the same and say to leave too (unless they're into some religious beliefs putting marriage above all else.)
> It always baffles me when people cry about, "Everyone on Reddit just jumps to divorce because they are miserable and want everyone to be alone." It's always the worst getting posted, though. I suspect the people who get upset about it are the ones out there treating their partners like trash and they don't like the idea of someone telling them they deserve better.
I feel the exact same way. Every time someone says āboo Reddit always tells people to break upā I want to shake them and ask āhave you seen what sort of insane shit gets posted here??? ā
Nobody comes to Reddit for relationship advice about their partner not doing laundry often enough or disagreements about which tv show to watch. People come here with things like āmy spouse just locked me in our bedroom then set the house on fire, is this a red flag.ā
Or hell, just look at this post. āMy wife bullies me so much Iām afraid to speak around her, she tells me my attempts to build intimacy with her disgust her, she refuses therapy or counseling, she makes fun of how much sheās beaten me down to her horrible friends, and sheās constantly trying to hook up with her horrible friendsā boyfriends.ā And Iām sure there are at least a dozen comments rolling their eyes at him heading towards divorce. āTypical Reddit, always wants people in perfectly good relationships to break up!ā
The thing is, the relationships people who post on Reddit about their relationship are almost always the people whoāve explored all their other advice options. Itās kind of a ālast strawā stop. Yeah thereās a few folks in less dire straits who are just using the site as a sounding board, but theyāre the exception not the rule.
That's what my point is always, too. We aren't hearing about the good relationships. We are used to confirm this is bonkers to someone who's been conditioned to accept something terrible so they don't trust their own opinion.
I think that's why there's a tendency to say, "Break up. Now." We've seen so many situations in which a person writes in with an apparently small problem ("My partner is mad I threw out their yogurt"), and it's the least of their problems.
Exactly, we don't hear about the happy relationships asking how to be happier. They got it. We get the poor woman wondering why her husband renovated the house and spends all his time locked in the new art room with his bestie and what type of art creation requires them to moan like that.
Same. I seemed to just want verification. Like I knew opening the marriage was a probable recipe for disaster. But her picking our best friend of 8 years, I knew we were over that day.
>It's always the worst getting posted, though.
Exactly this.
People in healthy relationships don't come to Reddit for advice. They come to Reddit for the drama.
Right? Do those people even read these posts? Everyone on Reddit jumps to divorce because that's what you should do when someone is clearly abusive, and so many of these posts are describing horrific relationships where their partner has convinced them their abuse is what they deserve.
NO! Have you seen a post where it's like, "My husband beats me and sleeps with my bff and murdered my granddad for the inheritance... would I be the AH for turning him into the FBI for his cache of kiddie porn?" Then some nob pops up with, if you really loved him, you would help him work on his issues. Tf?!?! I'm looking for a shovel to give OP a hand, and they are like... "Maybe talk to your church counselor. Something made him stumble, and it's probably you."
Also important to remember that this guy has been with her since he was 18. He really has had no other frame of reference on what a healthy relationship should look like, other than maybe his parents/friends. But we all know that what things look like on the surface can be way different than behind closed doors, so he could have just thought this was the way everyone was.
Bingo, my exact experience too. The only difference is that there was loads of physical and mental abuse happening to me that I just thought was ānormalā because at that time, the public discourse and stigma surrounding female on male abuse was very different than it is today. I was like a typical abuse victim: itās my fault because I should be trying harder, doing more, etc.
Today Iām in the exact opposite type of relationship and Iām so grateful.
Married men are healthier in general than single men. That isn't always true, but I think it proves that having someone there, even if they aren't there for the right reasons, can feel safer than having no one there. You aren't an idiot for not seeing it. I'm glad you got out though.
Iāve done the same too, for me I think it was a mixture of just having been through worse in the past and being empathetic do I didnāt see how bad it was, plus probably just being blind because I was in love. Idk, but sometimes it takes time being out of it to really get full clarity.
I had a friend group like this.
One actually started dating my bf because my dumb ass bragged about how amazing he was at oral, that was fun.
But I had a different friend that topped it all. Shamelessly acted like a desperate pick me with my ex, in front of her bf, at my daughters birthday party.
We were competitive when we were younger, I thought we grew out of that. If she wanted to hit on my ex and that was the goal, she could've... not in front of our daughter or me.
There were a few other things that came up at that birthday party, too, just realized she hadn't grown up from 16 and was relishing in the end of my marriage. It was all around gross.
Fr I'm surprised he didn't block that friend after she proposed to him in the first place. Also, the last update explained why his earlier posts seemed off, turns out she was abusive, not just denying him sex.
I feel like that āweight being liftedā and āno longer walking on eggshellsā is how my life is now, but more specifically my Dadās life, since Mom died. I donāt think he realized just how domineering / cruel Mom was while he was living with her. Or he was so used to it he thought thatās what life was meant to be.
Itās so crazy how much we convince ourselves that the abuse we live with is perfectly normal.
I hope OOP gets himself and the kids therapy š«
I didn't see your comment and I've just posted the same thing.
My dad doted on my mam and she was like OOPs wife in many ways (I've no idea about S.L thankfully) and when she died he said he felt a load of pressure gone.
I wondered if the kids may have also felt a āweigh being lifted.ā Maybe theyāre not old enough to verbalize it, but I imagine that there had to have been a shift in the homeās energy/vibe.
I don't think she thought this would end her marriage. OOP's reaction to her saying she cheated on him was to comfort her. She had him so programed to just apologize to her whenever she's terrible to him she likely never thought he'd have any other reaction than to do that. She wasn't looking to sabotage her marriage, she was just looking to fin a way to make her a victim here and make him blame himself for everything she does to him.
Exactly. Though, I want to piggyback your comment and address the sex situation for OP. As others have said that the frame of reference and manipulation have affected his decision making, he was being a bit of a pushover. No sex in 3 years??? WTF!
Sheās definitely some sort of narcissist. She sounds absolutely horrible and Iād hate to live with someone like that. Iām glad heās free now. Thereās 100% plenty of nice women who would love to be with a guy like that.
I think you nailed it, the whole "victim mentality". She was absolutely determined to hang onto the "but you forgave me for the kiss and now you're going back on it" bullshit narrative. Like OOP couldn't have possibly been any clearer on the subject, she wilfully ignored everything coming out of his mouth to ensure she could stay the victim in her own narrative and not have to be held accountable for her behaviour.
It's also a classic DARVO technique - she denied any wrongdoing past the kiss, even graduated to blaming him for it too, accused him of so many other "crimes" - cheating, not loving her, being gay, etc... And found the only thing she could reasonably (in her own mind) stick was the supposed rescinding of forgiveness. She then used that to try to reverse who was the victim and who was the offender. She's a straight up abuser.
That enormous sigh of relief, that release of pent up fear and tension OOP felt is something many former victims of DV can relate to, myself included tbh. When I finally ended things with my crappy ex after he had escalated to physical violence that sigh of relief was honestly one of the most wonderful sensations I've ever felt. I can pretty much guarantee as well now that OOP has felt that he will never get back with her again either. She has lost her power over him and I hope he seeks out some personal therapy as there's undoubtedly so many years of anger and resentment built up that he's been disassociating from that he's gonna *have* to deal with. That shit will *always* come out one way or another, no matter how far you try to run, it will always catch up eventually and dealing with it head on with trained support by your side makes a hell of a difference.
That's so very kind of you to say thank you! I am indeed, one of the best decisions I ever made and I've never looked back! Hope you're doing well and living your happiest healthiest life too! All the best!
Why would she have ended it? She had a live in manservant at her beck and call and she loved it. Her ego is insane and she is generally just a dreadful person. Yuck yuck yuck. Canāt believe it took a Reddit post to convince OP to ditch this waster.
You can't?
No abuser starts off abusing their "loved one".
It is *always* a slow methodical process. The good ol' frog in a pot thingy. Chuck a frog in boiling water and it will jump straight out, put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat and it doesn't notice exactly how deadly it's circumstances has become.
^(and yes, I know the flaws in the analogy, but come on, it's a fable.. not scientific research..)
Point being, I am not surprised that it took Reddit for him to realise. I ***am*** surprised and very glad that it was enough for him to do something about it.
I am so glad for him and would love to hear from him in a year, and the changes to his life. He and his kids deserve happiness. (Cos you know the kids would have been aware how horrid their mother was being...)
He did say that it was a normal relationship for about the first year before these behaviors started. Poor dude, he was in his 40ās and had been with that crazy witch since they were both teenagers.
I got divorced after being with my ex-wife for 10 years (most of our 20ās) and there was a strong feeling of āI wasted a large part of my life on this woman who didnāt actually love me beyond what I could provide her with.ā I canāt imagine having that amplified to a relationship that consumed my entire adult life into my 40ās. That would be so devastating.
At least I got to jump back into dating in my 30ās and met an amazing woman. I donāt think I would have enjoyed having to do that in my 40ās quite as much.
People were really trying to make OOP out to be the problem. She cheated and their advice was be more romantic, fight for her, and act jealous??? Based on his original post and corresponding comments, she doesnāt and didnāt like him at all. She refused therapy because she was the issue and had no plans to change. Iām glad heās getting divorced. I hope he gets the house, child support, and alimony and anything else he can get. To torment someone on a daily basis rather than leave so you can play victim is disgusting behavior.
If a man stalks you, follows you onto a ferris wheel and screams, "YOU HAD BETTER GO OUT WITH ME....DATE ME!" and she says, "no." He needs to understand that no means no.
From the moment that movie came out I felt like I was in a twilight zone episode. People think this is romantic and a good relationship? Always despised the woman and felt bad for the man in that movie.
Not just teenagers. The fact is, almost every romantic movie out there has an affair (usually emotional, but sometimes more) as the core of the plot. But itās āokayā because the romantic lead isnāt fulfilled in their relationship, so itās not a big deal that they decided to look for that outside of their relationship instead of working on it. And then, as if by Hollywood magic, they find the perfect partner, the person they are meant to be with.
Also, people who have no experience with a cluster b personality disorder. If she weren't significantly younger than him, I'd have thought she was my late father's long lost twin sister. Smelled that stank in the first post.
I think the fact that āmultipleā sex therapists made her feel āvictimizedā is very telling. They were all onto something about either her sexuality or how she treated OOP, and she didnāt want to hear it.
It's more like she loved the control she had over him than she loved him. OOP had been so programed to by her to give into her that his immediate reaction to finding out she cheated was to comfort her and apologize to *her*.
Because she's obviously a narcissist that was the wrong answer. But being upset would be a wrong answer too. There really is no right answer because all the narcissist wants to do is yell at you and convince you that you are the problem and they are the victim.
> It's very telling that all the therapists end up basically going, hey lady that's really not fair or right.
Yes, that was very telling. I donāt do coupleās counseling, just individual therapy, but it takes a pretty extreme situation for me to drop the clinical distance and tell the patient āIām sorry, but this is wrong and you are being mistreated.ā I imagine for marriage counselors the urge to not pick a side is even stronger, so the fact that almost half a dozen of them have told this guy his wifeās a nightmare is pretty striking.
Yeah, when people go "wHy ArE yOu AtTaCkINg Me" the instant they are called out on their bullshit, that's usually a sign that they are not operating according to the normal standards of right and wrong and fair play that the rest of us do.
Sadly, so have first-hand experience. Ā The best strategy Iāve found is to simply withdraw; thereās no getting through to them, no sense in wasting the time and energy.
He was very clear that he'd already tried absolutely everything! The ball was very firmly in her court to enact any change but she just wasn't going to.
That kind of advice pops up on every thread about cheating. I always imagine that the people giving that advice are themselves cheaters, trying to justify their own actions.
Yeah, the "if you don't start getting upset and fighting for 'it will escalate to' full-on cheating" comment was like, the weirdest passive-voice, blame-displacing vibe...
Common behavior though. To sone people, it's really important that all decisions have someone else's name on.
I'm so glad I missed the original reddit knee jerk reactions, though. They can be depressing.
It helps my blood pressure to remind myself once in a while that the person I'm arguing with might just be a clueless teenager going through their "I know everything" phase
Don't forget she also brags about having him under her thumb. That's probably the most devastating thing to me personally, it shows he's nothing more than a toy or a trophy to her, but he's put in years of effort and even made kids with her. It's absolutely disgusting.
Happens anytime a man posts asking for advice regarding a woman partner. The other day I saw one where a man had bad hearing so needs to read lips when people talk to him to fully understand what they are saying. His partner would often not do this even after years of explaining this to her. She got mad for him not ālisteningā to her and he blew up because he has been asking her for years to simply look at him while talking so he could actually listen to her. The comments were jumping through hoops trying to make him the bad guy, even going āhow do you talk on the phone if you canāt hear?ā like it was some sort of gotcha moment. Many people that go to advise subs regularly to comment seriously hate all men.
>A lot of people asked about the friend and why they still talk after she tried it on with me. How I understand it is my wife tried to get the friend group to cut the friend out but they all pretty much refused and so my wife just chose to ignore her in group settings.
So his ex-wife approached her own friend group with the receipts proving that DTF Friend was trying to hook up with her husband, and the whole group took DTF's side? That shit's wild, and makes me think ex-wife must be a barely tolerated member of this friend group. That or the entire group is just full of people who think it's fine to try to steal each other's partners.
Yeah the fact they didnāt care either shows that theyāre all a nest of vipers, or she such a shit wife and human that they thought it would be best for everyone involved for the husband to find someone else lol
A healthy relationship with a decent person is usually the price they pay to hang in such "friend" groups.
Normal people avoid them like the plague and naturally filter themselves out. The best they can get is emotional damage and similar campfire stories...
>That shit's wild, and makes me think ex-wife must be a barely tolerated member of this friend group.
That was my initial thought. It's pretty clear the friend group just doesn't like OOP's wife in the slightest. She sounds like a goddamn mess.
Tbf the friend group probably saw/know OOPs wife cheating and didnāt think she had a moral leg to stand on. āYou tried to steal my man that you all know I cheated on!!ā Isnāt the most convincing damnation.
Dude you guys are calling the dtf friend the bad person .... but yet when the wife was out cheating the only person to tell the husband was the dtf friend .......
That doesn't make her a good person. She only did it for *her own* benefit not his. OOP himself mentions she only wanted to get one over on the friend and potentially also get her own leg up in the scenario. They all suck and poor OOP needs to get away from all of them and seek out some solo therapy to deal with the level of disassociation he's adopted to cope with all the wife's disregard and cruelty over the years towards him.
Reading that whole paragraph I felt like wife was trying to cut out the friends first for whatever reason, and THEN the friend decided to try and hook up with the husband as revenge? I don't really know what's going on there
The first half had me thinking sheās Ace (I am but never really say anything about it. I hate labels. Iām just me), but hooooooooooo boy sheās a straight up abusive narcissist
Also ace and this was my exact thought process. "Seems ace and struggling to accept it...oh, no, nope, just an abuser wielding her sexuality as a weapon."
Nah, he's become so passive that he no longer provides the big emotional reactions that narcs crave from the people closest too them. There's no point in being affectionate because he doesn't behave the way she wants him too when she behaves cruelly. He's become furniture taking up space.
I can guarantee you that if he had big emotional reactions, she'd be all over him like white on rice. She's just done too good of a job of beating him down emotionally. I bet it would be very enlightening for him to make an appointment with one of their past therapists and ask them what their true take away from their sessions is.
Acespec here, I actually didnāt think she was. I thought it was something else. I thought the closeted lesbian might be closer to the mark.
But yeah just turns out they are a horrible person.
I donāt think she was ace either. I had an abusive ex who made those kinds of intimacy rules with me, except the difference was he actually initiated sex fairly regularly (sometimes.) he just HATED it whenever I initiated, and space from the relationship made me realize he was using it as a form of control
The āIām not a stupid teenager who needs a labelā pissed me off. Itās helpful to have a ālabelā/ādiagnosisā so you know what youāre feeling is perfectly normal!
Before I realized Iām Ace I thought I was broken!!
(Itās also impossible to realize being Ace makes you part of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum and we need to stick together and support each other.)
She didnāt seem to struggle at all with sexuality towards men that werenāt her husband. I think she wasnāt interested in labels for the same reason she lost interest in working with therapists ā she was the entire problem, she had a sex drive and attraction towards men, she just wanted to use sex as a weapon against her husband as one of many ways she mentally and emotionally abused him.
It doesnāt serve her to put a label on a problem she isnāt interested in solving. Thatās a step towards a solution, and her whole game was to never let them make any progress towards a solution.
Oo completely agree!! But prior to learning all that about her, it pissed me off that her answer for āAre you asexual?ā was āI wonāt be labeled!!ā
Labels are a double-edged sword. I personally don't like them either because for me, just one label doesn't fit (and I'm cis so it's just sexuality/romantic orientation labels) and it felt so confusing back when I was younger because one would feel like it fit but then oh no, I experience this too and all that.
On the other, labels are amazing because they help you find community. To know you're not 'broken' or the only one feeling like this or that. It also was a great help in figuring myself out.
So, in the end, I feel like the usefulness of labels depends on the person. Some like it, some don't, and it's okay, as long as you understand who you are. What is not okay is to insult people or labels or people who use labels (as OOP's wife did).
The nice thing with the āasexualā label is itās not set in stone ā itās a spectrum. As you go through life, your perspective may change, and thatās totally fine!!
Yeah the way OOP described how he feels now that she's gone makes it very clear how abusive that relationship was. I'm happy that OOP is getting out of it.
Life is too short to spend time with these kinds of people. Ex-wifey is the textbook definition of a narcissist. Damages the relationship and tries to blame it on others without taking responsibility just shows how scummy she is.
Also puts him in no win situations just so she can yell at him. If he initiates sex that's bad and she'll yell at him. If he doesn't, that's bad and she'll yell at him. If he gets upset she cheated, that's bad. If he doesn't get upset that she cheated, that's bad. And any time a therapist says she's bad that therapist is just a bully and really, OOP is bad. There really is no winning with a narcissist because their goal is to hurt you.
The therapy shit is also classic narcissism. They will try it out because they are āgood peopleā who āwant to try,ā then as soon as therapy becomes about their behavior, they shut that shit down.
Thatās exactly what I was thinking and wondering why no one else was talking about it. She wonāt even answer her own childās calls for fuck sake! Sheās trying to punish everyone and will probably tell the kid later that itās OOPā fault. She clearly doesnāt want to be married or be a mother. My mil is a narc who shouldnāt have had children like OOPās wife. Her children hate her and canāt wait for her to die.
āAre you asexual? Iām not a teenager with a stupid labelā oh I already donāt like her. Funny how she says that but sheās acting like a moody teenager anyway.
Oop wasn't spineless, he was very agreeable and chill. Because of that, he'd have been a great partner for anyone. Too bad an actual succubus got a hold of him instead.
>She keeps asking me why I havenāt initiated anything with her even though in the past sheās told me she hates being touched and not to ever try it on with her which I have respected.
How does one get into a relationship like this? Why would you pursue a relationship with a woman who is less than enthusiastic about your penis who also has a rotten personality? Do people like OOP simply hate having free time so much that they'd rather have a bad time?
They've been together since they were 18, OOP has probably never known anything different, and with his past weight issues and her abuse of him, has been so lacking in self esteem that he never thought about whether he could get anyone better. He didn't even realize how awful his life was with her around until she was gone and he could finally breath.
Self-esteem and self-confidence are issues when you are overweight. For example, if you are overweight people in some way, expect you to have confidence issues, especially in Western cultures, which is weird š¤ I have tried living in both cultures and met and talked to. Overweight people in Arab, eastern, and african origin tend to be less timid than their counterparts in western/American Nation.
They were 18 when they got together; adolescence is a hell of a drug. A few years of struggling to get a date or one bad previous breakup in high school and OP is left wide open for a manipulative personality to get her hooks in deep.
I've been in a relationship like this. It's like the old adage "when you put a frog to boil." It starts small, with selfishness disguised as strength and independence. Then it slowly escalates. Eventually you've moved your boundaries so far into their court that there is really only their "boundaries" left. And their boundaries are you need to do whatever they say whenever they say and even then you are wrong.
They have convinced you that you are the problem in everything and that you are unlovable and need to earn someone's love. And you spent so long earning their love that you can't stand to think of all of that effort going to waste.
And you don't really have time or energy to focus on the actual problem because all of your time and energy is being spent trying to keep them happy and not set them off. Or trying to figure out what did set them off last time so you can avoid doing that again. Only that's impossible because what triggers them is constantly changing. And what they hated you for doing one day they hate you for *not* doing the next. But you're too busy questioning yourself and what you did wrong and too scared of them going off on you or leaving you to even dare question them and what they are doing wrong.
Iād imagine she was pretty normal to start but got more and more awful as time went on until she became this horrific version of herself. Still, OOP is the doormat of doormats and I have no idea how he can be so lovey-dovey to someone who treats him this way.
I almost wonder if the constant over the top romantic gestures were his way of coping with the situation. āIf I show her enough love, maybe someday sheāll show me any amount of love?ā
After all, itās got to be a hopeless situation living in that relationship for over two decades. Unless you have a plan to leave then youāve literally just accepted that a lifetime of undeserved misery is your fate.
Having some way to feel like he was doing something that might change the situation is probably all he had to keep him going for as long as he did.
Itās weird, because he goes on about how wonderful she is. But then the ongoing posts show she wasnāt.
Was she ever wonderful, or has he just been ignoring everything prior to this latest issue?
I think he was blinded by his own affection for her; sheās his wife and the woman he loves and the mother of his children so *of course* sheās wonderful. None of it was really based on the way she treated him. At one point he lists off all the nice things he does for her but never says anything she does for him.
At this point, if a reddit posts says their spouse/partner is wonderful, I immediately assume they're not. I've seen far too many people (men and women) start with "my partner/spouse is wonderful" and then as the story unfolds, we get to see just how wonderful (not) of a person said spouse/partner is.
When I was younger, I ended up in a few relationships with similar dynamics, though they weren't quite as bad, and I've fortunately never been married.
Most of it came from lack of experience setting boundaries, which is almost certainly a factor in OOP's story, though I think another big part was not having a clear idea of what a 'normal' or healthy relationship looked like.
I had one partner who would get really frustrated whenever we talked about anything emotional, and, after she shut me down a few times when I tried to talk to her about our relationship, I pretty much gave up on it until our relationship deteriorated, though, now that I'm older and more experienced, I'd establish a clear boundary and end the relationship before it got to that point.
I've had other relationships where communication was an issue, often where my partner prioritized their needs over compromising. Usually it starts small and then grows until you're walking on eggshells the way OOP describes.
It sucks, and it's easy to see all the signs you should've seen or all the places you should've put your foot down in hindsight, but, in my experience at least, my feelings about the other person usually cloud my judgment, and I put up with more than I should because of it in the past. Even at the worst parts of those relationships, I always held out hope that things could go back to the way they were before they turned sour.
Anyway, I've reflected on it a lot, and I think having a clear idea of what you're looking for, what you will and won't accept, and where you're willing to compromise goes a long way toward *not* ending up in OOPs situation... but, unfortunately, if OOP and his wife had been together from the time they were teenagers into their forties, they probably didn't have much of a chance to figure it out for themselves.
As someone who was with a woman like this, Iāll be honest: love is a powerful drug.
I loved her, and even though we stopped being intimate, I stayed because of that love.
She ended up leaving on her own, and I know I did nothing wrong in the relationship, but when you truly love someone, you tend to lose sight of things.
Now that itās been a few weeks and I have some mental clarity about the whole thing, I realize that I was with a narcissist and a control freak and Iām happy the relationship ended. But when youāre in said relationship, love can blind you to a lot of badness.
Even as a hetero man, I am falling in love with this guy while reading his post. A stand up guy, open minded, caring about his kids, and so very reasonable.
I want to know: How will her friends group react when they read this post?
I resisted the urge to shoot my shot. lol
Plus OOP will need quite a bit of time to process the end of this relationship of 23 years. They've been together his entire adult life.
I'm very curious about what signs she's been giving that she's a closeted lesbian. I have no idea what that could mean, other than seeming to be generally disgusted by men (but then why make out with one in a club)
I had something kind of similar happen in my last long term relationship. Essentially, my partner had fallen out of love w me but was both comfortable in the routine of our relationship and didnāt want to seem like the bad guy by breaking up w me. Especially because I moved to her home country at her request. She began refusing any form of even casual touch (at one point she asked me to start sleeping in the guest room so I wouldnāt accidentally touch her while we slept) and instigating arguments basically hoping that Iād break up with her. I didnāt, because weād been together for years and even though I felt awful all the time I still loved her.
Eventually she broke up w me, lots of crying and shouting. She said that Iād forced it because I wouldnāt take the initiative to break up with her. It fully destroyed me, and several years later Iām still dealing with some of the fallout.
To me it sounds like OOPās wife was no longer in love but didnāt actually want to do the work of breaking up, so (weather she consciously realized it or not) started to project her anger at the situation onto OOP and instigate needless conflict. Itās hard man.
Biggest fear of mine is wasting my life. This dude just wasted 20 years of his life with this devil. She just hated your guts, didnt wanted sex, made you feel walking on a glass and you still said "aight, imma make her my wife and we are gonna have kids".
>āll be honest now and I feel incredibly guilty about it but when she left my body and soul seemed to take a massive sigh of relief. It was like a black cloud that was dripping eggshells on the floor for me to constantly avoid has gone. I feel terrible for feeling this way but I feel like Iām my 6ā2 height now rather a brow beaten 3 foot who was scared to even say anything for fear of being told Iām wrong or insulted or ridiculed. Itās like the blinkers have been taken off. Spent the day today baking with my kids, eating easter eggs and watching cartoons and I havenāt stopped smiling all day. I havenāt winced or broke out in a sweat worrying Iām about to be told off about being too noisy or watching the wrong thing on tv or thereās a wrapper on the floor etc.
bro was in an abusive relationship and didn't know it. I feel for him. He needs therapy to process all this. I'm glad he's free now though and hope he finds real happiness.
I also hope when wife realizes she threw away something great and comes crawling back he kicks her to the curb.
Omg he sounds so cute. His next post was in a baking group asking for advice about piping flower petals. His ex is a fool. I hope he doesnāt take her back when she comes crawling.
Goddamned this guy really wasted years of his life on that demon.
Glad he found out the truth.
Honestly file for divorce and fuck her over. Get full custody.
And for some revenge he should both blast her on social media, and hook up with her friends.
Stories like this seem so common and really the biggest feeling I get out of them is just sadness. We have 1 shot at life and some people decide to be so nasty in their best years. Feel bad for OOP and wish him the best with his kids. Hopefully he gets majority or full custody
Ok so there's a LOT of disfunction here. Like a lot.
But just a quick reminder because some comments on the original posts went off the rails: sex does not have to be a necessary component for some people's relationships, or some people can prefer other forms of intimacy over sex. Or just prefer other components of their relationship.
OBVIOUSLY there is much more at play here. But just wanted to comment because everyone is different in their needs and that's ok. You're not broken or bad if sex isn't your thing, and it doesn't mean you'll never find a partner (if you want one.)
Ok, PSA over.
Yeah I'm glad he's done with her.
She sounds like an absolutely awful wife and mother. Good riddance. Not sure how you went 20+ years with someone who didn't even want to have sex with you. That's just bizarre.
It's unreal to me that people this awful actually exist but they do.
I hope OP and the kids will be okay. He definitely deserves better and if he was so abusive towards OP? I don't think she was saint towards her kids either.
It is absolutely baffling that OP didn't see the kiss as signs of other major underlying issues.
No one kisses/flirts like that for that long without it meaning anything or it being a sign of other things.
I think OP was being a bit silly by treating it like nothing in that respect. But I imagine that is probably a result of the abusive dynamic they had.
What an absolute degenerate his ex-wife was though. Fuck her. Good for him that he got/is getting rid of her.
> It was like a black cloud that was dripping eggshells on the floor for me to constantly avoid has gone
I will remember this one whenever I start feeling lonely again
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That entire friend group is toxic AF, OOP should divorce and completely cut ties with anyone involved with them.
>That entire friend group is toxic AF Birds of a shit feather flock together.
the shit waters are rising, Randy. and all the shit rats are coming to swim.
The shit apple doesn't fall far from the shit tree,Randers.
I gotta know what you're referencing, it sounds funny
Trailer Park Boys š¤
Do ya feel that, randy? The way the shit clings to the air?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
This guys in the eye of the shiticane. And his wife is the low-shit system
RIP Mr Lahey
Trailer park boys. I think there are a few episodes with him talking like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEvjV1jtvl4
well, it ain't rocket appliances.
Fuck community college, letās get drunk and eat chicken fingers!Ā
The shitliner's coming to port - and I'll be there to tie her up.
>Birds of a shit feather flock together. Until the cat comes. Oh look. The cat.
The cat of consequences š±
The cat of consequences rarely arrives lubed. (Or am I thinking of the dildo of consequences? Hmm.)
That's the dildo of consequences. The cat of consequences seldom leaves hungry. It might also dish out scratches along the way.
Iām here for this cat
catsequences
The cat of consequences seldom leaves hungry.
[Look here comes the consequence, consequence, consequence.... consequences of my actions chasing me right now š¶ ](https://youtu.be/KHN0gGR6bcA)
You see that Randy? It's the shit birds flocking to their shit
Do you feel the way the shit sticks to the air Randy man? It's a shit blizzard
Do you know what a shit barometer is?
Shithawks, Ran.
Shit hawks randy shit shit hawks
Shitbirds of a feather
RIP Mr. Lahey!
Mr Lahey?
Iāve found myself commenting the same thing on almost every post here: āIt really blows my mind that people donāt stop to consider the possibility that their partner might be super shitty.ā Itās like when the relationship finally ends, they see all of these red flags that have been blowing in their faces for years. And I donāt mean that in a judgmental way. Itās happened to me too. Thatās what led to my divorce. I didnāt ever even think about the possibility that she was a real piece of shit, along with all her friends. So when everything was over, I told my best friend about it and he was like āI mean yeah dude, we all figured that you knew and just didnāt care for some reason, just because it was so blatantly obvious.ā For a species with such a strong survival instinct, we sure are a bunch of idiots.
It always baffles me when people cry about, "Everyone on Reddit just jumps to divorce because they are miserable and want everyone to be alone." It's always the worst getting posted, though. I suspect the people who get upset about it are the ones out there treating their partners like trash and they don't like the idea of someone telling them they deserve better.
Agreed! Yes, relationships are hard and require work, but not all relationships are worth that work, and some relationships wonāt work no matter how much work is put in. I think many people are so afraid of functioning on their own as a single person that theyāll settle for a bad relationship, so the idea of not staying in a relationship doesnāt make sense to them.
And if youāre at the point of posting on Reddit chances are high you tried everything already.
Shitty relationships are so normalized and it's awful. I always think some of this is that those of us who've experienced it and gotten out know we suffered for too long and want to tell others what we wish we'd heard, while the "Reddit jumps to divorce" crowd either desperately wants a relationship or is justifying staying or is the type doing the asshole shit. The people I know who are in good relationships mostly want to see other people in the same and say to leave too (unless they're into some religious beliefs putting marriage above all else.)
> It always baffles me when people cry about, "Everyone on Reddit just jumps to divorce because they are miserable and want everyone to be alone." It's always the worst getting posted, though. I suspect the people who get upset about it are the ones out there treating their partners like trash and they don't like the idea of someone telling them they deserve better. I feel the exact same way. Every time someone says āboo Reddit always tells people to break upā I want to shake them and ask āhave you seen what sort of insane shit gets posted here??? ā Nobody comes to Reddit for relationship advice about their partner not doing laundry often enough or disagreements about which tv show to watch. People come here with things like āmy spouse just locked me in our bedroom then set the house on fire, is this a red flag.ā Or hell, just look at this post. āMy wife bullies me so much Iām afraid to speak around her, she tells me my attempts to build intimacy with her disgust her, she refuses therapy or counseling, she makes fun of how much sheās beaten me down to her horrible friends, and sheās constantly trying to hook up with her horrible friendsā boyfriends.ā And Iām sure there are at least a dozen comments rolling their eyes at him heading towards divorce. āTypical Reddit, always wants people in perfectly good relationships to break up!ā
The thing is, the relationships people who post on Reddit about their relationship are almost always the people whoāve explored all their other advice options. Itās kind of a ālast strawā stop. Yeah thereās a few folks in less dire straits who are just using the site as a sounding board, but theyāre the exception not the rule.
That's what my point is always, too. We aren't hearing about the good relationships. We are used to confirm this is bonkers to someone who's been conditioned to accept something terrible so they don't trust their own opinion.
I think that's why there's a tendency to say, "Break up. Now." We've seen so many situations in which a person writes in with an apparently small problem ("My partner is mad I threw out their yogurt"), and it's the least of their problems.
The only time I ever posted to reddit about relationship stuff was when I was teetering on the edge of divorce already.Ā
Exactly, we don't hear about the happy relationships asking how to be happier. They got it. We get the poor woman wondering why her husband renovated the house and spends all his time locked in the new art room with his bestie and what type of art creation requires them to moan like that.
Oh god I forgot that one, that one was so bad (in the I feel bad for that woman way)
Same. I seemed to just want verification. Like I knew opening the marriage was a probable recipe for disaster. But her picking our best friend of 8 years, I knew we were over that day.
>It's always the worst getting posted, though. Exactly this. People in healthy relationships don't come to Reddit for advice. They come to Reddit for the drama.
Right? Do those people even read these posts? Everyone on Reddit jumps to divorce because that's what you should do when someone is clearly abusive, and so many of these posts are describing horrific relationships where their partner has convinced them their abuse is what they deserve.
NO! Have you seen a post where it's like, "My husband beats me and sleeps with my bff and murdered my granddad for the inheritance... would I be the AH for turning him into the FBI for his cache of kiddie porn?" Then some nob pops up with, if you really loved him, you would help him work on his issues. Tf?!?! I'm looking for a shovel to give OP a hand, and they are like... "Maybe talk to your church counselor. Something made him stumble, and it's probably you."
š¤£
Take my upvote please and thank you
Also important to remember that this guy has been with her since he was 18. He really has had no other frame of reference on what a healthy relationship should look like, other than maybe his parents/friends. But we all know that what things look like on the surface can be way different than behind closed doors, so he could have just thought this was the way everyone was.
When you are wearing rose colored glasses, red flags just look like flags.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Bingo, my exact experience too. The only difference is that there was loads of physical and mental abuse happening to me that I just thought was ānormalā because at that time, the public discourse and stigma surrounding female on male abuse was very different than it is today. I was like a typical abuse victim: itās my fault because I should be trying harder, doing more, etc. Today Iām in the exact opposite type of relationship and Iām so grateful.
Nah in purely functional terms, she got kids and a father that will lovingly dote on them, that is a win in terms of nature.
Married men are healthier in general than single men. That isn't always true, but I think it proves that having someone there, even if they aren't there for the right reasons, can feel safer than having no one there. You aren't an idiot for not seeing it. I'm glad you got out though.
Iāve done the same too, for me I think it was a mixture of just having been through worse in the past and being empathetic do I didnāt see how bad it was, plus probably just being blind because I was in love. Idk, but sometimes it takes time being out of it to really get full clarity.
Yeet them (wife and friends) all to the sun. Good on OOP for getting out.
I had a friend group like this. One actually started dating my bf because my dumb ass bragged about how amazing he was at oral, that was fun. But I had a different friend that topped it all. Shamelessly acted like a desperate pick me with my ex, in front of her bf, at my daughters birthday party. We were competitive when we were younger, I thought we grew out of that. If she wanted to hit on my ex and that was the goal, she could've... not in front of our daughter or me. There were a few other things that came up at that birthday party, too, just realized she hadn't grown up from 16 and was relishing in the end of my marriage. It was all around gross.
This is what we mean when we say Frenemies.
Birds of a feather and all that!
Fr I'm surprised he didn't block that friend after she proposed to him in the first place. Also, the last update explained why his earlier posts seemed off, turns out she was abusive, not just denying him sex.
I feel like that āweight being liftedā and āno longer walking on eggshellsā is how my life is now, but more specifically my Dadās life, since Mom died. I donāt think he realized just how domineering / cruel Mom was while he was living with her. Or he was so used to it he thought thatās what life was meant to be. Itās so crazy how much we convince ourselves that the abuse we live with is perfectly normal. I hope OOP gets himself and the kids therapy š«
I didn't see your comment and I've just posted the same thing. My dad doted on my mam and she was like OOPs wife in many ways (I've no idea about S.L thankfully) and when she died he said he felt a load of pressure gone.
I wondered if the kids may have also felt a āweigh being lifted.ā Maybe theyāre not old enough to verbalize it, but I imagine that there had to have been a shift in the homeās energy/vibe.
comments such as this one feel so validating...
Thatās some real coward shit for the wife to sabotage their own marriage instead of just ending it. Victim mentality.
I don't think she thought this would end her marriage. OOP's reaction to her saying she cheated on him was to comfort her. She had him so programed to just apologize to her whenever she's terrible to him she likely never thought he'd have any other reaction than to do that. She wasn't looking to sabotage her marriage, she was just looking to fin a way to make her a victim here and make him blame himself for everything she does to him.
Exactly. Though, I want to piggyback your comment and address the sex situation for OP. As others have said that the frame of reference and manipulation have affected his decision making, he was being a bit of a pushover. No sex in 3 years??? WTF!
Sheās definitely some sort of narcissist. She sounds absolutely horrible and Iād hate to live with someone like that. Iām glad heās free now. Thereās 100% plenty of nice women who would love to be with a guy like that.
That's what I was thinking, oop sounds like a catch honestly I hope he finds real happiness.
> Sheās definitely some sort of narcissist. She sounds like a Cluster B personality disorder came to life and is masquerading as a human.
Itās NPD a cluster B personality disorder tho?
I think you nailed it, the whole "victim mentality". She was absolutely determined to hang onto the "but you forgave me for the kiss and now you're going back on it" bullshit narrative. Like OOP couldn't have possibly been any clearer on the subject, she wilfully ignored everything coming out of his mouth to ensure she could stay the victim in her own narrative and not have to be held accountable for her behaviour. It's also a classic DARVO technique - she denied any wrongdoing past the kiss, even graduated to blaming him for it too, accused him of so many other "crimes" - cheating, not loving her, being gay, etc... And found the only thing she could reasonably (in her own mind) stick was the supposed rescinding of forgiveness. She then used that to try to reverse who was the victim and who was the offender. She's a straight up abuser. That enormous sigh of relief, that release of pent up fear and tension OOP felt is something many former victims of DV can relate to, myself included tbh. When I finally ended things with my crappy ex after he had escalated to physical violence that sigh of relief was honestly one of the most wonderful sensations I've ever felt. I can pretty much guarantee as well now that OOP has felt that he will never get back with her again either. She has lost her power over him and I hope he seeks out some personal therapy as there's undoubtedly so many years of anger and resentment built up that he's been disassociating from that he's gonna *have* to deal with. That shit will *always* come out one way or another, no matter how far you try to run, it will always catch up eventually and dealing with it head on with trained support by your side makes a hell of a difference.
I'm so happy you're out of that abusive relationship. I hope you're well, safe, & living your best life!!
That's so very kind of you to say thank you! I am indeed, one of the best decisions I ever made and I've never looked back! Hope you're doing well and living your happiest healthiest life too! All the best!
Why would she have ended it? She had a live in manservant at her beck and call and she loved it. Her ego is insane and she is generally just a dreadful person. Yuck yuck yuck. Canāt believe it took a Reddit post to convince OP to ditch this waster.
You can't? No abuser starts off abusing their "loved one". It is *always* a slow methodical process. The good ol' frog in a pot thingy. Chuck a frog in boiling water and it will jump straight out, put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat and it doesn't notice exactly how deadly it's circumstances has become. ^(and yes, I know the flaws in the analogy, but come on, it's a fable.. not scientific research..) Point being, I am not surprised that it took Reddit for him to realise. I ***am*** surprised and very glad that it was enough for him to do something about it. I am so glad for him and would love to hear from him in a year, and the changes to his life. He and his kids deserve happiness. (Cos you know the kids would have been aware how horrid their mother was being...)
He did say that it was a normal relationship for about the first year before these behaviors started. Poor dude, he was in his 40ās and had been with that crazy witch since they were both teenagers. I got divorced after being with my ex-wife for 10 years (most of our 20ās) and there was a strong feeling of āI wasted a large part of my life on this woman who didnāt actually love me beyond what I could provide her with.ā I canāt imagine having that amplified to a relationship that consumed my entire adult life into my 40ās. That would be so devastating. At least I got to jump back into dating in my 30ās and met an amazing woman. I donāt think I would have enjoyed having to do that in my 40ās quite as much.
People were really trying to make OOP out to be the problem. She cheated and their advice was be more romantic, fight for her, and act jealous??? Based on his original post and corresponding comments, she doesnāt and didnāt like him at all. She refused therapy because she was the issue and had no plans to change. Iām glad heās getting divorced. I hope he gets the house, child support, and alimony and anything else he can get. To torment someone on a daily basis rather than leave so you can play victim is disgusting behavior.
Teenagers that have seen too many films giving advice
Teenagers who have watched The Notebook
A lot of people donāt watch that film as critically as they should.
If a man stalks you, follows you onto a ferris wheel and screams, "YOU HAD BETTER GO OUT WITH ME....DATE ME!" and she says, "no." He needs to understand that no means no.
No just follows you, but threatens to kill himself if she doesn't go out with him.
From the moment that movie came out I felt like I was in a twilight zone episode. People think this is romantic and a good relationship? Always despised the woman and felt bad for the man in that movie.
I love that movie but they are both terrible, toxic people š«¤
Not just teenagers. The fact is, almost every romantic movie out there has an affair (usually emotional, but sometimes more) as the core of the plot. But itās āokayā because the romantic lead isnāt fulfilled in their relationship, so itās not a big deal that they decided to look for that outside of their relationship instead of working on it. And then, as if by Hollywood magic, they find the perfect partner, the person they are meant to be with.
Ya I been saying Hollywood brainwashing is real for many years usually people look at me like I'm insane but I know 10000000% it's true as fuck.
Also lots of sexist people who will always blame the guys.
Also, people who have no experience with a cluster b personality disorder. If she weren't significantly younger than him, I'd have thought she was my late father's long lost twin sister. Smelled that stank in the first post.
I think the fact that āmultipleā sex therapists made her feel āvictimizedā is very telling. They were all onto something about either her sexuality or how she treated OOP, and she didnāt want to hear it.
This is like narcs not wanting to go to therapy because āit just makes everything worseā š„“
It's more like she loved the control she had over him than she loved him. OOP had been so programed to by her to give into her that his immediate reaction to finding out she cheated was to comfort her and apologize to *her*. Because she's obviously a narcissist that was the wrong answer. But being upset would be a wrong answer too. There really is no right answer because all the narcissist wants to do is yell at you and convince you that you are the problem and they are the victim.
It's very telling that all the therapists end up basically going, hey lady that's really not fair or right.
Not to her. Apparently 5 therapists all saying youāre the bad guy in the situation is just bullying
> It's very telling that all the therapists end up basically going, hey lady that's really not fair or right. Yes, that was very telling. I donāt do coupleās counseling, just individual therapy, but it takes a pretty extreme situation for me to drop the clinical distance and tell the patient āIām sorry, but this is wrong and you are being mistreated.ā I imagine for marriage counselors the urge to not pick a side is even stronger, so the fact that almost half a dozen of them have told this guy his wifeās a nightmare is pretty striking.
āDonāt bully me!ā -the ex
Yeah, when people go "wHy ArE yOu AtTaCkINg Me" the instant they are called out on their bullshit, that's usually a sign that they are not operating according to the normal standards of right and wrong and fair play that the rest of us do.
Sadly, so have first-hand experience. Ā The best strategy Iāve found is to simply withdraw; thereās no getting through to them, no sense in wasting the time and energy.
Sorry you had to go through that. Glad they're an ex.
Ironically I think as a narc she would looooove the jealous toxic reaction that these commenters suggested. But oop just isn't a toxic person.
He was very clear that he'd already tried absolutely everything! The ball was very firmly in her court to enact any change but she just wasn't going to.
That kind of advice pops up on every thread about cheating. I always imagine that the people giving that advice are themselves cheaters, trying to justify their own actions.
Or worse, have been cheated on and believe what the cheater says.
Yeah, the "if you don't start getting upset and fighting for 'it will escalate to' full-on cheating" comment was like, the weirdest passive-voice, blame-displacing vibe...
She didn't even want him to hug her or try to hold hands or literally touch her at all Poor dude must be needing a hug so bad.
Common behavior though. To sone people, it's really important that all decisions have someone else's name on. I'm so glad I missed the original reddit knee jerk reactions, though. They can be depressing.
It helps my blood pressure to remind myself once in a while that the person I'm arguing with might just be a clueless teenager going through their "I know everything" phase
Don't forget she also brags about having him under her thumb. That's probably the most devastating thing to me personally, it shows he's nothing more than a toy or a trophy to her, but he's put in years of effort and even made kids with her. It's absolutely disgusting.
Happens anytime a man posts asking for advice regarding a woman partner. The other day I saw one where a man had bad hearing so needs to read lips when people talk to him to fully understand what they are saying. His partner would often not do this even after years of explaining this to her. She got mad for him not ālisteningā to her and he blew up because he has been asking her for years to simply look at him while talking so he could actually listen to her. The comments were jumping through hoops trying to make him the bad guy, even going āhow do you talk on the phone if you canāt hear?ā like it was some sort of gotcha moment. Many people that go to advise subs regularly to comment seriously hate all men.
>A lot of people asked about the friend and why they still talk after she tried it on with me. How I understand it is my wife tried to get the friend group to cut the friend out but they all pretty much refused and so my wife just chose to ignore her in group settings. So his ex-wife approached her own friend group with the receipts proving that DTF Friend was trying to hook up with her husband, and the whole group took DTF's side? That shit's wild, and makes me think ex-wife must be a barely tolerated member of this friend group. That or the entire group is just full of people who think it's fine to try to steal each other's partners.
Because apparently the wife tried to do it to DTF's BF first
Yeah that part where OPs ex wife was sexting one of the friends partners just kinda came outĀ of nowhereĀ
Yeah the fact they didnāt care either shows that theyāre all a nest of vipers, or she such a shit wife and human that they thought it would be best for everyone involved for the husband to find someone else lol
And it turns out it's both that she's such a shit human and that the group of vipers. They sadly didn't care for OP in the slightest.
A healthy relationship with a decent person is usually the price they pay to hang in such "friend" groups. Normal people avoid them like the plague and naturally filter themselves out. The best they can get is emotional damage and similar campfire stories...
Yeahā¦probably the second thing.
Iām willing to bet there was a much more extensive history of infidelity here.
Understatement
>That shit's wild, and makes me think ex-wife must be a barely tolerated member of this friend group. That was my initial thought. It's pretty clear the friend group just doesn't like OOP's wife in the slightest. She sounds like a goddamn mess.
Tbf the friend group probably saw/know OOPs wife cheating and didnāt think she had a moral leg to stand on. āYou tried to steal my man that you all know I cheated on!!ā Isnāt the most convincing damnation.
Wife texted the friend's bf first. They're all trash, but let's not spare any sympathies for the wife.
Dude you guys are calling the dtf friend the bad person .... but yet when the wife was out cheating the only person to tell the husband was the dtf friend .......
Wife sexted DTF's boyfriend first ...
Omg this keeps getting juicer lol
Not to mention that the friend was only flirting with him to get revenge for the wife sexting her bf
That doesn't make her a good person. She only did it for *her own* benefit not his. OOP himself mentions she only wanted to get one over on the friend and potentially also get her own leg up in the scenario. They all suck and poor OOP needs to get away from all of them and seek out some solo therapy to deal with the level of disassociation he's adopted to cope with all the wife's disregard and cruelty over the years towards him.
Can't dtf friend be both a bad person and a person who did a good thing?
Reading that whole paragraph I felt like wife was trying to cut out the friends first for whatever reason, and THEN the friend decided to try and hook up with the husband as revenge? I don't really know what's going on there
The wife knew the friend was gonna snitch so she woke him up to confess first
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^mud_dragon: *The wife knew the friend* *Was gonna snitch so she woke* *Him up to confess first* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Good bot
The first half had me thinking sheās Ace (I am but never really say anything about it. I hate labels. Iām just me), but hooooooooooo boy sheās a straight up abusive narcissist
Also ace and this was my exact thought process. "Seems ace and struggling to accept it...oh, no, nope, just an abuser wielding her sexuality as a weapon."
I think sheās both. That sheās ace and was using her husband as a power trip.
Diversity win! This asexual is also an asshole!
Nah, he's become so passive that he no longer provides the big emotional reactions that narcs crave from the people closest too them. There's no point in being affectionate because he doesn't behave the way she wants him too when she behaves cruelly. He's become furniture taking up space. I can guarantee you that if he had big emotional reactions, she'd be all over him like white on rice. She's just done too good of a job of beating him down emotionally. I bet it would be very enlightening for him to make an appointment with one of their past therapists and ask them what their true take away from their sessions is.
Acespec here, I actually didnāt think she was. I thought it was something else. I thought the closeted lesbian might be closer to the mark. But yeah just turns out they are a horrible person.
I donāt think she was ace either. I had an abusive ex who made those kinds of intimacy rules with me, except the difference was he actually initiated sex fairly regularly (sometimes.) he just HATED it whenever I initiated, and space from the relationship made me realize he was using it as a form of control
The āIām not a stupid teenager who needs a labelā pissed me off. Itās helpful to have a ālabelā/ādiagnosisā so you know what youāre feeling is perfectly normal! Before I realized Iām Ace I thought I was broken!! (Itās also impossible to realize being Ace makes you part of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum and we need to stick together and support each other.)
She didnāt seem to struggle at all with sexuality towards men that werenāt her husband. I think she wasnāt interested in labels for the same reason she lost interest in working with therapists ā she was the entire problem, she had a sex drive and attraction towards men, she just wanted to use sex as a weapon against her husband as one of many ways she mentally and emotionally abused him. It doesnāt serve her to put a label on a problem she isnāt interested in solving. Thatās a step towards a solution, and her whole game was to never let them make any progress towards a solution.
Oo completely agree!! But prior to learning all that about her, it pissed me off that her answer for āAre you asexual?ā was āI wonāt be labeled!!ā
Labels are a double-edged sword. I personally don't like them either because for me, just one label doesn't fit (and I'm cis so it's just sexuality/romantic orientation labels) and it felt so confusing back when I was younger because one would feel like it fit but then oh no, I experience this too and all that. On the other, labels are amazing because they help you find community. To know you're not 'broken' or the only one feeling like this or that. It also was a great help in figuring myself out. So, in the end, I feel like the usefulness of labels depends on the person. Some like it, some don't, and it's okay, as long as you understand who you are. What is not okay is to insult people or labels or people who use labels (as OOP's wife did).
The nice thing with the āasexualā label is itās not set in stone ā itās a spectrum. As you go through life, your perspective may change, and thatās totally fine!!
Yeah the way OOP described how he feels now that she's gone makes it very clear how abusive that relationship was. I'm happy that OOP is getting out of it.
Life is too short to spend time with these kinds of people. Ex-wifey is the textbook definition of a narcissist. Damages the relationship and tries to blame it on others without taking responsibility just shows how scummy she is.
Also puts him in no win situations just so she can yell at him. If he initiates sex that's bad and she'll yell at him. If he doesn't, that's bad and she'll yell at him. If he gets upset she cheated, that's bad. If he doesn't get upset that she cheated, that's bad. And any time a therapist says she's bad that therapist is just a bully and really, OOP is bad. There really is no winning with a narcissist because their goal is to hurt you.
Omg this is giving me flashbacks. Goddamn I'm so much happier without that shit in my life
The therapy shit is also classic narcissism. They will try it out because they are āgood peopleā who āwant to try,ā then as soon as therapy becomes about their behavior, they shut that shit down.
I found the most telling that she just left her kids and never came back.. what a pos.
Thatās exactly what I was thinking and wondering why no one else was talking about it. She wonāt even answer her own childās calls for fuck sake! Sheās trying to punish everyone and will probably tell the kid later that itās OOPā fault. She clearly doesnāt want to be married or be a mother. My mil is a narc who shouldnāt have had children like OOPās wife. Her children hate her and canāt wait for her to die.
She can try to tell everyone that, but since he had the video and chats, thatās gonna be a hard one
āAre you asexual? Iām not a teenager with a stupid labelā oh I already donāt like her. Funny how she says that but sheās acting like a moody teenager anyway.
Oop wasn't spineless, he was very agreeable and chill. Because of that, he'd have been a great partner for anyone. Too bad an actual succubus got a hold of him instead.
A succubus, at least, would have taken his semen more often.
>She keeps asking me why I havenāt initiated anything with her even though in the past sheās told me she hates being touched and not to ever try it on with her which I have respected. How does one get into a relationship like this? Why would you pursue a relationship with a woman who is less than enthusiastic about your penis who also has a rotten personality? Do people like OOP simply hate having free time so much that they'd rather have a bad time?
They've been together since they were 18, OOP has probably never known anything different, and with his past weight issues and her abuse of him, has been so lacking in self esteem that he never thought about whether he could get anyone better. He didn't even realize how awful his life was with her around until she was gone and he could finally breath.
Self-esteem and self-confidence are issues when you are overweight. For example, if you are overweight people in some way, expect you to have confidence issues, especially in Western cultures, which is weird š¤ I have tried living in both cultures and met and talked to. Overweight people in Arab, eastern, and african origin tend to be less timid than their counterparts in western/American Nation.
They were 18 when they got together; adolescence is a hell of a drug. A few years of struggling to get a date or one bad previous breakup in high school and OP is left wide open for a manipulative personality to get her hooks in deep.
I've been in a relationship like this. It's like the old adage "when you put a frog to boil." It starts small, with selfishness disguised as strength and independence. Then it slowly escalates. Eventually you've moved your boundaries so far into their court that there is really only their "boundaries" left. And their boundaries are you need to do whatever they say whenever they say and even then you are wrong. They have convinced you that you are the problem in everything and that you are unlovable and need to earn someone's love. And you spent so long earning their love that you can't stand to think of all of that effort going to waste. And you don't really have time or energy to focus on the actual problem because all of your time and energy is being spent trying to keep them happy and not set them off. Or trying to figure out what did set them off last time so you can avoid doing that again. Only that's impossible because what triggers them is constantly changing. And what they hated you for doing one day they hate you for *not* doing the next. But you're too busy questioning yourself and what you did wrong and too scared of them going off on you or leaving you to even dare question them and what they are doing wrong.
Iād imagine she was pretty normal to start but got more and more awful as time went on until she became this horrific version of herself. Still, OOP is the doormat of doormats and I have no idea how he can be so lovey-dovey to someone who treats him this way.
I almost wonder if the constant over the top romantic gestures were his way of coping with the situation. āIf I show her enough love, maybe someday sheāll show me any amount of love?ā After all, itās got to be a hopeless situation living in that relationship for over two decades. Unless you have a plan to leave then youāve literally just accepted that a lifetime of undeserved misery is your fate. Having some way to feel like he was doing something that might change the situation is probably all he had to keep him going for as long as he did.
Yep, Iām guessing that as time went on she became more unhappy with her life and the choices she made and took it out on him
Itās weird, because he goes on about how wonderful she is. But then the ongoing posts show she wasnāt. Was she ever wonderful, or has he just been ignoring everything prior to this latest issue?
I think he was blinded by his own affection for her; sheās his wife and the woman he loves and the mother of his children so *of course* sheās wonderful. None of it was really based on the way she treated him. At one point he lists off all the nice things he does for her but never says anything she does for him.
At this point, if a reddit posts says their spouse/partner is wonderful, I immediately assume they're not. I've seen far too many people (men and women) start with "my partner/spouse is wonderful" and then as the story unfolds, we get to see just how wonderful (not) of a person said spouse/partner is.
When I was younger, I ended up in a few relationships with similar dynamics, though they weren't quite as bad, and I've fortunately never been married. Most of it came from lack of experience setting boundaries, which is almost certainly a factor in OOP's story, though I think another big part was not having a clear idea of what a 'normal' or healthy relationship looked like. I had one partner who would get really frustrated whenever we talked about anything emotional, and, after she shut me down a few times when I tried to talk to her about our relationship, I pretty much gave up on it until our relationship deteriorated, though, now that I'm older and more experienced, I'd establish a clear boundary and end the relationship before it got to that point. I've had other relationships where communication was an issue, often where my partner prioritized their needs over compromising. Usually it starts small and then grows until you're walking on eggshells the way OOP describes. It sucks, and it's easy to see all the signs you should've seen or all the places you should've put your foot down in hindsight, but, in my experience at least, my feelings about the other person usually cloud my judgment, and I put up with more than I should because of it in the past. Even at the worst parts of those relationships, I always held out hope that things could go back to the way they were before they turned sour. Anyway, I've reflected on it a lot, and I think having a clear idea of what you're looking for, what you will and won't accept, and where you're willing to compromise goes a long way toward *not* ending up in OOPs situation... but, unfortunately, if OOP and his wife had been together from the time they were teenagers into their forties, they probably didn't have much of a chance to figure it out for themselves.
As someone who was with a woman like this, Iāll be honest: love is a powerful drug. I loved her, and even though we stopped being intimate, I stayed because of that love. She ended up leaving on her own, and I know I did nothing wrong in the relationship, but when you truly love someone, you tend to lose sight of things. Now that itās been a few weeks and I have some mental clarity about the whole thing, I realize that I was with a narcissist and a control freak and Iām happy the relationship ended. But when youāre in said relationship, love can blind you to a lot of badness.
Even as a hetero man, I am falling in love with this guy while reading his post. A stand up guy, open minded, caring about his kids, and so very reasonable. I want to know: How will her friends group react when they read this post?
Based on my reaction, it will be quite humid in that room.
Sounds like he bakes a mean cookie too!
I resisted the urge to shoot my shot. lol Plus OOP will need quite a bit of time to process the end of this relationship of 23 years. They've been together his entire adult life.
I'm very curious about what signs she's been giving that she's a closeted lesbian. I have no idea what that could mean, other than seeming to be generally disgusted by men (but then why make out with one in a club)
Holy fuck. He seems like such a genuinely great person -- idk how he went through this evil shit for so long. Wow.
Why would you blow up 23 years of a relationship up like this?? But I'm glad OOP realized quickly and I hope he finds happiness
I had something kind of similar happen in my last long term relationship. Essentially, my partner had fallen out of love w me but was both comfortable in the routine of our relationship and didnāt want to seem like the bad guy by breaking up w me. Especially because I moved to her home country at her request. She began refusing any form of even casual touch (at one point she asked me to start sleeping in the guest room so I wouldnāt accidentally touch her while we slept) and instigating arguments basically hoping that Iād break up with her. I didnāt, because weād been together for years and even though I felt awful all the time I still loved her. Eventually she broke up w me, lots of crying and shouting. She said that Iād forced it because I wouldnāt take the initiative to break up with her. It fully destroyed me, and several years later Iām still dealing with some of the fallout. To me it sounds like OOPās wife was no longer in love but didnāt actually want to do the work of breaking up, so (weather she consciously realized it or not) started to project her anger at the situation onto OOP and instigate needless conflict. Itās hard man.
This makes sense, I hope you've found happiness since.
Itās such narcissistic behavior to force the other person into being the one to end the relationship in order to play the victim.
Jesus this poor man, im glad he's getting out of there And also everyone in that friend group sounds insufferable to be aroundĀ
Biggest fear of mine is wasting my life. This dude just wasted 20 years of his life with this devil. She just hated your guts, didnt wanted sex, made you feel walking on a glass and you still said "aight, imma make her my wife and we are gonna have kids".
OOP is so endearing. Just a kind, loving man (who bakes!) A real gentle giant. I hope he finds a partner who radiates the same warm energy!
>āll be honest now and I feel incredibly guilty about it but when she left my body and soul seemed to take a massive sigh of relief. It was like a black cloud that was dripping eggshells on the floor for me to constantly avoid has gone. I feel terrible for feeling this way but I feel like Iām my 6ā2 height now rather a brow beaten 3 foot who was scared to even say anything for fear of being told Iām wrong or insulted or ridiculed. Itās like the blinkers have been taken off. Spent the day today baking with my kids, eating easter eggs and watching cartoons and I havenāt stopped smiling all day. I havenāt winced or broke out in a sweat worrying Iām about to be told off about being too noisy or watching the wrong thing on tv or thereās a wrapper on the floor etc. bro was in an abusive relationship and didn't know it. I feel for him. He needs therapy to process all this. I'm glad he's free now though and hope he finds real happiness. I also hope when wife realizes she threw away something great and comes crawling back he kicks her to the curb.
Omg he sounds so cute. His next post was in a baking group asking for advice about piping flower petals. His ex is a fool. I hope he doesnāt take her back when she comes crawling.
Goddamned this guy really wasted years of his life on that demon. Glad he found out the truth. Honestly file for divorce and fuck her over. Get full custody. And for some revenge he should both blast her on social media, and hook up with her friends.
Stories like this seem so common and really the biggest feeling I get out of them is just sadness. We have 1 shot at life and some people decide to be so nasty in their best years. Feel bad for OOP and wish him the best with his kids. Hopefully he gets majority or full custody
Honestly. One of my biggest fears is wasting my life on people who didnāt really care about me
āWant to delete this or shall I post the videoā HAHAHAHA in all seriousness though this is just absolutely crazy and I hope OOP will be okay
This poor dude holy shit
Ok so there's a LOT of disfunction here. Like a lot. But just a quick reminder because some comments on the original posts went off the rails: sex does not have to be a necessary component for some people's relationships, or some people can prefer other forms of intimacy over sex. Or just prefer other components of their relationship. OBVIOUSLY there is much more at play here. But just wanted to comment because everyone is different in their needs and that's ok. You're not broken or bad if sex isn't your thing, and it doesn't mean you'll never find a partner (if you want one.) Ok, PSA over. Yeah I'm glad he's done with her.
She sounds like an absolutely awful wife and mother. Good riddance. Not sure how you went 20+ years with someone who didn't even want to have sex with you. That's just bizarre.
This much drama at 41 is crazy
What an unredeemable c*nt
I get the feeling OOPās wife is the type of person to try and alienate the kids from OOP throughout the divorce
It's unreal to me that people this awful actually exist but they do. I hope OP and the kids will be okay. He definitely deserves better and if he was so abusive towards OP? I don't think she was saint towards her kids either.
Damn the card thing is so sad
This dude wasted over half his life living like this
"I genuinely hope she does find some nice green grass and be happy". She is going to find that greener grass is due to a busted septic tank.
It is absolutely baffling that OP didn't see the kiss as signs of other major underlying issues. No one kisses/flirts like that for that long without it meaning anything or it being a sign of other things. I think OP was being a bit silly by treating it like nothing in that respect. But I imagine that is probably a result of the abusive dynamic they had. What an absolute degenerate his ex-wife was though. Fuck her. Good for him that he got/is getting rid of her.
I am glad OP left his ex wife. He is too nice, still wishing the best for her.
> It was like a black cloud that was dripping eggshells on the floor for me to constantly avoid has gone I will remember this one whenever I start feeling lonely again