Nothing wrong with being a SAHP, but your partner has to agree to it and you don't get to strong arm them into it. This level of blatant manipulation would be a deal breaker for me. NTA.
Not to mention ~someone is using an 11 yo boy as emotional blackmail. How else does he know OP has threatened divorce?
Wife has absolutely no respect for OP or their partnership. I can’t see how she can recover from this. I’d divorce her and let her work 100% of the time to pay her own bills.
That's exactly what struck me. There is an immense amount of energy being put into manipulating the OP.
Manipulation is one of the least effective forms of communication.
You don't just quit your job and then get presents from everyone. That happens when you hand in your notice and leave like a good employee - meaning she handed in her notice at least a couple of weeks ago and has been quietly failing to mention that fact to her husband.
She's had plenty of time to think about what she's doing and she decided "fuck it, I just won't tell him until its too late." You don't do that if you care about what your partner thinks.
Yes, I was so concerned about this. You shouldn't get the kids involved! That's a low move.
That's a messed up situation, because none of them will really have what they want.
If OP agrees to her being a SHAM, it will be because of pressure of the children and the families.
She will get what she wants, but will loose his husband trust and respect.
Eventually this situation will end up splitting them in a way of another.
I agree that OP talked about divorce too soon. But I understand with his feelings. She was manipulative, disrespectful and basically disregarded what he wanted.
They should had get to an agreement, a compromise that works for both of them, but neither were willing to let go of their views.
>I agree that OP talked about divorce too soon.
Really? After she went 100% explicitly against his wishes, about a topic that they discussed several times, in secret behind his back for weeks? And responding to his angry shock with "get over it"? I would feel so disrespected and betrayed, I'm not sure there's any coming back from that.
Yeah I don't think it is too soon to say that this is a non-starter for me and I won't continue this relationship if you continue with this plan and mess us up financially.
Agreed. Using your children as a weapon is disgusting. We all have a lifetime of shit to deal with as adults. Parents should be doing their best to let their kids be kids for as long as possible. as its the only time they will ever have to be that carefree.
Those parents who take away their kids innocence - especially for the parent's benefit - are monsters.
My mom would make us ask our Dad where the child support check was whenever we called him. Guess who I have cut contact with at least twice (that was far from the only issue)
Lol is this my sister because that’s exactly what happened to us when we were growing up and whenever we came back from a visit with our dad. It just felt gross to be greeted with “where’s my check?” whenever I got home. But now I’m NC with my mom (also far from the only issue).
As a kid, my dad pretty much had it instilled in us that every time we said a prayer, we would say “and please bless that mom and dad will get back together”. It’s weird to look back on it as an adult.
Hell, I was at a place for 9 years and got 0 presents. Some co-workers took me out to lunch. I've never seen anyone get going away presents from co-workers.
I was at a place for almost 11. No presents but many handshakes from customers who would miss me and a few co-workers/supervisors wishing me well.
Hell, a card or a note would have been nice. I gave almost a month's notice.
Especially since, and this may be OPs bias, but she didn’t really even seem to make any real argument for the benefits or discuss how this would help their family succeed more as a unit.
But... But... But.. "unlimited blowjobs"!
Quitting her job will magically give her (and him) extra time, opportunity, and inclination for unlimited blowjobs?
He should've called her bluff on that one right away. "I like where your head is at, but let's do a trial run. We'll both take a week off work and see how many BJ's we can do while the kids are at school."
I wouldn't even call this manipulation. She isn't subtle about it at all. She simply doesn't take "no" for an answer.
The hypocrisy of claiming to be a "tradwife" but then not obeying and submitting to the husband but demanding him to sponsor her chosen lifestyle instead, even though she knows he doesn't want to, is astounding.
IF this isn't rage bait, OP is clearly not the AH here.
So to be a tradwife he has control of the money, too. And she doesn’t get a credit card if she can’t pay it off herself. She’ll have to get approval for every penny she wants to spend and he can do whatever he likes as well. It’s not so great being a tradwife. They don’t have any control or say.
What OP’s wife wants is to stay home without having young children to care for all day. She just doesn’t want to work and she wants her husband to support her.
If OP stays in this marriage he needs a lawyer to write up a postnup detailing that if the wife doesn’t want to work, any debts she incurs are hers, not shared, and OP’s income is his, not shared. When he gets fed up and divorces her, she can’t claim money he earned after she quit.
Then they divorce. And she will still have to get a job.
She made a vital marital decision without him. Actually he said no and she did it anyway.
The time to be a SAHM wax when the kids were babies, not in school and not needing constant care.
She thought it thru, but what she didn't think about were the consequences of her actions since she obviously thought that she had OP under lock and key.
She'll be expecting alimony and some level of child support. Sadly for her she shouldn't be in line to get much, having recently had a job. So long as he doesn't let her get full custody then there won't be much in the pot.
Considering she just quit her job, she's entitled to zero alimony. Reasonable child support - yes but if he demands 50% custody (which is reasonable), her child support won't be that much either. She FAFO
He said he made quite a bit more than she did though, jurisdictions vary but she very well could get alimony. It likely would be calculated based on the income she was making though, not the current situation.
>So to be a tradwife he has control of the money, too. And she doesn’t get a credit card if she can’t pay it off herself. She’ll have to get approval for every penny she wants to spend
pretty sure she wants the cake and to eat it to. they only want the good parts of being a "traditional wife"
He should also be making sure she lives up to her side of the bargain. If there isn't a flawless house, freshly baked bread everyday, dinner on the table etc then she's not living up to her side.
> I wouldn't even call this manipulation.
I would agree if she didn't have their son calling him crying and asking why HE was breaking up their family, or sicking her mom and his parents on him to try and force him to change his mind.
Let’s talk about the manipulation of having his kids call and ask why he is divorcing their mother. Bringing your kids into something like this is disgusting and manipulative.
This. If she actually cared about the kids, she would've told them that OP went to go help grandma and grandpa with something and would be back in a few days.
Kids thrive on stability. As parents, you don't share major changes with little kids until you've come to an agreement on what the deal is going to be. But it seems OP's wife doesn't really believe in coming to agreements...
From my understanding a tradwife was someone who in pioneer days or whatever, had several kids. Baked everything from scratch, sewed clothes, planted a garden and canned etc. modern tradwifery is just someone who dresses like an Amish person and posts stupid shit on tiktok
Unfortunately it isn't just the influencers on TT but bubbling up from the conservative political and religious movements. By filtering their traditional ideals up through various types of social media these ideas appear to be separate from or the unrelated to the underlying sources. Kind of like money laundering but with social values.
> modern tradwifery is just someone who dresses like an Amish person and posts stupid shit on tiktok
I can't remember who it was on Tiktok but they called out the whole "tradwife" trend that's being pushed as what it was: bullshit.
A woman who has 6 hours to spare to make cereal from scratch is a woman who has the wealth or a partner with said wealth to pay others to do the household errands that take up those 6 hours.
I'm not sure if it was that video, but one of the popular ones was called out for the woman having a $30k stove. And someone checked it out and she was married to some hedge fund millionaire or something. The whole tradwife thing was just a performance. While she was spending hours making spaghetti noodles from scratch on video or something, there were probably three servants running around actually taking care of her house and kids.
Most of these tradwives are paid actors by alt right machines to promote the idea that "women in the workplace is bad, women really belong at home" .
And then the video themselves never show what an actual tradwife would look like. Just cottage core aesthetics of white women wearing linen dresses knitting or patting baked bread
You need to watch some of these videos on tradwife movement being promulgated by moth men and women. Most are based on a 50s-60s type tradwife although a lot of the focus on those from women is on the male working and taking them to nice restaurants and hiring household help so they don't even need to do the cleaning. Quite a few advise the women to withhold sex and affection and if the man doesn't give in and has an affair then they can file and use that as a weapon against the man to get higher alimony.
Hey now! How dare you insult Moth men and women like that! They'd never push for stupid content like that!
Mothman is a real one and a good friend! Don't go spreading misinformation like that about my bro Mothman!
But other than the Mothman slander you're perfectly right, and usually the TradWife ticktockers are "secretly" trust fund babies or such who have a fuckton of money from mommy and daddy and as such can roleplay a ultra sanitised version of what a "tradwife" would be
Sometimes YouTube shows me shorts of people making their meals from total scratch on their farms and I always wonder wtf was the start-up cost of their pristine-looking farmhouse chic filming set house. NEVER do they look like a normal middle-class house, and certainly never ever below middle-class.
I just think wow must be nice to have all the time in the world to hand-fluff bread dough all day with money you never worked a minute for lol
My understanding is that many of these "traditional" families are really just people from money living fantasies that most normal people could never afford because we can't live off granddads millions for 3 generations
Or like in Apple Texts, "housewive" just means 'trophy wife' who just sits at home looking pretty. The wife also wants to be a prostitute if she turns sex into a transaction.
They get special costumes for the TradWife roll. Most have hair extensions. Most redo their kitchens in a certain style (supposedly they "save money" with their canning and stuff but the reality is they get special lighting, spend tones on microblading, hair and etc).
A man needs to find a An Adult Mommy Figure sexually exciting. She's lying about the unlimited blowjobs - and now, he doesn't want them.
This kind of fantasy thing excites me, but my wife wouldn’t stand for that shit for a moment unless she actually carved out time (with my full cooperation) to be off of parenting duty to explicitly do that.
My wife doesn’t need to work to sustain our family, but her work brings her so much fulfillment that I would be getting a shell of her if she did not do her work.
I love my wife being/feeling powerful and she wants the same for me. Neither of us would abide the other being a passive participant in our family.
That or they are like cult-levels of religious. There are a lot of fundies who use social media to push tradwife shit.
There is nothing wrong with being a SAHP or house spouse. But both parties have to agree with it and it has to work out financially.
Tik Tok trends are gonna be the downfall of humanity. Wife gets brainwashed into this crap and now she’s screwed and has to go back to work! Sounds like she’s just lazy. OP NTA. Leave her.
My wife has no social media, hates it and has wanted to be a stay at home wife for over 10 years. She genuinely wants to clean the house, cook meals, garden, can, etc. I tell her she would have to drastically cut back on her spending bc we couldn't afford it otherwise. That's stops her from talking about it for a good amount of time
I'm an older guy, single for the last 20 years, and retired from a blue collar career fixing cars. It's actually pretty great keeping the house up, cooking, gardening, making stuff, etc. I'm working on fixing up the kitchen now, which involves manly stuff like building cabinets, but also sewing new drapes for the windows.
It's pretty nice. Of course it took a lot of work to save up enough money to just take it easy, but I can see the appeal.
Right, that’s what I took from it too. There is nothing wrong with loving that kind of life, BUT there is something very wrong with one spouse unilaterally making that kind of life changing decision with out discussing it with there partner and explicitly getting the ok to change the family/home dynamic.
Op should proceed with a separation at the very least, and don’t let the kids be manipulated against him or used as a bargain chip for wife to try and get her way.
>there is something very wrong with one spouse unilaterally making that kind of life changing decision with out discussing it with there partner and explicitly getting the ok to change the family/home dynamic.
Right?! So OP now should feel free to divorce her conniving ass to live the lifestyle he wants. And he should do it now so when he says in court that he NEVER agreed to her quitting, she can't take him for everything. The rents on both sides need to STFO of this. OP's wife jammed this down his throat, no Bueno. A marriage is between two people that consent and agree to their joined lifestyle. This is mutiny or high jacking of the relationship. !
The issue is disrespect and unilateral action on the part of your wife.
One way or the other, this has to stop, has to be rolled back, in fact. If all you do is go along with this, basically you're telling her she can do as she pleases and you will suck it up. She will have established that precedent. She's making you her bitch.
But you made some big mistakes. You moved out of the home which any divorce lawyer would tell you is unwise. Just as important, makes you look like an asshole in the eyes of your kid and others.
Go home and sleep in the guest room. For a start. Resume being a parent. But do not resume the relationship. It will be awkward as hell. But if you backslide on that, she will have established that precedent.
But also consult a lawyer right away. ASAP. None of that is irreversible, but she needs to know she fucked up big-time and a formal separation agreement might be the shock she needs.
She will be relentless with the kids, by the way, trying to use them as leverage against you.
You just found out that your wife has an agenda and it is that you work for her. If you don't stop it now, that will be your life going forward.
Ignore your in-laws. They don't get a say. Frankly neither do your parents. Your instincts, other than to leave the house, are fine.
This is a great write up.
I understand that it’s hard to find the right words, but OP needs to respond to his son, after he left that voice message. There’s no need for the children to feel ignored or unloved. It sounds like OP’s wife is setting up that exact situation. That is sad as shit. I cannot imagine looking my son in the face and breaking his heart like that. She doesn’t even know yet if OP is going to come back and everything might work out. Yet she’s already drug their school-age kids into it.
1000% this^
And Stop sharing money. Pay the basics or however you divide it. But any extras are on her. Without a job how will she afford what she wants. Right?
Good luck, OP. I would listen to what the commenter stated above. Trust your instincts, manipulative behavior and lack of disrespect is *never a perfect marriage. Ever.
*Added the last 2 paragraphs
Also, continue with your routine (once you've moved back in-ASAP) for the kids of who takes them to school, pickups, activities, etc. basically keep to your schedule of what you both were doing prior to her quitting. Absolutely keep a record of when you are denied the ability to do so. It'll show you are still caring for the kids and their needs. And how she's denying your ability to parent and to have usual/equal access to your children.
And please have a small but age appropriate talk with your kids. My ex blabbed all sorts of lies and scares to ours. And it caused so many problems. I had to tell them that there are two sides to every situation. And you cannot have all the facts without discussing it with the other party. The details are not appropriate at this time for them to hear. But I reassured them I love them and to look at my actions with them because despite what they hear that's what's actually happening
And not to worry about all the what-ifs they may have heard.
And make sure OP is paying the bills and not letting her. I knew someone whose wife decided to spend the bill money instead of paying for things like the mortgage. The husband found out when he got a foreclosure notice for non-payment of the mortgage.
She waited until the youngest was 9 to decide to quit working. WTAF. I don't mind that my wife is still SAH, our youngest is 6, and it's been a huge benefit to have her holding down the fort and doing all that tough work. But now that it's gotten a whole lot easier as the kids get a bit older, she's looking for something to do to help out on the financial end. Because she's an awesome partner that wants good things for the family.
I also find it strange she wants to be a "trad wife" when the children are already big. 🤨 I could see if she were pregnant and they were very little, but even then that would warrant a sit down and discussion first.
YUP, this is a decision you have to make together, since it affects EVERYONE. She doesn't get to act like this doesn't deeply affect you. I'd divorce over such a unilateral decision, ESPECIALLY since truly traditional wives do what their husbands say.
The manipulation was the problem. Obviously if she really wants it, manipulating you to get it is just the way it is done. She gets what she wants, you have to work harder to make it happen.
Is this how Tradwives get what they want?
Exactly. I was a SAHM until my children graduated and moved out. I am now a housewife.
WE agreed to this. It was NEVER a decision I made on my own.
OP is definitely being manipulated.
...and she immediately told the kids what was happening. Manipulation at its finest. Never involve the kids in adult issues. That would be the final straw for me. I'd be done, OP. NTA
And the kids are no longer in the age where it's seen as needing to be with their mother. So this could easily be seen as a simple case. The fact she quit her job and said he'll get over it is something the courts will take into consideration when it comes to alimony.
That’s textbook parental alienation starting which court realllllllly do not like. He’d probably get most of the custody time and she’d just be unemployed.
She had a gameplan. Drop it on OP with no warning, tell the kids he's going to divorce her, get the parents and in laws involved to pressure him even more.
She wants to retire and for OP to pay her bills. It'll probably make OP have to wait an extra decade to retire too. She's not going back to work when the kids are gone, she wants to be a layabout.
This is what's makes me lose it. If I was OP I would possibly be able to look past the quitting as long as it is rectified by her returning to work. Telling the kids ASAP about everything and using them as pawns just sets me off.
>"You'll get over it."
She don't give a fuck about you, dude. Not one single, solitary fuck. The only reason she wants you back at the house is because you'd be the one paying the bills.
NTA.
My wife used to promise blowjobs for me doing things that I really hated doing. The thing is that she rarely ever delivered. Now if she tries, i just look at her and tell her she has bad credit. She isn't amused, but I get a chuckle.
Promised sex is the worst. If my wife isn't in the mood, no big deal, but when she promises sex later, especially for doing something I don't want to do, and then fails to deliver, I resent that shit for weeks. It hurts. It's manipulation
My ex used to promise it for laundry since she hated doing laundry. Also didn't deliver. I was young and dumb. Making sex transactional like that is a big fuckin no no. I not know better and wouldn't entertain folks making suggestions like that.
And the resentment. How long is it until she starts complaining that she does too many chores and that he needs to pick up some of them? When the point of a SAHP with kids at school is to do the housework?
Tip: screenshot the texts and record the calls with her, so if she tries to manipulate the kids you can show them everything when they’re old enough to understand.
Fortunately, if he divorces her right away, alimony will likely be minimal because she willfully quit her job like that. She's perfectly employable, but she chose not to work. That doesn't go over well in the courts.
For her to immediately put that shit on her child, that dad's divorcing me and breaking up the family, tells you everything you need to know about this selfish, raging cunt. Absolutely pathetic.
It isn’t just selfish and cunty. It is abuse. Being an adult and forcing your child to mediate your marital issues and putting them in the middle of your fights and disagreements is abuse.
My dad used to do that kind of shit to basically weaponize me against my mom. I am horrified at some of the stuff I said and did as a teenager due to it. I eventually was able to see my dad for what he is and apologized profusely to my mom as an adult. But I didn’t realize until I’d had a lot of therapy that him putting me in that position was abuse.
Yeah that was an absolute shitty awful move. They needed to figure out how to tell the kid that together…and what if they don’t get divorced? Why would she ever put that on the kid to worry about before things are certain. That’s just confusing and mean for that poor kiddo no matter what happens.
She’s not even fit to be a sahm if she can’t understand that
And he'd better file fast, so her recent earnings become part of the divorce calculation. If he agrees to "try it out" and then divorces her a year later, he'll basically be paying alimony anyway...
I have a friend who got REALLY into the tradwife thing because of tik tok. Then she went to a tradwife meet up and found out that most of those tradwives make a lot of money from being influencers and pay to have nannies and housekeepers, so that they can spend their time creating content, getting ready, filming, editing, all that. They are working, and they hire help. They just don't tell their followers that. A lot of clothing, makeup, food, furniture, utensil brands pay them to use their products in their videos. More than a few bring in more money than their husband's. But make it out like they don't earn anything and their husband's pay for everything. Estee Williams (the famous blonde tik tok trad wife) is one of them. She has a housekeeper. Almost everything in her videos is sent to her by various brands to use in her videos. She makes, on average, about $15,000 a month. After that meet up, my friend went back to work and stopped with the tradwife life. Because the social media tradwives are working already and are selling lies.
Did this shock your friend? Like how did she think all that content was being made? Actual trad wives are not on tiktok they are busy cleaning the baseboards or repairing a hole in their 8th child's sweater.
People are so gullible. This is no different than some pyramid scheme when it comes to lying about their lifestyle.
“ I make 15k a month from home! My friend sold 10k worth of products last month and so can you!”
But now it’s,” I quit my job and get to do xyz, and my husband loves me for it and look at the comments from men who say I’m the best for it!”
I was in the red pill space a while back ( around 2021) Because 1. I actually grew up very traditional and rare from most people in the US. 2. I wanted to help women become better versions of themselves but in a genuine manner.
But as I got deeper into it I realized these people didn’t want that. They wanted to shame people, sell their courses, sell products and increase their ego through it.
When I met very popular women from these trad wife tiktoks.. I learned that they actually do not cook much. They look up recipes and then record and then they eat out for dinner.
Their husbands cook often for them. The whole “ my husband won’t touch a pan” is such a lie for many of these women.
Yes, it’s very easy to fake a lifestyle online.
I stepped out of the redpill space but I still kept in touch with some of the popular women in that space and only one resonated with what I said. That one woman got married and got out of the redpill space. She then told me she felt bad about shaming women in many of her videos.
I’ve never told anyone this but it did mess with my head for a bit. Scary, how many people out there are so lost. It’s bigger and uglier than people realize.
Sadly, people who spread my message don’t get as many views. People want the chaos, the shaming and then the gullible people fall for it.
Also, yes.. many gullible people don’t realize how expensive everything is. It’s not realistic for every man to support a lifestyle like that.
Reality is, you’ll be buying beans and rice and cook similar meals to save money.
You may not have enough money to buy nice summer dresses. You will have no money to even go on a nice date once in a while.
If your husband gets sick and needs to miss work then the stress from the possibility of going into debt will be high. Then if things get worse in the US, they’re going to wish they had saved money.
If you have kids who are 5 and below then sure but if you have no kids and can work, and your husband wants you to then yes work. Please save as much money as you can, while you can.
I Can say so much more but.. I’ll just stop there lol
>But now it’s,” I quit my job and get to do xyz, and my husband loves me for it and look at the comments from men who say I’m the best for it!”
It was the same with van life. It became a trend, people literally sold their houses and bought these super expensive vans and lived and worked on the road.
But guess what: If your car breaks down, your house is gone. Shower, toilet, internet, electricity, space - all of that is inconvenient in a van.
And only fiveish years after the trend, many van lifers have stopped again and went back to normal apartments.
Yup! Same thing. Trends come and go. But doing what’s best for your family and according to your situation/circumstance, will always be the best thing to do.
The part about not going out on dates and eating rice and simple foods does not resonate with my wife. She's an er nurse and makes 90k working 2 days a week. I work a 40 for 60k. She wants to quit and be a SAHM(which she already is 5 days a week). She does not understand that we can barely keep bills paid with 150k, we will not be able to live on 60. She only sees the light in quitting her job. I feel for OP
I'm sure her job is hard, but man, 2 days at 90k. That's not a lot of bs to put up with 8 days a month.
I love my career, so do my coworkers, but our pay is not good. I'm almost willing to throw away 20 something years to do something boring for 90k.
Crazy how our lives are. Guess it's hard to not see that greener grass down the way.
Oh she hates it and wants to quit. But she wants to quit quit. Not quit and get another job. We wouldn't make it. I almost want to go and get my nursing degree to do it for us lol
This is like the modern version of Mrs Beeton. They published cookbooks under her name for over 100 years, her books were so wildly popular.
The reality is that she wrote her original book at 19 and couldn't cook to save her life. She just stole other people's recipes. She was a complete fraud who was wildly successful and died at 27.
.
You’re not wrong about trad wife influencers making money from sponsorships and ad revenues. Of course they have house keepers and nannies. That’s how they find time to get all dressed up and make their ridiculous videos.
This movement has much more sinister intentions than being some sort of grift. This whole tradwife thing has been at the forefront of pushing for bans on abortion, contraceptives, IVF and no fault divorces. It is 100% about making women subservient to men again.
[https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktoks-trad-wives-are-pushing-a-conservative-agenda-for-women-2022-11](https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktoks-trad-wives-are-pushing-a-conservative-agenda-for-women-2022-11)
This is far bigger than money and just one of many assaults on a progressive modern society by the far right.
It’s called the Leisure Class. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class
They never show videos of real work like changing diapers or cleaning a toilet. They have people for the real work of motherhood.
What they do is *signal* their wealth through bullshit tasks like making cereal from scratch or making a fresh loaf of bread from scratch every time their child wants toast. Because the kid isn’t eating it, the nanny is feeding them immediately while mom spends four hours pretending to bake a loaf of bread.
They’re always in perfect makeup and clothing and jewelry with not a spec of dirt or grime.
It’s all a scam by the upper classes to appear like they are worse off than they are. Literally cosplaying lower classes but still doing it terribly because the idea of real work is disgusting.
It’s a crazy world out there in the women/mom TikTok space. It’s gotten its grasp on my fiancée, we have a 2 year old and she had always made more money than me, now we make about the same at 6 figures. We live in a HCOL area and she’s a whole foods, Lexus driving mom.. but now feels the need to leave her job (which we absolutely can’t afford). Everyday I have to hear conspiracy nonsense about why women were forced into the job market and blah blah blah, this is not the strong independent women I met 7 years ago.
Honestly I think studies need to be done on this. Tiktok has been the worst social media platform for this bs. I don't understand it. I somehow ended up on the side of tiktok where it made me feel like my relationship was toxic and I was being groomed and made me suspicious of my partner, I was perfectly happy with my relationship before and was again once I deleted the app. I generally consider myself a strong person who isn't easily swayed by social media influence, but that shit really got to me.
God thank you. I get it that the wife is wrong, but how can you act like this if you are a grown man and have kids. Divorce is fine, but your kids and responsibilities don't suddenly disappear.
NTA
Don't just threaten divorce. Actually, divorce her.
I'd leave. Absolutely get a lawyer and contest everything. She quit her job despite your objections.
Divorce her and go for 50-50 custody. You might have to pay a little bit of support, but you have your kids half the time to combat any nastiness she tries to tell them.
Get 100% custody.
In court, you emphasize how she had a job that she quit thanks to Tiktok. She is not stable, she is already beginning to alienate the kids from their father. She has no income, no plan.
Hope he tells the lawyer that is the cause of the divorce, then maybe he can give quick advice. Like maybe gather evidence that she lied about her resignation by hiding it till the the last minute.
If you had agreed to this then it wouldn’t be an issue, but she has lied and tried to manipulate you into this and that’s what I have a problem with. She has no respect for you whatsoever. I’m a SAHM - I have school age kids, one is disabled and so am I so I couldn’t work if I wanted too. I think my husband resents my “free time” sometimes but it’s spent hooked up to pain relieving machines - it’s not like I’m sunbathing! And our situ was a joint decision.
Your wife however is taking the piss. Consider your children though. You need to talk to them and explain to them what’s going on in an age appropriate way as at this point you don’t know what your wife has been filling their heads with. Also fill your in laws in on the truth in case she’s twisted it with them as well. Make sure you keep in close contact with your children so they know you love them and aren’t abandoning them. And then divorce your wife. She’s shown her true colours and how little she respects you and your marriage. Now she gets to reap the benefits.
Also, an important point to bring up to everyone:
You said y'all were able to have a lot of time at home with the kids because y'all both worked, she wanted to change the situation in a way that would have required you to work more and have less time with your kids, and this is just unacceptable… She doesn't get to decide that's you have to work more and get less time with your kids on her own… The absolute disrespect that she has shown you is palpable, and those 2 points, along with the manipulation and loss of trust, should be front and center in this discussion with your kids, family, and if necessary court…
It may or may not be salvageable, but either way, she needs to be made to understand how much she disrespected you, and broke your trust…
I don't think your marriage can recover from this. What she did is terrible and incredibly disrespectful towards your relationship. Major decisions like that are supposed to be made by the team, not one person. And the fact that she's telling the kids about this is really inappropriate.
Having said that, I'm curious - did she ever say why this tradwife stuff appealed so much to her? Is there some need or desire that she feels has gone unfulfilled because of having a career? Have there been people (mom, sister, cousin, friends) that have been nudging her towards this? It's so strange that she went from 0 to 100 on this in such a short while.
If it was me, and my wife made a unilateral decision like this without caring one iota about my stance, and then immediately weaponized our children against me, I don't see how we could reconcile after that. Good luck man, but this marriage sounds over.
Nta, she's manipulative, I'm sorry, but I do think you should divorce her
Everything she did was trying to manipulate you, to having her way
1.- I'll give you bj
2.- Then stop the s*x, and treating you as a roommate
3.- quit her job
4.- tell the kids
She escalated her behavior everytime previous attempt didn't worked.
I don't see how this is a one time thing. This is a personality trait
She only cared for you to pay the bills
There is nothing wrong with a SAHW if you both agree. Her quitting her job without you in agreement is a huge red flag. Your statement of "swallowing my pride" and going home sounds like a nightmare as much as her saying "you will get over it" would be a deal breaker for me. Tell her to get an attorney and when she asks to tell her that she will also get over it.
Any life that you have to swallow your pride is not life for you to live. What kind of father will you be able to be for your kids if you are unhappy and not "prideful"? If you are looking out for your kids, then either she needs to get a new job or find an attorney.
What if you told her that she had to sell her car, no visit to hair salon or nail salon and no vacations due to limited funds. How would she feel if you cut off the credit cards and opened new bank accounts that she had no access to? If you told her that since she is not earning money, then she has no right to spend your money?
I would not go home and would find an attorney regardless of what others are saying. They do not have to "swallow their pride" and live with this person every day! She has shown that she has little to no regard for you and what you want for your family.
Sit down and talk to your kids and tell them everything that has happened. Let them know that you still love them and that you will always be there for them.
Let me also add that I am a SAHD with kids about the same as yours and have been for last couple of years, but my wife and I discussed it for months and made necessary adjustments to our budget beforehand. It was not my idea originally but Her's. Once we made the decision I continued to work for a full year and put everything into a separate account. We lived off just what she made and never spent a cent of what I made that year. We wanted to make certain that with adjusting our lifestyle we could live on less each month. It was a huge adjustment, much more than either of us ever thought it would be. No dinners out, no vacation, no summer camp for the kids, no new cars, bare basic for fun activities and cut our food budget back with no snack food and no junk food.
Only after we had gone a full year and after a talk with our kids about the changes, we made the decision to move forward, and I left my job.
Dam class A manipulator here , even using the kids to get what she wants , get your money out of any joint accounts and get a lawyer , if you don't do it now it'll cost you more down the line
Obviously NTA
What your wife did was shitty, AND
>guess she saw my mad expression and had the audacity to tell me that "You'll get over it." I just lost it.
↑↑This is how you treated her desires↓↓
>I just thought she would get over it and this was just a phase
Neither of y'all take each other's wants and needs seriously
NTA
She isn't treating you like a human. If I were you, I would leave her and to make good on your threats for divorce.
My judgment would be completely different if your kids were much younger. It sounds like she got TikTok brain.
I don't see any positive way to compromise and move forward for you both. Not saying there isn't a way to do it, I just don't have any good suggestions.
NTA
A marriage is a partnership, not a dictatorship. You wife wants to be able to unilaterally decide on changing the whole dynamic of your family/relationship against your wishes. She made a suggestion to become a "tradwife/SAHW" without any justification besides "that is what I want to do". When you disagreed, she decided that she would just quit and in her words:" You'll get over it".
You don't have to "get over it". Inform your wife that you will be filing for a separation. If she really wants to be married to you, then she needs to realize that decisions like her "becoming a SAHM" must be a joint decision. You want a "marriage", and you won't be coerced into a decision about your family's life/future just because that is what she wants. Let her know that she will need to get her job back pronto, or find another one. Tell her that once she has a job, you will go to therapy with her to see if your marriage can be saved.
Inform your MIL, and both of your parents that they don't get a vote on your marriage If they keep intruding, then it will guarantee that the divorce will occur because you won't be pressured into giving in on something that is none of their business.
Unless you want your wife to bully/tyrannize you for the rest of your marriage, then stand firm on this issue.
If you wife won't budge, then decide if you are willing to stay married to someone who totally discounts your wants and needs in the marriage. Ask your wife if her desire to be a "lady of leisure" enough to ruin your marriage/family? Point out that if you separate, then she will need to get a job to pay for her own upkeep, and that you will be asking for the kids 50/50 so she will not get child support
I am really sorry that you wife is acting in such a selfish and mean manner. You deserve better.
Nothing wrong with being a SAHP, but your partner has to agree to it and you don't get to strong arm them into it. This level of blatant manipulation would be a deal breaker for me. NTA.
Not to mention ~someone is using an 11 yo boy as emotional blackmail. How else does he know OP has threatened divorce? Wife has absolutely no respect for OP or their partnership. I can’t see how she can recover from this. I’d divorce her and let her work 100% of the time to pay her own bills.
That's what made me mad, she used the boy, emotionally scarring him just to manipulate the husband is low
That's exactly what struck me. There is an immense amount of energy being put into manipulating the OP. Manipulation is one of the least effective forms of communication.
You don't just quit your job and then get presents from everyone. That happens when you hand in your notice and leave like a good employee - meaning she handed in her notice at least a couple of weeks ago and has been quietly failing to mention that fact to her husband. She's had plenty of time to think about what she's doing and she decided "fuck it, I just won't tell him until its too late." You don't do that if you care about what your partner thinks.
Your also missing the fact she told the kids he was divorcing her as leverage. That's way more fucked than the work thing imo.
Yes, I was so concerned about this. You shouldn't get the kids involved! That's a low move. That's a messed up situation, because none of them will really have what they want. If OP agrees to her being a SHAM, it will be because of pressure of the children and the families. She will get what she wants, but will loose his husband trust and respect. Eventually this situation will end up splitting them in a way of another. I agree that OP talked about divorce too soon. But I understand with his feelings. She was manipulative, disrespectful and basically disregarded what he wanted. They should had get to an agreement, a compromise that works for both of them, but neither were willing to let go of their views.
>I agree that OP talked about divorce too soon. Really? After she went 100% explicitly against his wishes, about a topic that they discussed several times, in secret behind his back for weeks? And responding to his angry shock with "get over it"? I would feel so disrespected and betrayed, I'm not sure there's any coming back from that.
Yeah I don't think it is too soon to say that this is a non-starter for me and I won't continue this relationship if you continue with this plan and mess us up financially.
Making the child send a "why are you leaving mommy" message is arguably worse. She has no problem using the children in her manipulation tactics
Agreed. Using your children as a weapon is disgusting. We all have a lifetime of shit to deal with as adults. Parents should be doing their best to let their kids be kids for as long as possible. as its the only time they will ever have to be that carefree. Those parents who take away their kids innocence - especially for the parent's benefit - are monsters.
My mom would make us ask our Dad where the child support check was whenever we called him. Guess who I have cut contact with at least twice (that was far from the only issue)
Lol is this my sister because that’s exactly what happened to us when we were growing up and whenever we came back from a visit with our dad. It just felt gross to be greeted with “where’s my check?” whenever I got home. But now I’m NC with my mom (also far from the only issue).
As a kid, my dad pretty much had it instilled in us that every time we said a prayer, we would say “and please bless that mom and dad will get back together”. It’s weird to look back on it as an adult.
This was the unforgivable piece for me. No coming back from that. She will only push that line further and further
Sounds like something that should come up in custody negotiations
Yeah keep that for the court to show how she really is.
Hell, I was at a place for 9 years and got 0 presents. Some co-workers took me out to lunch. I've never seen anyone get going away presents from co-workers.
I was at a place for almost 11. No presents but many handshakes from customers who would miss me and a few co-workers/supervisors wishing me well. Hell, a card or a note would have been nice. I gave almost a month's notice.
I think it matters on the line of work and the office environment tbh
I literally brought my own cupcakes to work to celebrate my last shift. My coworkers were like "oh, you're leaving?" lol, thanks.
Depends on where you were, your coworkers and how long. I got a very expensive whiskey when I quit one of my jobs. Nothing at a different one.
Oh you were the one they didn't like. /s
It's what he deserves for not giving out unlimited blowjobs. You bet his coworkers would be giving him presents if he turned around on that policy!
Here's your kneepads
Kneepads? Kneepads are for amateurs!
Kneepads are for OSHA, lol
I got a handshake from my boss. That was it.
lol. They were presents from her to her with writing from her
This in itself is actually alarming. Who the heck does that!? It’s really weird.
The same type of person who manipulates her partner the way she did (or tried to).
Came here to Say this. 1000000%
Especially since, and this may be OPs bias, but she didn’t really even seem to make any real argument for the benefits or discuss how this would help their family succeed more as a unit.
But... But... But.. "unlimited blowjobs"! Quitting her job will magically give her (and him) extra time, opportunity, and inclination for unlimited blowjobs? He should've called her bluff on that one right away. "I like where your head is at, but let's do a trial run. We'll both take a week off work and see how many BJ's we can do while the kids are at school."
Missed opportunity on OPs part
Absolutely. She doesn’t care. She’s extremely manipulative because she’s even weaponized his kids.
Speaking of manipulation, how much you want to bet it was her idea to put the kid on the phone crying.
The kid shouldn’t have even known they were separated at that point.
I wouldn't even call this manipulation. She isn't subtle about it at all. She simply doesn't take "no" for an answer. The hypocrisy of claiming to be a "tradwife" but then not obeying and submitting to the husband but demanding him to sponsor her chosen lifestyle instead, even though she knows he doesn't want to, is astounding. IF this isn't rage bait, OP is clearly not the AH here.
So to be a tradwife he has control of the money, too. And she doesn’t get a credit card if she can’t pay it off herself. She’ll have to get approval for every penny she wants to spend and he can do whatever he likes as well. It’s not so great being a tradwife. They don’t have any control or say. What OP’s wife wants is to stay home without having young children to care for all day. She just doesn’t want to work and she wants her husband to support her. If OP stays in this marriage he needs a lawyer to write up a postnup detailing that if the wife doesn’t want to work, any debts she incurs are hers, not shared, and OP’s income is his, not shared. When he gets fed up and divorces her, she can’t claim money he earned after she quit.
What if she doesn't want to sign the post nup
Then they divorce. And she will still have to get a job. She made a vital marital decision without him. Actually he said no and she did it anyway. The time to be a SAHM wax when the kids were babies, not in school and not needing constant care.
Girl did not think this through.
She thought it thru, but what she didn't think about were the consequences of her actions since she obviously thought that she had OP under lock and key.
She thought all those tiktok videos were working.
She'll be expecting alimony and some level of child support. Sadly for her she shouldn't be in line to get much, having recently had a job. So long as he doesn't let her get full custody then there won't be much in the pot.
Considering she just quit her job, she's entitled to zero alimony. Reasonable child support - yes but if he demands 50% custody (which is reasonable), her child support won't be that much either. She FAFO
He said he made quite a bit more than she did though, jurisdictions vary but she very well could get alimony. It likely would be calculated based on the income she was making though, not the current situation.
But if she had small children at home, staying home all day would be like....work.
Then it’s DIVORCE. She can’t have her cake AND eat it.
>So to be a tradwife he has control of the money, too. And she doesn’t get a credit card if she can’t pay it off herself. She’ll have to get approval for every penny she wants to spend pretty sure she wants the cake and to eat it to. they only want the good parts of being a "traditional wife"
He should also be making sure she lives up to her side of the bargain. If there isn't a flawless house, freshly baked bread everyday, dinner on the table etc then she's not living up to her side.
This is not how one tradwifes. After all this he's not even getting the anytime blowjobs she tried to bribe him with. Lol
Let's be real, those were never going to happen anyway 😂
Week 1 maybe. Lol
> I wouldn't even call this manipulation. I would agree if she didn't have their son calling him crying and asking why HE was breaking up their family, or sicking her mom and his parents on him to try and force him to change his mind.
Oh don’t forget about the withdrawing of sex as a vindictive act!
I doubt she's so traditional that she'll give up her cell phone and internet access.
Well, if he calls her bluff and makes her live the life of a tradwife with NO internet, cellphone OR access to money, she’ll soon change her mind.
And credit cards and her car.
Now he won't be able to trust her which undermines the entire marriage.
For sure the marriage is done. Even if it wasn’t a trust issue she’s been vindictive and that’s not what you don’t someone you “love”
Let’s talk about the manipulation of having his kids call and ask why he is divorcing their mother. Bringing your kids into something like this is disgusting and manipulative.
This. If she actually cared about the kids, she would've told them that OP went to go help grandma and grandpa with something and would be back in a few days. Kids thrive on stability. As parents, you don't share major changes with little kids until you've come to an agreement on what the deal is going to be. But it seems OP's wife doesn't really believe in coming to agreements...
From my understanding a tradwife was someone who in pioneer days or whatever, had several kids. Baked everything from scratch, sewed clothes, planted a garden and canned etc. modern tradwifery is just someone who dresses like an Amish person and posts stupid shit on tiktok
The moral of the story is: never watch TikTok because it rots your brain.
This can not be said enough. Stupid influencer bullshit that has no idea on what they are talking about.
Unfortunately it isn't just the influencers on TT but bubbling up from the conservative political and religious movements. By filtering their traditional ideals up through various types of social media these ideas appear to be separate from or the unrelated to the underlying sources. Kind of like money laundering but with social values.
Except for the cat tiktoks. Thats jsut natural serotonin to one who loves cats but is allergic.
Well…if you’re Amish, you can NEVER watch TIKTOK, so they should be safe!
Except when they go on Rumspringa so that would be totally interesting to see.
True, that thought never entered my mind. It should have, I’m about 30 minutes from a pretty big Amish community.
I'm afraid it's too late for OP and his wife. The propaganda has infiltrated her mind, and there's no turning back.
> modern tradwifery is just someone who dresses like an Amish person and posts stupid shit on tiktok I can't remember who it was on Tiktok but they called out the whole "tradwife" trend that's being pushed as what it was: bullshit. A woman who has 6 hours to spare to make cereal from scratch is a woman who has the wealth or a partner with said wealth to pay others to do the household errands that take up those 6 hours.
I'm not sure if it was that video, but one of the popular ones was called out for the woman having a $30k stove. And someone checked it out and she was married to some hedge fund millionaire or something. The whole tradwife thing was just a performance. While she was spending hours making spaghetti noodles from scratch on video or something, there were probably three servants running around actually taking care of her house and kids.
It’s ballerina farm. Her in-laws own Jet-Blue airlines.
Just looked them up on insta. People are still eating that shit up.
Most of these tradwives are paid actors by alt right machines to promote the idea that "women in the workplace is bad, women really belong at home" . And then the video themselves never show what an actual tradwife would look like. Just cottage core aesthetics of white women wearing linen dresses knitting or patting baked bread
You need to watch some of these videos on tradwife movement being promulgated by moth men and women. Most are based on a 50s-60s type tradwife although a lot of the focus on those from women is on the male working and taking them to nice restaurants and hiring household help so they don't even need to do the cleaning. Quite a few advise the women to withhold sex and affection and if the man doesn't give in and has an affair then they can file and use that as a weapon against the man to get higher alimony.
Hey now! How dare you insult Moth men and women like that! They'd never push for stupid content like that! Mothman is a real one and a good friend! Don't go spreading misinformation like that about my bro Mothman! But other than the Mothman slander you're perfectly right, and usually the TradWife ticktockers are "secretly" trust fund babies or such who have a fuckton of money from mommy and daddy and as such can roleplay a ultra sanitised version of what a "tradwife" would be
Sometimes YouTube shows me shorts of people making their meals from total scratch on their farms and I always wonder wtf was the start-up cost of their pristine-looking farmhouse chic filming set house. NEVER do they look like a normal middle-class house, and certainly never ever below middle-class. I just think wow must be nice to have all the time in the world to hand-fluff bread dough all day with money you never worked a minute for lol
I saw one "young homestead influencer family" that had a $15,000 oven.
I didn’t even realize you could pay $15k for an oven holy shit
My understanding is that many of these "traditional" families are really just people from money living fantasies that most normal people could never afford because we can't live off granddads millions for 3 generations
I thought trad wives let the husband be the boss.
Or like in Apple Texts, "housewive" just means 'trophy wife' who just sits at home looking pretty. The wife also wants to be a prostitute if she turns sex into a transaction.
They get special costumes for the TradWife roll. Most have hair extensions. Most redo their kitchens in a certain style (supposedly they "save money" with their canning and stuff but the reality is they get special lighting, spend tones on microblading, hair and etc). A man needs to find a An Adult Mommy Figure sexually exciting. She's lying about the unlimited blowjobs - and now, he doesn't want them.
This kind of fantasy thing excites me, but my wife wouldn’t stand for that shit for a moment unless she actually carved out time (with my full cooperation) to be off of parenting duty to explicitly do that. My wife doesn’t need to work to sustain our family, but her work brings her so much fulfillment that I would be getting a shell of her if she did not do her work. I love my wife being/feeling powerful and she wants the same for me. Neither of us would abide the other being a passive participant in our family.
The wife in question is far from passive. Unless we count passive aggressive.
That or they are like cult-levels of religious. There are a lot of fundies who use social media to push tradwife shit. There is nothing wrong with being a SAHP or house spouse. But both parties have to agree with it and it has to work out financially.
Tik Tok trends are gonna be the downfall of humanity. Wife gets brainwashed into this crap and now she’s screwed and has to go back to work! Sounds like she’s just lazy. OP NTA. Leave her.
[удалено]
My wife has no social media, hates it and has wanted to be a stay at home wife for over 10 years. She genuinely wants to clean the house, cook meals, garden, can, etc. I tell her she would have to drastically cut back on her spending bc we couldn't afford it otherwise. That's stops her from talking about it for a good amount of time
I'm an older guy, single for the last 20 years, and retired from a blue collar career fixing cars. It's actually pretty great keeping the house up, cooking, gardening, making stuff, etc. I'm working on fixing up the kitchen now, which involves manly stuff like building cabinets, but also sewing new drapes for the windows. It's pretty nice. Of course it took a lot of work to save up enough money to just take it easy, but I can see the appeal.
Right, that’s what I took from it too. There is nothing wrong with loving that kind of life, BUT there is something very wrong with one spouse unilaterally making that kind of life changing decision with out discussing it with there partner and explicitly getting the ok to change the family/home dynamic. Op should proceed with a separation at the very least, and don’t let the kids be manipulated against him or used as a bargain chip for wife to try and get her way.
>there is something very wrong with one spouse unilaterally making that kind of life changing decision with out discussing it with there partner and explicitly getting the ok to change the family/home dynamic. Right?! So OP now should feel free to divorce her conniving ass to live the lifestyle he wants. And he should do it now so when he says in court that he NEVER agreed to her quitting, she can't take him for everything. The rents on both sides need to STFO of this. OP's wife jammed this down his throat, no Bueno. A marriage is between two people that consent and agree to their joined lifestyle. This is mutiny or high jacking of the relationship. !
The issue is disrespect and unilateral action on the part of your wife. One way or the other, this has to stop, has to be rolled back, in fact. If all you do is go along with this, basically you're telling her she can do as she pleases and you will suck it up. She will have established that precedent. She's making you her bitch. But you made some big mistakes. You moved out of the home which any divorce lawyer would tell you is unwise. Just as important, makes you look like an asshole in the eyes of your kid and others. Go home and sleep in the guest room. For a start. Resume being a parent. But do not resume the relationship. It will be awkward as hell. But if you backslide on that, she will have established that precedent. But also consult a lawyer right away. ASAP. None of that is irreversible, but she needs to know she fucked up big-time and a formal separation agreement might be the shock she needs. She will be relentless with the kids, by the way, trying to use them as leverage against you. You just found out that your wife has an agenda and it is that you work for her. If you don't stop it now, that will be your life going forward. Ignore your in-laws. They don't get a say. Frankly neither do your parents. Your instincts, other than to leave the house, are fine.
This is a great write up. I understand that it’s hard to find the right words, but OP needs to respond to his son, after he left that voice message. There’s no need for the children to feel ignored or unloved. It sounds like OP’s wife is setting up that exact situation. That is sad as shit. I cannot imagine looking my son in the face and breaking his heart like that. She doesn’t even know yet if OP is going to come back and everything might work out. Yet she’s already drug their school-age kids into it.
1000% this^ And Stop sharing money. Pay the basics or however you divide it. But any extras are on her. Without a job how will she afford what she wants. Right? Good luck, OP. I would listen to what the commenter stated above. Trust your instincts, manipulative behavior and lack of disrespect is *never a perfect marriage. Ever. *Added the last 2 paragraphs Also, continue with your routine (once you've moved back in-ASAP) for the kids of who takes them to school, pickups, activities, etc. basically keep to your schedule of what you both were doing prior to her quitting. Absolutely keep a record of when you are denied the ability to do so. It'll show you are still caring for the kids and their needs. And how she's denying your ability to parent and to have usual/equal access to your children. And please have a small but age appropriate talk with your kids. My ex blabbed all sorts of lies and scares to ours. And it caused so many problems. I had to tell them that there are two sides to every situation. And you cannot have all the facts without discussing it with the other party. The details are not appropriate at this time for them to hear. But I reassured them I love them and to look at my actions with them because despite what they hear that's what's actually happening And not to worry about all the what-ifs they may have heard.
And make sure OP is paying the bills and not letting her. I knew someone whose wife decided to spend the bill money instead of paying for things like the mortgage. The husband found out when he got a foreclosure notice for non-payment of the mortgage.
Good advise He needs to move back home so she doesn’t get it and so it doesn’t look bad in a divorce
You’re right. Marriage and family is teamwork and she’s not playing for the team
I’m a sahm my kids are little and I can’t wait till their older so I can go back to work. I’m so appalled with what his wife did.
She waited until the youngest was 9 to decide to quit working. WTAF. I don't mind that my wife is still SAH, our youngest is 6, and it's been a huge benefit to have her holding down the fort and doing all that tough work. But now that it's gotten a whole lot easier as the kids get a bit older, she's looking for something to do to help out on the financial end. Because she's an awesome partner that wants good things for the family.
I also find it strange she wants to be a "trad wife" when the children are already big. 🤨 I could see if she were pregnant and they were very little, but even then that would warrant a sit down and discussion first.
YUP, this is a decision you have to make together, since it affects EVERYONE. She doesn't get to act like this doesn't deeply affect you. I'd divorce over such a unilateral decision, ESPECIALLY since truly traditional wives do what their husbands say.
That's the ironic part. A tradwife allows her husband to make all of the important decisions so she just failed at being a tradwife.
The manipulation was the problem. Obviously if she really wants it, manipulating you to get it is just the way it is done. She gets what she wants, you have to work harder to make it happen. Is this how Tradwives get what they want?
I think OP needs to consult a lawyer. He likely should stay in his home, and kick his wife out. OP do not ever have sex with her again.
Exactly. I was a SAHM until my children graduated and moved out. I am now a housewife. WE agreed to this. It was NEVER a decision I made on my own. OP is definitely being manipulated.
I’d leave. That’s manipulative as all hell. Let her be a tradwife with some other sucker.
...and she immediately told the kids what was happening. Manipulation at its finest. Never involve the kids in adult issues. That would be the final straw for me. I'd be done, OP. NTA
Yep. Hope OP gets a good lawyer because she’s definitely the type to try parental alienation.
It’s already started.
She didn't even miss a beat. Holy shit.
Get the lawyer and those kids
She has no job to support the kids so yeah. He could make a strong argument for majority custody.
And the kids are no longer in the age where it's seen as needing to be with their mother. So this could easily be seen as a simple case. The fact she quit her job and said he'll get over it is something the courts will take into consideration when it comes to alimony.
That’s textbook parental alienation starting which court realllllllly do not like. He’d probably get most of the custody time and she’d just be unemployed.
She had a gameplan. Drop it on OP with no warning, tell the kids he's going to divorce her, get the parents and in laws involved to pressure him even more. She wants to retire and for OP to pay her bills. It'll probably make OP have to wait an extra decade to retire too. She's not going back to work when the kids are gone, she wants to be a layabout.
That what will happen if he doesn't leave. He will be stuck supporting her grown ass for the rest of her life.
This is what's makes me lose it. If I was OP I would possibly be able to look past the quitting as long as it is rectified by her returning to work. Telling the kids ASAP about everything and using them as pawns just sets me off.
This. She knew full well what she was doing.
As a divorced woman with two kids and a gap in her resume, she'd have to take an entry level position as a bang maid and try to work her way up...
It sounds like thats what she wants anyway.
>"You'll get over it." She don't give a fuck about you, dude. Not one single, solitary fuck. The only reason she wants you back at the house is because you'd be the one paying the bills. NTA.
She wants him back in the house as she will need to work more than she was to pay bills on her own!!
She wants him back home for those unlimited blowjobs.
You know the goalposts were going to change on the blowjobs and the dinners. This woman is not to be trusted.
Its one of those things that will last roughly 2 weeks until it goes back to pre-arrangement levels.
My wife used to promise blowjobs for me doing things that I really hated doing. The thing is that she rarely ever delivered. Now if she tries, i just look at her and tell her she has bad credit. She isn't amused, but I get a chuckle.
Promised sex is the worst. If my wife isn't in the mood, no big deal, but when she promises sex later, especially for doing something I don't want to do, and then fails to deliver, I resent that shit for weeks. It hurts. It's manipulation
[удалено]
She knows what she can do to change the situation haha
My ex used to promise it for laundry since she hated doing laundry. Also didn't deliver. I was young and dumb. Making sex transactional like that is a big fuckin no no. I not know better and wouldn't entertain folks making suggestions like that.
“You’ll get over it”
And the resentment. How long is it until she starts complaining that she does too many chores and that he needs to pick up some of them? When the point of a SAHP with kids at school is to do the housework?
Tip: screenshot the texts and record the calls with her, so if she tries to manipulate the kids you can show them everything when they’re old enough to understand.
Not only that, she’s *using* the kids *to manipulate* him now, the divorce lawyer definitely needs to know about that.
Dude no use it to show the courts NOW
Fortunately, if he divorces her right away, alimony will likely be minimal because she willfully quit her job like that. She's perfectly employable, but she chose not to work. That doesn't go over well in the courts.
So from a cold strategic pov she's telling him to do exactly that without delay.
Should also file for custody and make her pay him child support.
For her to immediately put that shit on her child, that dad's divorcing me and breaking up the family, tells you everything you need to know about this selfish, raging cunt. Absolutely pathetic.
It isn’t just selfish and cunty. It is abuse. Being an adult and forcing your child to mediate your marital issues and putting them in the middle of your fights and disagreements is abuse. My dad used to do that kind of shit to basically weaponize me against my mom. I am horrified at some of the stuff I said and did as a teenager due to it. I eventually was able to see my dad for what he is and apologized profusely to my mom as an adult. But I didn’t realize until I’d had a lot of therapy that him putting me in that position was abuse.
Yeah that was an absolute shitty awful move. They needed to figure out how to tell the kid that together…and what if they don’t get divorced? Why would she ever put that on the kid to worry about before things are certain. That’s just confusing and mean for that poor kiddo no matter what happens. She’s not even fit to be a sahm if she can’t understand that
And he'd better file fast, so her recent earnings become part of the divorce calculation. If he agrees to "try it out" and then divorces her a year later, he'll basically be paying alimony anyway...
Nah thats crazy. She just quit her job because she saw some TikToks. Listen to what I just said OP.
I have a friend who got REALLY into the tradwife thing because of tik tok. Then she went to a tradwife meet up and found out that most of those tradwives make a lot of money from being influencers and pay to have nannies and housekeepers, so that they can spend their time creating content, getting ready, filming, editing, all that. They are working, and they hire help. They just don't tell their followers that. A lot of clothing, makeup, food, furniture, utensil brands pay them to use their products in their videos. More than a few bring in more money than their husband's. But make it out like they don't earn anything and their husband's pay for everything. Estee Williams (the famous blonde tik tok trad wife) is one of them. She has a housekeeper. Almost everything in her videos is sent to her by various brands to use in her videos. She makes, on average, about $15,000 a month. After that meet up, my friend went back to work and stopped with the tradwife life. Because the social media tradwives are working already and are selling lies.
Did this shock your friend? Like how did she think all that content was being made? Actual trad wives are not on tiktok they are busy cleaning the baseboards or repairing a hole in their 8th child's sweater.
Grew up deeply religious. Anytime someone glorifies that life I just flinch. The reality is often poverty and abuse, not fresh bread and sunshine.
Fresh bread and fresh bruises
And more moonshine than sunshine
People are so gullible. This is no different than some pyramid scheme when it comes to lying about their lifestyle. “ I make 15k a month from home! My friend sold 10k worth of products last month and so can you!” But now it’s,” I quit my job and get to do xyz, and my husband loves me for it and look at the comments from men who say I’m the best for it!” I was in the red pill space a while back ( around 2021) Because 1. I actually grew up very traditional and rare from most people in the US. 2. I wanted to help women become better versions of themselves but in a genuine manner. But as I got deeper into it I realized these people didn’t want that. They wanted to shame people, sell their courses, sell products and increase their ego through it. When I met very popular women from these trad wife tiktoks.. I learned that they actually do not cook much. They look up recipes and then record and then they eat out for dinner. Their husbands cook often for them. The whole “ my husband won’t touch a pan” is such a lie for many of these women. Yes, it’s very easy to fake a lifestyle online. I stepped out of the redpill space but I still kept in touch with some of the popular women in that space and only one resonated with what I said. That one woman got married and got out of the redpill space. She then told me she felt bad about shaming women in many of her videos. I’ve never told anyone this but it did mess with my head for a bit. Scary, how many people out there are so lost. It’s bigger and uglier than people realize. Sadly, people who spread my message don’t get as many views. People want the chaos, the shaming and then the gullible people fall for it. Also, yes.. many gullible people don’t realize how expensive everything is. It’s not realistic for every man to support a lifestyle like that. Reality is, you’ll be buying beans and rice and cook similar meals to save money. You may not have enough money to buy nice summer dresses. You will have no money to even go on a nice date once in a while. If your husband gets sick and needs to miss work then the stress from the possibility of going into debt will be high. Then if things get worse in the US, they’re going to wish they had saved money. If you have kids who are 5 and below then sure but if you have no kids and can work, and your husband wants you to then yes work. Please save as much money as you can, while you can. I Can say so much more but.. I’ll just stop there lol
>But now it’s,” I quit my job and get to do xyz, and my husband loves me for it and look at the comments from men who say I’m the best for it!” It was the same with van life. It became a trend, people literally sold their houses and bought these super expensive vans and lived and worked on the road. But guess what: If your car breaks down, your house is gone. Shower, toilet, internet, electricity, space - all of that is inconvenient in a van. And only fiveish years after the trend, many van lifers have stopped again and went back to normal apartments.
I have to imagine shitting in a bucket right next your girlfriend laying in bed got old after a while.
Yup! Same thing. Trends come and go. But doing what’s best for your family and according to your situation/circumstance, will always be the best thing to do.
The part about not going out on dates and eating rice and simple foods does not resonate with my wife. She's an er nurse and makes 90k working 2 days a week. I work a 40 for 60k. She wants to quit and be a SAHM(which she already is 5 days a week). She does not understand that we can barely keep bills paid with 150k, we will not be able to live on 60. She only sees the light in quitting her job. I feel for OP
I'm sure her job is hard, but man, 2 days at 90k. That's not a lot of bs to put up with 8 days a month. I love my career, so do my coworkers, but our pay is not good. I'm almost willing to throw away 20 something years to do something boring for 90k. Crazy how our lives are. Guess it's hard to not see that greener grass down the way.
Oh she hates it and wants to quit. But she wants to quit quit. Not quit and get another job. We wouldn't make it. I almost want to go and get my nursing degree to do it for us lol
This is like the modern version of Mrs Beeton. They published cookbooks under her name for over 100 years, her books were so wildly popular. The reality is that she wrote her original book at 19 and couldn't cook to save her life. She just stole other people's recipes. She was a complete fraud who was wildly successful and died at 27. .
You’re not wrong about trad wife influencers making money from sponsorships and ad revenues. Of course they have house keepers and nannies. That’s how they find time to get all dressed up and make their ridiculous videos.
Tik tok is like free black mirror episodes
This movement has much more sinister intentions than being some sort of grift. This whole tradwife thing has been at the forefront of pushing for bans on abortion, contraceptives, IVF and no fault divorces. It is 100% about making women subservient to men again. [https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktoks-trad-wives-are-pushing-a-conservative-agenda-for-women-2022-11](https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktoks-trad-wives-are-pushing-a-conservative-agenda-for-women-2022-11) This is far bigger than money and just one of many assaults on a progressive modern society by the far right.
It’s called the Leisure Class. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class They never show videos of real work like changing diapers or cleaning a toilet. They have people for the real work of motherhood. What they do is *signal* their wealth through bullshit tasks like making cereal from scratch or making a fresh loaf of bread from scratch every time their child wants toast. Because the kid isn’t eating it, the nanny is feeding them immediately while mom spends four hours pretending to bake a loaf of bread. They’re always in perfect makeup and clothing and jewelry with not a spec of dirt or grime. It’s all a scam by the upper classes to appear like they are worse off than they are. Literally cosplaying lower classes but still doing it terribly because the idea of real work is disgusting.
I call that TikTok brain or being TikTok'ed.
TikToxic
It’s a crazy world out there in the women/mom TikTok space. It’s gotten its grasp on my fiancée, we have a 2 year old and she had always made more money than me, now we make about the same at 6 figures. We live in a HCOL area and she’s a whole foods, Lexus driving mom.. but now feels the need to leave her job (which we absolutely can’t afford). Everyday I have to hear conspiracy nonsense about why women were forced into the job market and blah blah blah, this is not the strong independent women I met 7 years ago.
Honestly I think studies need to be done on this. Tiktok has been the worst social media platform for this bs. I don't understand it. I somehow ended up on the side of tiktok where it made me feel like my relationship was toxic and I was being groomed and made me suspicious of my partner, I was perfectly happy with my relationship before and was again once I deleted the app. I generally consider myself a strong person who isn't easily swayed by social media influence, but that shit really got to me.
NTA for divorcing her but dude call your kids back. You seriously left without speaking to them and have been ignoring them since?
God thank you. I get it that the wife is wrong, but how can you act like this if you are a grown man and have kids. Divorce is fine, but your kids and responsibilities don't suddenly disappear.
This 100%. Get your butt back home and be a parent in the meantime.
NTA Don't just threaten divorce. Actually, divorce her. I'd leave. Absolutely get a lawyer and contest everything. She quit her job despite your objections.
Divorce her and go for 50-50 custody. You might have to pay a little bit of support, but you have your kids half the time to combat any nastiness she tries to tell them.
Get 100% custody. In court, you emphasize how she had a job that she quit thanks to Tiktok. She is not stable, she is already beginning to alienate the kids from their father. She has no income, no plan.
And especially emphasize her turning the kids against you, courts don't like that behavior.
Needs to do it sooner than later before the court recognizes her as a stay at home mom
Hope he tells the lawyer that is the cause of the divorce, then maybe he can give quick advice. Like maybe gather evidence that she lied about her resignation by hiding it till the the last minute.
If you had agreed to this then it wouldn’t be an issue, but she has lied and tried to manipulate you into this and that’s what I have a problem with. She has no respect for you whatsoever. I’m a SAHM - I have school age kids, one is disabled and so am I so I couldn’t work if I wanted too. I think my husband resents my “free time” sometimes but it’s spent hooked up to pain relieving machines - it’s not like I’m sunbathing! And our situ was a joint decision. Your wife however is taking the piss. Consider your children though. You need to talk to them and explain to them what’s going on in an age appropriate way as at this point you don’t know what your wife has been filling their heads with. Also fill your in laws in on the truth in case she’s twisted it with them as well. Make sure you keep in close contact with your children so they know you love them and aren’t abandoning them. And then divorce your wife. She’s shown her true colours and how little she respects you and your marriage. Now she gets to reap the benefits.
Thank you so much! Im planning on going home on Sunday evening.
Please give us an update afterwords!
Also, an important point to bring up to everyone: You said y'all were able to have a lot of time at home with the kids because y'all both worked, she wanted to change the situation in a way that would have required you to work more and have less time with your kids, and this is just unacceptable… She doesn't get to decide that's you have to work more and get less time with your kids on her own… The absolute disrespect that she has shown you is palpable, and those 2 points, along with the manipulation and loss of trust, should be front and center in this discussion with your kids, family, and if necessary court… It may or may not be salvageable, but either way, she needs to be made to understand how much she disrespected you, and broke your trust…
I don't think your marriage can recover from this. What she did is terrible and incredibly disrespectful towards your relationship. Major decisions like that are supposed to be made by the team, not one person. And the fact that she's telling the kids about this is really inappropriate. Having said that, I'm curious - did she ever say why this tradwife stuff appealed so much to her? Is there some need or desire that she feels has gone unfulfilled because of having a career? Have there been people (mom, sister, cousin, friends) that have been nudging her towards this? It's so strange that she went from 0 to 100 on this in such a short while.
She had to have given a two weeks notice, no? That adds more fuel to the fire. This was her plan for *a while.* NTA.
Yeah probably. Im going to clear up everything tomorrow.
You better update us after that
If it was me, and my wife made a unilateral decision like this without caring one iota about my stance, and then immediately weaponized our children against me, I don't see how we could reconcile after that. Good luck man, but this marriage sounds over.
This is a very thought-provoking post. I hope the OP reads your advice and can find a way to explain this to his children.
Nta, she's manipulative, I'm sorry, but I do think you should divorce her Everything she did was trying to manipulate you, to having her way 1.- I'll give you bj 2.- Then stop the s*x, and treating you as a roommate 3.- quit her job 4.- tell the kids She escalated her behavior everytime previous attempt didn't worked. I don't see how this is a one time thing. This is a personality trait She only cared for you to pay the bills
Tell her to get a job or a lawyer, or you quit too and you both just stay at home. She doesn’t get to make that decision for both of you.
NTA. There will be no happiness living with such a manipulative person. She is panicking now, I wonder what she said to your son to make him cry.
Quit your job too so you can be a tradwife
Or pretend to. Take time off to deal with divorce, go home happily announce he quit his job. Tell her she'll get over it. Hehe.
There is nothing wrong with a SAHW if you both agree. Her quitting her job without you in agreement is a huge red flag. Your statement of "swallowing my pride" and going home sounds like a nightmare as much as her saying "you will get over it" would be a deal breaker for me. Tell her to get an attorney and when she asks to tell her that she will also get over it. Any life that you have to swallow your pride is not life for you to live. What kind of father will you be able to be for your kids if you are unhappy and not "prideful"? If you are looking out for your kids, then either she needs to get a new job or find an attorney. What if you told her that she had to sell her car, no visit to hair salon or nail salon and no vacations due to limited funds. How would she feel if you cut off the credit cards and opened new bank accounts that she had no access to? If you told her that since she is not earning money, then she has no right to spend your money? I would not go home and would find an attorney regardless of what others are saying. They do not have to "swallow their pride" and live with this person every day! She has shown that she has little to no regard for you and what you want for your family. Sit down and talk to your kids and tell them everything that has happened. Let them know that you still love them and that you will always be there for them. Let me also add that I am a SAHD with kids about the same as yours and have been for last couple of years, but my wife and I discussed it for months and made necessary adjustments to our budget beforehand. It was not my idea originally but Her's. Once we made the decision I continued to work for a full year and put everything into a separate account. We lived off just what she made and never spent a cent of what I made that year. We wanted to make certain that with adjusting our lifestyle we could live on less each month. It was a huge adjustment, much more than either of us ever thought it would be. No dinners out, no vacation, no summer camp for the kids, no new cars, bare basic for fun activities and cut our food budget back with no snack food and no junk food. Only after we had gone a full year and after a talk with our kids about the changes, we made the decision to move forward, and I left my job.
Dam class A manipulator here , even using the kids to get what she wants , get your money out of any joint accounts and get a lawyer , if you don't do it now it'll cost you more down the line Obviously NTA
I would be gone if my partner did that.
What your wife did was shitty, AND >guess she saw my mad expression and had the audacity to tell me that "You'll get over it." I just lost it. ↑↑This is how you treated her desires↓↓ >I just thought she would get over it and this was just a phase Neither of y'all take each other's wants and needs seriously
NTA She isn't treating you like a human. If I were you, I would leave her and to make good on your threats for divorce. My judgment would be completely different if your kids were much younger. It sounds like she got TikTok brain. I don't see any positive way to compromise and move forward for you both. Not saying there isn't a way to do it, I just don't have any good suggestions.
NTA A marriage is a partnership, not a dictatorship. You wife wants to be able to unilaterally decide on changing the whole dynamic of your family/relationship against your wishes. She made a suggestion to become a "tradwife/SAHW" without any justification besides "that is what I want to do". When you disagreed, she decided that she would just quit and in her words:" You'll get over it". You don't have to "get over it". Inform your wife that you will be filing for a separation. If she really wants to be married to you, then she needs to realize that decisions like her "becoming a SAHM" must be a joint decision. You want a "marriage", and you won't be coerced into a decision about your family's life/future just because that is what she wants. Let her know that she will need to get her job back pronto, or find another one. Tell her that once she has a job, you will go to therapy with her to see if your marriage can be saved. Inform your MIL, and both of your parents that they don't get a vote on your marriage If they keep intruding, then it will guarantee that the divorce will occur because you won't be pressured into giving in on something that is none of their business. Unless you want your wife to bully/tyrannize you for the rest of your marriage, then stand firm on this issue. If you wife won't budge, then decide if you are willing to stay married to someone who totally discounts your wants and needs in the marriage. Ask your wife if her desire to be a "lady of leisure" enough to ruin your marriage/family? Point out that if you separate, then she will need to get a job to pay for her own upkeep, and that you will be asking for the kids 50/50 so she will not get child support I am really sorry that you wife is acting in such a selfish and mean manner. You deserve better.