How Listening To My Husband Ended My Marriage: "he idea that I alone knew what was best for us, never incorporating his viewpoint or acknowledging his dissent was commonplace rather than noteworthy."

mrwhibbley · 2017-10-25T02:38:24+00:00

[permanently deleted]

PacotheBold · 2017-10-25T00:10:04+00:00

In my relationships my partners, all women, were bad partners. The wife in a couple we were close with commented that women in her experience from the 'younger' generation (younger baby boomers) were very selfish. I, unfortunately, thought I'd found a unicorn a few years ago. She ended up nearly destroying my life.

Mode1961 · 2017-10-25T16:31:57+00:00

My exact words to my ex-wife:

You say you listen, but you use that term differently than other people use it. For you, it means your aural sensors received input, and as long as that input is there, you feel you've done your half role in the communication. That's not listening. Listening is taking in information, parsing it, analyzing it, and fitting it in. You ask for my opinion every time, but you never actually consider it, and you certainly never take my advice. I'm not a partner, and never have been. I'm a placeholder so you can pretend you have a partner.

knock_off_yank · 2017-10-25T14:03:14+00:00

One thing that really stands out for me is that at no point in the story, from that conversation that was the beginning of the end, to the therapist session, to any of her recounting her own poor behaviour, to the post-mortem does the thought seem to occur - maybe I should have tried to change?

Now I'm doubtful of the idea that people usually will fundamentally change at that point in their lives (though I have seen it happen), but surely at least the mere thought should have occured and been taken seriously enough to be part of the story. It certainly sounds like he tried to do it for her over the years, or at the very least entertained the thought.

I guess I'm not exactly surprised - I've seen this happen enough times through my life with friends and family (including my own parents) where the husband, after so long and so much trying to please, trying to change and never being good enough, has had enough and finally, meekly says no and that's that. I don't know if it's an inevitable extension of the same culture that requires the man to be the pursuer and the woman to decide whether he is worthy of her, but it certainly seems like in hetero relationships that it is just expected by everybody that "the relationship" or "the marriage" is ultimately her domain and he just kinda lives there at her pleasure.

MagicTampon · 2017-10-25T07:38:34+00:00

White women: the most entitled overall demographic of human beings on the face of the planet.

Note also, her profile says she is a mom "and stepmom". Which means she is writing nostalgically in a public forum about her ex-husband while married to some other guy. Gross. She sounds manipulative.

genderbent · 2017-10-25T00:05:30+00:00

Good for them. It sounds like they got out of a bad romantic relationship and ended up in a good platonic one, which is better for both of them and the kids.

mikesteane · 2017-10-25T08:14:53+00:00

It took me a long time to get enough distance to look back on this and change my perspective

= My hamster and I took a long time to come up with a plausible explanation to excuse me for breaking up a good marriage because of extreme selfishness.

Leinadro · 2017-10-25T16:18:04+00:00

You know good on him for speaking up. Sure you can say he should have spoken up sooner but better late than never. All too often men suffer horrible marriages in silence thinking its their duty or something.

Glad he spoke up.

2017-10-25T16:22:31+00:00

Still don't quite understand why she broke up with him because he didn't want to go volunteering with her or something. What was really the core issue that was so important to her?

2017-10-25T17:06:53+00:00

House husband gets divorced solely because woman doesn't like the stress of being the breadwinner.

Is there a man on earth who has divorced the mother of his children over such a thing? I can't imagine it.

Aivias · 2017-10-26T10:00:46+00:00

Men need to take more time and energy to really think about what a woman is bringing to the table in a relationship.

If all you can think of is pussy, she needs to go. Sharpish.

Comments