I hope this is allowed. I’ve lurked here for years because my husband and I went through a tough time in our marriage and weren’t sure we’d make it. Reading male perspectives helped.

We are doing better now but during the worst of the worst, we were dealing with our first baby missing all his milestones which eventually led to a diagnosis of profound (disabling) autism while in the middle of Covid lockdowns and a job upheaval.

One thing I noticed: When I talked about my challenges with my friends, they’d ask what my husband was doing. I would not even be venting about my husband and they’d ask. Then it would lead into something like “he isn’t doing enough, he needs to help more.” Being so disconnected, stressed, and sleep deprived, my husband and I had already turned against each other. It didn’t take a lot of convincing for me to think “Yes, my husband should be doing more!” And yes, while I’m in control of my own mindset, I now look back on those years and those friends (no longer friends) and think “what the fuck? I was going through a hard time and all my friends could think of to say was get a divorce, your husband sucks?”

For the record, my husband doesn’t suck. He‘s a good one. We were going through tough times. Both of us fucked up. We moved past it and remained committed but it was hard.

While lurking here I’ve noticed the men here are much more likely to ask one another and themselves what they could have done differently to save their relationship. Anecdotally: none of my friends ever did that. They’d suggest setting boundaries, therapy, and divorce. But not a whole lot of “what did you contribute to this situation?”

Going further, I suspect some of my friends were hoping I’d get a divorce. I married “young” by millennial standards and had children young. My husband is blue collar ”country” which is exactly what led me to thinking about all of this today. One of my old friends reached out to me to catch up. She is one who suggested I leave my husband. She is casually talking to a guy she met on a dating app and mentioned “yeah but he’s not super smart. He works (in a blue collar industry) and didn’t go to college.” And just like that, I was transported to those hard years in my life when this same friend suggested I get a divorce.

Idk what my point is and tbh yall will probably delete this post since I’m a woman. But where the fuck else do I post this? The women oriented subreddits would ban me immediately. I know, because I’ve tried.

I support anyone’s right to leave at any time. But saying vows should mean something. Nobody forces you to walk down the aisle and take a loyalty oath to a man for life. So why do it, if you don’t take it seriously and will leave for trivial reasons as soon as you go through the first difficult time? We said for better or worse. 2020-2022 were the hardest years of our marriage due to things not within control. There were times we thought we hated one another. But we made a promise to each other. That is supposed to mean something. A few years later we are doing better. Imagine if we’d divorced though. We’d be living separate lives right now.

My ex friend is now 2x divorced and has a roster of men. The lesson is don’t take advice from people whose lives you don’t want. These women wanted to lead me to the same misery they’re in.