Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
1) "Traditional" Woman: Has your children, stays at home to take care of them, cooks well, keeps the house very clean, wears very feminine clothing and keeps herself made up/hair done, etc, has sex whenever the husband wants, does more listening than talking, keeps her opinions to herself.
2) "Modern" Woman: Has a full-time job, earns approximately half of the household income, if she has kids she goes back to work by the time each child is 2-3 years old, cooks and cleans but expects her husband to do half of the work, is fashionable but usually wears jeans as opposed to dresses, likes sex but she needs her needs met in bed, is very aware of the economy, politics, the world, etc. and always states her mind.
Neither, lol. From my perspective, you’re stereotyping women as one of two extremes relative to antiquated gender roles and speaking to femininity as if it equates to being docile and ill-informed.
Not because we are wired that way.
Societal and environmental factors influence our behaviors and roles. Times they are a changing.
There was an interesting piece on a podcast or NPR a while back talking about the archaeological perception of hunter/gatherer societies. They mentioned a case of finding a burial of a highly decorated and revered hunter several decades ago. All of the scientists assumed the remains were male, because of course they would be, but recent DNA tests turned out that the hunter was female. Go figure. Modern scientists have been looking over the data from previous finds to find more examples of women in hunter/warrior/leadership roles.
Last edited by fleetiebelle; 10-19-2023 at 10:09 AM..
There was an interesting piece on a podcast or NPR a while back talking about the archaeological perception of hunter/gatherer societies. They mentioned a case of finding a burial of a highly decorated and revered hunter several decades ago. All of the scientists assumed the remains were male, because of course they would be, but recent DNA tests turned out that the hunter was female. Go figure, and it's not uncommon.
I believe there were more women who participated in "male roles" historically, but history is written by the victors or those in power.
I also think outsiders don't understand that spouses often tolerate these issues for years before finally deciding they have reached their limit. My good friend is recently divorced after over 30 years of marriage; her husband cheated for decades and she quietly tolerated it because he was a wonderful husband in every area, and every time he got caught he would break up with his current mistress and lavish my friend with gifts and attention to make up for it. It became a very unhealthy cycle... but it also became their normal. After they both retired and their children were grown, she realized that she needed and deserved the one thing he could not give her: fidelity.
Another friend's husband struggled with alcohol. He would be sober during the week, but then binge-drink through a Costco-size case of beer every weekend. He spent virtually every weekend drunk, and on Monday start complaining because they didn't have sex all weekend and accuse her of cheating or being a closeted lesbian. She left after one too many weekends of hiding the car keys because he would get the notion to go out (drunk) and buy more beer after the case was empty. He did not believe he had a problem (still doesn't) because he functioned all week long, and because he surrounded himself with a social circle where heavy alcohol consumption was normalized and just something wives were expected to put up with.
My husband struggles with his mental health. He is fine as long as he takes his medication, but there have been a few periods where he would stop taking his medication because he missed the feeling of rapid cycling. When the kids were young, all of my focus would be on sheltering them from the problem and keeping their lives normal and stable while he would enjoy the obnoxious highs of mania... until the depressive phase would kick in and he could be reasoned with to resume his medication. He is in a stable place now, but I live in a constant state of vigilance and resentment. I don't know what my limit is, but I know I have one, especially as the kids have gotten older but it feels like his is growing less mature with age. Outside of our children, I know there will be no emotional support, because everyone else knows the happy, gregarious face he shows the rest of the world. He doesn't hit me or cheat on me, so what kind of person leaves their spouse because of mental illness?
Hoo boy, that last paragraph...
All I can tell you is that I have always felt sad about my first marriage on some level because I saw my ex as "family member struggling with mental illness." But the issue is, sooner or later it is their responsibility as an adult to do what they can to make their mental health better where it's possible, and if they are not willing to do what they can to make themselves someone safe and OK for the family to be around...and by "safe" I don't just mean "doesn't hit you"... They have to take some responsibility for that.
I wanted to stay with him until our kids were grown. I made it until they were 15 & 13. When things were relatively OK, I thought I'd make it and that even perhaps we could stay together indefinitely, but I figured I'd reevaluate once the boys moved out. I have an optimistic heart, always want to believe that if I just work hard enough and stay the course, things can get better. Sure, he was sometimes...often...hard to live with. He ruined vacations, and I started planning for him to just not go with us, since he didn't seem to want to be there. He got in a big bad temper and I'd draw him outside to our smoking area to talk him down, away from the kids. I spent so much time and energy just managing him.
What I did not know all those years, is that in fact I did not have the control that I thought I did, to keep things at least ok until the kids were grown...that things could get so bad they'd escape my hands and go really sideways. And that when they got truly and seriously awful, we'd hit a kind of rock bottom and I would HAVE to leave.
If I had left in 2014, our bills were paid off and both of us would have been in a good financial situation. The kids would never have had to be living in terror, or to have seen how low their father really could fall. Well. I guess perhaps that may have happened during a break up anyways. But when I finally got out, the things that had happened in the year leading up to it... He started patrolling around the house with a loaded AK and sleeping with it in bed with him (I had moved to a spare room.) He terrorized and threatened our kids. He would not work or volunteer or do anything but drink and get high and play video games. He met an abused woman in rural TN, played his "white knight savior" act, and invited her to bring her family to live in our house, they were going to form a new relationship as ours was ending...she arrived with two kids, a dangerous delinquent older teen who bullied my kids and her much younger child she told us was from a rape. And three unfixed dogs and a pregnant cat. They came in and totally trashed our house. And he never told her that mine was the only paycheck supporting the household and that his disability wasn't enough to even pay the mortgage. When she found out the reality of the situation, she lost it. Her arrival was the last straw, I was not trying to support two families, including some trashy person he just told to come move in with her whole disaster on a flatbed behind her crummy old truck. I was DONE.
So at this point...you know, I'd rather have people calling me selfish, if I'd left before all that crap went down. And I know they would have. Such a terrible, selfish, frivolous woman, breaking up her family because she's "not happy." My selfishness could have saved my kids a whole lot of hardship.
And I do not often hear about people who are messy and mentally unhealthy and who don't always want to control themselves, actually getting better in lasting ways. If you don't have a stable partner now, there's a damn good chance you won't ever. Maybe you hold it all together until the kids are grown, but man...if you can't... Rock bottom is a hell of an UGLY place to visit.
All I can tell you is that I have always felt sad about my first marriage on some level because I saw my ex as "family member struggling with mental illness." But the issue is, sooner or later it is their responsibility as an adult to do what they can to make their mental health better where it's possible, and if they are not willing to do what they can to make themselves someone safe and OK for the family to be around...and by "safe" I don't just mean "doesn't hit you"... They have to take some responsibility for that.
I wanted to stay with him until our kids were grown. I made it until they were 15 & 13. When things were relatively OK, I thought I'd make it and that even perhaps we could stay together indefinitely, but I figured I'd reevaluate once the boys moved out. I have an optimistic heart, always want to believe that if I just work hard enough and stay the course, things can get better. Sure, he was sometimes...often...hard to live with. He ruined vacations, and I started planning for him to just not go with us, since he didn't seem to want to be there. He got in a big bad temper and I'd draw him outside to our smoking area to talk him down, away from the kids. I spent so much time and energy just managing him.
What I did not know all those years, is that in fact I did not have the control that I thought I did, to keep things at least ok until the kids were grown...that things could get so bad they'd escape my hands and go really sideways. And that when they got truly and seriously awful, we'd hit a kind of rock bottom and I would HAVE to leave.
If I had left in 2014, our bills were paid off and both of us would have been in a good financial situation. The kids would never have had to be living in terror, or to have seen how low their father really could fall. Well. I guess perhaps that may have happened during a break up anyways. But when I finally got out, the things that had happened in the year leading up to it... He started patrolling around the house with a loaded AK and sleeping with it in bed with him (I had moved to a spare room.) He terrorized and threatened our kids. He would not work or volunteer or do anything but drink and get high and play video games. He met an abused woman in rural TN, played his "white knight savior" act, and invited her to bring her family to live in our house, they were going to form a new relationship as ours was ending...she arrived with two kids, a dangerous delinquent older teen who bullied my kids and her much younger child she told us was from a rape. And three unfixed dogs and a pregnant cat. They came in and totally trashed our house. And he never told her that mine was the only paycheck supporting the household and that his disability wasn't enough to even pay the mortgage. When she found out the reality of the situation, she lost it. Her arrival was the last straw, I was not trying to support two families, including some trashy person he just told to come move in with her whole disaster on a flatbed behind her crummy old truck. I was DONE.
So at this point...you know, I'd rather have people calling me selfish, if I'd left before all that crap went down. And I know they would have. Such a terrible, selfish, frivolous woman, breaking up her family because she's "not happy." My selfishness could have saved my kids a whole lot of hardship.
And I do not often hear about people who are messy and mentally unhealthy and who don't always want to control themselves, actually getting better in lasting ways. If you don't have a stable partner now, there's a damn good chance you won't ever. Maybe you hold it all together until the kids are grown, but man...if you can't... Rock bottom is a hell of an UGLY place to visit.
My God that is awful. You held on longer than I ever could have.
And these guys wonder why some of us take umbrage at their parroting "women file for divorce X% of the time", "women just leave because they are unhappy or board".
He is in a stable place now, but I live in a constant state of vigilance and resentment. I don't know what my limit is, but I know I have one, especially as the kids have gotten older but it feels like his is growing less mature with age. Outside of our children, I know there will be no emotional support, because everyone else knows the happy, gregarious face he shows the rest of the world. He doesn't hit me or cheat on me, so what kind of person leaves their spouse because of mental illness?
I have a brother who is bipolar and another who is bipolar schizo affective.
You are the primary caregiver for someone dealing with an acute mental illness.
First, I would join Nami (National Alliance for the Mentality Ill) and I would sign up for the Family to Family program. That helps figuring out resources are in your area and how to cope with your husbands illness.
Second, I would look into (Coda) co dependents anonymous and find the local meetings in your area. Your husband has needs that are bigger than your ability to deal with them. This is why you are feeling overwhelmed. Nami will help with finding other people to help manage his problems, but Coda will help with putting boundaries on his problems so you can feel like you can start enjoying life again.
I would also look into therapy for yourself. It can help you sort out how to manage your husband better and you can discuss the pros and cons of divorce in a confidential place where you can really lay out what issues you are dealing with. Both Nami and Coda meetings are going to be great resources for figuring out who are the good therapists for people who are dealing with your issues.
I wish you luck, things can be much better in your life.
I always find it odd when posters know intimate details of plenty of people's lives, including how and what they are thinking. In all my years I've only known details of relationships of people I am very, very close to and as they say there are 3 sides to every story.
Ahh, just very simple observations through life man, very easily noticed,heard, even friends and family.
Ahh, just very simple observations through life man, very easily noticed,heard, even friends and family.
Naw man, what goes on behind closed doors is not easily noticed or heard. There is all kinds of dysfunction that goes on for years no one had any idea about. Often what we see on the surface is not the reality.
Why we too often hear neighbors, family and friends being interviewed on the evening news saying things like "I cant believe he/she beat/killed their spouse, kept their kids locked in cages, was a serial killer, they were so normal and nice, its such a shock.
To know all the subtle intimate idiosyncrasies between a lot of couples you know is extremely weird and rare or BS.
oh for crying out loud , knew even saying anything in this thread would be more trouble than it's worth.
No ones talking about knowing every tiny intracity wth are you even rambling about.
l could waffle on with 50 examples of the very basic stuff l mentioned it's not rocket science but eh,zero interest. As you were l'll just leave the thread to toss and turn another 40 pages.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
