Meaning, I should let him do what he wants, no matter what.
“My therapist told me that I was looking for unconditional love from you since I had a shitty mom.” He said this with full confidence.
“Don’t you think that’s strange?” I asked him.
“no, why?” he said in a perplexed tone.
He later said that he knew I didn’t love him unconditionally because I wouldn’t sleep with him while we were fighting and that was inexcusable in his opinion. He went on to say that “I don’t think women can love men these days” based on this one way unconditional love misogynistic bullshit. Because a woman is supposed to lack any and all self worth in order to show you love? WTF. Where did he get this??
He also said care giving and service came naturally to women so that didn’t count as a show of love.
He was very emotionally abusive, his combativeness, being contrarian and arguing about absolutely everything was purely done to control me. Make me believe that my servitude, thoughtfulness and effort came from my female instincts, and he didn’t have those instincts so he wasn’t going to reciprocate. He wanted zero responsibilities for me or the house, and me asking was a HUGE no no because this was a sign that I didn’t love him. He expected me to be agreeable, cheerful, take care of everything and for me to be available for sex even if I was upset, even if he treated me like garbage, even if he hadn’t bathed. My therapist said he saw me as a piece of furniture or an appliance.
I had no idea he thought this way until 23 years in. It’s like men get emboldened and speak their truth when they get into marriage counseling, just let it all hang out.
I regularly picked fights about his bathing, among other things. He always won these arguments. There was never compromise or concern about my feelings at all.
Why did I stay? Why did I put up with it?
He conditioned me to believe I was MEAN and shallow if I asked him to bathe. Akin to me asking him to lose weight or get hair plugs. Asking him to bathe was on par with asking him to change something about himself.
So, I absorbed the disgust I felt when he’d touch me. I told myself that I was wrong for being repulsed by him, that it made me a bad person. That he might be on the spectrum or soap might hurt him. I needed to be kind and not shame him for this.
He called this unconditional love, but really… it was pure, selfish manipulation and I was the idiot who trusted him and believed him.
On the flip side, he didn’t love me unconditionally, not even close. When I had finally had enough, I said that things needed to change, I needed respect, care and for him to bathe because I couldn’t physically tolerate being intimate with him anymore. I held that boundary. He refused to change and he asked me to leave after shaming me for not being attracted to him.
Why did I have to love him unconditionally but he did not have to love me unconditionally?
I asked him if things would have been different if I would have had cancer, and he said, in a disgusted voice “absolutely!” But would they? If he’s arguing that I should leave because he wasn’t getting laid, that would extend to illness, no?
He filed for divorce two days ago, I just got the email. He wanted to be the one to do it, make me the defendant. He wanted to be in control. But this man wouldn’t clean a toilet and couldn’t handle getting text reminders for his dental appointments because it was too disruptive, so they sent them to me. And a few days ago I had to tell him where to search for his pink slip even though I haven’t lived there for 2 years. It’s so fucking surreal. The complaint stated, in black and white, that I left with the intention to start the separation process. That was fucking false. He asked me to leave because he wasn’t getting his rocks off at my expense. And only the 2 of us know that. It’s our secret and that smug fuck knows that. On paper, it’s so much different than the truth. All neat and tidy. But the truth is, he’s a lazy, selfish, entitled, repugnant coward who saw me as a Fleshlight whose batteries had died. Just throw that one away!
Something on the horizon that I’m totally not surprised about, more and more podcasts talking about the Men’s Loneliness Epidemic and tying it back to men not growing up, not taking responsibility because their mom always did everything. That they are getting sex and being taken care of in their marriage and they will not release their death grip on such a great setup. And women are being blamed for enabling it.
I described it a little differently.. I think Covid made this dynamic stick out like a sore thumb. More people at home, more chores, more time in a domestic setting… prominent laziness via entitlement emerges thus… the great divorce.
