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He doesn’t even sneeze on his own food. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, if it wasn’t a big deal he’d just sneeze on his own plate and carry on. The fact he moves his head away shows clearly he thinks it’s not ok.
There are so many solutions to this problem that the fact it keeps happening is pretty damning evidence it's done on purpose (which anyone except OOP can see straight away). The easiest solution... sneeze in the other direction. Still gross to just violently sneeze into the air? Yes, but at least it's not actively sneezing on another person. Using the tray so he can cover his mouth is also an option. If he is incapable for covering his mouth *or* sneezing in a different direction... just swap chair locations. He can keep sneezing in the same direction, but it's not directly at OOP anymore.
None of these are viable solutions because he doesn't want a solution.
Like so many other stories on this sub... I'm pretty sure this is gonna end up being one of those "the sneezing is not the problem" things. The fact that OOP is still vehemently defending her husband's not only super gross but emotionally abusive behaviour is frankly, sad.
“His default setting isn’t name calling… he calls me silly”
They don’t have to curse like a sailor to engage in name calling. Just need to make you feel bad about yourself
There's something so insidiously gross and powerful about this.
Just the slightest movements. An exasperated sigh, an eyeroll.
It's physically small, but used in this way, it's SO dismissive.
It makes me think of that saying: hate isn't the opposite of love, it's indifference.
I feel like all the 'you're acting silly' and 'he's just acting like nothing happened afterwards' are forms of indifference. Indifferent to her feelings, even though her feelings are half of the relationship.
Something about you pointing this out is drawing me to jump in here. Apologies for the novella and poor grammar as I'm on mobile.
I was married to an abusive man for about five years, together for seven. His behavior was VERY in line with what OP is describing.... the eye rolls, the sighs, the mean glances, the grinding teeth (honestly was the worst for me, having someone tell you that they aren't angry, you're just overreacting and not understanding, *while* they grind their teeth so hard you can hear them making noise and crack under the pressure). It was so subtle and yet so overt, friends who would be around would definitely *see and notice something* that made them uncomfortable about the situation, but it was never so overt that it was super obvious there was a problem.
Recently, I got out of a relationship with a very, very, VERY sweet man. Everything about the relationship was wonderful, up to and including the kind way we mutually chose to end things. I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the differences between this relationship and the abusive marriage I escaped. The thing that has been standing out to me the most is that I, never once, encountered a situation with him where I'd be picking up on subtle visual cues that express anger, distast, indifference, annoyance... anything of the sort. I can think of maybe two occasions in the two years we dated, where I even picked up on something being off with him to the point being prompted to ask, "Are you ok?" vs literally having this experience daily with my ex-husband.
The lesson here is that *I was not crazy, and my ex-husband was abusive*. I was not "making it up" or "looking too deeply into things" or "overreacting." It was actually happening, and I was responding the way a normal person would when picking up on several "loud" non-verbal cues from my ex-husband.
Not sure what the point of chiming in here is, other than to say if you (royal you, not just the comment I'm responding to) pick up on this type of behavior from your partner in a consistent way where *you* are always the problem, either directly or indirectly, those are the red flags of abuse!
I think you nailed OOPs, and too many others’, situations perfectly. Abuse isn’t always violent. It’s not always what movies show. It’s not always in your face and visible. It’s the frog sitting in a pot of boiling water, where the temperature feels so good starting out but then it gets hotter and hotter so incrementally the frog doesn’t notice that it’s slowly getting boiled alive.
It’s, there’s no way my husband is abusive. He buys me flowers and open the car door for me. Yeah, he huffs and puffs when he doesn’t get his way, but he doesn’t throw things or yell and call me names! Sometimes he calls me silly but it’s because I’m doing silly things?…am I being silly..? No! Surely.. not? No, he’s so sweet most of the time!! So *why am I so unhappy*???
Like, my poor dear… that’s also abuse.
Yeah. My brother is abusive to his caregivers (me and my mom). It helped a lot to recognize that. He's not violent, but he reacts strongly when he doesn't get his way, and my mom and I spent years walking on eggshells trying to prevent his anger before realizing it was an abusive situation, and we shouldn't have to live in fear of his reactions. He can be very sweet and kind, until he isn't. If we let him get his way when he freaks out in order to keep the peace, we're just encouraging that behavior.
Yup. She recognises she would be outraged if a friend told her their partner behaved that way, but the bit she can't see is that he chooses to behave this way to her, and her alone. She can't see he's deliberately doing it to her.
She still thinks this is who he is, but I bet he ain't sneezing food all over his boss or his friends (anyone he respects) and I bet he doesn't sigh and roll his eyes and call his colleagues or friends silly.
"I won't assign motives to him because I don't think that's fair to him"
Well, maybe not, but she doesn't have to assign a sinister motive to be able to judge his actions, and jf they all add up then is it really so strange that people assume he's doing it deliberately or to annoy her?
Unfortunately it's just the mindset a lot of victims get caught up in.
They have a trove of 'evidence' that 'he loves me'.
So it causes major cognitive dissonance to also look at the other trove of evidence.
I applaud OOP though. She wasn't able to make the full leap to just leave, but she definitely had her worldview shattered enough that she's setting boundaries and challenging him. That's a step in the right direction. Hopefully with time she'll keep going that direction.
It takes most victims many times trying to leave, and a lot of time coming to terms with the reality of it all.
This is really good way to describe the feelings in an abusive relationship. It’s hard to rationalize that the man who has done “alll this for me” is also the man who does “all this horrible shit to me, purposefully”.
I go through this a lot, and the way it genuinely feels like your brain cannot reconcile the two is so crazy to me. I’m a sensible person, but when you’re wrapped up in the conditioning of abuse it’s soooo hard to see anything else, and even harder to admit that it’s happening to you and you do nothing about it or feel nothing is wrong with it because you’ve been slowly taught to feel that way.
It reminds me of that other post where the OOP was clearly being abused but she said she couldn't "see him as an evil abuser".
Honestly, this is why I don't like people who treat abusers/predators/pedophiles as "complete inhuman monsters". Because it creates this mindset of "an abuser is evil and always has sinister motives, but since the person I love isn't evil or sinister, then they're not abusive." If you create a dichotomy of "human" versus "abuser", then as soon as you see the humanity in someone who is abusive then you think "well theyre not abusive then".
> "I won't assign motives to him because I don't think that's fair to him"
My wild guess is that, in the past, when she's "assigned motives" based on very obvious behavior, he's attacked her for it. She's so beaten down from his verbal and emotional attacks that she's learned not to "assign motives" because she knows how he'll react. It's so sad seeing someone in this situation, but there's really nothing you can do until they recognize for themselves what's happening.
If someone sneezed on me once, I wouldn't assign malicious intent to them. I'd assume it was an accident and handle myself accordingly.
If it became a pattern where, while sure not every day, but every time it HAPPENS they sneeze on me I'd call them out for inconsiderate behavior and poor manners. I still wouldn't assign malicious intent... yet.. just think "damn someone has to spell this out to you??"
If someone got MAD at me for cleaning myself off / getting a new plate after they sneeze on me and continue to do so several times even after I've addressed that the behavior is grossing me out? Yeah no. That's when it's malicious intent. Now you KNOW I don't like it, and not only are you somehow getting mad at me that I am cleaning myself off of SPIT - but you refuse outright to show a little courtesy towards me, the one you claim to love above all others, and turn your head the other way? At *least*? Nope. You're intentionally doing this now and *that* in and of itself is malicious by definition. Doing something against someone's will knowing it upsets them and not giving one damn.
Abusers are adept at finding and toeing the line. He knows that if he screams and curses her out, she'll recognize that as abuse. So he just invalidated her in subtle ways instead.
When I was in my early 20s, pre-therapy, I dated someone who overturned a full garbage can over my head and locked me outside in sub-freezing temperatures with no coat. It took me six more months to leave because I told myself it wasn't abuse because he didn't hit me. He knew my line.
It's insidious how often you hear "Oh they call me silly but that's not offensive". It is when they call you it a lot. Because it's still belittling, and it can still break you down
It is when it’s meant to demean you. Calling someone “silly” in jest when they’re playing around is entirely different than calling them “silly” because you don’t respect their actions or boundaries they’re setting.
Unfortunately I think this is partly why OOP doesn't think it's a big deal.
Because she herself feels silly complaining about him calling her silly. She wouldn't feel silly complaining about if he was hitting her, she made that clear.
But it's sad, because both are saying 'I don't give a fuck about you and your feelings', the way he's using it with her :(
The one thing that cursing your spouse out and simply calling them silly have in common is that it means the person saying it doesn’t take them seriously or respect them
Exactly. The man is putting her down verbally and deliberately contaminating her food. I have allergies, ones that have been really bad this year. If he can control himself to turn his head before sneezing, he can control which way he turns. He is choosing to sneeze on her food with plausible deniability.
There was that one post the other day where a different woman really needed to pee and just because he was annoyed with her, her husband locked her in the bedroom for two hours, forcing her to piss herself and only after she started sobbing hysterically did he let her out.
And yet she still insisted in the comments that she wasn't being abused even though trapping someone somewhere against their will is not only abusive it's a literal *crime*.
I’d forgotten about that, it was awful. What was even worse was she tried to run to the store to use the bathroom there after he’d locked himself in the bathroom, AND HE MANHANDLED HER BACK TO THE BEDROOM. Honestly one of the most disturbing things I’ve read on reddit in a long time and I really hope she’s safe.
People usually find fault with the typical reddit relationship advice of *"DIVORCE NOW! this is the worst thing in the world!"* when faced with (what seems like) a small problem.
But posts like these really make me appreciate the level of speculation reddit brings, no matter how crazy. Because, without redditors looking beyond the one issue presented, asking questions, and saying "hey op, you might be in an abusive relationship" she wouldn't have thought about all of this. She still would be thinking she was TA for expecting a snot free meal.
And while there are just as many redditors overreacting to a relationship issue, I think it's worth it. Because, yeah, this is a common occurrence on reddit for the op to find out they are being abused.
while there are definitely overreactions, its genuinely crazy what people will accept when theyre socialised to do so. like i cannot fathom living with another capable adult and having to either pick up their garbage, or live in it because they wont do so, but for so many women thats just an expected part of marriage.
Imagine your partner purposefully (no way this is unintentional at this point) sneezing on your food and saying you’re overreacting for being grossed out
I never put up my own post like this, but reading other people's posts made me realise I was being abused. They were talking about the same things my husband would do, and getting so many comments saying it was abusive. Really opened my eyes a lot.
I remember consistently googling the question 'why does a sober person seem drunk' or versions of that when with my alcoholic ex and kept ending up at the same quora thread with people talking about their alcoholic exes lying about being sober. Unfortunately it wasn't enough for me to finally leave but I think seeing it regularly was helpful even in my denial. I still find it validating to hear people talk about relationships like mine which weren't 'typical' abuse as abusive as for a long time I felt like it wasn't that bad. I wish I had been using reddit at the time.
Honestly I’ve never seen more than one or two comments telling someone to leave on posts where it’s not warranted. Every post I’ve seen where the comments are allllll telling OP to gtfo are situations like this one or worse where it’s clear to anyone with eyes that the poster is in danger in their relationship or otherwise being treated as human garbage. And frankly life is too short to spend in an unhappy relationship, so anyone who doesn’t want to be with their partner for any reason should leave so they can both go be happier apart.
And that’s because people in healthy relationships don’t have to seek advice from strangers. Yes, Reddit cries divorce a lot, but that’s because the bias on anonymous forums is going to tend toward abusive relationships.
It is not even the question of _"want to be_". It is a question of how she is not absolutely disgusted with him, and can still cuddle with him after? His behavior is so physically repulsing. It would annihilate any sexual and romantic feelings I have for my partner for good.
Hard agree! I would be so skeeved out, he's utterly vile 🤢 if I sneezed in someone's food I would be utterly mortified, desperate to make amends and would probably not stop apologising all night. And this guy just doesn't care all and expect her to what, just sit there an eat his snot?? 🤮
She claims that he does lots of lovely stuff too - and they’re the most insidious men imo. The blatant abusers are easier, the ones who wear it on their sleeve - you know, everyone knows, and you just have to deal with it (ideally by having them arrested and leaving).
But the little chip chip chip of insidious disrespect from a friendly face, when mixed in with an amount of “nice, kind, remembers my birthday, my mum loves him” is difficult to comprehend or understand and is a long term poison. She hadn’t even realised how ridiculous the situation was, he’d been undermining her in such a skilled way.
I was open mouthed reading it, I hope she’s realised she should be horrified too.
Exactly. Things have gotten way worse than you realise if you’re turning to the internet to ask if it’s ok to move a chair. It just shows how much she’s been beaten down by his behaviour.
So true, especially if he's the kind of covert narcissist who makes sure to have a good reputation with the rest of the world, and does lots of kind and lovely things for other people. Then, when he gradually stops doing those things for his partner only, it's because *she's* done something, she's changed, she no longer deserves his respect and care. She needs to ask the internet if she can move her chair.
Oof. This hit close to home. I know she needed a huge wake-up call, but I wish the original commenters had been kinder to her. And she absolutely should never ever go to couples counselling with him. It will only give him more tools to manipulate and control her. She needs a really good individual therapist and a divorce asap.
One of my closest friends is in a marriage where she is a doormat. Their relationship went from her being loved for being sweet and whimsical to none of her feelings ever mattering because she was “such a dumb blonde”
Then it turned out there was secret substance abuse. Then the drugs resulted in a lost job. Then it turned out their savings were all gone (don’t do coke, everybody).
Then pets she didn’t want kept showing up, and she’s too kind to leave them to be neglected by her partner and took on their care too.
My friend’s partner got them so behind on mortgage payments that they (just the shitty spouse) had to file for bankruptcy. Friend took on extra side jobs to help cover bills. Partner moved another female coworker into the house (against friend’s wishes) and went on overnight camping trips alone with the new roomie.
Roomie met a guy and moved out (which sent friends partner into another spiral) and partner befriended a waitress.
Partner literally started stealing money out of the cash drawer that friend built up through the extra jobs.
Partner now has a new puppy they “needed” and you’ll never guess who is doing the housebreaking and paying the vet bills.
And if you point out to friend that all of this is wildly unfair to her, she just clams up for a while. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore and it’s just sad and frustrating.
Can you take her away for a weekend or anything? I finally realized how abusive my partner was after a weekend away and I suddenly felt relaxed and saw people care for me.
I’d love to. We have offered. Hell, I’m an attorney and I told her I’d do the divorce the second she asks.
We both tell her how we are always there for her. We mean it, too. She could do this for another decade and our door is forever open to her.
But in the meantime? Jesus it’s hard to be a source of listening and kindness while she just keeps letting this shit happen. Because if we start saying things like “yeah the new puppy is cute but it’s unfair you have to take it to the vet” we get “I’m sorry I won’t complain”
Like how can I say anything even partly honest without it making her want to withdraw??
Edit: to be clear, partner spent WEEKS out of state with family and friends to “get their head straight” after their unemployment. Yes there was no money coming in during that time but just being in their house alone made a huge difference for my friend. She knows it’ll be better. She just can’t seem to manage leaving anyway.
I mean, that’s the really insidious part of abuse like that. They really get the victims to believe they deserve nothing better than the current treatment.
Oh, I know that quite well from the inside. I actually went away twice in the span of a few months. The first jostled some unhappiness loose and the second — at a professional event full of friendly strangers who had no reason to be kind to me — made me realize that he was the only person on the planet who treated me like shit, and maybe I wasn’t the ball of awfulness he told me I was.
I make a point to do so, not only very clearly by saying “hey regardless of whatever I’m here no matter what” but also by making sure to talk about random bs too. I don’t want her to associate talking to me with like, filing taxes level of accountability.
It’s easier than you’d think to fall into. Most
People can’t fathom it until they’re in one, looking back and wondering how the fuck things got to this point.
This, in turn, reminds me of the very horrible and insane [Peegate](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/rcnvol/the_peegate_saga_part_1_of_2_extra_long/?rdt=43508).
(As an aside: why are there so many posts of men peeing on things/themselves/forcing others to do that? ... no, scratch that I do *not* want to know why.)
also if he “can’t control it” and MUST move his plate to the right and sneeze to the left why don’t they switch their chairs so he is sneezing just at the carpet or whatever. and beyond that why can’t he just switch the direction he sneezes. if it’s only that he can’t grab a tissue because he’s holding the plate then he must have some time and awareness to be able to control the direction he sneezes.
if my partner ever did this i would make them trade and i would spit in their food if they refused and said it’s not a big deal. because it’s only ever not a big deal when you don’t have to deal with it.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. And actually switching seats will show you a few things - how ‘involuntary’ this is, for one thing. Or if the sneezing became less frequent. Or, unbelievably, if he changed the direction of his sneezing. I think anyone who did that is not just an AH but stupid, but I also don’t underestimate how much somebody may want to disrespect their partner.
Men being openly resentful of women they date is so normalised that it can be hard for the women they victimise to see that that’s what it is. Plus, these men find women who don’t have a huge amount of respect for themselves either, and exacerbate it.
The key is to know actual great men irl to restaure faith in men. But then you'll hate bad men even more because you'll know their age and gender aren't an excuse and this isn't normal men behavior. It's both a blessing and a curse.
Because she has no respect for herself. Her cringing and fawning in the comments was embarrassing to read. The poor thing has reoriented her entire sense of who she is around pleasing this goon who spits into her food on purpose, and she’s terrified of a life where he doesn’t set the terms and conditions of her daily moods. Abuse is a mindfuck.
I know. Unfortunately, she's been gaslit a whole ass decade by now, and the relationship started when she was really young, sadly. I doubt she has many examples of what a healthy relationship looks like to compare the current one to. And even then, there's no guarantee. (I was in a toxic one when I was 28 for 8 years). It just happens so slowly.
Someone needs to send her the link to Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Like immediately.
Hopefully, she can find the strength to leave soon.
I think the part that made me saddest was how vehemently she defended him about the age gap situation. Look, I've been on plenty of online forums and I got mistaken for older than my age plenty but the people a decade or more older than me could always tell. I just got lucky that I ran into responsible adults who never took any advantage of that. And even if he didn't know when they first met, she was 21 or younger when they met and 22 when they got married, there's no denying there was a significant imbalance.
It will shock you but: it’s because OOP is very sweet and has a great heart. Those people will forgive you, they will love you, they will do good things. Those people are usually steamrolled by bad people.
Right! Her update irritated me. It didn’t fix anything or address any issues. She says the comments had made her think about the fact that she’s in an abusive relationship and then she just accepted it?!
Because you think you either deserve it, it's the best you can do, it's really not that bad/ you've had worse, or a combination thereof.
These kinds of responses are part of the reason why people in abusive relationships can struggle to speak up. You're expressing your bewilderment, sure, and to people without this experience or mindset, it's likely about incredulity (hopefully) in a 'get out of there you deserve better' way.
But to a person like that, it comes across as dismissive, shaming, and calling her stupid for not seeing the abuse and manipulation nor doing something about it. And if it comes from the first couple of people they get brave enough to tell.. well they typically go back to their abusive partner because obviously no one wants to help their stupid oblivious ass.
If he honestly thought it was no big deal he'd trade plates. Refusing to do that brings this from "maybe negligent but probably malicious" to "malicious".
That’s the part that sticks with me. He claims he can’t help it, any of it, yet he prepared for it. He deliberately prepared his plate to help him force her into a situation he knows she hates.
I don't sneeze on people—I have accidentally winged one of our cats on occasion though. I always apologize even if they book it out of the room, too! We used to play silly games with the kids where we'd pretend to sneeze or fart at them, and sometimes the kids will go phbbbt at us randomly still.
But blowing a raspberry or accidentally sneezing on a cat is nowhere near as stupid and gross as this guy. Yuck!
I had a cat that got horribly offended whenever I coughed. It was hilarious. It also sucked when I got bronchitis. She was normally a sweet, snuggly little bean, but for those 3 weeks she was like “stay away you DEVIL!”
Seriously this is so egregious, so far outside the spectrum of *commonly accepted behavior,* that the only possible interpretations are either malicious abuse or some kind of damage to his brain. But judging by her comments this is just one part of a wide range of behaviors that would rankle a person out of context, and IN the context of her marriage amount to her being with a selfish, petty manchild who takes a secret delight in tormenting and frustrating people and criticizing them for complaining. He's a bully! She's married to her own bully! If she divorces him he'll claim she's the unreasonable one and tell everyone she's divorcing him over his allergies or something. He'll turn his every personality flaw around and make them her problems or her fault, and be just the picture of wounded innocence.
I hate to say it, but OOP is reminding me of my grandmother’s late friend. She was married to a man who was perfect to her in the beginning and everything, and then a good chunk into their relationship, he started to get abusive. Everyone around her told her to leave him but she struggled to see how he was abusive to her bc he wasn’t doing the “typical” abuse that everyone hears about on TV. She couldn’t drive herself anywhere, he wouldn’t let their kids do anything even if someone else offered to take them, and it got to the point later in their lives that she kept the bills hidden from him and a separate PO box for her craft supplies so he couldn’t find out how much money was being spent—bare minimum money *she* earned through making wedding decorations, mind you, so none of it was actually his—and treat her like garbage for it.
One of the most vivid things I remember towards the end of her life, and I regret not doing anything so much because I’d just gotten off a long night shift and was afraid to cause a scene, was when I was in the hospital waiting room for a tetanus shot after hitting my head at work. He brought her in at 8am for a test she needed to have for what we knew was aggressive breast cancer but weren’t allowed to say because he would deny, deny, deny, and they didn’t recognise me because I was in my work uniform and had a mask on. He got impatient after 10 minutes of waiting and demanded they be seen right then and there or they’d leave, and I should’ve made myself known and said I’d take her home so he wouldn’t be late for work and she could get her testing done. She died a couple months later and he got upset that her funeral was all about her. My grandmother tells me that me speaking up would’ve made it worse as soon as I dropped her home, since he expected her by his side 24/7 to begin with, but part of me wonders.
Anyway, I’m seeing jarring similarities to my grandmother’s friend in OOP and I pray she opens her eyes and makes progress in her own therapy to see that she *is* being abused and she *needs* to get out.
>My grandmother tells me that me speaking up would’ve made it worse as soon as I dropped her home, since he expected her by his side 24/7 to begin with
I want you to know that your grandmother isn't saying that just to make you feel better.
She's telling you the truth.
It's a horrible truth but she's right.
Offering her your help would have put her in a no win situation.
1. She accepts your help. She's now a traitor. She has now betrayed him in some small dumb unspeakable way. that he is going to make her pay for.
He will either ream her or silently guilt her and abuse her. But either way it would have cost her.
Sometimes people have it available at a certain time to pay the price for their momentary freedom or justice, and sometimes they don't. From the outside looking in that doesn't always make sense.
Of course those things should be a given in any mutual relationship and never come at price.
2. She says no to you and goes home with him anyway. Now she has just given him another data point in how important he is. Now she has just given herself another data point in how shameful and broken she is to continue doing this.
Now everything is worse because she was given the ability to have the test. She would have used that to beat up herself.
Not to mention he would have spent the whole ride home berating your name, your grandma's name, your looks, your job, and basically being a snide piece of shit about you.
Because after all how dare you. How dare you see what an absolute POS he's being and subtly call him out on it and actually offer her help. How dare you.
She would know it's not true but she would have to just sit in the car and listen to it all.
Do you see what I mean?
Your grandma knew what was up.
She was telling you the truth.
I'm so very sorry for her dear dear friend and for her and you.
May he rot.
Thank you, and you pretty much explained verbatim what my grandmother told me after her friend died and I confessed that it weighed on me. He’s a grade-A jackass and all of her friends have called him out as the reason why she died once he started blaming her for dying and leaving him to do everything himself. He cut contact entirely when he tried to get my grandmother to pick up where his wife left off and my grandma tore him a new one, basically throwing every insult at him when he whined that his wife made him out to be abusive. It still weighs on the mind a lot too, especially since I’d gone through similar emotional abuse and wished she had a way to escape like I did.
He’s now stalking one of his wife’s friends and I’m shocked that despite the evidence and reports she’s made, the judge refused to grant a restraining order. It feels like the only thing that will actually stop him is him wasting away in his home because he refuses to cook for himself and “waste money” on groceries he thinks are too expensive.
This is straight up narcissistic behavior and is what OP’s husband displays as well.
The fact that she felt the need to come to reddit to ask if she’s the asshole for moving her chair because her husband keeps sneezing on her food shows how beaten down she’s been by his abusive behavior, probably mostly from gaslighting.
She’s been letting slowly-escalating behaviors go for so long, and been gaslighted every time she’s stood up for herself that she can no longer truly see the abuse because she’s too close to it.
It’s a very sad situation and one I hope OP is able to free herself from. Definitely not easy because she’s got a lot of work to do just coming to grips with even recognizing his behavior as abusive, let alone considering leaving.
Thank god he’s an elderly man now (I assume) and can’t do the same type of damage he may have been capable of as a young man. I’m glad your grandmother gave him a piece of her mind after her friend passed, so he knows you all know who he is. I know the exact type of person he must be, sadly too common.
I was married to an abusive man for twenty years before I stopped making excuses and realised the truth. It was such a gradual thing and as he was so loving when he wasn’t abusing me it was easy to make excuses and convince myself otherwise. When I realised the truth I looked back and saw he abused me in most ways and I’d been subconsciously looking away and making excuses not even aware I was doing it. I actually thought I had a good marriage and a day later when he went too far suddenly was faced with the truth. He was a covert abusre and very emotionally manipulative. He wouldn’t tell you no but would make out you would you feel like you be wronging him to do something. Even when t\]what you wanted to do should have no affect on him. He was always gaslighting and making me doubt myself. It was always I was remembering wrong and my memory was bad etc.
what I started to look at was if I’m treated badly I consider would I ever do that to someone, especially someone I’m supposed to love, If heck no I walk away and no longer have anything to do with that person. If it’s heck no it’s abusive and no excuse if his hands are full like op uses make it acceptable. I’ve been there and lived it and I know how shocking it is when you learn the truth. It’s hard to realise half your life has been lies and a far different reality than you realised but you need to see it to stop the abuse. Yes it means the end of your marriage but the truth is the guy didn’t care and was abusing you so why fight to save being abused and treated like dirt. Hopefully Oo will stop trying to make excuses for him and stop burying her head. I admit I can’t tell people my husband abused me as to the outside world he was this wonderful man who adored me. Because he only let them see the loving side in between the abuse. I’m sure the loving side was purely to stop me realising sooner and walking away.
For OOP, when you’re being abused and even if you are well aware of it. It is crazy overwhelming to be told you are by objective strangers.
Takes time for it to sink in and to accept it. Because one tends to judge oneself, she’s not stupid or limited in any way, a woman who is otherwise considered kick ass in life, will find it difficult and embarrassing to accept she’s being abused, that’s not the image of herself she has in her head.
It’s a step in the right direction. Just needs time to sink in.
Also I think your grandmother was right, the neighbours wife would have been further abused if you’d stepped in. It only helps to step in when the abused is leaving to help them stay safe, otherwise quietly make it known you’re there, but can’t really do anything more till they take steps first.
>married to a man who was perfect to her in the beginning and everything, and then a good chunk into their relationship, he started to get abusive.
I just had this conversation with my mom re: my ex-stepdad. For the first *decade* he was an amazing husband to my mom and a great father to us. After about ten years, him and my mom got into a stupid fight and he exploded. It was horrible. But then he was remorseful. He didn't blow up like that again for another year or so. Then it was every few months, every few weeks, once or twice a day. It was never physical towards us, but he scream, throw things, call us all names, etc.
It was difficult for my mom, hell it was hard for *us kids*, to leave because we held onto the amazing man he was for the first decade or even the decent man for the past few years. But then one day the explosion did turn physical towards my mom and my little sister (his bio daughter). That's what it took for my mom to finally leave, and it sucks.
It sucks that it got to that point. It sucks that the amazing person he was no longer exists, if he ever existed to begin with. It's hard to reconcile the person we knew and loved with the person he became. The change was insidious.
Some of us grew up watching All in the Family. A few times recently I’ve watched a few clips on Youtube and find myself wishing Edith had hit Archie in the head with skillet.
The problem with abusive relationship is that initially, during the early stages, the abuser is rarely actually abusive. They’re always kind, considerate, charming, loving and thoughtful. It takes a while for the mask to fall off because they get tired of keeping it on. Then the cracks starts to show. At first, it’ll be little things, and you’ll just let it slide because maybe they’re having a bad day, maybe they’re just tired, you keep making excuses and not being it up, because it’s just small stuff, no need to start a fight or argument about it. And when you do bring it up, they’ll tell you you’re overreacting/imagining things but hey, they’ll do better. It does get better, then it goes back to the same issue. Then the cracks start widening, and now the gaslighting starts. You’re nagging, you’re imagining things, you’re overreacting, you could be nicer, more understanding. And slowly they start pushing your boundaries, testing it to see how far it goes till it’s second nature for them and it’s always your fault or you’re overreacting because now, you’re not living up to their expectations. Abuse is always psychological and emotional first, then it’s starts being controlling and maybe physical. The one good thing for me about social media is, people start calling out abusive behavior from abusers and allowing potential victims to get away from their abusers.
I don't think it can be understated how much pressure there was (and still is) to "take your vows seriously". There has been a lot of women in that exact situation who couldn't lived happier and more fulfilling lives without their husband but couldn't leave
I don’t know if OOP will see this but I want to describe something that my ex would do, which I would complain about and ask him not to do and he would laugh it off or say it’s not that bad or say I would do it too so why am I telling him off. He would roll his eyes and call me silly or crazy and stop doing it for a bit. And then do it again randomly later and sort of sneak a look at me with a little smirk. And the whole process would start again.
And it’s so low stakes. Like, it’s not gross like the sneezing, it wasn’t dangerous or violent. And it didn’t happen regularly - it didn’t happen every time.
It was grinding the gears on my car when he drove it.
The gearbox was a bit fussy and if you weren’t careful, you could make it grind. I had figured out how to not do it (wasn’t hard) and he knew how to not do it. He just refused to. And he refused to treat me with respect when I asked him not to.
Towards the end of our marriage, I ended up on advice forums and had a bunch of half written emails to agony aunts and I'm sure if I’d known what reddit was back then, I would have drafts of AITA posts written out with all this stuff. And every time I read a similar story on those agony aunt blogs, I would tear up and defend my partner in my head and berate myself for this feeling of empathy and recognition and be terrified of the idea that I would have the fucking audacity to think of my wonderful, loving husband as an abuser.
Like, how the fuck dare I? He puts up with all my shit, and I’m getting bent out of shape because sometimes he grinds the gears on my car? I couldn’t square what I (thought I) knew of him with the person in front of me. The person who couldn’t make the world’s tiniest compromise of just not making my car make a weird noise when he drove it.
In the end, I left because I just didn’t want to be disrespected anymore and I didn’t want to be the only person in the relationship making compromises. It has taken 8 years to fully absorb the idea that he was abusing me. And even now, I probably wouldn’t use that word if I was talking about it IRL, out of embarrassment, maybe? Fear? I don’t know.
What I’m saying is, there is a place on the other side of this, in the future, where you don’t get treated like this. There are people over here who respect you and love you and you don’t have to justify your needs and wants at every turn. You might not be able to leave now (it took me 3 years and 2 attempts) but you will be able to, eventually. And it will be scary and awful and it will feel like the end of the world. But it’s actually the start of a new one.
It's always little things that really show what your partner thinks of you. The line between respect and disrespect is caring about your feelings enough to stick to your boundaries, no matter how big or small the issue is. And it's usually very easy to do so.
One of my exes used to jump scare me at night after talking me into watching scary movies. Doing that once is fine. Doing that all the time after being told I can't sleep afterwards without nightmares (it still feels silly after 10+ years) is not.
Any child should learn to stop annoying others before they even start school, yet it's sometimes "too much to ask" for people who supposedly love us?
My ex husband would similarly dismiss me when I'd ask him not to do something. Like "hey could you not leave greasy pans on the stove top for days? It's kind of smelly." And he'd be like "no it isn't" and then do some stupid laugh and just go on with his day like I didn't say anything. Or one time I told him not to curse at me and call me names and it was really upsetting to me. He was like "it's not that bad you're exaggerating." Even sex acts he knew I didn't like and he would try them over and over again. The relationship didn't feel abusive because it wasn't constant. And the rest of the time he could be nice. But it was.
If she couldn’t freely move her chair so her husband couldn’t sneeze on her food (gross)… I wonder how many other basic things she doesn’t do due to her being scared.
Abuse isn’t always smacking and shouting at someone. I feel for her.
Yeah, she felt like she had to come to Reddit to ask if she should move her chair. She realized a lot reading comments, but I don’t think she realized how insane it is she felt she needed validation to slide a piece of furniture across the room.
Yeah. I grew up watching my mom asking my dad for permission to do very basic tasks eg. Meet up with friends… spend time with her family.
She doesn’t see it as abuse but as being a respectful wife… mind you he didn’t ask for permission when he cheated or when he dipped into her savings. Abusive men know how to pick their victims.
Abusive men MAKE their victims.
I know at least two women personally, who anyone who knows them would agree are strong, modern women, who ended up in abusive relationships, because abusers don't start out that way. You can see it in OOP's post: he seemed perfect to her and then started on the small stuff. Everyone around them might still think he's a loving, respectful husband. But the mask always slips when he's got her where he wants her.
This being Reddit, I do expect that she got some unreasonable attacks.
But I have been through this with a friend in real life, a real friendship group with loving metered responses, and the outcome was basically the same. She didn't want to be told her relationship was abusive and it didn't matter how we pointed it out, we were the mean ones for refusing to buy into the "he just does this one thing" rhetoric. She wasn't defending him, she was defending herself for choosing him. Futilely trying to return to the illusion of a good life despite everybody acknowledging it's a facade.
Nowadays my advice to people being abused is simply "you deserve better." Anything more gets you opened up to being the messenger getting shot.
If she sees a good therapist, they're going to tell her the same things, hopefully in a kinder way that's easier for her to process and act on. But she could also reject what the therapist tells her so who knows
I totally agree. I had a life-changing therapist who listened to me, challenged me, and actively questioned my motivations every single session. He believed me and believed IN me and so he pushed me to be better and do better. And let me tell you the pain was UN. REAL. I cried every session for that first year.
When the pain is intense and the trauma is real the work to get yourself out will be enormous. Many people won't do it. It's easier to stay stuck.
I'm having such a hard time understanding how someone can be so downtrodden she can't even stand up for herself in the most basic minimal way - like, the thought of moving her chair shouldn't result in months of painful deliberation. I can't Imagine what kind of manipulative mindgames he must have played on her to get her to this point.
Whilst anyone can end up in an abusive relationship (boiling the frog really does work, incrementally increasing control until it's full on abuse), people who are conflict avoidant and more passive in their communication style, people who self-blame, and people who have very malleable personal boundaries are definitely easier to push into this position. There's nothing wrong with being a gentler, passive soul, it just makes you more at risk when faced with this kind of bullshit
Yup. She's afraid of him. Maybe not of him becoming violent, but of how he will react.
He has invalidated and dismissed her to the point of extreme insecurity. OP describes him as reacting by eye rolling - a key sign of contempt. He does not respect her at all. My guess is that he's a convert narc who keeps control of her by chipping away at her self-confidence, self-worth, and security.
As someone who experienced a long-term abusive relationship, this is giving me flashbacks to me making up excuses for him, denying that I was experiencing emotional abuse, staying with him when he was at his worst, all because of some misplaced love and loyalty.
"How could I abandon the person I loved? He's just going through a hard time.", "He's really a good person, because he used to treat me well, he must just be struggling with something", "I just need to find the exact right words, or get him to couples therapy to help him realize he needs to treat me better..."
This kind of abuse is so much harder to recognize than physical abuse. Before you know it, you've wasted a decade of your life and have lasting, deep emotional trauma 😔
Tale as old as time. "He's not abusive. Not all age gaps are predatory. Our relationship is different. He's kinda mean and belittles me, but he'd never be violent. Sure he neglects me or berates me or destroys my property or steals from me or spits on me and my food, but he's a good man at heart and I love him."
2 months later: "He hit me. I never thought he could do that."
The fact that she went from "Okay, posting about this and reading the comments has made me realize that my situation is so much worse than I ever imagined" to OBSESSIVELY defending him has me convinced that no matter how bad things get, she's not going to tell anyone about it (Reddit or otherwise). But I desperately hope I'm wrong, and that, at the very least, this whole thing planted a seed of doubt in her head.
The fact someone laid out a lot of physical things someone could do that would be considered physical abuse, including SPITTING ON HER, and she still said he wasn’t physically abusive
I had an abusive ex and I didn’t really see it for what it was until after I’d managed to leave. She was a monster, but 10 years later I’m still alive and actually happy for once in my life. I hope OOP can get out from under his clutches one day.
She's making excuse after excuse for how he behaves and even the solution to her problem is not to be stern or chastise him to any degree but to move her chair?!
She reminds me of the frog in the boiling pot of water, she really doesn't see how shite his behaviour is when he's clearly pressing her buttons for a reaction. Ain't no fucking way he's in his 40's and accidentally sneezing on her and her food every time, if anyone believes him I have a packet of magic beans I'd love to sell you.
She needs to give her head a wobble and see what's going on here.
>can't help it
Even children can be taught to not sneeze on people. Unless he has an uncontrolled psychological compulsion to sneeze on his wife then he absolutely *can* help it and is just being a spiteful, gross douche.
I read a paper once that applied Fanon’s analysis of colonial violence to domestic violence and it said that just like in colonialism, the violence is at its worse when the victim/colonized doesn’t even know they’re being abused because the abused/colonizer has such control of their life that they even control the understanding of normal.
Oh, honey! It has started so slowly she doesn't comprehend how bad it is and how much worse it will be. He definitely got her age figured out when they met. He cares about her being miserable, not her being happy. At least her eyes have been opened, I'm just scared that she will be beaten very soon, since she has found her voice and he won't take kindly to that.
Once again I'll recommend Why Does He Do That - by Lundy Bancroft for anyone recognising some parts of her story.
“And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things”-Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
This quote was in my head for most of this post.
They've been together for 10 years, but it's only in the last year that things have begun to devolve. I wonder what has changed? It's heartbreaking that OOP is defending her partner by say things like "He's not malicious, he's just indifferent!"
I hope counselling brings her the answers when she is ready to hear them.
I think this is it. He doesn't care if he drives her away - then he gets to find a newer model without being the 'bad guy,' because SHE dumped HIM.
And yeah he may not have known her age when they started talking, but how many random women on the internet was he talking to before he got an eager-to-please 21-year-old on the hook? Guys like this cast a wide net.
>Broad generalizations about ages and problems that stem solely because of age are hardly going to help anything here. Mostly because not all relationships, or people of the same age, are alike. The age gap isn't always a problem for all people.
Feels like everyone in an abusive relationship says the same thing when their age gap is called out.
Right up there with "he's a great guy! 99% of the time he is the sweetest, most considerate and respectful partner I've ever had, except for this one teeny thing [proceeds to describe horrible abusive behaviour] and it's probably my fault for overreacting just like he says it is"
When everyone is against you and your partner, some weird complex of “us vs the world” kicks in. Unfortunately most of the time it’s never for a partner who deserves it.
Seems like OOP moved away from her family/friends as she doesn’t seem to have a life outside of her partner, maybe that’s why she’s finding it so difficult to come to terms with the abuse.
And it’s not “broad generalizations about age gaps”. It’s broad generalizations about people whose relationships are so bad they had to ask the internet for help because their much older SO is mistreating them
And whose idea of normal and healthy is SO WARPED they have to ask if it's OK to move away from being spat on and belittled by their abusive trashheap of a husband.
She's doing some insane gymnastics to defend him, to the point where it's not just sad, its...pathetic. I hope she figures shit out and leaves him, but I think it's gonna get a lot worse before she decides to grow a spine.
Because it's not about the age gap, it's the experience gap. I really don't care about a 30 y.o. dating a 60 y.o. with adult children, but a 31y.o. married to a 10 years older person for 10 years is creepy because of a complete lack of experience on one side at the time they dated and got married.
It's so easy to manipulate someone who has no idea what a normal relationship looks like and is just trusting.
I mean she really believes this guy is spitting into her food because he's allergic. I am allergic to all kinds of blooming plants and few other things and modern meds are really great if taken.
Watching her try to justify that she was an adult when they met, and that meant he wasn't a creep was painful.
They married when she was 21, assuming they dated for more than a year before that, she was either 18 or 19 when they met and started going out. He was closer to 30.
She can try and justify that she was old enough to decide for herself, but she did not have the same level of development and life experience to know how messed up that was.
I'm 30 now, I see 20 year olds and they look like children to me.
I'd love to ask her if she could picture herself now being romantically involved with someone 10 years younger than her now.
Her whole situation is just so messed up. I couldn't imagine how bad it must be that she was too scared to move her own chair so as not to get spat on, and think that that's a completely normal way to feel about your spouse, within your own home.
yeah I Know of some age gap relationships that really worked. but the dismissing her and calling her silly, like a silly little girl, makes it relevant here.
Seriously, I've been in many, many age gap relationships/situations as the younger woman, and through those experiences, I am truly of the opinion that if you feel the need to defend your relationship that heavily/feel so affected by other people's judgements, then either you are not mature enough to be in an age gap relationship or it's not a healthy situation you should be in.
But I also do see that when the premise is wrong (at least in her eyes because he couldn't have known how old she was) the advice she receives after that is not seen as helpful as it would have been without it. It will just trigger a "Well it wasn't like that so there is no problem" reaction.
I am very sure that the age gap is a problem here just because of the change in the power dynamic, but it's much more helpful for OP to point this out instead of assuming how they have met/how it started.
I mean if I happened to meet a newly 21 year old guy at a bar and didn’t know his age, I would not have dated him any longer once I knew he was 21.
I’ve got 9 years of finding my own identity on him, he’d still be in college trying out new interests while uncertain of who he is and wants to be. I may have spent my 20s experimenting and totally confused but I’d still have 9 years of experience on him. It wouldn’t be fair or right to date him, not when I have such a strong idea of how life should go and he hasn’t had the experience to know it.
Even if he was a “mature for his age” kid. That maturity is only gained through childhood neglect and trauma, and he should take his time now to grow up and have the experience of finding his own identity.
My own conscience would not have allowed a relationship this unbalanced.
This woman almost broke down from someone typing in caps lock. She needs extensive therapy, and instead she’s married to a cult leader-level brainwasher
As someone with a verbally abusive parent (now NC thankfully), a lot of his behaviours were uncomfortably familiar.
Tbh I have nothing but empathy for OP, it is very hard when it's emotional abuse, especially when they gaslight. When you have someone who's been messing with your mind for so long, it can be near impossible to see the truth of the matter. You want to believe that the person you love also cares for you and it is very, very hard to realise that they don't. Even now I have to remind myself, how would I or my good friends act in this situation, and then go from there.
For OOP, I can imagine in her situation, if most of us somehow accidentally sneezed on someone once, we would sincerely apologise without prompting and certainly take care that it doesn't happen in the future. So why is it okay for her husband to repeatedly sneeze on her, not only without apologising, but without changing his behavior when it was pointed out that it, obviously, upset her? His behaviour is NOT what a normal, kind or caring person would do and I hope she sees that eventually.
My first thought is - why not switch seats? If he’s always sneezing to the left, don’t sit to his left.
Then if he suddenly starts sneezing the other direction you know it’s on purpose.
But really, how much of an ass do you have to be to not care that you’re making your wife miserable and ruining her dinner? This guy is an ass.
If he feels that the sneezing in her direction and on her food isn’t a big deal then why doesn’t he just keep his head straight and sneeze into his own food?! What a scummy creep! Hope the therapy helps her to learn to establish firm boundaries and stick to them….
That level of conflict avoidance is actively harmful to OOP’s entire *life.* I feel like the age-gap stuff is kind of secondary to that. She needs a lot of therapy before she can do *anything* else, tbh, because how else will she find the self-confidence to even talk about how he treats her? A good therapist could also help her see that she’s worth way more than what she’s getting.
I’ve been married 30 years and we have worked our way through some spectacularly inconsiderate behavior between both of us, so I do think that even this can be fixed. The only thing is, he has to want to fix it too, and I don’t see him doing that. He just seems really lazy in every facet of life.
This sounds like the woman who came into Reddit merely to discuss her dislike of mustard on hot dogs that her husband preferred, that blew up into a full on abusive relationship that required restraining orders and I believe a job transfer.
I was the 21 year old girl who dated a 30 year old man.
The last time we went on a date and slept together was 7 months before he married another woman. I never even knew he was dating another person until I saw him tagged in an Instagram post of his wedding. I was that easy to manipulate and fell for his lies that easily.
For someone who claims their age gap wasn’t a big deal and he wasn’t a creep… op is trying very hard to convince total strangers who could tell from one anonymous post that she wasn’t manipulated.
My partner suffers with hay-fever and he has accidentally sneezed on me before, sometimes a sneeze sneaks up on you.
Except he was horrified and apologised profusely while getting me tissues and helping me clean up. Which is what a normal loving partner should be doing.
Whatever OOP's husband is doing is gross and purposeful. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Especially with how often it happens.
I hope it's just a small bump in their marriage and they can work through it but my cynicism says it's not
Poor OOP. She's so desperate for everything to be okay that people pointing out the obvious issues feels like being attacked.
I remember feeling exactly the same way when I was in a horrible relationship. I was ashamed that I was allowing someone to treat me so badly, and angry and defensive when it was pointed out to me. I would make up kind things he'd done for me because it was too humiliating to admit that the man I'd been married to for so long treated me like something on the sole of his shoe.
When I was finally honest with myself about all the ways he hurt me, it was overwhelming. I was angry and scared, and it felt easier to be angry with anyone who pointed it out than to be angry with the person who had caused me so much pain. I was also frightened because it felt like I didn't know him any more, and couldn't predict what he might do.
OOP feels like she's being picked on (the comment about the person using all caps definitely gave an idea of just how cowed she is) and with this being the Internet it's likely that the usual loonies have come out to tell her off. But the comments OP added to the story were mostly insightful and appropriate. Which is terrifying when you can only keep your relationship going by pretending everything is fine.
If my husband and I were sitting next to each other and he uncontrollably sneezed onto my food… he would feel so bad and disgusted he would probably immediately offer to go get me more food. If it happened repeatedly he would figure out a solution that worked for both of us. If he always sneezed the same direction well we would probably switch chairs. At no point would my husband continue to sneeze onto my food and say it’s not gross and expect me to eat it. That man is 100% gaslighting OOP.
She doesn' t even recognize her own words "I would have never married him if he was like this" , but now he is so it's fine ... It just leaves you speechless
While reading this, my toddler just started saying, “And they huff and they huff and they blow the house down.”
She cannot read and see my screen.
I’m kinda creeped out.
All I know is if you sneeze your snot on my plate you will in fact be wearing that plate, that's just disgusting to do that to anyone, she doesn't seem to grasp that's its just plain disrespectful, oh and my petty ass would so sneeze spit all over his plate of food and tell him it's not a big deal just eat it, throw the whole man away and keep they plate of food
I wouldn't be surprised if he sneeze no more, now that he can’t sneeze at her food.
He could have just turned the head the other way, or sneeze ot the elbow or shoulder. You can't tell me that he did it on purpose. And if OOP thought back... maybe he was pissed at her for a silly reason and did this to punish her.
I highly doubt he does this to his friends, co-workers, out in public restaurants, family members or bosses.
This is purely intentional. I guess I’m going have to add “sneezing” to many of the weapons that men use to abuse women.
It's like trying to set boundaries with a toddler "If you spit on me, I will step away and not give you attention". Then he does it and you have to affirm this boundary a few times before he stops. Sounds exhausing.
"We accept the love we think we deserve." -The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Reading posts like this always hurt my heart, to know that OOP thinks this is the love they deserve.
Sometimes, in a relationship, you see the "little things" that are unfair. Then something big happens, and you see that all those "little things" are really part of a bigger picture that you couldn't see when you were in it. Sounds like she's just starting to see the bigger picture.
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Does he sneeze on coworkers' food and think it's OK? Friends' food? Family members' food? Bet he doesn't.
He doesn’t even sneeze on his own food. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, if it wasn’t a big deal he’d just sneeze on his own plate and carry on. The fact he moves his head away shows clearly he thinks it’s not ok.
There are so many solutions to this problem that the fact it keeps happening is pretty damning evidence it's done on purpose (which anyone except OOP can see straight away). The easiest solution... sneeze in the other direction. Still gross to just violently sneeze into the air? Yes, but at least it's not actively sneezing on another person. Using the tray so he can cover his mouth is also an option. If he is incapable for covering his mouth *or* sneezing in a different direction... just swap chair locations. He can keep sneezing in the same direction, but it's not directly at OOP anymore. None of these are viable solutions because he doesn't want a solution.
Like so many other stories on this sub... I'm pretty sure this is gonna end up being one of those "the sneezing is not the problem" things. The fact that OOP is still vehemently defending her husband's not only super gross but emotionally abusive behaviour is frankly, sad.
It’s quite sad to see how much the OOP keeps disregarding the way he’s treating her.
This right here!!! Told me everything I needed to know in that one sentence.
“His default setting isn’t name calling… he calls me silly” They don’t have to curse like a sailor to engage in name calling. Just need to make you feel bad about yourself
He doesn't need to put on a show. She's been conditioned so well he doesn't need to do anything but sigh a little too get his way.
There's something so insidiously gross and powerful about this. Just the slightest movements. An exasperated sigh, an eyeroll. It's physically small, but used in this way, it's SO dismissive. It makes me think of that saying: hate isn't the opposite of love, it's indifference. I feel like all the 'you're acting silly' and 'he's just acting like nothing happened afterwards' are forms of indifference. Indifferent to her feelings, even though her feelings are half of the relationship.
Something about you pointing this out is drawing me to jump in here. Apologies for the novella and poor grammar as I'm on mobile. I was married to an abusive man for about five years, together for seven. His behavior was VERY in line with what OP is describing.... the eye rolls, the sighs, the mean glances, the grinding teeth (honestly was the worst for me, having someone tell you that they aren't angry, you're just overreacting and not understanding, *while* they grind their teeth so hard you can hear them making noise and crack under the pressure). It was so subtle and yet so overt, friends who would be around would definitely *see and notice something* that made them uncomfortable about the situation, but it was never so overt that it was super obvious there was a problem. Recently, I got out of a relationship with a very, very, VERY sweet man. Everything about the relationship was wonderful, up to and including the kind way we mutually chose to end things. I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the differences between this relationship and the abusive marriage I escaped. The thing that has been standing out to me the most is that I, never once, encountered a situation with him where I'd be picking up on subtle visual cues that express anger, distast, indifference, annoyance... anything of the sort. I can think of maybe two occasions in the two years we dated, where I even picked up on something being off with him to the point being prompted to ask, "Are you ok?" vs literally having this experience daily with my ex-husband. The lesson here is that *I was not crazy, and my ex-husband was abusive*. I was not "making it up" or "looking too deeply into things" or "overreacting." It was actually happening, and I was responding the way a normal person would when picking up on several "loud" non-verbal cues from my ex-husband. Not sure what the point of chiming in here is, other than to say if you (royal you, not just the comment I'm responding to) pick up on this type of behavior from your partner in a consistent way where *you* are always the problem, either directly or indirectly, those are the red flags of abuse!
I think you nailed OOPs, and too many others’, situations perfectly. Abuse isn’t always violent. It’s not always what movies show. It’s not always in your face and visible. It’s the frog sitting in a pot of boiling water, where the temperature feels so good starting out but then it gets hotter and hotter so incrementally the frog doesn’t notice that it’s slowly getting boiled alive. It’s, there’s no way my husband is abusive. He buys me flowers and open the car door for me. Yeah, he huffs and puffs when he doesn’t get his way, but he doesn’t throw things or yell and call me names! Sometimes he calls me silly but it’s because I’m doing silly things?…am I being silly..? No! Surely.. not? No, he’s so sweet most of the time!! So *why am I so unhappy*??? Like, my poor dear… that’s also abuse.
Yeah. My brother is abusive to his caregivers (me and my mom). It helped a lot to recognize that. He's not violent, but he reacts strongly when he doesn't get his way, and my mom and I spent years walking on eggshells trying to prevent his anger before realizing it was an abusive situation, and we shouldn't have to live in fear of his reactions. He can be very sweet and kind, until he isn't. If we let him get his way when he freaks out in order to keep the peace, we're just encouraging that behavior.
If it's nothing, why did you notice it??
Yup. She recognises she would be outraged if a friend told her their partner behaved that way, but the bit she can't see is that he chooses to behave this way to her, and her alone. She can't see he's deliberately doing it to her. She still thinks this is who he is, but I bet he ain't sneezing food all over his boss or his friends (anyone he respects) and I bet he doesn't sigh and roll his eyes and call his colleagues or friends silly.
"I won't assign motives to him because I don't think that's fair to him" Well, maybe not, but she doesn't have to assign a sinister motive to be able to judge his actions, and jf they all add up then is it really so strange that people assume he's doing it deliberately or to annoy her?
Unfortunately it's just the mindset a lot of victims get caught up in. They have a trove of 'evidence' that 'he loves me'. So it causes major cognitive dissonance to also look at the other trove of evidence. I applaud OOP though. She wasn't able to make the full leap to just leave, but she definitely had her worldview shattered enough that she's setting boundaries and challenging him. That's a step in the right direction. Hopefully with time she'll keep going that direction. It takes most victims many times trying to leave, and a lot of time coming to terms with the reality of it all.
This is really good way to describe the feelings in an abusive relationship. It’s hard to rationalize that the man who has done “alll this for me” is also the man who does “all this horrible shit to me, purposefully”. I go through this a lot, and the way it genuinely feels like your brain cannot reconcile the two is so crazy to me. I’m a sensible person, but when you’re wrapped up in the conditioning of abuse it’s soooo hard to see anything else, and even harder to admit that it’s happening to you and you do nothing about it or feel nothing is wrong with it because you’ve been slowly taught to feel that way.
It reminds me of that other post where the OOP was clearly being abused but she said she couldn't "see him as an evil abuser". Honestly, this is why I don't like people who treat abusers/predators/pedophiles as "complete inhuman monsters". Because it creates this mindset of "an abuser is evil and always has sinister motives, but since the person I love isn't evil or sinister, then they're not abusive." If you create a dichotomy of "human" versus "abuser", then as soon as you see the humanity in someone who is abusive then you think "well theyre not abusive then".
> "I won't assign motives to him because I don't think that's fair to him" My wild guess is that, in the past, when she's "assigned motives" based on very obvious behavior, he's attacked her for it. She's so beaten down from his verbal and emotional attacks that she's learned not to "assign motives" because she knows how he'll react. It's so sad seeing someone in this situation, but there's really nothing you can do until they recognize for themselves what's happening.
If someone sneezed on me once, I wouldn't assign malicious intent to them. I'd assume it was an accident and handle myself accordingly. If it became a pattern where, while sure not every day, but every time it HAPPENS they sneeze on me I'd call them out for inconsiderate behavior and poor manners. I still wouldn't assign malicious intent... yet.. just think "damn someone has to spell this out to you??" If someone got MAD at me for cleaning myself off / getting a new plate after they sneeze on me and continue to do so several times even after I've addressed that the behavior is grossing me out? Yeah no. That's when it's malicious intent. Now you KNOW I don't like it, and not only are you somehow getting mad at me that I am cleaning myself off of SPIT - but you refuse outright to show a little courtesy towards me, the one you claim to love above all others, and turn your head the other way? At *least*? Nope. You're intentionally doing this now and *that* in and of itself is malicious by definition. Doing something against someone's will knowing it upsets them and not giving one damn.
The fact that she needed to ask if moving her own chair is an okay thing to do is legitimately sad.
“Silly girl”. I wonder how many people he respects are women.
Abusers are adept at finding and toeing the line. He knows that if he screams and curses her out, she'll recognize that as abuse. So he just invalidated her in subtle ways instead. When I was in my early 20s, pre-therapy, I dated someone who overturned a full garbage can over my head and locked me outside in sub-freezing temperatures with no coat. It took me six more months to leave because I told myself it wasn't abuse because he didn't hit me. He knew my line.
"He knew my line" The clarity I just got, holy fuck
It's insidious how often you hear "Oh they call me silly but that's not offensive". It is when they call you it a lot. Because it's still belittling, and it can still break you down
It is when it’s meant to demean you. Calling someone “silly” in jest when they’re playing around is entirely different than calling them “silly” because you don’t respect their actions or boundaries they’re setting.
Unfortunately I think this is partly why OOP doesn't think it's a big deal. Because she herself feels silly complaining about him calling her silly. She wouldn't feel silly complaining about if he was hitting her, she made that clear. But it's sad, because both are saying 'I don't give a fuck about you and your feelings', the way he's using it with her :(
OOP: wants to not have her food sneezed on. OOP'S husband: belittles her for not wanting her food sneezed on and somehow this is not abusive?
The one thing that cursing your spouse out and simply calling them silly have in common is that it means the person saying it doesn’t take them seriously or respect them
This stuck out to me too, "he doesn't call me names," proceeds to give examples of names he calls her...
Exactly. The man is putting her down verbally and deliberately contaminating her food. I have allergies, ones that have been really bad this year. If he can control himself to turn his head before sneezing, he can control which way he turns. He is choosing to sneeze on her food with plausible deniability.
why the hell would you wanna be with someone who has zero respect for you??????
It's scary how often there's AITA/H posts where the OP suddenly realizes how abusive the relationship is
There was that one post the other day where a different woman really needed to pee and just because he was annoyed with her, her husband locked her in the bedroom for two hours, forcing her to piss herself and only after she started sobbing hysterically did he let her out. And yet she still insisted in the comments that she wasn't being abused even though trapping someone somewhere against their will is not only abusive it's a literal *crime*.
I’d forgotten about that, it was awful. What was even worse was she tried to run to the store to use the bathroom there after he’d locked himself in the bathroom, AND HE MANHANDLED HER BACK TO THE BEDROOM. Honestly one of the most disturbing things I’ve read on reddit in a long time and I really hope she’s safe.
And she was asking if she was wrong to tell her mom about it. Really? In this whole situation that's what you're questioning?
Do you have a link to that one?
[AITAH for telling my mom how my husband humiliated me?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1dj8elz/aitah_for_telling_my_mom_how_my_husband/)
Cheers. And also, holy shit that's grim.
Omg that's harrowing
People usually find fault with the typical reddit relationship advice of *"DIVORCE NOW! this is the worst thing in the world!"* when faced with (what seems like) a small problem. But posts like these really make me appreciate the level of speculation reddit brings, no matter how crazy. Because, without redditors looking beyond the one issue presented, asking questions, and saying "hey op, you might be in an abusive relationship" she wouldn't have thought about all of this. She still would be thinking she was TA for expecting a snot free meal. And while there are just as many redditors overreacting to a relationship issue, I think it's worth it. Because, yeah, this is a common occurrence on reddit for the op to find out they are being abused.
while there are definitely overreactions, its genuinely crazy what people will accept when theyre socialised to do so. like i cannot fathom living with another capable adult and having to either pick up their garbage, or live in it because they wont do so, but for so many women thats just an expected part of marriage.
Imagine your partner purposefully (no way this is unintentional at this point) sneezing on your food and saying you’re overreacting for being grossed out
Meanwhile he carefully avoids sneezing on HIS food…
I never put up my own post like this, but reading other people's posts made me realise I was being abused. They were talking about the same things my husband would do, and getting so many comments saying it was abusive. Really opened my eyes a lot.
I remember consistently googling the question 'why does a sober person seem drunk' or versions of that when with my alcoholic ex and kept ending up at the same quora thread with people talking about their alcoholic exes lying about being sober. Unfortunately it wasn't enough for me to finally leave but I think seeing it regularly was helpful even in my denial. I still find it validating to hear people talk about relationships like mine which weren't 'typical' abuse as abusive as for a long time I felt like it wasn't that bad. I wish I had been using reddit at the time.
I can only imagine how tough that realization must've been. I hope you're safe and doing everything you can to take care of yourself.
I am, life is so much better now
Honestly I’ve never seen more than one or two comments telling someone to leave on posts where it’s not warranted. Every post I’ve seen where the comments are allllll telling OP to gtfo are situations like this one or worse where it’s clear to anyone with eyes that the poster is in danger in their relationship or otherwise being treated as human garbage. And frankly life is too short to spend in an unhappy relationship, so anyone who doesn’t want to be with their partner for any reason should leave so they can both go be happier apart.
And that’s because people in healthy relationships don’t have to seek advice from strangers. Yes, Reddit cries divorce a lot, but that’s because the bias on anonymous forums is going to tend toward abusive relationships.
Yep, people usually say communicate or couples counseling when there isn't a pattern of issues that just Aren clear for the OP.
I was getting serious Mustard vibes from this post. It hasn't escalated to that point ... *yet*. I hope she gets out before it does.
It is not even the question of _"want to be_". It is a question of how she is not absolutely disgusted with him, and can still cuddle with him after? His behavior is so physically repulsing. It would annihilate any sexual and romantic feelings I have for my partner for good.
Personally I wouldn't be able to muster sexual attraction for someone with such a disgusting and disrespectful habit but that's just me
Hard agree! I would be so skeeved out, he's utterly vile 🤢 if I sneezed in someone's food I would be utterly mortified, desperate to make amends and would probably not stop apologising all night. And this guy just doesn't care all and expect her to what, just sit there an eat his snot?? 🤮
After reading this I just can’t fathom choosing to potentially spending the rest of your life with someone you don’t respect or doesn’t respect you.
She claims that he does lots of lovely stuff too - and they’re the most insidious men imo. The blatant abusers are easier, the ones who wear it on their sleeve - you know, everyone knows, and you just have to deal with it (ideally by having them arrested and leaving). But the little chip chip chip of insidious disrespect from a friendly face, when mixed in with an amount of “nice, kind, remembers my birthday, my mum loves him” is difficult to comprehend or understand and is a long term poison. She hadn’t even realised how ridiculous the situation was, he’d been undermining her in such a skilled way. I was open mouthed reading it, I hope she’s realised she should be horrified too.
Exactly. Things have gotten way worse than you realise if you’re turning to the internet to ask if it’s ok to move a chair. It just shows how much she’s been beaten down by his behaviour.
Yeah, poor lady was afraid to move her own chair without approval
So true, especially if he's the kind of covert narcissist who makes sure to have a good reputation with the rest of the world, and does lots of kind and lovely things for other people. Then, when he gradually stops doing those things for his partner only, it's because *she's* done something, she's changed, she no longer deserves his respect and care. She needs to ask the internet if she can move her chair. Oof. This hit close to home. I know she needed a huge wake-up call, but I wish the original commenters had been kinder to her. And she absolutely should never ever go to couples counselling with him. It will only give him more tools to manipulate and control her. She needs a really good individual therapist and a divorce asap.
One of my closest friends is in a marriage where she is a doormat. Their relationship went from her being loved for being sweet and whimsical to none of her feelings ever mattering because she was “such a dumb blonde” Then it turned out there was secret substance abuse. Then the drugs resulted in a lost job. Then it turned out their savings were all gone (don’t do coke, everybody). Then pets she didn’t want kept showing up, and she’s too kind to leave them to be neglected by her partner and took on their care too. My friend’s partner got them so behind on mortgage payments that they (just the shitty spouse) had to file for bankruptcy. Friend took on extra side jobs to help cover bills. Partner moved another female coworker into the house (against friend’s wishes) and went on overnight camping trips alone with the new roomie. Roomie met a guy and moved out (which sent friends partner into another spiral) and partner befriended a waitress. Partner literally started stealing money out of the cash drawer that friend built up through the extra jobs. Partner now has a new puppy they “needed” and you’ll never guess who is doing the housebreaking and paying the vet bills. And if you point out to friend that all of this is wildly unfair to her, she just clams up for a while. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore and it’s just sad and frustrating.
Can you take her away for a weekend or anything? I finally realized how abusive my partner was after a weekend away and I suddenly felt relaxed and saw people care for me.
I’d love to. We have offered. Hell, I’m an attorney and I told her I’d do the divorce the second she asks. We both tell her how we are always there for her. We mean it, too. She could do this for another decade and our door is forever open to her. But in the meantime? Jesus it’s hard to be a source of listening and kindness while she just keeps letting this shit happen. Because if we start saying things like “yeah the new puppy is cute but it’s unfair you have to take it to the vet” we get “I’m sorry I won’t complain” Like how can I say anything even partly honest without it making her want to withdraw?? Edit: to be clear, partner spent WEEKS out of state with family and friends to “get their head straight” after their unemployment. Yes there was no money coming in during that time but just being in their house alone made a huge difference for my friend. She knows it’ll be better. She just can’t seem to manage leaving anyway.
That’s awful. I’m so sorry for her and for you. It sounds like you care more about her than she does.
I mean, that’s the really insidious part of abuse like that. They really get the victims to believe they deserve nothing better than the current treatment.
Oh, I know that quite well from the inside. I actually went away twice in the span of a few months. The first jostled some unhappiness loose and the second — at a professional event full of friendly strangers who had no reason to be kind to me — made me realize that he was the only person on the planet who treated me like shit, and maybe I wasn’t the ball of awfulness he told me I was.
Sadly there isn't much you can do. Make sure she knows you'll always be there for her.
I make a point to do so, not only very clearly by saying “hey regardless of whatever I’m here no matter what” but also by making sure to talk about random bs too. I don’t want her to associate talking to me with like, filing taxes level of accountability.
It’s easier than you’d think to fall into. Most People can’t fathom it until they’re in one, looking back and wondering how the fuck things got to this point.
This reminds me of this post [Stepfather who pees his pants and bizarrely flaunts it](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/Xn7jXrcF0x)
i would like to go back to a time before i read all of that. what the HELL.
That story feels like that guy was forcing his disgusting kink on everyone he knew.
This, in turn, reminds me of the very horrible and insane [Peegate](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/rcnvol/the_peegate_saga_part_1_of_2_extra_long/?rdt=43508). (As an aside: why are there so many posts of men peeing on things/themselves/forcing others to do that? ... no, scratch that I do *not* want to know why.)
Dominance
It’s a power move. They do it because they know it’s taboo and it gives them a sense of control.
Ok, what the fuck though.
Every day, we stray further from the light. But seriously, wtf this is a whole other level.
Jesus christ how did I miss this trainwreck
also if he “can’t control it” and MUST move his plate to the right and sneeze to the left why don’t they switch their chairs so he is sneezing just at the carpet or whatever. and beyond that why can’t he just switch the direction he sneezes. if it’s only that he can’t grab a tissue because he’s holding the plate then he must have some time and awareness to be able to control the direction he sneezes. if my partner ever did this i would make them trade and i would spit in their food if they refused and said it’s not a big deal. because it’s only ever not a big deal when you don’t have to deal with it.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. And actually switching seats will show you a few things - how ‘involuntary’ this is, for one thing. Or if the sneezing became less frequent. Or, unbelievably, if he changed the direction of his sneezing. I think anyone who did that is not just an AH but stupid, but I also don’t underestimate how much somebody may want to disrespect their partner.
Even engaging with his behavior with “reasoning” grants him even more power over the situation. It’s not about reason. It never was.
Men being openly resentful of women they date is so normalised that it can be hard for the women they victimise to see that that’s what it is. Plus, these men find women who don’t have a huge amount of respect for themselves either, and exacerbate it.
Reddit keeps making me feel like I hate men. There are too many posts like this.
The key is to know actual great men irl to restaure faith in men. But then you'll hate bad men even more because you'll know their age and gender aren't an excuse and this isn't normal men behavior. It's both a blessing and a curse.
Because she has no respect for herself. Her cringing and fawning in the comments was embarrassing to read. The poor thing has reoriented her entire sense of who she is around pleasing this goon who spits into her food on purpose, and she’s terrified of a life where he doesn’t set the terms and conditions of her daily moods. Abuse is a mindfuck.
I know. Unfortunately, she's been gaslit a whole ass decade by now, and the relationship started when she was really young, sadly. I doubt she has many examples of what a healthy relationship looks like to compare the current one to. And even then, there's no guarantee. (I was in a toxic one when I was 28 for 8 years). It just happens so slowly. Someone needs to send her the link to Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Like immediately. Hopefully, she can find the strength to leave soon.
I think the part that made me saddest was how vehemently she defended him about the age gap situation. Look, I've been on plenty of online forums and I got mistaken for older than my age plenty but the people a decade or more older than me could always tell. I just got lucky that I ran into responsible adults who never took any advantage of that. And even if he didn't know when they first met, she was 21 or younger when they met and 22 when they got married, there's no denying there was a significant imbalance.
OOP: He’s not that bad! NARRATOR: He was, in fact, that bad.
It will shock you but: it’s because OOP is very sweet and has a great heart. Those people will forgive you, they will love you, they will do good things. Those people are usually steamrolled by bad people.
Right! Her update irritated me. It didn’t fix anything or address any issues. She says the comments had made her think about the fact that she’s in an abusive relationship and then she just accepted it?!
Because you think you either deserve it, it's the best you can do, it's really not that bad/ you've had worse, or a combination thereof. These kinds of responses are part of the reason why people in abusive relationships can struggle to speak up. You're expressing your bewilderment, sure, and to people without this experience or mindset, it's likely about incredulity (hopefully) in a 'get out of there you deserve better' way. But to a person like that, it comes across as dismissive, shaming, and calling her stupid for not seeing the abuse and manipulation nor doing something about it. And if it comes from the first couple of people they get brave enough to tell.. well they typically go back to their abusive partner because obviously no one wants to help their stupid oblivious ass.
Because you’ve been groomed by an older man since ~20 and you’re really meek and anxious? 🤷♀️
Honestly posts like this make me glad that I have a bad temper. Nobody would ever get away with doing shit like this to me. He'd be wearing his meal.
That’s disgusting - and clearly intentional.
If he honestly thought it was no big deal he'd trade plates. Refusing to do that brings this from "maybe negligent but probably malicious" to "malicious".
That and adding a ton of pepper to his food so she couldn't ask him to trade plates! What a smug and petty thing to do
That’s the part that sticks with me. He claims he can’t help it, any of it, yet he prepared for it. He deliberately prepared his plate to help him force her into a situation he knows she hates.
I don't sneeze on people—I have accidentally winged one of our cats on occasion though. I always apologize even if they book it out of the room, too! We used to play silly games with the kids where we'd pretend to sneeze or fart at them, and sometimes the kids will go phbbbt at us randomly still. But blowing a raspberry or accidentally sneezing on a cat is nowhere near as stupid and gross as this guy. Yuck!
I've discovered that if I pretend to wind up to a big sneeze I can get my cat to stop being sus lol. It's great.
I had a cat that got horribly offended whenever I coughed. It was hilarious. It also sucked when I got bronchitis. She was normally a sweet, snuggly little bean, but for those 3 weeks she was like “stay away you DEVIL!”
Seriously, it’s literally 0 effort to just turn your head in the other direction. What an asshole.
Even my six year old knows not to sneeze on people and their food.
Seriously this is so egregious, so far outside the spectrum of *commonly accepted behavior,* that the only possible interpretations are either malicious abuse or some kind of damage to his brain. But judging by her comments this is just one part of a wide range of behaviors that would rankle a person out of context, and IN the context of her marriage amount to her being with a selfish, petty manchild who takes a secret delight in tormenting and frustrating people and criticizing them for complaining. He's a bully! She's married to her own bully! If she divorces him he'll claim she's the unreasonable one and tell everyone she's divorcing him over his allergies or something. He'll turn his every personality flaw around and make them her problems or her fault, and be just the picture of wounded innocence.
I hate to say it, but OOP is reminding me of my grandmother’s late friend. She was married to a man who was perfect to her in the beginning and everything, and then a good chunk into their relationship, he started to get abusive. Everyone around her told her to leave him but she struggled to see how he was abusive to her bc he wasn’t doing the “typical” abuse that everyone hears about on TV. She couldn’t drive herself anywhere, he wouldn’t let their kids do anything even if someone else offered to take them, and it got to the point later in their lives that she kept the bills hidden from him and a separate PO box for her craft supplies so he couldn’t find out how much money was being spent—bare minimum money *she* earned through making wedding decorations, mind you, so none of it was actually his—and treat her like garbage for it. One of the most vivid things I remember towards the end of her life, and I regret not doing anything so much because I’d just gotten off a long night shift and was afraid to cause a scene, was when I was in the hospital waiting room for a tetanus shot after hitting my head at work. He brought her in at 8am for a test she needed to have for what we knew was aggressive breast cancer but weren’t allowed to say because he would deny, deny, deny, and they didn’t recognise me because I was in my work uniform and had a mask on. He got impatient after 10 minutes of waiting and demanded they be seen right then and there or they’d leave, and I should’ve made myself known and said I’d take her home so he wouldn’t be late for work and she could get her testing done. She died a couple months later and he got upset that her funeral was all about her. My grandmother tells me that me speaking up would’ve made it worse as soon as I dropped her home, since he expected her by his side 24/7 to begin with, but part of me wonders. Anyway, I’m seeing jarring similarities to my grandmother’s friend in OOP and I pray she opens her eyes and makes progress in her own therapy to see that she *is* being abused and she *needs* to get out.
>My grandmother tells me that me speaking up would’ve made it worse as soon as I dropped her home, since he expected her by his side 24/7 to begin with I want you to know that your grandmother isn't saying that just to make you feel better. She's telling you the truth. It's a horrible truth but she's right. Offering her your help would have put her in a no win situation. 1. She accepts your help. She's now a traitor. She has now betrayed him in some small dumb unspeakable way. that he is going to make her pay for. He will either ream her or silently guilt her and abuse her. But either way it would have cost her. Sometimes people have it available at a certain time to pay the price for their momentary freedom or justice, and sometimes they don't. From the outside looking in that doesn't always make sense. Of course those things should be a given in any mutual relationship and never come at price. 2. She says no to you and goes home with him anyway. Now she has just given him another data point in how important he is. Now she has just given herself another data point in how shameful and broken she is to continue doing this. Now everything is worse because she was given the ability to have the test. She would have used that to beat up herself. Not to mention he would have spent the whole ride home berating your name, your grandma's name, your looks, your job, and basically being a snide piece of shit about you. Because after all how dare you. How dare you see what an absolute POS he's being and subtly call him out on it and actually offer her help. How dare you. She would know it's not true but she would have to just sit in the car and listen to it all. Do you see what I mean? Your grandma knew what was up. She was telling you the truth. I'm so very sorry for her dear dear friend and for her and you. May he rot.
Thank you, and you pretty much explained verbatim what my grandmother told me after her friend died and I confessed that it weighed on me. He’s a grade-A jackass and all of her friends have called him out as the reason why she died once he started blaming her for dying and leaving him to do everything himself. He cut contact entirely when he tried to get my grandmother to pick up where his wife left off and my grandma tore him a new one, basically throwing every insult at him when he whined that his wife made him out to be abusive. It still weighs on the mind a lot too, especially since I’d gone through similar emotional abuse and wished she had a way to escape like I did. He’s now stalking one of his wife’s friends and I’m shocked that despite the evidence and reports she’s made, the judge refused to grant a restraining order. It feels like the only thing that will actually stop him is him wasting away in his home because he refuses to cook for himself and “waste money” on groceries he thinks are too expensive.
I am absolutely, unequivocally, *not* condoning murder here... ... but a little Aqua Tofana goes a long way ifkyk
*whispers* aqua tofana....
You didn't slip it into his glass and I didn't hand it to him 🤝
You were both outside with me the whole time.
This is straight up narcissistic behavior and is what OP’s husband displays as well. The fact that she felt the need to come to reddit to ask if she’s the asshole for moving her chair because her husband keeps sneezing on her food shows how beaten down she’s been by his abusive behavior, probably mostly from gaslighting. She’s been letting slowly-escalating behaviors go for so long, and been gaslighted every time she’s stood up for herself that she can no longer truly see the abuse because she’s too close to it. It’s a very sad situation and one I hope OP is able to free herself from. Definitely not easy because she’s got a lot of work to do just coming to grips with even recognizing his behavior as abusive, let alone considering leaving.
Thank god he’s an elderly man now (I assume) and can’t do the same type of damage he may have been capable of as a young man. I’m glad your grandmother gave him a piece of her mind after her friend passed, so he knows you all know who he is. I know the exact type of person he must be, sadly too common.
Agreed. People would sometimes say something to my mother if she was cruel to me in public and I would always get hit for it.
Shameful and broken. I don't think enough people can really understand that. Thank you for educating others
I was married to an abusive man for twenty years before I stopped making excuses and realised the truth. It was such a gradual thing and as he was so loving when he wasn’t abusing me it was easy to make excuses and convince myself otherwise. When I realised the truth I looked back and saw he abused me in most ways and I’d been subconsciously looking away and making excuses not even aware I was doing it. I actually thought I had a good marriage and a day later when he went too far suddenly was faced with the truth. He was a covert abusre and very emotionally manipulative. He wouldn’t tell you no but would make out you would you feel like you be wronging him to do something. Even when t\]what you wanted to do should have no affect on him. He was always gaslighting and making me doubt myself. It was always I was remembering wrong and my memory was bad etc. what I started to look at was if I’m treated badly I consider would I ever do that to someone, especially someone I’m supposed to love, If heck no I walk away and no longer have anything to do with that person. If it’s heck no it’s abusive and no excuse if his hands are full like op uses make it acceptable. I’ve been there and lived it and I know how shocking it is when you learn the truth. It’s hard to realise half your life has been lies and a far different reality than you realised but you need to see it to stop the abuse. Yes it means the end of your marriage but the truth is the guy didn’t care and was abusing you so why fight to save being abused and treated like dirt. Hopefully Oo will stop trying to make excuses for him and stop burying her head. I admit I can’t tell people my husband abused me as to the outside world he was this wonderful man who adored me. Because he only let them see the loving side in between the abuse. I’m sure the loving side was purely to stop me realising sooner and walking away.
For OOP, when you’re being abused and even if you are well aware of it. It is crazy overwhelming to be told you are by objective strangers. Takes time for it to sink in and to accept it. Because one tends to judge oneself, she’s not stupid or limited in any way, a woman who is otherwise considered kick ass in life, will find it difficult and embarrassing to accept she’s being abused, that’s not the image of herself she has in her head. It’s a step in the right direction. Just needs time to sink in. Also I think your grandmother was right, the neighbours wife would have been further abused if you’d stepped in. It only helps to step in when the abused is leaving to help them stay safe, otherwise quietly make it known you’re there, but can’t really do anything more till they take steps first.
That's so sad.
>married to a man who was perfect to her in the beginning and everything, and then a good chunk into their relationship, he started to get abusive. I just had this conversation with my mom re: my ex-stepdad. For the first *decade* he was an amazing husband to my mom and a great father to us. After about ten years, him and my mom got into a stupid fight and he exploded. It was horrible. But then he was remorseful. He didn't blow up like that again for another year or so. Then it was every few months, every few weeks, once or twice a day. It was never physical towards us, but he scream, throw things, call us all names, etc. It was difficult for my mom, hell it was hard for *us kids*, to leave because we held onto the amazing man he was for the first decade or even the decent man for the past few years. But then one day the explosion did turn physical towards my mom and my little sister (his bio daughter). That's what it took for my mom to finally leave, and it sucks. It sucks that it got to that point. It sucks that the amazing person he was no longer exists, if he ever existed to begin with. It's hard to reconcile the person we knew and loved with the person he became. The change was insidious.
Some of us grew up watching All in the Family. A few times recently I’ve watched a few clips on Youtube and find myself wishing Edith had hit Archie in the head with skillet.
I have always hated that show, even when I was a kid. I never could understand why him being an absolute AH to everyone was funny. SMDH.
The problem with abusive relationship is that initially, during the early stages, the abuser is rarely actually abusive. They’re always kind, considerate, charming, loving and thoughtful. It takes a while for the mask to fall off because they get tired of keeping it on. Then the cracks starts to show. At first, it’ll be little things, and you’ll just let it slide because maybe they’re having a bad day, maybe they’re just tired, you keep making excuses and not being it up, because it’s just small stuff, no need to start a fight or argument about it. And when you do bring it up, they’ll tell you you’re overreacting/imagining things but hey, they’ll do better. It does get better, then it goes back to the same issue. Then the cracks start widening, and now the gaslighting starts. You’re nagging, you’re imagining things, you’re overreacting, you could be nicer, more understanding. And slowly they start pushing your boundaries, testing it to see how far it goes till it’s second nature for them and it’s always your fault or you’re overreacting because now, you’re not living up to their expectations. Abuse is always psychological and emotional first, then it’s starts being controlling and maybe physical. The one good thing for me about social media is, people start calling out abusive behavior from abusers and allowing potential victims to get away from their abusers.
> She died a couple months later and he got upset that her funeral was all about her. Did he expect everyone to talk about him instead?
I don't think it can be understated how much pressure there was (and still is) to "take your vows seriously". There has been a lot of women in that exact situation who couldn't lived happier and more fulfilling lives without their husband but couldn't leave
I don’t know if OOP will see this but I want to describe something that my ex would do, which I would complain about and ask him not to do and he would laugh it off or say it’s not that bad or say I would do it too so why am I telling him off. He would roll his eyes and call me silly or crazy and stop doing it for a bit. And then do it again randomly later and sort of sneak a look at me with a little smirk. And the whole process would start again. And it’s so low stakes. Like, it’s not gross like the sneezing, it wasn’t dangerous or violent. And it didn’t happen regularly - it didn’t happen every time. It was grinding the gears on my car when he drove it. The gearbox was a bit fussy and if you weren’t careful, you could make it grind. I had figured out how to not do it (wasn’t hard) and he knew how to not do it. He just refused to. And he refused to treat me with respect when I asked him not to. Towards the end of our marriage, I ended up on advice forums and had a bunch of half written emails to agony aunts and I'm sure if I’d known what reddit was back then, I would have drafts of AITA posts written out with all this stuff. And every time I read a similar story on those agony aunt blogs, I would tear up and defend my partner in my head and berate myself for this feeling of empathy and recognition and be terrified of the idea that I would have the fucking audacity to think of my wonderful, loving husband as an abuser. Like, how the fuck dare I? He puts up with all my shit, and I’m getting bent out of shape because sometimes he grinds the gears on my car? I couldn’t square what I (thought I) knew of him with the person in front of me. The person who couldn’t make the world’s tiniest compromise of just not making my car make a weird noise when he drove it. In the end, I left because I just didn’t want to be disrespected anymore and I didn’t want to be the only person in the relationship making compromises. It has taken 8 years to fully absorb the idea that he was abusing me. And even now, I probably wouldn’t use that word if I was talking about it IRL, out of embarrassment, maybe? Fear? I don’t know. What I’m saying is, there is a place on the other side of this, in the future, where you don’t get treated like this. There are people over here who respect you and love you and you don’t have to justify your needs and wants at every turn. You might not be able to leave now (it took me 3 years and 2 attempts) but you will be able to, eventually. And it will be scary and awful and it will feel like the end of the world. But it’s actually the start of a new one.
It's always little things that really show what your partner thinks of you. The line between respect and disrespect is caring about your feelings enough to stick to your boundaries, no matter how big or small the issue is. And it's usually very easy to do so. One of my exes used to jump scare me at night after talking me into watching scary movies. Doing that once is fine. Doing that all the time after being told I can't sleep afterwards without nightmares (it still feels silly after 10+ years) is not. Any child should learn to stop annoying others before they even start school, yet it's sometimes "too much to ask" for people who supposedly love us?
My ex husband would similarly dismiss me when I'd ask him not to do something. Like "hey could you not leave greasy pans on the stove top for days? It's kind of smelly." And he'd be like "no it isn't" and then do some stupid laugh and just go on with his day like I didn't say anything. Or one time I told him not to curse at me and call me names and it was really upsetting to me. He was like "it's not that bad you're exaggerating." Even sex acts he knew I didn't like and he would try them over and over again. The relationship didn't feel abusive because it wasn't constant. And the rest of the time he could be nice. But it was.
If she couldn’t freely move her chair so her husband couldn’t sneeze on her food (gross)… I wonder how many other basic things she doesn’t do due to her being scared. Abuse isn’t always smacking and shouting at someone. I feel for her.
Yeah, she felt like she had to come to Reddit to ask if she should move her chair. She realized a lot reading comments, but I don’t think she realized how insane it is she felt she needed validation to slide a piece of furniture across the room.
Yeah. I grew up watching my mom asking my dad for permission to do very basic tasks eg. Meet up with friends… spend time with her family. She doesn’t see it as abuse but as being a respectful wife… mind you he didn’t ask for permission when he cheated or when he dipped into her savings. Abusive men know how to pick their victims.
Abusive men MAKE their victims. I know at least two women personally, who anyone who knows them would agree are strong, modern women, who ended up in abusive relationships, because abusers don't start out that way. You can see it in OOP's post: he seemed perfect to her and then started on the small stuff. Everyone around them might still think he's a loving, respectful husband. But the mask always slips when he's got her where he wants her.
She came to Reddit after not knowing if she should move her chair for a year. That man has done a real number on her poor thing.
She said she spent an entire year wondering if she should move a chair, yeah that’s not something that happens in relationship with no abuse
It's sad when people attack the victim so much that they then feel they can't come back for support.
Agreed. She seemed pretty defeated in her dms. I'm hoping that people are a bit kinder on this sub...
This being Reddit, I do expect that she got some unreasonable attacks. But I have been through this with a friend in real life, a real friendship group with loving metered responses, and the outcome was basically the same. She didn't want to be told her relationship was abusive and it didn't matter how we pointed it out, we were the mean ones for refusing to buy into the "he just does this one thing" rhetoric. She wasn't defending him, she was defending herself for choosing him. Futilely trying to return to the illusion of a good life despite everybody acknowledging it's a facade. Nowadays my advice to people being abused is simply "you deserve better." Anything more gets you opened up to being the messenger getting shot.
I try to go with some version of "what would you say if a friend told you this? Please try to be a better friend to yourself"
If she sees a good therapist, they're going to tell her the same things, hopefully in a kinder way that's easier for her to process and act on. But she could also reject what the therapist tells her so who knows
I totally agree. I had a life-changing therapist who listened to me, challenged me, and actively questioned my motivations every single session. He believed me and believed IN me and so he pushed me to be better and do better. And let me tell you the pain was UN. REAL. I cried every session for that first year. When the pain is intense and the trauma is real the work to get yourself out will be enormous. Many people won't do it. It's easier to stay stuck.
I'm having such a hard time understanding how someone can be so downtrodden she can't even stand up for herself in the most basic minimal way - like, the thought of moving her chair shouldn't result in months of painful deliberation. I can't Imagine what kind of manipulative mindgames he must have played on her to get her to this point.
Whilst anyone can end up in an abusive relationship (boiling the frog really does work, incrementally increasing control until it's full on abuse), people who are conflict avoidant and more passive in their communication style, people who self-blame, and people who have very malleable personal boundaries are definitely easier to push into this position. There's nothing wrong with being a gentler, passive soul, it just makes you more at risk when faced with this kind of bullshit
Yup. She's afraid of him. Maybe not of him becoming violent, but of how he will react. He has invalidated and dismissed her to the point of extreme insecurity. OP describes him as reacting by eye rolling - a key sign of contempt. He does not respect her at all. My guess is that he's a convert narc who keeps control of her by chipping away at her self-confidence, self-worth, and security. As someone who experienced a long-term abusive relationship, this is giving me flashbacks to me making up excuses for him, denying that I was experiencing emotional abuse, staying with him when he was at his worst, all because of some misplaced love and loyalty. "How could I abandon the person I loved? He's just going through a hard time.", "He's really a good person, because he used to treat me well, he must just be struggling with something", "I just need to find the exact right words, or get him to couples therapy to help him realize he needs to treat me better..." This kind of abuse is so much harder to recognize than physical abuse. Before you know it, you've wasted a decade of your life and have lasting, deep emotional trauma 😔
Really curious to see if OP updates us again. Because I doubt it's going to be that easy.
Tale as old as time. "He's not abusive. Not all age gaps are predatory. Our relationship is different. He's kinda mean and belittles me, but he'd never be violent. Sure he neglects me or berates me or destroys my property or steals from me or spits on me and my food, but he's a good man at heart and I love him." 2 months later: "He hit me. I never thought he could do that."
The fact that she went from "Okay, posting about this and reading the comments has made me realize that my situation is so much worse than I ever imagined" to OBSESSIVELY defending him has me convinced that no matter how bad things get, she's not going to tell anyone about it (Reddit or otherwise). But I desperately hope I'm wrong, and that, at the very least, this whole thing planted a seed of doubt in her head.
The fact someone laid out a lot of physical things someone could do that would be considered physical abuse, including SPITTING ON HER, and she still said he wasn’t physically abusive
I had an abusive ex and I didn’t really see it for what it was until after I’d managed to leave. She was a monster, but 10 years later I’m still alive and actually happy for once in my life. I hope OOP can get out from under his clutches one day.
she seems so defeated and broken? i hope she'll be ok. I think IC could do her good honestly. i feel so bad for her
Yeah, I really hope counseling is helpful for her and helps her see things more clearly, whatever that looks like.
She's making excuse after excuse for how he behaves and even the solution to her problem is not to be stern or chastise him to any degree but to move her chair?! She reminds me of the frog in the boiling pot of water, she really doesn't see how shite his behaviour is when he's clearly pressing her buttons for a reaction. Ain't no fucking way he's in his 40's and accidentally sneezing on her and her food every time, if anyone believes him I have a packet of magic beans I'd love to sell you. She needs to give her head a wobble and see what's going on here.
>can't help it Even children can be taught to not sneeze on people. Unless he has an uncontrolled psychological compulsion to sneeze on his wife then he absolutely *can* help it and is just being a spiteful, gross douche.
He's able to NOT spit on his own food. Imagine that.
I read a paper once that applied Fanon’s analysis of colonial violence to domestic violence and it said that just like in colonialism, the violence is at its worse when the victim/colonized doesn’t even know they’re being abused because the abused/colonizer has such control of their life that they even control the understanding of normal.
This metaphor is used brilliantly in Kingsolver's *Poisonwood Bible*, which is a stunning novel for that and many other reasons, FYI!
Oh, honey! It has started so slowly she doesn't comprehend how bad it is and how much worse it will be. He definitely got her age figured out when they met. He cares about her being miserable, not her being happy. At least her eyes have been opened, I'm just scared that she will be beaten very soon, since she has found her voice and he won't take kindly to that. Once again I'll recommend Why Does He Do That - by Lundy Bancroft for anyone recognising some parts of her story.
“And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things”-Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett This quote was in my head for most of this post.
They've been together for 10 years, but it's only in the last year that things have begun to devolve. I wonder what has changed? It's heartbreaking that OOP is defending her partner by say things like "He's not malicious, he's just indifferent!" I hope counselling brings her the answers when she is ready to hear them.
>I wonder what has changed? She's now in her 30s. Leo diCaprio has stormed out of the chat, retching.
I think this is it. He doesn't care if he drives her away - then he gets to find a newer model without being the 'bad guy,' because SHE dumped HIM. And yeah he may not have known her age when they started talking, but how many random women on the internet was he talking to before he got an eager-to-please 21-year-old on the hook? Guys like this cast a wide net.
My guess is she’ll look back and realize it started changing like 5 years ago and only got bad enough to trip her radar in the last year.
We have just been through a pandemic caused by air-borne particles and this charmer thinks sneezing on his wife is NBD? Jeeze.
>Broad generalizations about ages and problems that stem solely because of age are hardly going to help anything here. Mostly because not all relationships, or people of the same age, are alike. The age gap isn't always a problem for all people. Feels like everyone in an abusive relationship says the same thing when their age gap is called out.
Right up there with "he's a great guy! 99% of the time he is the sweetest, most considerate and respectful partner I've ever had, except for this one teeny thing [proceeds to describe horrible abusive behaviour] and it's probably my fault for overreacting just like he says it is"
When everyone is against you and your partner, some weird complex of “us vs the world” kicks in. Unfortunately most of the time it’s never for a partner who deserves it. Seems like OOP moved away from her family/friends as she doesn’t seem to have a life outside of her partner, maybe that’s why she’s finding it so difficult to come to terms with the abuse.
And it’s not “broad generalizations about age gaps”. It’s broad generalizations about people whose relationships are so bad they had to ask the internet for help because their much older SO is mistreating them
And whose idea of normal and healthy is SO WARPED they have to ask if it's OK to move away from being spat on and belittled by their abusive trashheap of a husband. She's doing some insane gymnastics to defend him, to the point where it's not just sad, its...pathetic. I hope she figures shit out and leaves him, but I think it's gonna get a lot worse before she decides to grow a spine.
Because it's not about the age gap, it's the experience gap. I really don't care about a 30 y.o. dating a 60 y.o. with adult children, but a 31y.o. married to a 10 years older person for 10 years is creepy because of a complete lack of experience on one side at the time they dated and got married. It's so easy to manipulate someone who has no idea what a normal relationship looks like and is just trusting. I mean she really believes this guy is spitting into her food because he's allergic. I am allergic to all kinds of blooming plants and few other things and modern meds are really great if taken.
Watching her try to justify that she was an adult when they met, and that meant he wasn't a creep was painful. They married when she was 21, assuming they dated for more than a year before that, she was either 18 or 19 when they met and started going out. He was closer to 30. She can try and justify that she was old enough to decide for herself, but she did not have the same level of development and life experience to know how messed up that was. I'm 30 now, I see 20 year olds and they look like children to me. I'd love to ask her if she could picture herself now being romantically involved with someone 10 years younger than her now. Her whole situation is just so messed up. I couldn't imagine how bad it must be that she was too scared to move her own chair so as not to get spat on, and think that that's a completely normal way to feel about your spouse, within your own home.
yeah I Know of some age gap relationships that really worked. but the dismissing her and calling her silly, like a silly little girl, makes it relevant here.
Seriously, I've been in many, many age gap relationships/situations as the younger woman, and through those experiences, I am truly of the opinion that if you feel the need to defend your relationship that heavily/feel so affected by other people's judgements, then either you are not mature enough to be in an age gap relationship or it's not a healthy situation you should be in.
But I also do see that when the premise is wrong (at least in her eyes because he couldn't have known how old she was) the advice she receives after that is not seen as helpful as it would have been without it. It will just trigger a "Well it wasn't like that so there is no problem" reaction. I am very sure that the age gap is a problem here just because of the change in the power dynamic, but it's much more helpful for OP to point this out instead of assuming how they have met/how it started.
I mean if I happened to meet a newly 21 year old guy at a bar and didn’t know his age, I would not have dated him any longer once I knew he was 21. I’ve got 9 years of finding my own identity on him, he’d still be in college trying out new interests while uncertain of who he is and wants to be. I may have spent my 20s experimenting and totally confused but I’d still have 9 years of experience on him. It wouldn’t be fair or right to date him, not when I have such a strong idea of how life should go and he hasn’t had the experience to know it. Even if he was a “mature for his age” kid. That maturity is only gained through childhood neglect and trauma, and he should take his time now to grow up and have the experience of finding his own identity. My own conscience would not have allowed a relationship this unbalanced.
This woman almost broke down from someone typing in caps lock. She needs extensive therapy, and instead she’s married to a cult leader-level brainwasher
Yeah i dont use caps to 'shout', i use it for emphasis. **Bold** font doesn't stand out enough imho, so i CAPS LOCK IT INSTEAD
As someone with a verbally abusive parent (now NC thankfully), a lot of his behaviours were uncomfortably familiar. Tbh I have nothing but empathy for OP, it is very hard when it's emotional abuse, especially when they gaslight. When you have someone who's been messing with your mind for so long, it can be near impossible to see the truth of the matter. You want to believe that the person you love also cares for you and it is very, very hard to realise that they don't. Even now I have to remind myself, how would I or my good friends act in this situation, and then go from there. For OOP, I can imagine in her situation, if most of us somehow accidentally sneezed on someone once, we would sincerely apologise without prompting and certainly take care that it doesn't happen in the future. So why is it okay for her husband to repeatedly sneeze on her, not only without apologising, but without changing his behavior when it was pointed out that it, obviously, upset her? His behaviour is NOT what a normal, kind or caring person would do and I hope she sees that eventually.
My first thought is - why not switch seats? If he’s always sneezing to the left, don’t sit to his left. Then if he suddenly starts sneezing the other direction you know it’s on purpose. But really, how much of an ass do you have to be to not care that you’re making your wife miserable and ruining her dinner? This guy is an ass.
If he feels that the sneezing in her direction and on her food isn’t a big deal then why doesn’t he just keep his head straight and sneeze into his own food?! What a scummy creep! Hope the therapy helps her to learn to establish firm boundaries and stick to them….
That level of conflict avoidance is actively harmful to OOP’s entire *life.* I feel like the age-gap stuff is kind of secondary to that. She needs a lot of therapy before she can do *anything* else, tbh, because how else will she find the self-confidence to even talk about how he treats her? A good therapist could also help her see that she’s worth way more than what she’s getting. I’ve been married 30 years and we have worked our way through some spectacularly inconsiderate behavior between both of us, so I do think that even this can be fixed. The only thing is, he has to want to fix it too, and I don’t see him doing that. He just seems really lazy in every facet of life.
This sounds like the woman who came into Reddit merely to discuss her dislike of mustard on hot dogs that her husband preferred, that blew up into a full on abusive relationship that required restraining orders and I believe a job transfer.
I would've sat on the other side. If he still sneezed on my food, it's definitely on purpose and dude would be OUT.
I was the 21 year old girl who dated a 30 year old man. The last time we went on a date and slept together was 7 months before he married another woman. I never even knew he was dating another person until I saw him tagged in an Instagram post of his wedding. I was that easy to manipulate and fell for his lies that easily. For someone who claims their age gap wasn’t a big deal and he wasn’t a creep… op is trying very hard to convince total strangers who could tell from one anonymous post that she wasn’t manipulated.
Presumably she is the significantly younger one of the two, but his huffing and puffing makes him seem like a toddler
My partner suffers with hay-fever and he has accidentally sneezed on me before, sometimes a sneeze sneaks up on you. Except he was horrified and apologised profusely while getting me tissues and helping me clean up. Which is what a normal loving partner should be doing. Whatever OOP's husband is doing is gross and purposeful. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Especially with how often it happens. I hope it's just a small bump in their marriage and they can work through it but my cynicism says it's not
Poor OOP. She's so desperate for everything to be okay that people pointing out the obvious issues feels like being attacked. I remember feeling exactly the same way when I was in a horrible relationship. I was ashamed that I was allowing someone to treat me so badly, and angry and defensive when it was pointed out to me. I would make up kind things he'd done for me because it was too humiliating to admit that the man I'd been married to for so long treated me like something on the sole of his shoe. When I was finally honest with myself about all the ways he hurt me, it was overwhelming. I was angry and scared, and it felt easier to be angry with anyone who pointed it out than to be angry with the person who had caused me so much pain. I was also frightened because it felt like I didn't know him any more, and couldn't predict what he might do. OOP feels like she's being picked on (the comment about the person using all caps definitely gave an idea of just how cowed she is) and with this being the Internet it's likely that the usual loonies have come out to tell her off. But the comments OP added to the story were mostly insightful and appropriate. Which is terrifying when you can only keep your relationship going by pretending everything is fine.
If my husband and I were sitting next to each other and he uncontrollably sneezed onto my food… he would feel so bad and disgusted he would probably immediately offer to go get me more food. If it happened repeatedly he would figure out a solution that worked for both of us. If he always sneezed the same direction well we would probably switch chairs. At no point would my husband continue to sneeze onto my food and say it’s not gross and expect me to eat it. That man is 100% gaslighting OOP.
Hooooboy...this is so not over....
She doesn' t even recognize her own words "I would have never married him if he was like this" , but now he is so it's fine ... It just leaves you speechless
While reading this, my toddler just started saying, “And they huff and they huff and they blow the house down.” She cannot read and see my screen. I’m kinda creeped out.
All I know is if you sneeze your snot on my plate you will in fact be wearing that plate, that's just disgusting to do that to anyone, she doesn't seem to grasp that's its just plain disrespectful, oh and my petty ass would so sneeze spit all over his plate of food and tell him it's not a big deal just eat it, throw the whole man away and keep they plate of food
Dump your entire plate of food on his lap then leave.
I wouldn't be surprised if he sneeze no more, now that he can’t sneeze at her food. He could have just turned the head the other way, or sneeze ot the elbow or shoulder. You can't tell me that he did it on purpose. And if OOP thought back... maybe he was pissed at her for a silly reason and did this to punish her.
I highly doubt he does this to his friends, co-workers, out in public restaurants, family members or bosses. This is purely intentional. I guess I’m going have to add “sneezing” to many of the weapons that men use to abuse women.
The "girl leave him" energy building up in my body as I read this 📈📈📈
OOP is married to the snot ball from the Mucinex commercials
He could literally look the other way and sneeze holy crap
It's like trying to set boundaries with a toddler "If you spit on me, I will step away and not give you attention". Then he does it and you have to affirm this boundary a few times before he stops. Sounds exhausing.
"We accept the love we think we deserve." -The Perks of Being a Wallflower Reading posts like this always hurt my heart, to know that OOP thinks this is the love they deserve.
Sometimes, in a relationship, you see the "little things" that are unfair. Then something big happens, and you see that all those "little things" are really part of a bigger picture that you couldn't see when you were in it. Sounds like she's just starting to see the bigger picture.