Men, we point the finger at women all the time in the manosphere, but now it is time to point it back at ourselves. I don’t want to name names, but some of you have been tricking women into loveless marriages and forcing them to experience the pain of divorcing you later. Here is one such example from a woman so distraught with the aftermath of this she was forced to seek advice from Salon (H/T Zed and Brendan):
I am 34 years old and have been married for about four and a half years. We’ve been together almost 10 years, my longest relationship. My husband is intelligent, handsome, funny and patient. One of my problems is that I don’t love him anymore. Well, I love him, but more like a close friend and not as a husband. He truly is a wonderful person and everyone thinks he is great. And he is great, mostly. I think it’s unfair for me to stay married to him when I don’t completely love him because he would make an awesome husband for some lucky gal.
Sure, he pretends to be nice and perfect and all, but that is just a front. I know his type. He uses that to trap women! Our poor victim continues:
The real trouble started this summer. I realized, after a series of illnesses and deaths in the family, that life was just too darn short to spend in a marriage I didn’t want to be in. A side problem to my realization that I didn’t want to be married anymore was the realization that I actually am in love with someone else. He’s my best friend and has been for half my life. He knows that I love him, and has said he loves me too. He also knows that my marriage is ending.
Not only did he trick her into marriage, but he stopped her from marrying the love of her life. How did the manipulative SOB ever pull such a thing off? Here’s how:
Allow me to back up a little. Before I got married, I had a mini-crisis. Everyone I knew was getting married or already had families. I was the last single person in my groups of friends. My husband and I had been dating for several years at that point, so it never failed that everyone (and I mean everyone) would ask when it was our turn. I have to admit, I fell for it. What was wrong with me that I wasn’t married? I had these feelings despite the fact I never even wanted to be married! I was in love with my best friend at this point, too, but things were complicated, so I decided to marry my husband because he was stable, loving and wanted me. But with the benefit of hindsight, I know now that I was reacting to my insecurities and not out of a desire to spend the rest of my life with my husband.
Typical. He played on her insecurities, and ultimately forced her to take half of his stuff!
I have discussed with my husband the fact that I am feeling trapped, and that we might not make it. He was devastated, and asked me if I would work on our marriage. The problem is that I do not want to work on it. I just want out. To compound the issue, I slept with my best friend. To compound it even further, I haven’t heard from my best friend in two weeks, despite attempts to contact him. The truth? I love my husband as a friend, and my friend as the one great love of my life. One wants me, the other (it seems) does not.
First he traps her in marriage, and then he wants to make her “work on it”. Now she is forced to cheat on him just to be haaaapy.
Don’t be this guy.
Here is another guy you don’t want to be. I won’t link to the source but it is a comment on a Christian blog discussing divorce. The reality is these kinds of guys aren’t hard to find at all. I’ve even known a guy like this. Here is the poor woman’s story:
We were a Christian couple who divorced. We went through some marital counseling and one-on-one counseling. I prayed for a year that God would change my heart and help me love and respect my husband. I should also have prayed that my husband would love and respect me. He simply wasn’t willing. No matter how much we talked about us, he just yes’d me to death and go on as usual. Finally God made it clear to me that He was permitting me to divorce. My stepchildren were wounded by my leaving, especially since their own mother had left them when they were younger. Except for the pain I caused them, I have never regretted the divorce. The truth is that my husband didn’t love the real me. I would rather be alone all my life than ever face that sense of failure and rejection ever again. And the worst of it was that it really was all my fault. I would never have married him if it hadn’t been for the fact that we had pre-marital sex. I’d suffered sexual abuse as a child and when I became born-again, I’d felt clean for the first time. Then one day we were alone (first mistake) and I wanted to test him (major, major mistake). I wanted so badly for him to be that romantic hero of the Harlequin novels who loved and respected his woman so much he would never have sex with her before marriage. I wanted him to stop himself, but of course, he didn’t. So I did the only thing I could think of to clean up my own mess and that was to marry him. Even as I prepared for marriage, I knew I didn’t really love him, but I ignored it and made myself go through with it. What a fool. The response of our church was horrible. Within 2 weeks I had become a sermon illustration and my pastor had instructed the staff to stay away from me. So much of what happened was my fault, but I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t admit it. I developed horrible anxiety and panic attacks as well as depression with thoughts of suicide. I had become such a disappointment to everyone – my husband, my stepchildren, my pastor, my church, even those I’d thought were my friends. It took me 9 years and a move across country to forgive everyone involved.
Don’t be that guy either!
I mentioned I knew a guy like this. His plan was pure genius. He knew a woman who worked with my wife and me, and she came over to hang out with him after she broke up with her loser boyfriend. They became “friends with benefits”, and she got pregnant. All of a sudden it struck this woman that wait, I’m a devout Catholic! So of course she had to marry him, even though she didn’t love him. Then a few years later, she divorced him and took their young son because she didn’t love him any more.
Don’t be any of these guys.
Men assume that when a woman tells him she loves him and she wants to marry that this somehow means she loves him and wants to be married. Don’t be so simple. It could mean that you are somehow secretly forcing her to take your kids and half of your stuff. So stay on the lookout for this.
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