[aphelion]

(01-03-2014 05:14 AM)atahualpa Wrote:  

Gentlemen, this is how a woman breaks you down. The guy is miserable, hounded by a harridian in a loveless, sexless marriage. No? Why did he want to go, then? She's isolated him socially, he never sees his friends. Maybe I'm wrong but statistically it's more likely than not. He made one last go at freedom and happiness but it's late in the game, he has no support network, he's lost his youth, and his confidence has been shattered by years of quiet desperation and by the lack of a frame of reference to understand why he's miserable.

She just wears him down slowly over the months, laying some heavy guilt trip on him. Sort of like in Seinfeld, the episode where George tried to break up with his girlfriend and she says 'no'.

This story is a tragedy, like as if in The Truman show he gave up and never got out of the dome. Beware idolizing marriage or your wife could be telling this story about you one day. I don't want to go all Mark Minter here, but the problem is that when a woman feels secure she stops trying. Marriage makes a woman feel secure. Kids increase that sense of security, most men want to do the right thing by their kids and will tolerate a lot for their sake. Given the modern divorce industry, that if he leaves he will lose half his money for the rest of his life, that his access to his children will be subject to her whim, given these things do you realize how miserable a situation has to be for a man to risk all of that?

And it pains me to think of how she punished him after his capitulation.

This seems like completely opposite to the actual way the story turns out. From what I gather, the guy actually went out and started hanging out with his friends again, started getting his own life, and eventually started to feel like a contributory party to a mutually beneficial marriage again. Furthermore, I think the way that the article was written was handled with respect and love to the author's husband. She took no joy in his misery, and made a tough but necessary decision to stay the course and keep the family together when women are all too quick to pull the big D card and run over the guy roughshod.

Come on. Credit where credit is due. I get that a lot of guys here have some resentment toward women, but resenting good women is not the answer.