The latest installment of Dear Prudence features a woman who fears the state won’t offer her a sufficient reward for not honoring her wedding vows. She wants to know how she can reap the benefits of marriage without having to stay married.
I want to leave my husband; I cannot. I have no job and no support. He has made it clear that he will not pay me child support or alimony. I know a court could compel him, but if I banked on this and he was late on paying, I would be in a very desperate position with my children. We attend a church, and he has told a few people—mostly women—a deep tale of marital woe that spread, and now I am treated like a pariah. One such person is a woman with whom he is having an emotional affair. We have gone to marriage counseling, but it didn’t heal anything; he was charming and won the therapist over.
I am happy to be a mother and grateful I can take the kids to their various appointments and therapies. I adore my children; they are everything to me. I know this is a privileged place. I don’t know what to do. I am miserable and lonely. Are there any resources for people like me? Is there anything for me, save for “wait and just survive”?
When your house is so screwed up that even the kids need therapy. The fact that she got an entire clique of church women and the marriage therapist (whose vocation of choice seems exclusively to be inverting male marital authority) siding with the husband seems to indicate she’s a real piece of work. Of course all of this is focused through the lens of female solipsism from which she’s gathered, “everybody is in the wrong but me.” The evidence of her righteousness is in her mistreatment at the hands of others. It’s not like her position is a product of her own rebellious posture towards her husband and other unsavory traits.
… I want to be able to help you prepare for the day when you are eventually able to leave your husband, even if that day is still far off. I think the best next step is to look for any remote, part-time work you can do while staying at home with your children so you can start to save money of your own in an account your husband doesn’t have access to.
Imagine if this advice was given to a husband…
And look how this is treated: prepare for the [long hoped for] day when you are eventually able to leave your husband. It’s like the goal of owning a house. “Eventually you’ll manage it girl, hang in there!!”
Disgusting. What a low quality woman. Obviously cares little for her children, much less husband. Untrustworthy and conniving.
Past time to shame these expiring would-be sluts
Red flag 101: whenever she uses the letter (I) too much it proves she is a selfish, narcissist blood sucker.
I want to leave my husband…We attend a church…Is there anything for me?
Repentance is for you.
Where is she writing from, 1963? Of course she can push him out for ca$h and prize$, there’s an entire industry doing just that full time. Of course her churchly sistas can help her do that.
Where do these questions come from? Maybe here?
The person writing this column is a trans who identifies as queer and plans to marry a woman.
It (Ze/Zhe/Them?) attended a Christian university in the U.S., and is one of the children of John Ortberg, a Christian evangelical pastor.
This concludes today’s lesson on the state of evangelical Christianity in the United States. The exit doors are located in the rear of the auditorium.
The question right after this one is a doozy:
Pretty illogical: “I’m fat, and I love it! But I also don’t want to talk about it because my family said mean things about my body—which, seriously, I love in all its fatness.” Even this chick knows it’s not healthy or desirable; otherwise, she wouldn’t be writing a letter about it.
We attend a church, and he has told a few people—mostly women—a deep tale of marital woe that spread, and now I am treated like a pariah. One such person is a woman with whom he is having an emotional affair. We have gone to marriage counseling, but it didn’t heal anything; he was charming and won the therapist over.
What we have here is a rare case where the prospective ex-husband outgames the would-be ex-wife on her own playing ground.
She cheated on her husband.
A woman in the church who is supposed to be the wife’s sisterly-ally because they share vaginas is shaming her in church and telling her that this is all her fault. That is a non-starter.
He told the truth about her infidelity and that makes her feel bad and now the therapist is insisting that she change and repent and beg him to forgive her on HIS terms in order for the marriage to work.
I like the husband’s bluff that he won’t pay child support. It sounds like he has some pretty good game, but unfortunately committed to the wrong woman.
That got me thinking about “child support fugitives.” Apparently there have been a couple legal papers published on this, despite the universal lack of concern for these men.
One of these papers mentioned that a child support fugitive is essentially the lowest outcast of all American society: even violent felons have definite prison sentences followed by the goal of “rehabilitation” back into society. Child support fugitives, on the other hand, have armies of government agents tracking them down and seizing their assets to pay a bankruptcy-proof, extortionist amount of money that has no statute of limitations. While unpaid, these men are unemployable and unable to do anything in society–even pay taxes! The single escape from this burden is the grave.
How did we get here? The unholy alliance between feminists and tradcons. Tradcons seem to (blindly) believe that almost all divorces are the man’s fault, and that by making it punitive the men will instead “man up” and stick around with his poor, innocent wife and kids.
It reads like she cheated on her husbands, and he promptly laid down the law.
In my experience, divorce-minded wives are notorious for refusing to see the big picture, and the full implications of their decisions, and knock-on effects that even the police, attorneys and family court judges cannot address. They are blinded by anger, revenge and spite.
This woman writes like she has just seen a ghost. One that is going to be living and haunting her house and life for quite a while.
We attend a church, and he has told a few people—mostly women—a deep tale of marital woe that spread, and now I am treated like a pariah
Wait, WHAT???!!! Is this woman saying that there’s a church out there in which women are holding other women ACCOUNTABLE ?
Sorry, but I don’t believe it.
We attend a church, and he has told a few people—mostly women—a deep tale of marital woe that spread, and now I am treated like a pariah
Wait, WHAT???!!! Is this woman saying that there’s a church out there in which women are holding other women ACCOUNTABLE ?
Sorry, but I don’t believe it.
The term “emotional affair” needs to be addressed.
It always seems to be an accusation by women when their husbands developed a female friendship outside with a woman not his wife. He isn’t having sex with her.
Yet many women seem to equate this friendship to having an affair, as if he has not right to seek female friendship outside the marriage.
Married women who enter an “emotional affair” seem to make it a physical one very quickly. Married men seem to be able better to keep a friendship with a female a friendship.
I suspect female anger regarding so-called emotional affairs is a bit of projection and a bit of fear. They are projecting that they couldn’t keep it platonic and afraid that they will lose control.
Just seems like a good topic to address.
I notice you didn’t delve into Prudence’s answer. Not that it would surprise anyone, but should be noted that the well-being of the children had no importance in the answer, none.
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The way she feels isolated from expected allies (women, church, women at church) is very interesting. Maybe he’s aired enough of her dirty laundry? Maybe she really comes across as an unlikeable person? Maybe she’s the kind of woman who would leave almost any man? Maybe she’s caught in a life where everyone around her knows enough of the situation and she’d rather run than honor her vows?
“Emotional affair” sounds like, whatever else he is doing, he is purposely or accidentally running some dread game. It’s enough to get her jealous but maybe not enough to turn her around.
Child support fugitives, on the other hand, have armies of government agents tracking them down and seizing their assets to pay a bankruptcy-proof, extortionist amount of money that has no statute of limitations. While unpaid, these men are unemployable and unable to do anything in society–even pay taxes! The single escape from this burden is the grave.
China should roll out the red carpet to such men if sufficiently qualified, with a guarantee to never extradite them and a 15-year tax holiday. They could poach tons of Western expertise in the form of expats.
What will the US femtwats and cuckservatives say? Don’t take our most hated ATM machines? Yeah, that will work.
If a man is under a customized 80% tax rate + imputation in America, this could be a superb score for a country like China.
France is another country that does not extradite Americans, but as a Western feminist country, they might extradite CS fugitives even though they won’t extradite Roman Polanski.
“he has told a few people—mostly women—a deep tale of marital woe that spread, and now I am treated like a pariah. One such person is a woman with whom he is having an emotional affair.”
Kudos to this guy whoever he is…. normally the husband is the one ostracized and cast out as an evil.
I thought it was obligatory for all Americans to be in therapy – to discover their real selves, uncover repressed memories, bore some unfortunate therapist for an hour or two – or is that only in New York? I am told that there is a difference between Analysis and Therapy but so far as I can tell the only difference is that Analysis is for the rich and Therapy for the poor.
Even so, that husband of hers is a bastard as she is miserable and lonely and all Dalrock does is make fun of her. I will feel compelled to send an E-Mail to Warhorn Media to show that Dalrock is a bad man.
GG, “an emotional affair” can be a manipulative tool for an abusive wife to keep him separated from healthy fellowship. The spiral of abuse is bad for me because it keeps them further isolated from the encouragement of others. We end up having so much on our minds that it’s difficult to carry a normal conversation at church and then that just further isolates us. “Why are you always talking about your wife, what about the latest movie/book/sporting event/tech purchase.”
The deliberate smashing of a marriage where there are children is child abuse pure and simple. She is a paedophile in intention and uses an incestuous pretense of ‘loving’ her children when the action she uses is pure spite against the husband and they are mere weapons that she toys with to gratify her own image of herself, like a masturbatory tool. Weaponised pretend love is child abuse. And yes, I mean the full works (full child sex abuse), even if she doesn’t physically do it with her children (because she fears the reality of her condition?), she is doing it emotionally and psychologically, and that is just as cruel but she gets to gaslight the world that she ‘cares’.
The mother’s aim here is to render her children fatherless, and motherless (since she is no longer their mother but an imposter – there is no way a Christian society would give the children over to this monster), to psychologically damage their own future relationships and render successful marriage (for her children) extremely diffcult and very unlikely (statistically, thier life is over unless they are very lucky), and to give her children this deliberate knee-capping in life as an unasked for ‘gift’ from a ‘loving mother’, handicapped in their minds, hearts, souls and their physcial bodies (CPTSD can be like being in the trenches in a war-zone) with nerve, neuron, hormonal damage.
All because she has internalised the propaganda of the world and wants to ‘rebel’, and get the world to genuflect to her and her moment to moment sick and deranged ‘desires’.
I foresee a time, when all the crises (financial, cultural, religious, political) come to a head, and the punishment for this behaviour with be very brutal and very just.
@Tyler Cook
I have never been pregnant and don’t ever plan to become pregnant.
Quite possibly the best silver lining. Ever.
”I want to leave my husband…We attend a church…Is there anything for me?
Repentance is for you.”
God have mercy for her in this life. Because if she is not saved. She will not have any mercy after she dies.
Don’t worry, the commenters outlined lots of helpful ways she could squeeze money from her husband. They noted with relish that he’ll be paying heavily for years.
I suspect female anger regarding so-called emotional affairs is a bit of projection and a bit of fear. They are projecting that they couldn’t keep it platonic and afraid that they will lose control.
“Emotional affair, ” like the term, “abuse,” fits perfectly into the Duluth Model; it means whatever they want it to mean to suit their purposes.
Pokesalad, And their purpose in their mind is to love others. They never realize, no thanks to the church, that their purpose is to tear down their houses.
She projects. She accused her husband of a emotional affair because she is in one. She is waiting on her next victim. The therapist didn’t give her the ammunition she needed to play the card she needs to play so she can’t abandon the marriage and still save social status and maintain a level of false victim hood. She has no respect for the husband. She is on the hunt for her next provisioner. She most likely gets her emotional fulfillment from novels or social media. She sees the men in her life as tools to be exploited only. She doesn’t understand why her girlfriends at church can’t see she desperately needs to be in competition for her next tool.
She was looking to bail before she found out about his “emotional affair”. She was attempting to bail before the counseling. No accountability. I also wanted you to notice that D.M. Ortberg used to be a lesbian creature, now a guy? I wouldn’t exactly count Ortberg’s advice as trusted, considering the mental illness element, etc. The mother in question bought into this situation. She knew what she was getting into. Now she wants to saddle the poor bastard that was taking care of her/the kids with extra expenses, outside of the fact that they are special needs. (Sue him for feelz due to the fact that she can’t hoof it with the church ladies?)
I think the adultery claim is probably right. She’s sweating losing her kids.
I adore my children; they are everything to me.
She’s got her priorities wrong:
1. God
2. Husband
3. Children
I want to leave my husband; I cannot. I have no job and no support.
Translation: I’m treacherous to my husband and don’t want to obey my marriage vows, nor follow the commands of Jesus. Still I would pursue a divorce, but I am unwilling to take the financial consequences. Please come to my rescue!
“…he was charming and won the therapist over.”
There’s you clue that the problem in the marriage is her. Therapists (like all professionals: judges, police officers, family services) always have a natural bias towards the woman in any situation. The fact that the therapist took the husband’s side must mean there is something wrong–really wrong–with the wife.
FWIW, most health insurance plans cover it. That said, most health insurance plans are now the infamous “high deductible” plans, where you have to pay the first few thousand dollars of expenses (I’ve heard $5000 is becoming the new standard) yourself before the plan will pay for anything in a calendar year.
Off Topic: Toxic Masculinity Strikes Again!
https://www.app.com/story/news/local/morris-county/2019/03/04/parsippany-hs-students-shovel-out-neighbor-who-needed-get-dialysis/3059970002/
What?! A deacon!? As in, the Biblical diaconos!?
Not only is this Toxic Masculinity, it’s Toxic White Christian Masculinity! And, it’s being propagated! Oh, the humanity!
@ Otto
Actually, there’s an earlier clue.
If the women of the church took the husband’s side, then the wife must be a titanic bitch, because that means she pissed off the women of the church so badly that she squandered all her female in-group preference currency.
Paul says:
March 5, 2019 at 8:53 am
I adore my children; they are everything to me.
She’s got her priorities wrong:
1. God
2. Husband
3. Children
****************************
Keeping in mind that God said to submit to her husband in all things.
ALL things.
Some women say they “listen” to God first. That “voice” they think they hear never tells them to submit to their husband in all things and to obey him “as unto the Lord”. And it usually tells them to do what makes them feel good or looks good (just like Eve SAW that the tree was good for food…) and directly disobey their husbands, again, just like eve.
Many women fall for this. “For of this sort re they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,”.
They don’t get that obeying their husband, even when they don’t want to, is a test of their faith because God commands it.
Anon @ 2:00 am:
“China should roll out the red carpet to such men if sufficiently qualified, with a guarantee to never extradite them and a 15-year tax holiday. They could poach tons of Western expertise in the form of expats.”
By definition, no feminized government wants unsexy men.
I’ve read more than a handful of articles in the last couple of years pointing to a feminism problem in China. If I remember correctly, the issue is the single-child rule. There is a huge imbalance between men and women. So, if a woman is an only child, she is spoiled and has to do very well for herself so that she can support mom and dad in their dotage. Also, because there are so few women in comparison to men, each believes herself worth a king’s ransom.
@ Gunner Q
You’re both missing the most important, practical issue. China already has a surplus of men, and a shortage of women. Why would they want to import more men?
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2142658/too-many-men-china-and-india-battle-consequences
@7817 I read you comment, and thought it worthwhile to repost the quote you pulled witht he genders switched, just so people can see how bad this appears
“I want to be able to help you prepare for the day when you are eventually able to leave your wife, even if that day is still far off. I think the best next step is to look for any remote, part-time work you can do while staying at home with your children so you can start to save money of your own in an account your wife doesn’t have access to.”
Admittedly, my wife is enjoying a working now that the kids are older, and I’m admittedly working less, making less money, and spending more time with our kids, so when I read this quote reversed, it really hits pretty close to home. Why would I leave my wife, who took care of the kids while I worked my ass off, now that we’re both better off career-wise, have more time for each other, and I FINALLY GET TO WORK LESS THAN THE FIRST 20 YEARS! I suppose it helps that my kids aren’t in “therapy,” and that I get to see my son do all the things I got to do as a kid, and do them better, because my wife and I have the success (and money) to make it happen FOR ME as well as for her. Also, I don’t think she’ll last more than another 5 years – or less – because she’ll reach burnout just like I did, and end up “consulting” just like I did.
I don’t understand housewife resentment. They get to spend the best years of their life in relative ease, raising their own children, spending time in the sun, and worst, wiping baby’s ass and cleaning toilets. There are women in this country who do that in 12-hour days at two jobs for less than $10 per hour, and still aren’t guaranteed the help of a man with heavy lifting.
…each believes herself worth a king’s ransom.
aka GPS, Golden Pussy Syndrome.
@ttecloud
There was a reality show on PBS that I think was called Colonial House. They ran one season. It’s on Youtube. But the last episode, they’re doing the summary and one of the wives is complaining about how much harder her work of cooking and cleaning is than her husband’s. He literally built their house, raised a garden, took care of livestock, learned to hunt and fish, and cut EIGHT CORDS of wood over a summer and she was claiming her work was so much harder. I don’t know if it’s been trained or inherent to women, but the resentment of men is very real.
In this Ghost Stories (1997) TV episode, a wife runs off with her lover, abandoning her husband and kids, and gets her comeuppance:
Horror shows have generally been more balanced than churches. Some horror stories have unfaithful husbands. Some have unfaithful wives.
@Dave
I thought the same thing: “hey I like this guy!”
Paul —
“She’s got her priorities wrong:
1. God
2. Husband
3. Children”
Exactly. But all a modern female has to say is ‘the children’ and every Christian, conservative, ad infinitum immediately kneejerks to her manipulations.
Women always say it’s For The Children but usually it’s For Me Me ME. Castrati-nation hastens to obey.
Oh and they also love to trot out God said this to me and God said that. The worst is when they start telling me about receiving “God’s Word”. LOL! Like He yammers during breaks with them or something. Direct contact, including by voice, is VERY rare. Even in the old days, and much rarer now. But the cupcakes hear from Him constantly, and they’ll use ‘what He said’ to over-rule their husbands. Actual order is
1. Me
2. Me
3. What God said to me this morning during waffles.
4. Children if it’s convenient and advances my power/wealth
5. Me, in case you forgot 1 and 2.
6. That guy who gives me money and fixes everything.
“He literally built their house, raised a garden, took care of livestock, learned to hunt and fish, and cut EIGHT CORDS of wood over a summer …”
Those are hobbies. They don’t count as “work.”
/sarc
OT general interest, they used to call sex ‘congress’, oh look —
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/democrats-read-transgender-kids-book-i-am-jazz-on-floor-of-house-of-representatives
Therapy doesn’t always mean seeing a psychologist. One or more of her children may have some sort of medical issue that requires a lot of appointments. Ex. On-going physical therapy for a child with cerebral palsy, etc.
Her husband should have that ’90s song ”Whatta Man” played as his theme song.
He’s able to convince their church, a few, she says, ”some men but mainly women” – that his wife has issues, and he’s even able to win over the marriage counselling therapist!
On top of that he’s able to provide an income for his SAHM wife, and there’s even enough left in the kitty for the kids to get therapy!
What a Man!
They don’t get that obeying their husband, even when they don’t want to, is a test of their faith because God commands it.
God only plays a role in any woman’s life as long as He makes her feel good. The moment He demands that she do something she doesn’t want to do, that makes her feel bad, or ***SHUDDER*** puts someone or something else ahead of HER wants and needs, out the window God goes.
It’s that simple.
Exactly feeriker. I asked my wife as she was pilfering stuff from the house right soon after filing for divorce and moving away about her salvation experience. She said it was a “new adventure!” Nothing about repentance. Nothing about turning from the bad.
I could easily explore that with her, but she never would let me in her mind during the marriage and she definitely will not interact genuinely with me now. Per her words, I ALWAYS controller her and NEVER accepted her and she is tired of it!
How would someone with that attitude ever be open to finding she had sin in her life she had to turn from? We should always validate her choices, right?
Those are hobbies. They don’t count as “work.”
You jest, but my mother-in-law said the exact thing about her husband. Because he “enjoyed” repairing the car and house (including painting and wall papering), they didn’t count as work.
Read this lady’s letter to my wife. She listened as she was cooking me breakfast and responded with “…just like you… you won over the therapists too.”
I asked her what she meant as I was quite angry with both the male therapists that we visited.
“Oh…nothing. I am going to stop digging. This hole is deep enough.”
I laughed and she laughed too. She repented after a heavy dose of dread a few years ago.
@Otto
Well, some women’s hobbies including tearing down their own houses.
The male analogue to the “Not enough cash and prizes” is “Cheaper to keep her”.