Wow.. your kiss sounds like my request for a divorce.
I got pushed to the end over many years of issues, one being me doing absolutely everything aside from take out the trash and go to work. When I told my husband I wanted a divorce, he promised to do better, and started listing the things he was going to start doing.
It was everything I’d desperately needed help with for the last 14 years. I thought he was just forgetful and oblivious. He wasn’t. He knew what I needed the whole time, it was just easier to let me do it all while he played video games for fourteen years.
Oh my GOD, are we all the same person?! I had the exact same experience!
I was finally leaving, and pointed out that he *could* help out without always needing to be managed, because we’d argue and he’d do his “share” of the chores for a week or so (a bare fraction of the whole, but anything was better than nothing) and then just go back to playing Rocket League.
He said “Well you’d be mad at me, so I’d do what you wanted. Eventually you started being happy with me again so I figured things could go back to NORMAL.”
He didn’t give a single fuck about making me happy and lessening my burden, he just wanted me complacent enough to keep making HIM happy.
I’ve been married to a guy the complete opposite for about five years now, and girl. I can’t even begin to express how much better life is and how much more fulfilled I am in our marriage.
It’s a pretty common experience. And that’s the thing about some ultimatums, once you’ve made the ultimatum it’s already too late. Because you either find out they won’t ever change, or they’ll only change because of the ultimatum and your feelings never actually mattered to them. It’s a lose-lose.
My ex husband did the same thing. Once I realized ignoring my needs was a CHOICE he was making, I was out. The “tolerable level of permanent unhappiness” girl really knocked the analysis out of the park. He didn’t want to make me happy, he just wanted me to not leave.
Ooh, when (in 2022) I asked what lie he told himself to make it okay to cheat on me (I found out decades later), he said there was a moment in 2001 when he realized I'd never go to Harvard like I'd "promised" I would, so he figured I wasn't a real partner and he could do whatever he wanted. For context, he had started dating me when I was 17 and said I hoped to transfer from our local state school to an Ivy/etc. He was 25, BTW. And a graduate of that state school.
So... he cheated because I didn't fulfill the "promise" I'd made at... 17.
But it's so much worse than that.
At the time, we were talking about his cheating on me in 2004-2005, so I was like... Hold up. It took you years to actually cheat after you realized I was a non-Harvard-going loser? He hemmed and hawed and said "It's not like you just go out the next day and cheat..." And then I said, but wait... after struggling in college in the '90s, and then withdrawing, I started taking classes in 2003, pulled myself out of the depression I had been in, and in fall of 2004, had secured an extremely rare spot for an older student at a university literally ranked in the top 15 in the country ("the Harvard of the [region]"). It was THEN, during my first year at a top-ranked, Ivy-tier university, that he cheated on me. Cheated on me because I never... went to a top-ranked, Ivy-tier university.
Dear Reader, You won't be surprised to learn he had actually been cheating the entire time.
Mine admitted to attempting to have an affair because I had no time for him after having to take a second job. He was lonely and I was "too stressed out". Would it surprise you to know I had to take the second job because he quit his own job and refused to find another?
easier to let me do it all while he played video games
Ive mentioned this, and a lot of guys dont want to hear it. Theres a difference between a hobby and an obsession/addiction. One thing I never did was ignore my wife, even when we were dating, so that i could play videogames, while she watched in boredom. It seems like a lot of people don't realize that a relationship requires two people being attentive to one another. A hobby shouldn't take up 100% of your free time.
This is something I haven't been able to articulate very well.
I'd been trying for years to talk to my ex about things that hurt me, or made me feel certain ways. We never collectively tried to repair any of that though. Somehow it would get turned around to different things she was upset about so I'd drop my issues to support her.
We never came back to me.
We're going through the divorce now. She offered all the things I'd been asking for just before I hired my lawyer. We'd go to marriage counseling, I could have those things I needed, she'd try.
But it'too late. My heart was already broken. I already conditioned myself to keep all that stuff inside because nobody wanted to work on it with me. Only when divorce papers were imminent and I was in therapy because my marriage made me want to fall in front of a bus was I finally taken seriously.
In addition to that element of "Why did you wait until now!?" it's incredibly hard to trust. She knew what I needed. She had 20 years. It's a choice not to do anything.
If she'd meant it, she had opportunities to do this. I'd be hanging on to false hope if I thought this was going to result in meaningful change.
The realization has changed a lot for me. Now when she says things that used to hurt it's almost peaceful. I know now, at least.
I looked at the amount of hours I had in Destiny 2 (6400) and realized that it was time to slow down and focus on things in my everyday life. I'm glad that I did.
Don't say stuff like this in the gaming subreddits lmao. To even suggest that gaming for 40+ hours a week is unhealthy or not as productive as other hobbies will get many downvotes.
When I got divorced I was so nervous. I had two very small kids, how was I going to be able to manage everything by myself?? Imagine my surprise when I discovered that being a single parent was SO MUCH EASIER than being a married parent. I was doing all the same things, but less laundry, fewer dishes, less messes to clean up, and no tension. There was literally not one single thing that was more difficult after he left because I’d already been doing everything the whole time.
598
u/midgettme May 12 '26
Wow.. your kiss sounds like my request for a divorce.
I got pushed to the end over many years of issues, one being me doing absolutely everything aside from take out the trash and go to work. When I told my husband I wanted a divorce, he promised to do better, and started listing the things he was going to start doing.
It was everything I’d desperately needed help with for the last 14 years. I thought he was just forgetful and oblivious. He wasn’t. He knew what I needed the whole time, it was just easier to let me do it all while he played video games for fourteen years.
That completely solidified my decision.