It's common knowledge that for a marriage to work, both people have to be content. For that to happen, their needs and hopes have to be met, they have to be respected, and all of that stuff. If that doesn't happen, we'll hear stories of relationships slowly crumbling.
Today is one of these stories. In it, the woman was responsible for nearly every domestic task, but her husband wasn't, because "he didn't like it." So, when she nagged him for help probably a thousand times, he finally snapped and offered divorce. What he didn't expect was for her to agree to it.
More info: Reddit
To make a marriage work, both people have to put in the same effort, because if only one does — it's not healthy
Image credits: Curated Lifestyle / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
A woman always does every chore at home by herself and pays 85% of the bills, while her husband doesn't lift a finger to help
Image credits: Monika Grabkowska / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
One day, while she was prepping for Thanksgiving and doing all the daily chores, she asked him for help, but he chose to ignore her for the next two days
Image credits: Sandra Seitamaa / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
When she finally brought it up, he exploded and suggested that maybe they should get a divorce
Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Then, he didn't talk to her for another two days, and when she implied she actually wanted to go through with the divorce, he revealed it was just a manipulation tactic
Image credits: ThrowRABluffCalled
Still, she wanted a divorce, as his manipulation had made her lose all feelings for him
The OP has been married to her husband for nearly 6 years and they have an 18-month-old daughter. Yet, their marriage isn’t completely blissful. As she put it, they have been having the same two arguments for the last 3 or so years.
One of them is related to the couple’s intimate relationship, but since it is not important to this story, neither the OP nor we will discuss it further.
The other is exactly on topic — household chores and their distribution. Both the author and her husband work full time, but after work, she does all the chores and pays 85% of their bills, while he gets to relax and watch YouTube. Well, you can clearly see where the grounds for the argument come from here.
In this sense, their relationship is not that different. Back in 2020, it was discovered that when it comes to any kind of home chore, more women are responsible for them than men.
And it isn’t even the only research on this topic. Another report stated that even in 2023, people tended to value men’s contributions more at work rather than at home. Even in so-called egalitarian marriages, which are based on a couple equally sharing all responsibilities, wives end up doing more housework than husbands.
Just as the couple from the story aren’t the only ones without equally divided chores, they aren’t the only ones who this causes problems for. One study reported that the highest marital happiness was in those couples whose domestic labor was divided as equally as possible. At the same time, the unhappiest couples were those where a woman hoped for equal labor distribution, but her hopes weren’t met.
Sounds exactly like the OP’s marriage. The woman kept nagging her husband to help with cleaning, but he never did. This led them to the event that resulted in this story.
Last week, the author was running around trying to get ready for Thanksgiving. There was a lot to do — clean the house, wash the sheets in the guest room, clean the fridge, and so on—plus the daily chores.
Image credits: Curated Lifestyle / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
She asked her husband for help, saying she needed at least a short break and whether he could help. Since he doesn’t pay half of the bills, he at least could do half of the cleaning. This apparently insulted him and he didn’t talk to his wife for two days. Then, when she brought it up again, he exploded.
In his eyes, for the last 3 years, all she did was nag him to clean, which he hated doing. And if she disliked it so much, they could simply get a divorce. After that, he stormed out to his mom’s place and the silent treatment went on for another two days.
After those days, when they met again, the woman asked whether the man had begun apartment hunting since he had threatened divorce. This stumped him. Apparently, he didn’t actually want to get divorced, he only used it as a manipulation tactic to shut her up.
Basically, he is one of those people who thinks that the emotional rollercoaster of suggesting divorce in an argument is a good idea, when in reality—it is far from it.
The reason the OP had reacted this way was because she had an abusive childhood, and any kind of manipulation caused her to shut down emotionally. She has lost all feelings for her husband, so no matter how hard he tries, it doesn’t look like they’ll get back together anytime soon.
Still, she came to Reddit to ask whether her shutting him down was a valid response. Many folks thought it was. In fact, they suggested the woman leave her toxic marriage, as she is more likely to be happy without him than with him. After all, no matter how much she tried to make the marriage work, it simply didn’t.
Well, the way the situation looks from the OP’s perspective, divorce might actually be quite a reasonable choice. Granted, we don’t know the couple well enough to say that it’s definitely the best, but as people online have pointed out, it’s definitely up there.
People online agreed that her reaction was valid in such a situation and suggested that she should divorce him
