This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
"I don't understand women."
Whenever someone has an issue with an SO, then extrapolates that to all women... that's a red flag to me that this guy has a lot more misogynistic views just outside the frame of view.
It is unfortunately common. Pretty much all of the guys I know IRL complain about their SOs with "Pft. Women, right?" And I'm sitting here like... No? Maybe that's just your SO? Or just your SO when they're with you?
Women and men do have a different way of thinking the majority of the time. It's about learning to cope with and deal with the other one's feeling. If you want a woman, you have to be willing to deal with woman moments. If you want a man, you have to be willing to deal with man moments. Simple. Relationships cannot be perfect.
Men and women have tendencies and subculture, sure. But they're not mutually unintelligible if you make even a little effort to try and understand the other side as fundamentally human people. For example, by listening to them and taking their positions seriously (even if the specific situation does not call for believing every factual claim).
I think we mostly agree here, just with slightly different framing.
As an AMAB who is vaguely uncomfortable enough with the gender binary to use he/they pronouns but still presents masc in every context — I have met many people of all and no genders who think so completely differently to me it'd be better to use zodiac signs than gender markers to divide personalities (and no I don't think astrology is real).
What if they don't understand all women? Why do you extrapolate your personal experience to all people... That's a red flag to me.
This presupposes that men and women are fundamentally and irreconcilably different. I just don't think that's true, based on both my experiences and the psychological data I've reviewed throughout my life.
It is unfortunately common. Pretty much all of the guys I know IRL base their conclusions on experiences and the psychological data they’ve reviewed throughout their lives. And I’m sitting here like… No? Maybe that’s just your limited psychological data? Or just your subjective experiences?
And this case like most relationship issues comes down to insecurities and bad/non-existent communication. To which, let's face it, male socialization is a major contributor.
With stoicism and a fear of vulnerability, we're far too often standing standing in our own way.
That is unfortunately the tendency for men, yeah.
What a sad situation. I know a lot of people here think this is abuse and I can see their perspective, but I see this more as a relationship lacking communication. The wife didn't feel assured that her husband loved her anymore and the divorce papers were a last ditch effort to see if he still does. Sure, just talking openly would be better, but goddamn is it hard to find people who can do that.
I think the fact that she broke down and tore up the papers immediately after is a sign that she really didn't want to do it and was reacting to his genuine reply.
I think OOP needs couple's therapy.
"The bond is broken, I said!" You can't unspeak the words.
He should have declared it instead of just speaking.
So... if anon took those papers and just taped them back together, would they still be legally binding if submitted?
Would this depend on the jurisdiction/country? I've never thought seriously about whether tearing up signed legal documents constitutes a refutation after they're signed. (a pile of torn-up papers doesn't carry any proof of which, either or both, parties agreed to the tearing-up). And thankfully never been in a situation where this question would arise. Also assuming 'tearing up' wasn't enough to prevent taping them back into a mostly-complete state.
Emotional abuse detected.
I mentioned it in another comment, but I'll repeat it here: This doesn't necessarily have to be emotional abuse. It can well be a result of the wife being in a bad place, having little self-worth, and convincing herself that anon would be better off without her. Perhaps anon's response caused her to re-think and reconsider, hence the subsequent breakdown.
It is emotional abuse. Just like it's still assault if a veteran with night terrors gets a adrenaline rush while waking up at night and beating the wife sleeping next to him in his confusion. It is not intended, but the damage is done. And it's done by the veteran; or the wife in the OP.
The emotional abuse may be coming from a deep emotional wound, but it's on her to fix it. She gets to keep her shards, or attempt to fix herself. By choosing to not work on herself she effectively chooses to burden the people around her. And they have no obligation to keep her around.
I wouldn't want to stay married to anyone who would play these kinds of mind games.
To be fair, it doesn't have to be mind games, she could have been in a bad place and somehow figured out for herself that the best thing to do was to end the relationship, but realised that she was wrong. There are people who genuinely believe that they can make other peoples lives better by leaving them (a kind of "you would do better without me, I'm only pulling you down" mentality), that could do something like this not to manipulate the other person, but because they actually care about them, but are in a bad place themselves.
