PicoBlog

I have a partner who tries to insist that I do things the hard way, and complains about things like using convenience foods and the dishwasher.

In addition to the fact that he's an unpleasant cheapskate (way beyond normal frugality), it seems like there's a "keep the little woman busy" component to this bullshit. I will add that I work more than full time and am the primary household earner, while also caring for my child from my first marriage with very little help. In addition to divorcing him, which I intend to initiate within the next 12-24 months, I'm just very curious about this particular branch of the misogyny tree. Do other women also have this experience?

I’ve been writing this column for a little more than three years now. And the thing I find most striking is how isolated women are from one another’s experiences. Over and over, the feedback my readers give me is that they thought it was just them. And often, because they thought it was just them, they thought that if they threw another dozen years of effort onto a burning house, the flames would somehow go out.

As soon as women find out this is happening to other women—that other husbands are using the exact same scripted bullshit theirs are—it’s like the blinders come off. They finally see their marriages for what they are: tools of oppression. They see their husbands as patriarchy bots repeating what they’ve been told to think and say.

So yes, absolutely, other women are dealing with this. This is a combination of financial abuse—trying to control you through your money—and regular abuse.

This is particularly egregious because you are the primary breadwinner. What exactly is this man contributing? And how could he possibly think he has a right to control the spending when you are not only earning the majority of the money, but doing the majority of everything?

We don’t need to speculate.

He’s shown you exactly what his motives are: total control. He doesn’t want you to use a dishwasher! There is literally no justification for this except wanting to steal your partner’s time (and therefore their life).

A lot of the men my readers deal with are maliciously lazy. They don’t want to do the labor their partner does. So they pretend it doesn’t matter to them, in an attempt to get out of doing it. That behavior is abusive and manipulative enough.

But your partner won’t even pretend. He has told you straight up that he doesn’t think that he should have to do this labor, and that he thinks you should have to do everything in the most labor-intensive way possible. Where most men are merely ok with hurting their partners in service of their own laziness, your partner is actively trying to hurt you, for no reason other than his own maliciousness.

He wants a tradwife and a breadwinner, and he wants to give nothing. You are not alone, but that does not mean this behavior is normal.

It’s not clear from your letter if you have children with your husband, or if he is “only” a stepfather. If it’s the former, then his behavior is disgusting. Taken in context with his other behavior, it’s clear that he wants you to be overwhelmed.

But even if his stepchild is his only child, consider this: Stepmothers often perform significantly more parenting labor than their children’s biological father. In fact, several stepmothers have written to me to tell me that they’re shouldering the labor of parenting alone. Most of them feel guilty that they’re not doing enough, while their partners feel no guilt at all.

Your spouse married you knowing you had a child, and has taken on no responsibility for your child. What a clean demonstration of how little value the typical man in a second marriage adds compared to the typical woman.

Your child deserves better than a stepfather who doesn’t care about them. They deserve better than to grow up in a house where their mother is exploited, where abusive behavior is continuously modeled.

If you don’t share biological children with this man and you’re the primary wage earner, there’s really no reason to stay another second. You get one life. Why let him steal 12 to 24 more months of it? Get out. This will get steadily worse, as evidenced by the fact that he is actively trying to steal your time.

And if you do share biological children? Please still get out. See a lawyer today, and begin planning your escape. Your life is waiting for you.

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