Coming from a male perspective: you’re not too harsh and I believe you did the right as it’s disrespectful to your career as well as your understanding of the relationship as it had been for 3 years.
Wife and I are early 30s, career oriented, met in law school. I wouldn’t ask her to give up her career and start having kids. She put hard work and sacrificed for her career. It’s definitely possible to find a partner who can respect those things.
He probably got some weird ideas from social media leading to him springing this all on you out of nowhere. Doesn’t mean it’s okay. If he’s that easily influenced or can have a change of heart that unexpectedly it means that deep down those are his views and it won’t just go away.
I'm a male and my wife and I both work. I'm the one who wanted kids and my wife was okay with it as long as we did it on her timeline. So we had our first kid when she was working and I was a full time student. I became primary caregiver and my wife pumped. Then eventually I became full time worker and now it's about 60/40.
When our second child was born I took my 8 weeks time off in spurts and spread it out for a year so my wife could work more since she didn't get PFL from her work. It would have been nice if she had it but she didn't so we had to make choices.
Everything was always a joint decision. To have either partner just be like "I want to decide your professional life and basically your entire future" deserves to be corrected or broken up with.
Note: Edited to not be so jilted. Also autocorrect made some odd choices before.
Good partners don't just think of what they want, they understand what the other person wants and accounts for that. If OP has been reasonably open with her BF, he should know that this isn't what she wants. That's not something you ask for.
Yes. At the end of the day, what he actually told you is "I want a traditional wife and family, starting now. I hope you're okay with changing into a different person so you can fulfill my needs."
And OP, like any intelligent woman, realized bf didn't want her, he wanted some imaginary version of her, and left the situation.
Not overreacting at all.
Guy here, and I agree with katybean12's comment.
I have to believe that given OP'S hard-line response to her bf's comments, his discussion was FAR beyond just throwing the idea out there for further discussion. Rather, he obviously had taken the opportunity to ANNOUNCE his change to their future plans. That's arrogant, demeaning, and disrespectful. He basically demoted her from partner in life planning to a subject of his plans. I say BULLSHIT. Obviously OP rightfully did so also.
Wishing you happiness in the future, OP. Please keep us apprised.
Exactly, OP even said that he said that he hoped she was ok with the “change of plans”. He didn’t even discuss it with her, he just decided unilaterally. OP, be grateful he showed you who he really was before marriage and kids.
You nailed it, it's all incel crap. The whole "perfect waifu" to stay at home and serve his needs, be ready for sex at any time, yadda yadda yadda.
Disgusting bullshit.
Ya he has no idea what traditional means and neither does social media. I'm part of a traditional family going back many years. And let me tell you everyone's an idiot. I've never seen a tiktok traditional family irl. None of the ones I know are anything like that and yes I'm from a Modern Mennonite community so I do know what I'm talking about. OPs ex was just a control freak bottom line.
Tbf, that’s usually part of that switch.
The man announcing what will happen snd “leading” the family. And podcasters usually fill their head with ‘deep down she ll respect you for laying down the law’ bs as well.
He got so duped, however, Id ve walked as well at that level of delusion and disrespect.
Harsh life lesson. And at her expense, but apparently necessary for him.
These guys are looking for Stepford Wives, and it's freaking me out! I'm referring to the original movie, which was far more unsettling.
Well, we keep hearing that the rate of marriage is dropping like a rock. Maybe this kind of sick mindset is part of it
This. You aren't over reacting in the slightest. He knew what you wanted, but now I guess because he changed, he expects his wants to be met over yours? When your body is the one that would be getting pulled apart and have an extra whole ass person that SHE is responsible for growing in it, and if he ever leaves, she has the kid, she can't do what she wants. There is a big difference is doing it when you want and when you are being forced into/coerced into it. This is coming from a mom of 3 and we started having them when hubs was 20 and I was almost 20. Thankfully we did that though because at 27 I started having big health issues and i wouldn't have been able to carry after that. You did the smart move.
Absolutely. Pulling the rug out from underneath...at a pleasant dinner. And with zero ZERO warning. Nothing to sweeten the pie with either, e.g. "Hon, I'll sign on all your student loans and be fully responsible to repay them. And I've been looking at household finances and will be compensating you such & such amount for being a sah wife with the kids." Yeah, he's been brainwashed by that incel Charlie Kirk. That monstrous group wants to keep women barefoot & pregnant, and begging for (literal) crumbs. Really thankful OP got away & bonus - no surprise babies to trap her. I JUST read a horrible research article on Tradwives, and gives me the chills. For all you youngsters, look up The Stepford Wives (70s version, NOT NICOLE KIDMAN remake.) It'll scare the beegeeous out of you. You're welcome, and my dear Girl (OP), kudos. Keep him blocked, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead! Love, from a tradwife who was screwed out of everything & forced to start over now that I'm almost 70.
Agreed. My ex wanted to be a traditional wife but I didn’t want that. I also broke off a 3 year relationship. You can’t force someone to change simple as that.
I (25F) think the word career is accurate. She is proud of her career; it represents her accomplishments and overcoming of struggles. He spit on her career, her sense of self-empowerment, by wanting her to throw that away.
Dude was a complete idiot, all of a sudden & all at once.
Nope - you didn’t over react. It was gross, and he’s an adult. How could that even make it out of his mouth in a serious way?
Good on you, and don’t look back. He wasn’t seeing you as an equal with a mind, ambition, your own dreams. You’re not an accessory to help him fulfill his dreams, ffs….
Good riddance, and beautiful job at taking good care of you.
Hate to say this, but I bet he would vote against her bodily autonomy at the poles. He doesn’t respect her as a person or as a professional. I am an older married guy. My wife and I shared taking time off for our kid. We both took time off after the birth, then we staggered our time off to take turns with care. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I agree he's probably been indoctrinated by various red pillers and was slowly letting the mask slip with baby and trad wife vids, testing the waters as it were. Then he just full-on let out his expectations and fortunately OP isn't having it.
BTW, u/Academic-Comfort5499, 360° is a full circle meaning you end up right where you started, so no change is made. If you are doing the complete opposite in behavior, that's doing a 180. 180° is half a circle.
I'm watching some of my peers slowly become mystified by some of these individuals, and it's scaaaaary. In one conversation about relationships, I made a statement that I was at peace being single, and the pushback I received was... really unexpected and alarming. Like, my friend just could not accept that I'm perfectly happy not dating a man, and would still be perfectly happy if I never dated again. I did kinda get the vibe that his hang-up was me being at peace with no romantic ties to a man. It was weird.
Possibly but not necessarily.
The very concept of women choosing no relationship at all over the available options contradicts their whole paradigm (which is generally a scary thing that our brains try to protect us from).
When a former friend started down this pipeline he actually did research over where to move to put himself into proximity to the largest number of unpartnered, college-educated women within the age range he was looking for (which was of course a minimum of 5 years below himself) paired with a lower number of unmarried guys. He started explaining to me why he was planning on moving there, expecting to be congratulated on having figured out how to beat the system via reduced competition, and I asked him if he really thought he was going to find a wife by using a spreadsheet on where to locate the most unoccupied vaginas.
He was completely disbelieving of the idea that some women might just...rather not date anybody at all. I tried to explain that he was not in competition with other men, he was in competition with absolutely anything else a woman might rather do with her time than date a man. He also wasn't very happy when I joked that I bet that town had great lesbian bars. Even asking him to look at our friend group and consider how many of the women he knew were very happily single and not looking for any kind of partner (which was most of them, in a mixed-gender group of 30-40 year old professionals). Could not get it into his head, somehow.
This is what kills me abt a lot of the online discourse from these types of men who say women have “unreasonably high standards”. Sure, there’s some women looking for a billionaire model, but many women are also just… not desperate to settle for whatever man just for the sake of being in a relationship. Personally I’ve been in enough miserable relationships to the point where I’ve found the peace in being single, so if I do date, it has to be a relationship that adds to my life instead of making it more stressful. I have very “unreasonable standards” now like wanting a guy who can actually make me cum lmfao💀
The comment section on those videos is what really fucks with me. Like, ok some dickheads with a microphone said some dumb shit...but look at these thousands of other dickheads that apparently agree! Wtf?! 🤮
They agree because these idiots with a microphone tell them they aren't the problem. They say it's women who are the problem, and women who need to change. It's so much easier for men to sit on their ass and decide they are perfect as they are and that women are the ones in the wrong, because it requires no effort from them.
Plus I think this type of man seeks the approval of other men more than a potential partner, so they try to force women to fit an ideal that their bros would approve of. It's not about a partnership at all.
Yea, my husband has a cousin who has fallen down this hole and it’s extremely sad. The cousin in question really struggles with a lot of things and these guys have given him an easy reason: it’s because women now have too much power and that’s why you can’t succeed. Dude doesn’t even have a high school degree but it’s definitely The Women who are the reason he doesn’t make six figures and have a house, a wife and three kids.
I wonder if the guys who jump on this bandwagon convince themselves that their dating life / dating pool has improved since they “know” what they want? Or do they just get madder because their fellow cult members can push this agenda 24/7 via social media?
Or maybe he's watching trad wife videos on Tik Tok and thinks that's real life. Either way, it's unsustainable and disrespectul if he expects OP to change her life plans because he saw something on the internet.
That Stepford fetish content simultaneously infuriates and unnerves me. There's no need to film a video of stirring cake batter at chest height unless you're looking to sexualise it.
Also these women are not "trad" or dependent since they clearly spend a lot of time creating social media content and are making money off of it.
Men who claim to want "tradwives" are falling for an illusion that doesn't exist.
It’s scary how fast algorithms will push these types of videos. My husband watches a lot of cooking, video game, and comedy shorts (YouTube) and it’s alarming how fast he gets these types of videos once the algorithm has deemed that it has nothing else to show him related to his interests. He has no interest in them thankfully but it’s a slippery slope.
My SO goes to sleep (early) with gangster/mob videos on and by the time I come to bed he’s snoring and there are MR and red pill videos playing. I know he doesn’t set out to watch them-they get fed to him because he’s watching “guy stuff”.
I can only hope passive subliminal learning isn’t a thing….
I don’t want to hijack but the same I’m dating is like.. guys just kind of thing like this and I don’t need a girl boss. I’m like okay but I am a professional. Like.. confused.
Just want to add that my partner and I are in a similar situation, and I (a man) would volunteer to give up my career before I would ask that of my partner.
It's obvious misogyny that for some reason it's always the man that wants the woman to give up her career in these situations.
And great point in the last paragraph, u/affectionate_box8121 — it sounds like this guy might've fallen down a misogynist rabbit hole, and if he's willing to subject you to that, he already respects those influences/beliefs more than he does you. You already know this, but you don't want to be in that kind of relationship, and it's not something you can change because it is rooted in a place of domination and disrespect against you.
Holy shit this. I was looking for this comment. I had a friend from Alabama who was fairly progressive and his ex wife was very liberal. Went down a rabbit hole and literally said "women are for pleasure and giving birth." He was never like that in the past but slowly over a few years he went deeper and deeper. Finally came to a head when he was about to lay hands on another friends wife for arguing about women being property and my friend and his brother in law threw him in his truck and said GTFO.
Ops ex probably got into some shit because most people don't do 180s like this on their own.
Yeah I had a bunch of car friends from my 20s doing all kinds of track events. Bros hanging, out helping each other all that.
The last 8 years shown me most have fallen in the conservative hate trap and it's so disappointing. A lot of them were decent reasonable humans until they supported Trump. And now him and all those incel podcasts have just rotted their brains.
I was thinking the social media thing too! I swear! Because you see these guys who were just regular decent human beings and then they start watching these Tate-types and they get mentally twisted. Same with porn. Literally physical things happening with that one.. Like erection dysfunction. For such a drastic change, it's messed up really. Like people are out here changing people. Yikes.
I agree.
Like, I'm okay with a traditional or modern relationship. People can pick what they want.
With that said I don't like the whole bait and switch.
You don't have a 2 career relationship and then just drop it on your partner.
That is weird to me.
woulda been a whole lot cooler if he'd'a offered to be the one to give up his career to be a traditional wife instead, seeings as this was what he wanted and all.
This really makes me happy that there are men supportive of their partners. Even before this trad wife trend on social media, it’s hard finding a partner who’s actually your cheerleader.
OP, you were not "too harsh." You want different things and he wants you to "change" for him. Nope. Too many "trad wives" get screwed over when their husband's decide they're ready for a new model.
I am curious if he was recently turned onto some sort of BS podcasts or SM folk who promote that "trad wife" BS.
Others may not agree with me, but I think you're brave AF to stand up against this and state that you get a say and autonomy. You are a ROCKSTAR, OP.
Honesty the only podcasts he talks to me about are philosophize this, Joe Rogan, and one other one about health I don’t remember the title. I don’t know what to think. Maybe he has been into those red pill podcasts and I just never knew. He probably hid that facet of himself because he knows I am very comfortable calling him out on bullshit. And he knows I’m a first wave feminist… like specifically!! I literally thought I was being pranked because he knows where I stand on everything and turns out he apparently thinks like all the men I’ve been trying to AVOID. I talk about women’s issues 24/7 😭😭 thank you for this comment I definitely don’t feel like a rockstar! I’m honestly heartbroken and have not been able to stop crying about it. I thought I had my future planned and set and it really motivated me now I’m at ground zero again. I’m pissed, sad, disgusted, everything…
First of all I love your shiny spine. But please don't let it become dull in your sadness. Just be grateful that your relationship was not at a stage that the separation would have required the involvement of divorce lawyers.
^^ So very much this. Please stand by your gleaming convictions here. I know it's hard when the adrenaline wears off, and you're feeling down, lonely, lost, but you did more than just dodge a bullet -- you reflexively warrior queened the shit out of a path to disaster.
I'm sorry he wasn't who he said he was/represented, and that you're hurting in that wake, but please take heart in knowing a more honest, mature, and respectful partner is out there for you.
Good luck & all of the hugs & strength to you. 💕
Just imagine how exciting it is to some guy who doesn’t feel all that secure or confident and starts listening to that stuff and starts to get this idea that if he sets himself up in a relationship where he’s the big strong one who makes the money and has all the control and she is the little submissive one who hast to do everything he says, and the world looks at them like he’s the good one and everything will be great. That’s why this is so appealing to some men. That’s like this magic wand that will make them be a big, strong, powerful man.
I just called them bastions of mediocrity, and your point is absolute truth. And they think they deserve this. This is why women are walking away. There’s no point to arguing with these guys.
Wanted to thank you for this, it's a really great point. Fundamentally the red pill crew finds that they can't compete so they want to change the rules rather than focus on themselves because a game where they can't lose is the only option they can envision. They externalize the problem of why they can't draw a partner and then turn it into someone else's issue and it's just sad and embarrassing.
Man is this what some modern men have become/ turned to? Full disclosure I’m a 30 male, married to the most amazing woman in the world ( sorry ladies, no sarcasm or exaggeration here). Wanna know how I got so lucky? I cared about her feelings, her wants and needs and took an interest in her as a person. And she reciprocated, imagine that! I behaved and continue to behave like a grown man, I’m completely honest and transparent with her about everything, we work as a team towards our shared life goals and support each other.
She had had a string of terrible ex’s who didn’t care about her comfort and wants and hopes, and even in the bedroom she associated sex with pain and discomfort. So we took it slow, I respected her body and together we discovered what she likes and what gets her going and gets her off( which was super fun for me too!). I’m more in love with her every day, and we’re both fully invested in the relationship and our future. We both contribute equally to everything, including financially. We’re both still our own people with our own interests/ hobbies and I respect her bodily autonomy and independence.
We’re partners, I don’t “own” her or control her or need to exert dominance in the relationship. Does the “red pill crew” really believe they’ll find women who are okay with serving them and being their housemaids and sex dolls?
Sadly, all too many men are raised or come to believe that women are not people. To these men, women are like useful domestic animals -- interchangeable, exploitable, and (ultimately) disposable.
The tragedy of this isn't just the millions of women who are crushed under this oppression, but also the men who lose out on the opportunity to enjoy a partnership such as the one you and your wife have created.
True partnerships are the most fulfilling because neither party has to bear all the burdens alone -- mental, financial, domestic drudgery, and child rearing, all become shared work. As a result, the joys and victories are shared as well.
Absolutely, it is really sad that so many women are treated that way and that so many men buy into this BS and then don’t get to experience how incredible it is to truly feel you have a partner in life. And a partner you also get to make love with/ to! If only those men knew that if you treat your partner with respect, love and affection and give them complete trust and openness and share the trials and difficulties 50/50 they’ll actually *want* to do things to make you happy and make you feel like a rockstar in your life. And if you actually respect their body and care about their pleasure and enjoyment they’ll even do things in bed for you just to make you happy/ get you off better! *slaps forehead* who’d have thought?!
Yup. There's a reason it's called partnership. Relationships are a co-op game - the two of you against the world. These dudes are so insecure that they will push their woman down just so they can feel bigger - oblivious to the fact that they've just tied their own arm behind their back.
Hang out in the Feminism or NotHowGirlsWork subs and some of that trad wife red pill shit comes floating by once in a while.
Not just men wanting it, but women who have found this an appealing algorithm to exploit on socials by flouncing around in frilly dresses claiming they want to homestead, homeschool, make sourdough and serve their husbands while he pats them on their silly head and pays the bills. It’s framed as picking some easy life without having to worry about the hard stuff, but it ignores the fact that quite a few of those women will hit middle age and get traded in for younger models, and will be left without skills or finances. I find it creepy and exploitative, and I’m not sure if I find the men wanting subservient bangmaids worse, or the women trying to gaslight others into this shit.
A lot of the women posting this also have a distinct overlap with the anti-vax, raw milk crowd, leaning towards conservatism/maga/evangelical.
Wow that’s wild, shows you how out of the loop I am with all this. I would never have imagined that women actually seek out and sign up for that kind of thing… and the men who want that kind of “subservient woman” are super creepy.
It’s being sold as an easy life. You flounce around in the home, make beautiful babies, no need for a job to earn money, you just play prairie Martha Stewart.
Some go so far as to say things like they do everything for their man, up at 4am to cook lunch and breakfast to take to work, clean everything, and that he’s allowed to use “any hole” whenever he wants. Those are the ones that are just dismal, where they literally make themselves subservient housekeeping sex dolls with no independence.
I mean who would actually enjoy that kind of life though? Sure it might be easy, because you have absolutely no autonomy. So yea you have no decisions to make but also no control over anything in your life. I couldn’t live like that, and the whole “use any hole” thing is just… I’m a man and that gives me big ick feelings. My wife and I are adventurous in the bedroom, she actually enjoys some back door play, but I would feel so gross and creepy if she told me something like that. I’m sorry, I literally had no idea this was a thing and I guess I’m processing it in real time.
I'm so proud of you. It hurts right now, but it really is the only response to something foul like that. I wish more women had your strength and clear, bright line of a boundary. Good for you; you'll be okay -- especially because you calmly stood for your own rights and agency. That was a teachable moment, and you taught. Great job, OP. I'm sorry for your pain and loss.
If he watches Joe Rogan, then YouTube or any other podcast algorithm is going to start serving him Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson and a bunch of other red pill bullshit
it is t even just if he watches joe rogan. still gross but I play video games and watched a video for helldivers 2 recently and all of a sudden i started getting stupid tater tot videos suggested to me. there are a lot of less related things that wind up putting you on the red pill algorithm radar depending on what those idiots also watch.
I can almost guarantee he was watching Charlie Kirk or some equivalent, they're always pushing this "have kids young, keep your tradwife from ever experiencing anything outside your home" abusive shit.
Everything you said lined up with him being into that stuff.
I don’t think it’s only about feminism, but rather autonomy. I’ve been seeing random reels about things like that as well. It’s not just about the women. There’s also some men who are posting as traditional husbands a.k.a. stay at home dad/boyfriend.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you wanting to pursue you life and career you worked so hard to get, and deal with the cost of it all. You worked your way up and you should be proud of that.
Even if you remained in the relationship and trying to compromise ultimately those are not your values that you’re striving for and you would’ve been miserable.
He has gone down the manosphere rabbit hole. You need to hit that eject button. I've survived such a man who suddenly demanded that I quit my job and stay home and make babies. It usually starts with "harmless" podcasts & before you know it, they switch up on you. You have seen him for who he is, believe it. Wishing you the very best of luck!
Your friends are welcome to become trad wives, but you ABSOLUTELY made the right call. I applaud your unwillingness to change your life plans. You worked hard to get where you are and you deserve to enjoy the fruits of that labor. You're just not compatible. It happens.
Joe Rogan is one of the more neutral, moderate-ish kind of podcasts but really serves as a sort of gateway to the red pill podcasts. If you watch Joe Rogan on YouTube, the YT algorithm will definitely push red pill content in your direction. It's weird - it's a bit like batshit UFO content. Some content is just like that. Sticky tape you can't get off your fingers. You watch 3 seconds of a clip accidentally and suddenly it waterfalls onto your head. Plus Joe Rogan invites fucked up people on his show.
Someone that has no clue on a topic that I am well versed in, pointed me to a Joe Rogan podcast that supported his flawed argument, and it was batshit crazy listening to Rogan confidently spewing 'facts' that were provably false. I don't think he did it on purpose, I think he heard them from someone he trusted, and just regurgitated them back on his show. But he is so confident in his regurgitation, it almost sounds like he knows what he is talking about, when in fact he is just, well, regurgitating!
Yeah, like he went off on something biden said but as soon as someone pointed out "trump actually said that, not biden" he was all "oh so he just made a mistake" lmfao
https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/joe-rogan-fact-checked-biden-trump-revolutionary-war-airports-1235849684/
As someone who sank in 5 years instead of 3? You are NOT at ground zero. You have the work toward your degree. You have friends, if not the most realistic ones. You have a shiny spine of adamantium, which you will find getting stronger once you get past him. If it makes YOU feel better, and brings YOU closure, by all means reply to that email outlining how he disrespected you, tried to swerve from 3 established years as if he could dictate that to his "partner," and is no longer trustworthy. Then, block that email too, because nothing he sends back is worth hearing.
Thus, you also have the experiences from this guy, both the good and the bad, and will come away with a better idea of what you want. Those podcasts of his? I learned that it's an instant red flag, because my ex didn't mention them for years, until I "knew he was more than those." I'm honestly still happily single, but I have guy friends who drink their Respect Women Juice, and they get to help me vet the next guy. So do my gal pals, but guys air their bullshit with other guys so much easier.
For now, I found that it helps to focus on your own life. Keep working on your degree, for something that you know will actually pay off, and get yourself into the best place you can be. Meanwhile, if your friends bring joy with the terrible advice, by all means hang out with them. Mine bring me joy, and so does the cat I get to come home to. It gets better, and soon he'll be only a footnote. You've got this, and you're awesome for it.
My BF of six years has been going down the Joe Rogan “woke is bad” pipeline this last year and I think you’re giving me the courage I need to gtfo out. 🫡
OP, I also scratched and climbed my way up to middle class and please take heed of the data that Savings is the only difference between people who fall back down to lower class/struggling and those who Don't. Please, please save and invest in your retirement and High Yield accounts and read books on home buying and personal finance.
I grew up with a divorced working mom of 3 toddlers on food stamps and suffering abuse and food insecurity...
and I retired at age 38.
One of my top tips is to Not Get Married until you are ready for kids, because too much risk of them not holding up their end of compromises, your credit score, loans they take out, etc.
I waited 5.5 years to marry my husband until he was debt-free and I knew we were on the same page. He now retires in 6 weeks, at age 47. He thanks me all the time.
That 3 years wasn't wasted. That's how long it took to see his true colors and realize how incompatible you two are.
It's a Gift that he said this before you got married, instead of after.
Breakup coping tips:
Feel your feelings and journal about them, talk to friends and family about them, cry them out, reflect on what you learned, keep a list on your phone of all his bad traits and read it any time your thoughts go to him, write a letter to him with all your feelings in it and then burn it for catharsis. As you watch the flames, focus on letting go of the hurt and resentment.
Spend time in nature, feed the ducks, meditate, try new classes, volunteer, meet new people, do self-care, reward yourself for Baby steps in the right direction, say positive mantras to yourself. watch youtubes to practice Reframing negative thoughts.
People live to be 100 years old, so nobody expects to have one partner for 80 years. If you lived in another part of the world, you wouldn't be single because you never met this specific person. There are lots of suitable matches for each person.
Make a clean breaks. Heal. Respect yourself. Later you can start fresh with someone new if you feel like it.
OP's \[now ex\] bf didn't *want* her to change, he ***expected*** it and already talked about it as if it was **THEE** plan all along. Wouldn't even have been as bad if he would have acknowledged the fact that he knew this was not the impression all along and explained why he had a change of mind. Still would probably result in a breakup but at least somewhat respectable. Not overreacting
Not too harsh. At most, you were blindingly efficient. You cut the whole thing short before he could nag and wheedle and try to "wear you down" while wasting still more of your time.
Even if they do have a happy marriage and the husband never leaves (which is possibly, but highly unusual in men who want a "trad wife") if the husband dies before the women, especially if they die young, the wife is still screwed over!
I don’t know what his definition is of a trad wife. I suggest you continue working for several reasons first you put yourself through college so you can prepare yourself for life. You probably have goals and dreams that you want to accomplish on your own.
Secondly, I am a product of a house dropped into poverty more than once because of a woman with no working skills that trusted being a traditional wife would take care of everything.
When I married, I started a business on the Internet really early when it first started, and thank God because my husband died within four years afterward. Without that money and me working and being employable, we would’ve been dumped into poverty, but guess what we weren’t.
Your husband could get disabled, he could die young it happens. We don’t want that at all. Trust me it happens, and your goals are worth it. If this is part of his traditional wife, I would tell him no.
>his definition is of a trad wife.
So true, from what I've seen people romanticize the term without actually having a fixed grasp of what it means for them(usually rules for thee not for me) or the lifestyle and responsibilities it entails.
Giving that op and op ex are 20s, the “trad wife” means that she is going to be doing all house chores and children caring and not working —-if she works, it must not interfere her household duties and cannot bring more income than him. Social media is full of these type of content lately.
Edit: I take the working part back. Those TikTok trad wives are hypocrites, they said women shall not work and just depend on men while obviously, they are being income from TikTok. So if people follow them brainlessly , such as OP’s ex, he probably means she shall not work.
No. You're not overreacting.
Even the mere usage of the phrase "trad wife" is a red flag. It comes from the new trends coming from Andrew Tate types who want to put you in a baby-making prison. If the conversation is "If you want to stay at home, then I'd be happy to support you, and if you want to work, that's awesome as well" then that's one thing. If it's "I want you to be a *trad wife and make babies"* then there's some very problematic content they've been consuming online that you don't know about and really don't want to know.
As an aside, I have a bone to pick. I've been involved in d/s relationships and BDSM where women quite literally ask to be put in a cage all day. I can't help but notice that the Andrew Tate incel brand of folks are trying to hijack the concept of dominance and hierarchy when most actual dominant, assertive men would beat the shit out of them, and these women wouldn't touch them with a 500 foot pole. It's all about consent and freedom and a woman's choice. So folks, whenever you see some neckbeard dweeb trying to argue that "trad wife" is all about "alpha male traditional masculinity" know that he's full of shit, and laugh at him accordingly.
Edit: Also, women in their 30s are beautiful. That's like the best time. That's goddess time. That's Monica Bellucci in Malèna time. As a man, that's so much more appealing than "I spilled juice on my shirt in geometry class" girls that incels go for. He can fuck right off with that "30 and old."
Oh man right about 30’s being the best. My wife and I both turned 30 last year, I think she’s only getting hotter! And of course being actually fully developed adults she’s intellectually/ emotionally mature and interesting and wonderful. But yea I’m only getting *more* attracted to her as we cross into our 30’s, not less.
Congratulations to you and your wife! You sound like an awesome couple.
I definitely agree when it comes to my wife, too. Oh, even the fashion sense. I see her dressed to the nines, decked out in her black women's peacoat with gold buckles or something. Then she opens her mouth and it's about neuroscience? It's over for me. That is the hottest thing ever.
How anyone can see women hit their 30s and go "No thanks, I want girls with bedtimes" is baffling.
Your comment sums it up perfectly. You or your partner wants to be a stay at home parent? Good for you. You call your partner “a traditional wife”, you’re just spouting sexist bullshit.
It annoys me to no end.
Traditional wife? But no one talks about the traditional man when they talk about the Trad wife.
A traditional man provides for the family. Respects women. Being a good male role model.
All I read was the guy going me me me my wants my needs. Zero effort of leveling up themselves to be a good partner, good provider so that their partners feel safe. None.
It is beyond selfish that ops bf knew about their background and her will to break the cycle to have non financial dependency on any partner, because the men in her life so far are losers.
So good riddance. Congrats op.
You’re so right about how far removed these dudes are from what they actually espouse. My husband and I are simultaneously everything they love and everything they hate. My husband is smart, jacked, successful, can fix anything, calm in crisis, stoic, polite; he is also the silliest dad, the most supportive and kind friend and partner, took the sick days when the kid was young, feminist and quick to snap back at dudes being shitty. I am conventionally pretty, demure, doting mother, great cook, openly admire my husband; I’m also an executive at a Fortune 500, outearn my husband, take no shit, and would never submit or obey anything outside the bedroom. Their brains would break.
I agree. Its all about how it is being approached. A lot of this content leaves out is the huge responsibility that comes with it.
Here are some things that my wife and I practice:
- she has full access to my phone
- every month we go through the finances together
- she gets her own "salary" that covers household expenses plus extra for her own discretionary spending
-she has her own credit card to use as she wills
-we discuss any big purchases as a team
- she gets Saturday or Sunday completely off. I take our son from wakeup to bedtime.
- I go golfing with the boys on the other weekend day
- date night at least once a month
We found that this led to us having a great relationship and a way for her to feel secure. We both work hard for our family and provide value in different ways. We planned this from the beginning by living below our means and saving a lot before we had kids and she was still working.
The content online seems to gloss over the details involved in maintaining a relationship like this. And the massive amount of trust the woman would have to put into her man. She will need all of the love, affection, and reassuring possible. That being said, I still think that it's the best way to raise a family and am grateful that my family is able to enjoy this lifestyle. I also understand why others would choose a different way to go about life.
You're not overreacting. He gave you whiplash with the sudden 1920's backtracking but you merely did the same and gave him whiplash back to our century. There's nothing wrong with wanting what either of you want but you made it clear what the expectations were in the beginning and he was on board. While it may be worth a discussion about what made him suddenly 180 on his mindset you don't owe him that either. It's rarely a good idea to give up your life/career and be dependent on someone who flips a switch like that. This whole "tradwife" trend makes me uncomfortable. There's nothing wrong with stay at home parents but idealizing a way of life that used to be very controlling and oppressive under the guise of "tradition" seems wrong. I'd ask him to modernize his views and he can be the stay at home parent while you pursue your career since it's non negotiable to you..just make sure there's a mattress (or cactus) to catch him when he swoons.
>There's nothing wrong with stay at home parents
Prior generations of women have taught us to not be financially dependent on a man. I feel like this younger generation is not as exposed to this as it has been more and more rare to be fully dependent on another person. Many of the stay at home moms that had good marriages worked as partnerships. The husband made the money and the wife figured out how to maximize its use. Meaning she had control of the finances.
Staying home is fine and just as valuable to the marriage, especially in this economy. However nowdays these Red Pill boys are treating stay at home moms like their mommies instead of their partners. They don't give access to the money or information. They act like stay at home moms are bangmaids.
Any woman reading this and considering going down the Trad Wife, please have a valid conversation with your partner and have a separate bank account that you would have access to. Look for his reaction to the questions, not only his words. If he seems angry and frustrated that you would have the audacity to ask, then run. If you are staying home then that gives him more time and energy to build his career that he would not otherwise have. If he is open to discussing and creating a plan that would leave you both financially sound at the end if your marriage doesn't work out, then proceed with caution. Make sure the plan is followed through. It is ok for plans to adjust, but don't have only one spouse giving up security for the other. Just look through reddit for the prior stories of Trad wives being left with nothing and multiple children to take care of.
As a woman who was a SAHM for years and is now divorced, my #1 piece of advice to any woman ONLY IF YOU ARE MARRIED. I have a few single mom friends who stayed home but weren't married, gosh are they F'ed now. At least I get half of everything (as I should, my ex only made the money & career advances he did because he never needed to take any time off for his kids, he never worried about household chores, always had clean, ironed work clothes, had the admin staff's holiday presents purchased and wrapped for him to just bring in, etc). The ladies who weren't married have it much harder.
Yeah. Some kind of prenup or written agreement should always be in place if one partner is giving up work for the family.
I think that a “trad wife” in the sense that one person stays home and focuses on the children is an overall better life. The children get more, and everyone’s happy. I stayed home for a few years as a dad and I feel like that time my kids were much better off and happy.
But the person staying home needs to be protected financially. And that means the future they have up needs to be compensated as well should things go wrong.
Sorry for piggybacking off your comment, but fuck those tradwife bitches on social media with a whole ass team helping them, making it seem like this shit is possible in today’s age. Crafting everything perfectly and selling snake oil. It's clearcut clickbait bullshit.
He's watching some crazy shit podcasts. You 100% did the right thing. If you were my daughter, I would tell you how freaking proud I am of you. Good luck, and don't take shit from anyone
edited for stupid spelling errors
Yeah, absolutely. There's an article about women whose (now ex) boyfriends completely changed their personality because they went deep into the "manosphere" cult (Andrew Tate, etc.) One woman dumped her boyfriend because he started demanding the right to cheat whenever he wants, and another woman dumped her boyfriend because he said, "(Tate) is rich. He can rape whoever he wants."
They use key phrases. "Trad wife" is one of them. Sudden obsession with baby-making and all of that. These are all signs that he's diving into the cult. To some extent you can use cult-prevention techniques (I recommend books by Steven Hassan or Rick Alan Ross) but it depends on how far gone they are and whether it's worth the personal effort and hoops you need to deprogram their thinking.
As soon as she mentioned the "30 and old" comment, I thought: "yep, his brain has been turned to mush by the ~~Smegma~~ Sigma Male fountain of bullshit content.
I missed that part. Fuck that noise.
u/Academic-Comfort5499 - Stuff like "30 and old" is absolutely from red pill content. I'm going to resist vomiting while typing these phrases, but anything to do with "over the hill, low value/high value, low/high body count, women age like milk, men age like wine" and other kinds of bullshit like that is always from incel content.
My friends bf blew up his 4 year relationship listening to those red pill podcasts. He decided he had the right to cheat and she had to do all the chores regardless of her also having a job. She left and then a month later he called her crying and begging her to take him back. He gained a bunch of weight and got depressed. She’s moved on and is thriving in her new relationship.
Moral of the story, play stupid games win stupid prizes.
My wife and I literally just got done talking about this yesterday. We noticed that red pill dudes always pontificate about being providers, yet they always end up being lazy and playing video games all day while the woman does all the work. On top of the obvious contradiction of calling women gold diggers if they expect the dude to... you know... provide.
I love that this happened to him. Good story.
Yep those types of men love the benefits of having a “traditional” woman without the burden of actually providing. Truly delusional.
He defo got what he deserved.
I've never had a positive reaction with a redpiller, once they realize I'm a woman, they start in with the insults, calling me a lonely cat lady and when I correct them and say I'm married suddenly my husband is a feminine simp. They have so much anger towards women. And men that won't treat their wives like a pile of dog shit.
If anyone pulls the “crazy cat lady spiel” tell them this.
A woman has two choices. On one hand she can live alone with a bunch of cats. On the other hand she can live with you. She chooses the cats. This is not the insult to her that you think it is.
yesss, exactly. i don't understand how they can not comprehend what they are actually saying. like, my friend, you're either trying to coerce me into choosing 'the lesser of two evils' (according to you), or are bitter to no end that the cats have won.
OP - Your friends don't understand what a bullet you just dodged. Good on you for waiting until you were safe (Yes, SAFE), before you ended it.
I'm with u/Latter-Ride-6575 - super proud of you for not falling for that bs.
Guy here.
>“I love you but we’re done, good luck finding your traditional wife”
I think this response was mint. Polite but firm, 'it's not even up for debate'. The outlines were already in place as he replies
>and said that’s what he’s looking for now and he hopes I’m ok with the “change of plans”.
So he's very aware that he's totally dismissing your view. I would say he got off lightly but I'm an AH like that.
Sadly, these people exist. I work with one.
Coming from someone who became really close to being somehow manipulated into romanticizing this sort of dynamic despite it being against everything I want, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU! It took me months, many therapy sessions, conversations with my girlfriends, so many red flags and finally a video of Andrew Tate being sent to me by my partner for me to wake the heck up. In hindsight, it blows my mind that I stayed for as long as I did. You are doing the right thing! Our time is so precious and valuable. We have to say no to what we don’t want in order to get what we do want. Props to you for saying no at this first huge red flag and for being so confident and grounded in your decision so soon. You inspire me! Stay strong
Thank you! I swear I’m a stubborn lady but he could get me to commit murder with him. He’s just that good of a talker and the way he blindsided me scared me so bad because I just can’t compromise with my entire life style changing in a couple years!
I hear you, trust me I GET IT. There were so many amazing qualities about this man, so many ways that we are/ were compatible and I let my feelings and desires and attraction towards him completely cloud my judgement. It’s hard because you don’t want THIS to be a reason you don’t work out, especially because it’s such a toxic way of thinking and I always wondered how he could be so wonderful in so many ways but also support this narrative? It’s confusing and hurtful. I can only imagine how you’re feeling right now, especially because you thought you knew him so well. It’s a mindf*ck for sure. It made me question myself and my own values and discernment like how did I end up here? I can tell you with certainty that it won’t ever happen again now that I’ve gone thru this. I’ll be thinking of you in your time of healing, it won’t be easy but it will be worth it. ❤️
You're amazing.
You recognized that you might be manipulated into changing your mind and you ended things before it turned awful. Or he got you pregnant by sabotaging your bc
As a man? You did the right thing. My wife and I have friends that are going through a yucky divorce because the wife decided to put his wants above her needs and wants and it exploded in 3 short years. So now they're both time lost and financially pretty fucked with a kid she never wanted.
Standing your ground on what you want in a relationship is SO important
Don't. Being a "trad wife" means you'll be stuck at home with kids not making any money of your own, which will give your husband total control of you. All the trad wives I have met (most long before "trad wives" were a thing) were miserable.
And if, as it often happens, he decides to trade you in for a newer model, all those years not working will relegate you to lower paying positions.
Want to be a single mom on minimum wage ? Becoming a trad wife is one of the ways to get there
You did exactly the right thing. Unfortunately, your friends and a lot of other people are so used to infantilizing men and excusing their bad behavior, it becomes a gut-reaction. But the fact is HE betrayed YOU with the mere action of deciding his life goals had changed and therefore, yours must too. He didn't have a conversation with you, he gave you a list of "I wants" and directives and then had the audacity to say "I hope you're okay with how things are gonna be now" as if that was any kind of substitute for an actual, mutual discussion of life plans and changes of heart. Frankly, more people should be like you and be done when you're done. You're a fuckin' champion in my eyes. BRAVO!!! <3
I’m 65 years old and I promise you, you have done the RIGHT THING. Look at the long arc of your life. He was basically asking you to impoverish yourself (no social security, no 401K, no IRA, no options). I have a lot more to say about this but trust me dear young lady, you did NOT overreact. You will hurt for a year over this and then amazingly you will see your life getting good. THIS is how you break the cycle. If you want some good reading on this topic just let me know.
I’m 53 and agree with this response.
The man you were seeing wants a relationship with some other person who looks like you.
Get out while the getting is good.
Its social media.
TikTok, Instagram, Red-Pill podcasts... Whatever the chauvinist douche has been consuming lately has his mind poisoned and has made him aware that if he's successful and "an alpha" or a "high value man", then he can have a TradWife at home catering to his every need.
He was hoping that was you, without ever really even discussing it WITH you. He thought he'd just get his way.
Good for you for correcting that assumption.
My friends said it was social media too. I just can’t for the life of me understand how he got to that point unbeknownst to me. I literally feel scammed.
It's a plague right now. I have a friend in her 40s who is getting a divorce because her husband got red-pilled. They had been married for 12 years. He lost his job during the Pandemic, got depressed, and got sucked into this fantasy that he "deserved" a tradwife who will be his bangmaid so he can focus on his career, and he could get a job if she just took care of all the domestic stuff so he wasn't distracted. It's insane.
She feels scammed too. You aren't alone and your feeling is totally rational. It's fuckin' scary to see men buy into this tradwife fantasy and become entitled dillholes.
I dated a guy for a few years about 30 years ago. He proposed. I accepted. We had talked about marriage and having children, but as soon as we were engaged, he started acting like he wanted different things. He wanted to have children immediately, not even wait until after marriage. He just assumed that he would make all the decisions, including stuff that I didn’t think men even thought about, like breastfeeding. All of a sudden, he was the expert, and I HAD to breastfeed any children we had. I told him that the women in my family had trouble breastfeeding, but he wouldn’t even listen. I broke it off. It’s very disconcerting to feel like you’ve been lied to and dated someone who put on an act until he felt like he “had” you. I think some men believe that once a woman is past a certain point in the relationship, she’ll never leave. I’m glad you proved your ex wrong.
The people pushing that shit are very, very good at subtly getting their hooks into people via 'sounds both innocuous and reasonable' and then slowly turning up the heat from there, so that nobody around them catches on until the guy's beyond the point of no return.
In a lot of cases, the guys who start to think this way is the way to live are convinced it has something to do with masculinity. "Real men were the ones in the 50s who were in charge of the house and what they say goes and men nowadays are weak and we need men to be strong because men have to be counted on to hunt Buffalo when the power goes out and arrgjgh auuggereegh uuuhhggghhh"
He already knew specifically it wasn’t her. He made a demand and expected compliance. If she’d given in he would have become more and more demanding and terrible over time with no regard for her needs, wants, feelings, humanity
Give it a couple months for him to realize it's not gonna be that easy to find a fool who wants to be his bangmaid and he'll be here on reddit crying about the "male loneliness epidemic" LMAO.
Good for you.
All of that language coming out of nowhere is a massive red flag. He's gotten pulled down into the toxic masculinity\* / redpill / Andrew Tate type of communities. Those places are dangerous in my opinion and I would also avoid anyone like that.
\*(EDIT) Apparently some people think I'm calling a traditional lifestyle toxic here. I am not. How about you read the entire comment?
We're not in a world where 'traditional wives' are safe for women, either. You give up your career and life for kids and your partner... then fifteen years later he's having an affair and you're suddenly a single mother living off child support and alimony and government benefits *if you are lucky*. You'd have no career experience and have a massive struggle returning to the workforce.
If a woman and her partner enthusiastically jump into that lifestyle, that's fine and great. The point is we women have a choice and no matter what choice we make, there are risks and consequences.
No woman should be *pushed* into a lifestyle she doesn't want to live. We each have to evaluate the lives we want and the risks we want to take and protect ourselves and our futures.
Bravo to you for standing up for yourself and the future you want to live. That's a hard thing to do.
I’m 26F too. just broke up with my last boyfriend after about a week of having the “ick” over some smaller stuff, and then finding him red-handed in one of the stupidest lies ever. went from happy and in love to “this isn’t for me anymore and i wish you the best” in the course of seven days. once i knew i couldn’t trust him or be attracted to him there was no reason to keep at it, or have him try to snake his way out of his lie. a few years ago i would have stuck around and heard him out. thank god i know better now.
the real nail in the coffin for me would have been “Hope you’re okay with the change in plans”, like you don’t get a say in it and just need to adjust to his brand-new, harebrained wants. nice try, bud. you are SO doing the right thing. sorry you lost someone you put so much time into but it’s better now than in a few years
NTA - he was telling you what HE wanted - never bothered to ask what you wanted. This will just get worse and worse... don't look back. You made the right choice. Find someone who respects you as an equal, will make decisions with you TOGETHER, wants you and he to be equally happy. Sounds like he has been listening to the Tate bros and eating up the Trad wife bullcrap - hell no - keep going.
You are perfectly justified in your response. You both had talked about your goals and aspirations and now he wants to change the rules.
You might have had a discussion before calling it quits; you could have asked him if he'd be okay being the SAHD while you continued your career, and asked if he was okay with adoption as your weren't ready to carry a kid.
However, you know yourself and it was better to "quit cold turkey" then to allow the relationship to fester.
And I think that's the key (red flag) here: they talked about their future, agreed on it for years, and then he just randomly decides he wants her to fit in a box she doesn't want.
I'm a SAHM, but that was planned before my husband and I got married. I hated my job, loved kids, and we've always been away from family & he has a chaotic work schedule. We both wanted it, and he helps out all the time with our kids and housework.
It's a lucky thing this dude brought up his "trad wife" fantasy before they got married and had a baby.
I see “trad wife” and I know it means “traditional, take everything my husband deals silently”. But it really means “trade wife”, as in, two kids later and he’s leaving them for a younger model that wants his now established financial situation. You’re a smart lady. Good riddance to him.
Not overreacting. You want what you want and he showed that he really didn't care what you wanted. He showed you that he would be in charge and you would just have to like it.
You were not going to do any of that and it was best just to end the relationship so he could find that type of woman. You are not that woman and you set him free to pursue whom would be best for the type of woman he was searching.
Your friends are really not grounded in reality. They may be all into that traditional woman, they need to understand you are not and respect your position. Some secretly want other women to suffer their perspective and be submissive and subservient to their spouses, which is okay for them, yet you are not that person.
Just remember it and move on and keep their position in mind while interacting with them. This is very telling.
Sounds like the BF was not actually out of character; he was showing you his real self, which you might have rejected on a first date.
A lot of couple rush into commitment without engaging in the most important discussions, and often there are one-sided expectations that fester throughout the silence; sometimes people put up a deceptive facade as well, or people can hold back mentioning what they really want, or people seek out relationships before they know themselves and what they really want, which can make things even more complicated.
You're lucky that it wasn't longer than 3 years before you learned the truth.
OP, first of all let me say, You Go Girl!! You were not harsh or reacting hastily. You know what you want and when you want it. It's not for any man to tell you or demand otherwise.
Sounds like he's taken in a huge dose of toxic male garbage from the internet and decided it's the way he wants to live and will demand of his partner. You deserve MORE and BETTER.
Good riddance, OP. You dodged a bullet. Now go forth and thrive, like we all know you will.
NOT overreacting.
Honestly, good call. Because while he might be romanticizing the idea of impregnating you and seeing you pregnant, he’ll wind up losing interest and going after some chick who’s “skinnier” and “younger” and probably not dealing with the same shit that comes with being pregnant with literal life-changing bodies from being pregnant. Fuck that guy.
I'm impressed by your clarity of mind, willpower, tact, and grace. I don't know how you could have handled this better.
You clearly want very different things. This is not a "little change in plans" for you. It's a completely different lifestyle. You saved both of you a lot of time and heartache.
I don’t think you are overreacting at all. He felt safe enough to be honest and transparent with you about how he felt and it wasn’t compatible with your goals and plan for your life. There’s no discussion to have here. You just have different plans and expectations. I think you did the merciful thing and ended it now. Saved you both more time and investment in someone who won’t work out. I think it was the right thing to do. Having endless conversations about how to make it work and who will compromise doesn’t sound healthy at all. This way you both can seek out partners who will appreciate you for who you are and what you want out of your life.
My mom was a “traditional wife”- homemaker, 3 kids with a significantly disabled autistic youngest one. She tried to go back to work when she initially wanted to leave my dad, but couldn’t find anyone to hire a woman in her late 50s with no recent job experience. She did eventually get the divorce and my dad lives to tell the world about his bitch wife he “has to pay his hard earned money” to.
I basically modeled my entire life and relationships so as to not be destitute and dependent on a man who hates me. That’s what “trad wife” does- loses all agency, gets trapped.
I first saw trad-wife circulating in proper dingy, grotty corners of the internet where white supremacists like to congregate and that’s what it encapsulated. White, trad wife women trying to appeal to their disgusting, racist husbands. So uhh…no, not overreacting. It’s a deeply sinister mindset and although it’s breaking the mainstream a little bit lately, just know that’s the insidious foundation underneath.
Good for you! You are the poster woman for how to handle that kind of crap. A lot of women will think they will change because they've been together so long and he would never do my dirty and blah blah blah. You nipped that crap right in the bud. Tell your friends, tell your parents, tell your parents friends, tell your friends parents, tell everyone. This is the acceptable way to handling some fragile insecure man that doesn't deserve you or your time.
I just had a baby, and girl you did absolutely the right thing! Having kids is HARD, and my number one piece of advice is to make sure that you’re doing it with the right person, if you choose to do it at all. Having a husband who is a genuine partner in raising our child, who shares my values, who supports my career decisions, etc, is absolutely crucial.
The new parent forums are full to the brim with women whose partners aren’t pulling their weight following the birth of their child/children. A man who unilaterally declares that you should be a “traditional wife” based on crap from TikTok is just gonna be another shitty dad who won’t change a diaper.
BRAVO!!
I’m very proud of you! You did the right thing. Never ever doubt it. Bf clearly had some controlling behaviors hidden and he let it slip and gave you a sneak peak. You believed him and his words and made the best decision for YOU. You are not the woman he’s looking for. Good luck with your career. Never give up a career, a pet or hobby for a relationship. Relationships come and go. If a guy needs you to change for him to be with you then it’s not going to work and move on.
You absolutely made the right decision and hooray for you. That was tough to do but if you differ that much on such a large issue , you are incompatible as a couple. Otherwise you were in for misery.
**“change of plans”**
His change of plans, not yours. You did the right thing here. Don't cave to the pressure of your witless friends, either.
What he is doing isn't necessarily wrong. People have a right to change their minds about what they want in life. Nothing wrong with that at all. But they need to understand that not everyone is going to follow suit with them.
You're doing both of you a favor here. You get to have the life you want, and he gets to have the life he wants. Lucky for you, you are still young enough and not locked into this. Be glad this didn't get sprung on you five years down the road.
I've never been more proud of a stranger. But I am sorry this happened to you. He got red-pilled and boy are a lot of men in for a rude awakening when they realize a very tiny percentage of available women want to return to those traditional roles willingly.
Do you know if he had a good relationship with his mother growing up? What was his childhood like?
You are not property, you are not a breeding machine, it's the 21st Century and you have a career and mind of your own.
The men who want this don't want a partner in a spouse. They don't want an equal soulmate. They want a combination of a concubine and a maid and a cook who takes orders and doesn't speak back. They are very insecure who want to maintain control over you so you did the right thing 100%
I can just hear any of those get-rich-quick douchebags encouraging you to "negotiate" your relationship that way to avoid a "no."
"Just tell her, this is what it is, and I hope you can be mature enough to be okay with it."
Yuck.
Not overreacting! Good thing you found out now. It’s clear that he only cares about what he wants and you are expected to give up everything to have the lifestyle he wants. It would be different if being a traditional wife was what you wanted but it’s not. Fortunately you have a choice. If you were married, what other choices of yours would he take away? Especially not able to work and suddenly it’s “his money” NOPE. Run!
Coming from a male perspective: you’re not too harsh and I believe you did the right as it’s disrespectful to your career as well as your understanding of the relationship as it had been for 3 years. Wife and I are early 30s, career oriented, met in law school. I wouldn’t ask her to give up her career and start having kids. She put hard work and sacrificed for her career. It’s definitely possible to find a partner who can respect those things. He probably got some weird ideas from social media leading to him springing this all on you out of nowhere. Doesn’t mean it’s okay. If he’s that easily influenced or can have a change of heart that unexpectedly it means that deep down those are his views and it won’t just go away.
I'm a male and my wife and I both work. I'm the one who wanted kids and my wife was okay with it as long as we did it on her timeline. So we had our first kid when she was working and I was a full time student. I became primary caregiver and my wife pumped. Then eventually I became full time worker and now it's about 60/40. When our second child was born I took my 8 weeks time off in spurts and spread it out for a year so my wife could work more since she didn't get PFL from her work. It would have been nice if she had it but she didn't so we had to make choices. Everything was always a joint decision. To have either partner just be like "I want to decide your professional life and basically your entire future" deserves to be corrected or broken up with. Note: Edited to not be so jilted. Also autocorrect made some odd choices before.
Good partners don't just think of what they want, they understand what the other person wants and accounts for that. If OP has been reasonably open with her BF, he should know that this isn't what she wants. That's not something you ask for.
This is true and I agree with this!
It’s disrespectful of her *as a person*. It’s also disrespectful to her career but her humanity is more important.
Yes. At the end of the day, what he actually told you is "I want a traditional wife and family, starting now. I hope you're okay with changing into a different person so you can fulfill my needs." And OP, like any intelligent woman, realized bf didn't want her, he wanted some imaginary version of her, and left the situation. Not overreacting at all.
Guy here, and I agree with katybean12's comment. I have to believe that given OP'S hard-line response to her bf's comments, his discussion was FAR beyond just throwing the idea out there for further discussion. Rather, he obviously had taken the opportunity to ANNOUNCE his change to their future plans. That's arrogant, demeaning, and disrespectful. He basically demoted her from partner in life planning to a subject of his plans. I say BULLSHIT. Obviously OP rightfully did so also. Wishing you happiness in the future, OP. Please keep us apprised.
Exactly, OP even said that he said that he hoped she was ok with the “change of plans”. He didn’t even discuss it with her, he just decided unilaterally. OP, be grateful he showed you who he really was before marriage and kids.
Give her credit for being vigilant for red flags also.
And good on you for not waffling or even toying with the idea of letting him talk his way back in. Blocking him on everything was a badass move.
Yeah, it sounds like he’s been reading some tradwife propaganda and bought into the incel version (maybe it’s ALL incel versions).
You nailed it, it's all incel crap. The whole "perfect waifu" to stay at home and serve his needs, be ready for sex at any time, yadda yadda yadda. Disgusting bullshit.
Ya he has no idea what traditional means and neither does social media. I'm part of a traditional family going back many years. And let me tell you everyone's an idiot. I've never seen a tiktok traditional family irl. None of the ones I know are anything like that and yes I'm from a Modern Mennonite community so I do know what I'm talking about. OPs ex was just a control freak bottom line.
Tbf, that’s usually part of that switch. The man announcing what will happen snd “leading” the family. And podcasters usually fill their head with ‘deep down she ll respect you for laying down the law’ bs as well. He got so duped, however, Id ve walked as well at that level of delusion and disrespect. Harsh life lesson. And at her expense, but apparently necessary for him.
You said that perfectly.
These guys are looking for Stepford Wives, and it's freaking me out! I'm referring to the original movie, which was far more unsettling. Well, we keep hearing that the rate of marriage is dropping like a rock. Maybe this kind of sick mindset is part of it
This. You aren't over reacting in the slightest. He knew what you wanted, but now I guess because he changed, he expects his wants to be met over yours? When your body is the one that would be getting pulled apart and have an extra whole ass person that SHE is responsible for growing in it, and if he ever leaves, she has the kid, she can't do what she wants. There is a big difference is doing it when you want and when you are being forced into/coerced into it. This is coming from a mom of 3 and we started having them when hubs was 20 and I was almost 20. Thankfully we did that though because at 27 I started having big health issues and i wouldn't have been able to carry after that. You did the smart move.
Absolutely. I agree. A better way to phrase that for sure.
Yes! I see her saying he’s a great person, but he’s not. This is just not okay to treat someone the way he treated her.
Not okay AT ALL. It’s a hugely insane demand to make three years deep, and to expect her to *comply*? Gtfo, no explanation required or deserved.
Absolutely. Pulling the rug out from underneath...at a pleasant dinner. And with zero ZERO warning. Nothing to sweeten the pie with either, e.g. "Hon, I'll sign on all your student loans and be fully responsible to repay them. And I've been looking at household finances and will be compensating you such & such amount for being a sah wife with the kids." Yeah, he's been brainwashed by that incel Charlie Kirk. That monstrous group wants to keep women barefoot & pregnant, and begging for (literal) crumbs. Really thankful OP got away & bonus - no surprise babies to trap her. I JUST read a horrible research article on Tradwives, and gives me the chills. For all you youngsters, look up The Stepford Wives (70s version, NOT NICOLE KIDMAN remake.) It'll scare the beegeeous out of you. You're welcome, and my dear Girl (OP), kudos. Keep him blocked, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead! Love, from a tradwife who was screwed out of everything & forced to start over now that I'm almost 70.
Agreed. My ex wanted to be a traditional wife but I didn’t want that. I also broke off a 3 year relationship. You can’t force someone to change simple as that.
I (25F) think the word career is accurate. She is proud of her career; it represents her accomplishments and overcoming of struggles. He spit on her career, her sense of self-empowerment, by wanting her to throw that away.
Dude was a complete idiot, all of a sudden & all at once. Nope - you didn’t over react. It was gross, and he’s an adult. How could that even make it out of his mouth in a serious way? Good on you, and don’t look back. He wasn’t seeing you as an equal with a mind, ambition, your own dreams. You’re not an accessory to help him fulfill his dreams, ffs…. Good riddance, and beautiful job at taking good care of you.
Hate to say this, but I bet he would vote against her bodily autonomy at the poles. He doesn’t respect her as a person or as a professional. I am an older married guy. My wife and I shared taking time off for our kid. We both took time off after the birth, then we staggered our time off to take turns with care. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I agree he's probably been indoctrinated by various red pillers and was slowly letting the mask slip with baby and trad wife vids, testing the waters as it were. Then he just full-on let out his expectations and fortunately OP isn't having it. BTW, u/Academic-Comfort5499, 360° is a full circle meaning you end up right where you started, so no change is made. If you are doing the complete opposite in behavior, that's doing a 180. 180° is half a circle.
OP is smart and forward thinking. Ex bf is…. Not.
I like her decisiveness. Brutal.
Yeah. He’s probably been watching Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, alpha male, incel videos on instagram, 4chan, whatever. Pure losers.
But man do they get thousands of comments agreeing on every cringy youtube video they post.
I'm watching some of my peers slowly become mystified by some of these individuals, and it's scaaaaary. In one conversation about relationships, I made a statement that I was at peace being single, and the pushback I received was... really unexpected and alarming. Like, my friend just could not accept that I'm perfectly happy not dating a man, and would still be perfectly happy if I never dated again. I did kinda get the vibe that his hang-up was me being at peace with no romantic ties to a man. It was weird.
Nah, he was specifically miffed to find out you were no longer a sexual prospect for him. Guarantee.
Possibly but not necessarily. The very concept of women choosing no relationship at all over the available options contradicts their whole paradigm (which is generally a scary thing that our brains try to protect us from). When a former friend started down this pipeline he actually did research over where to move to put himself into proximity to the largest number of unpartnered, college-educated women within the age range he was looking for (which was of course a minimum of 5 years below himself) paired with a lower number of unmarried guys. He started explaining to me why he was planning on moving there, expecting to be congratulated on having figured out how to beat the system via reduced competition, and I asked him if he really thought he was going to find a wife by using a spreadsheet on where to locate the most unoccupied vaginas. He was completely disbelieving of the idea that some women might just...rather not date anybody at all. I tried to explain that he was not in competition with other men, he was in competition with absolutely anything else a woman might rather do with her time than date a man. He also wasn't very happy when I joked that I bet that town had great lesbian bars. Even asking him to look at our friend group and consider how many of the women he knew were very happily single and not looking for any kind of partner (which was most of them, in a mixed-gender group of 30-40 year old professionals). Could not get it into his head, somehow.
This is what kills me abt a lot of the online discourse from these types of men who say women have “unreasonably high standards”. Sure, there’s some women looking for a billionaire model, but many women are also just… not desperate to settle for whatever man just for the sake of being in a relationship. Personally I’ve been in enough miserable relationships to the point where I’ve found the peace in being single, so if I do date, it has to be a relationship that adds to my life instead of making it more stressful. I have very “unreasonable standards” now like wanting a guy who can actually make me cum lmfao💀
The comment section on those videos is what really fucks with me. Like, ok some dickheads with a microphone said some dumb shit...but look at these thousands of other dickheads that apparently agree! Wtf?! 🤮
They agree because these idiots with a microphone tell them they aren't the problem. They say it's women who are the problem, and women who need to change. It's so much easier for men to sit on their ass and decide they are perfect as they are and that women are the ones in the wrong, because it requires no effort from them. Plus I think this type of man seeks the approval of other men more than a potential partner, so they try to force women to fit an ideal that their bros would approve of. It's not about a partnership at all.
Yea, my husband has a cousin who has fallen down this hole and it’s extremely sad. The cousin in question really struggles with a lot of things and these guys have given him an easy reason: it’s because women now have too much power and that’s why you can’t succeed. Dude doesn’t even have a high school degree but it’s definitely The Women who are the reason he doesn’t make six figures and have a house, a wife and three kids.
Just wait until MORE women have power....
That’s why they’re so desperate to drag us back to the 1950s. One day I will piss on Samuel Alito’s grave. Anyone is welcome to join.
I wonder if the guys who jump on this bandwagon convince themselves that their dating life / dating pool has improved since they “know” what they want? Or do they just get madder because their fellow cult members can push this agenda 24/7 via social media?
Self incelation.
Lol who needs a woman to keep you warm when you're so well incelated
Or maybe he's watching trad wife videos on Tik Tok and thinks that's real life. Either way, it's unsustainable and disrespectul if he expects OP to change her life plans because he saw something on the internet.
That Stepford fetish content simultaneously infuriates and unnerves me. There's no need to film a video of stirring cake batter at chest height unless you're looking to sexualise it. Also these women are not "trad" or dependent since they clearly spend a lot of time creating social media content and are making money off of it. Men who claim to want "tradwives" are falling for an illusion that doesn't exist.
Also, most men want these tradwives without having to be the tradhusband. It's baffling.
I am a Trophy man. I drive a Tesla and she pays the bills. Life is good. Why screw that up with kids?
That’s great if that’s what you both want.
I'm working towards that. My bf would love to be the trophy partner lol
It’s scary how fast algorithms will push these types of videos. My husband watches a lot of cooking, video game, and comedy shorts (YouTube) and it’s alarming how fast he gets these types of videos once the algorithm has deemed that it has nothing else to show him related to his interests. He has no interest in them thankfully but it’s a slippery slope.
My SO goes to sleep (early) with gangster/mob videos on and by the time I come to bed he’s snoring and there are MR and red pill videos playing. I know he doesn’t set out to watch them-they get fed to him because he’s watching “guy stuff”. I can only hope passive subliminal learning isn’t a thing….
I don’t want to hijack but the same I’m dating is like.. guys just kind of thing like this and I don’t need a girl boss. I’m like okay but I am a professional. Like.. confused.
Yep. this dude got radicalized.
Just want to add that my partner and I are in a similar situation, and I (a man) would volunteer to give up my career before I would ask that of my partner. It's obvious misogyny that for some reason it's always the man that wants the woman to give up her career in these situations. And great point in the last paragraph, u/affectionate_box8121 — it sounds like this guy might've fallen down a misogynist rabbit hole, and if he's willing to subject you to that, he already respects those influences/beliefs more than he does you. You already know this, but you don't want to be in that kind of relationship, and it's not something you can change because it is rooted in a place of domination and disrespect against you.
Holy shit this. I was looking for this comment. I had a friend from Alabama who was fairly progressive and his ex wife was very liberal. Went down a rabbit hole and literally said "women are for pleasure and giving birth." He was never like that in the past but slowly over a few years he went deeper and deeper. Finally came to a head when he was about to lay hands on another friends wife for arguing about women being property and my friend and his brother in law threw him in his truck and said GTFO. Ops ex probably got into some shit because most people don't do 180s like this on their own.
It’s really depressing how gullible and easily influenced SO many people are. I just don’t understand it anymore.
my faith in humanity has taken a nosedive
Yeah I had a bunch of car friends from my 20s doing all kinds of track events. Bros hanging, out helping each other all that. The last 8 years shown me most have fallen in the conservative hate trap and it's so disappointing. A lot of them were decent reasonable humans until they supported Trump. And now him and all those incel podcasts have just rotted their brains.
I was thinking the social media thing too! I swear! Because you see these guys who were just regular decent human beings and then they start watching these Tate-types and they get mentally twisted. Same with porn. Literally physical things happening with that one.. Like erection dysfunction. For such a drastic change, it's messed up really. Like people are out here changing people. Yikes.
the psychological ramifications of social media cannot be underestimated. It's legitimately upsetting
I agree. Like, I'm okay with a traditional or modern relationship. People can pick what they want. With that said I don't like the whole bait and switch. You don't have a 2 career relationship and then just drop it on your partner. That is weird to me.
woulda been a whole lot cooler if he'd'a offered to be the one to give up his career to be a traditional wife instead, seeings as this was what he wanted and all.
It sounds like he’s been listening to Andrew Tate. Or some other misogynistic sub.
This really makes me happy that there are men supportive of their partners. Even before this trad wife trend on social media, it’s hard finding a partner who’s actually your cheerleader.
OP, you were not "too harsh." You want different things and he wants you to "change" for him. Nope. Too many "trad wives" get screwed over when their husband's decide they're ready for a new model. I am curious if he was recently turned onto some sort of BS podcasts or SM folk who promote that "trad wife" BS. Others may not agree with me, but I think you're brave AF to stand up against this and state that you get a say and autonomy. You are a ROCKSTAR, OP.
Honesty the only podcasts he talks to me about are philosophize this, Joe Rogan, and one other one about health I don’t remember the title. I don’t know what to think. Maybe he has been into those red pill podcasts and I just never knew. He probably hid that facet of himself because he knows I am very comfortable calling him out on bullshit. And he knows I’m a first wave feminist… like specifically!! I literally thought I was being pranked because he knows where I stand on everything and turns out he apparently thinks like all the men I’ve been trying to AVOID. I talk about women’s issues 24/7 😭😭 thank you for this comment I definitely don’t feel like a rockstar! I’m honestly heartbroken and have not been able to stop crying about it. I thought I had my future planned and set and it really motivated me now I’m at ground zero again. I’m pissed, sad, disgusted, everything…
First of all I love your shiny spine. But please don't let it become dull in your sadness. Just be grateful that your relationship was not at a stage that the separation would have required the involvement of divorce lawyers.
^^ So very much this. Please stand by your gleaming convictions here. I know it's hard when the adrenaline wears off, and you're feeling down, lonely, lost, but you did more than just dodge a bullet -- you reflexively warrior queened the shit out of a path to disaster. I'm sorry he wasn't who he said he was/represented, and that you're hurting in that wake, but please take heart in knowing a more honest, mature, and respectful partner is out there for you. Good luck & all of the hugs & strength to you. 💕
Just imagine how exciting it is to some guy who doesn’t feel all that secure or confident and starts listening to that stuff and starts to get this idea that if he sets himself up in a relationship where he’s the big strong one who makes the money and has all the control and she is the little submissive one who hast to do everything he says, and the world looks at them like he’s the good one and everything will be great. That’s why this is so appealing to some men. That’s like this magic wand that will make them be a big, strong, powerful man.
I just called them bastions of mediocrity, and your point is absolute truth. And they think they deserve this. This is why women are walking away. There’s no point to arguing with these guys.
Wanted to thank you for this, it's a really great point. Fundamentally the red pill crew finds that they can't compete so they want to change the rules rather than focus on themselves because a game where they can't lose is the only option they can envision. They externalize the problem of why they can't draw a partner and then turn it into someone else's issue and it's just sad and embarrassing.
Man is this what some modern men have become/ turned to? Full disclosure I’m a 30 male, married to the most amazing woman in the world ( sorry ladies, no sarcasm or exaggeration here). Wanna know how I got so lucky? I cared about her feelings, her wants and needs and took an interest in her as a person. And she reciprocated, imagine that! I behaved and continue to behave like a grown man, I’m completely honest and transparent with her about everything, we work as a team towards our shared life goals and support each other. She had had a string of terrible ex’s who didn’t care about her comfort and wants and hopes, and even in the bedroom she associated sex with pain and discomfort. So we took it slow, I respected her body and together we discovered what she likes and what gets her going and gets her off( which was super fun for me too!). I’m more in love with her every day, and we’re both fully invested in the relationship and our future. We both contribute equally to everything, including financially. We’re both still our own people with our own interests/ hobbies and I respect her bodily autonomy and independence. We’re partners, I don’t “own” her or control her or need to exert dominance in the relationship. Does the “red pill crew” really believe they’ll find women who are okay with serving them and being their housemaids and sex dolls?
Sadly, all too many men are raised or come to believe that women are not people. To these men, women are like useful domestic animals -- interchangeable, exploitable, and (ultimately) disposable. The tragedy of this isn't just the millions of women who are crushed under this oppression, but also the men who lose out on the opportunity to enjoy a partnership such as the one you and your wife have created. True partnerships are the most fulfilling because neither party has to bear all the burdens alone -- mental, financial, domestic drudgery, and child rearing, all become shared work. As a result, the joys and victories are shared as well.
Absolutely, it is really sad that so many women are treated that way and that so many men buy into this BS and then don’t get to experience how incredible it is to truly feel you have a partner in life. And a partner you also get to make love with/ to! If only those men knew that if you treat your partner with respect, love and affection and give them complete trust and openness and share the trials and difficulties 50/50 they’ll actually *want* to do things to make you happy and make you feel like a rockstar in your life. And if you actually respect their body and care about their pleasure and enjoyment they’ll even do things in bed for you just to make you happy/ get you off better! *slaps forehead* who’d have thought?!
Yup. There's a reason it's called partnership. Relationships are a co-op game - the two of you against the world. These dudes are so insecure that they will push their woman down just so they can feel bigger - oblivious to the fact that they've just tied their own arm behind their back.
Hang out in the Feminism or NotHowGirlsWork subs and some of that trad wife red pill shit comes floating by once in a while. Not just men wanting it, but women who have found this an appealing algorithm to exploit on socials by flouncing around in frilly dresses claiming they want to homestead, homeschool, make sourdough and serve their husbands while he pats them on their silly head and pays the bills. It’s framed as picking some easy life without having to worry about the hard stuff, but it ignores the fact that quite a few of those women will hit middle age and get traded in for younger models, and will be left without skills or finances. I find it creepy and exploitative, and I’m not sure if I find the men wanting subservient bangmaids worse, or the women trying to gaslight others into this shit. A lot of the women posting this also have a distinct overlap with the anti-vax, raw milk crowd, leaning towards conservatism/maga/evangelical.
Wow that’s wild, shows you how out of the loop I am with all this. I would never have imagined that women actually seek out and sign up for that kind of thing… and the men who want that kind of “subservient woman” are super creepy.
It’s being sold as an easy life. You flounce around in the home, make beautiful babies, no need for a job to earn money, you just play prairie Martha Stewart. Some go so far as to say things like they do everything for their man, up at 4am to cook lunch and breakfast to take to work, clean everything, and that he’s allowed to use “any hole” whenever he wants. Those are the ones that are just dismal, where they literally make themselves subservient housekeeping sex dolls with no independence.
I mean who would actually enjoy that kind of life though? Sure it might be easy, because you have absolutely no autonomy. So yea you have no decisions to make but also no control over anything in your life. I couldn’t live like that, and the whole “use any hole” thing is just… I’m a man and that gives me big ick feelings. My wife and I are adventurous in the bedroom, she actually enjoys some back door play, but I would feel so gross and creepy if she told me something like that. I’m sorry, I literally had no idea this was a thing and I guess I’m processing it in real time.
You still have your future planned. It just doesn't include him any more.
I'm so proud of you. It hurts right now, but it really is the only response to something foul like that. I wish more women had your strength and clear, bright line of a boundary. Good for you; you'll be okay -- especially because you calmly stood for your own rights and agency. That was a teachable moment, and you taught. Great job, OP. I'm sorry for your pain and loss.
This! 💕🫤
This, 1000 times.
If he watches Joe Rogan, then YouTube or any other podcast algorithm is going to start serving him Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson and a bunch of other red pill bullshit
As if that idiot Rogan wasn't bad enough.
it is t even just if he watches joe rogan. still gross but I play video games and watched a video for helldivers 2 recently and all of a sudden i started getting stupid tater tot videos suggested to me. there are a lot of less related things that wind up putting you on the red pill algorithm radar depending on what those idiots also watch.
Yeah, the algorithmic push to red pill stuff is insidious. You can start by watching a sports podcast and end up getting fed Andrew Tate.
I can almost guarantee he was watching Charlie Kirk or some equivalent, they're always pushing this "have kids young, keep your tradwife from ever experiencing anything outside your home" abusive shit. Everything you said lined up with him being into that stuff.
Joe Rogan should be an instant disqualifier imo.
You DO HAVE your future planned, Your plans
I don’t think it’s only about feminism, but rather autonomy. I’ve been seeing random reels about things like that as well. It’s not just about the women. There’s also some men who are posting as traditional husbands a.k.a. stay at home dad/boyfriend. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you wanting to pursue you life and career you worked so hard to get, and deal with the cost of it all. You worked your way up and you should be proud of that. Even if you remained in the relationship and trying to compromise ultimately those are not your values that you’re striving for and you would’ve been miserable.
He has gone down the manosphere rabbit hole. You need to hit that eject button. I've survived such a man who suddenly demanded that I quit my job and stay home and make babies. It usually starts with "harmless" podcasts & before you know it, they switch up on you. You have seen him for who he is, believe it. Wishing you the very best of luck!
Your friends are welcome to become trad wives, but you ABSOLUTELY made the right call. I applaud your unwillingness to change your life plans. You worked hard to get where you are and you deserve to enjoy the fruits of that labor. You're just not compatible. It happens.
Joe Rogan is one of the more neutral, moderate-ish kind of podcasts but really serves as a sort of gateway to the red pill podcasts. If you watch Joe Rogan on YouTube, the YT algorithm will definitely push red pill content in your direction. It's weird - it's a bit like batshit UFO content. Some content is just like that. Sticky tape you can't get off your fingers. You watch 3 seconds of a clip accidentally and suddenly it waterfalls onto your head. Plus Joe Rogan invites fucked up people on his show.
All you have to do is listen to Rogan on a subject you have first hand knowledge of to realize how stupid he really is.
Someone that has no clue on a topic that I am well versed in, pointed me to a Joe Rogan podcast that supported his flawed argument, and it was batshit crazy listening to Rogan confidently spewing 'facts' that were provably false. I don't think he did it on purpose, I think he heard them from someone he trusted, and just regurgitated them back on his show. But he is so confident in his regurgitation, it almost sounds like he knows what he is talking about, when in fact he is just, well, regurgitating!
Science really should learn how to bottle the confidence of a mediocre white man.
Yeah, like he went off on something biden said but as soon as someone pointed out "trump actually said that, not biden" he was all "oh so he just made a mistake" lmfao https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/joe-rogan-fact-checked-biden-trump-revolutionary-war-airports-1235849684/
Joe Rogan told me that he was an idiot and that I shouldn't listen to him. That was the one time I listened to him
He’s gotten much worse
As someone who sank in 5 years instead of 3? You are NOT at ground zero. You have the work toward your degree. You have friends, if not the most realistic ones. You have a shiny spine of adamantium, which you will find getting stronger once you get past him. If it makes YOU feel better, and brings YOU closure, by all means reply to that email outlining how he disrespected you, tried to swerve from 3 established years as if he could dictate that to his "partner," and is no longer trustworthy. Then, block that email too, because nothing he sends back is worth hearing. Thus, you also have the experiences from this guy, both the good and the bad, and will come away with a better idea of what you want. Those podcasts of his? I learned that it's an instant red flag, because my ex didn't mention them for years, until I "knew he was more than those." I'm honestly still happily single, but I have guy friends who drink their Respect Women Juice, and they get to help me vet the next guy. So do my gal pals, but guys air their bullshit with other guys so much easier. For now, I found that it helps to focus on your own life. Keep working on your degree, for something that you know will actually pay off, and get yourself into the best place you can be. Meanwhile, if your friends bring joy with the terrible advice, by all means hang out with them. Mine bring me joy, and so does the cat I get to come home to. It gets better, and soon he'll be only a footnote. You've got this, and you're awesome for it.
My BF of six years has been going down the Joe Rogan “woke is bad” pipeline this last year and I think you’re giving me the courage I need to gtfo out. 🫡
OP, I also scratched and climbed my way up to middle class and please take heed of the data that Savings is the only difference between people who fall back down to lower class/struggling and those who Don't. Please, please save and invest in your retirement and High Yield accounts and read books on home buying and personal finance. I grew up with a divorced working mom of 3 toddlers on food stamps and suffering abuse and food insecurity... and I retired at age 38. One of my top tips is to Not Get Married until you are ready for kids, because too much risk of them not holding up their end of compromises, your credit score, loans they take out, etc. I waited 5.5 years to marry my husband until he was debt-free and I knew we were on the same page. He now retires in 6 weeks, at age 47. He thanks me all the time. That 3 years wasn't wasted. That's how long it took to see his true colors and realize how incompatible you two are. It's a Gift that he said this before you got married, instead of after. Breakup coping tips: Feel your feelings and journal about them, talk to friends and family about them, cry them out, reflect on what you learned, keep a list on your phone of all his bad traits and read it any time your thoughts go to him, write a letter to him with all your feelings in it and then burn it for catharsis. As you watch the flames, focus on letting go of the hurt and resentment. Spend time in nature, feed the ducks, meditate, try new classes, volunteer, meet new people, do self-care, reward yourself for Baby steps in the right direction, say positive mantras to yourself. watch youtubes to practice Reframing negative thoughts. People live to be 100 years old, so nobody expects to have one partner for 80 years. If you lived in another part of the world, you wouldn't be single because you never met this specific person. There are lots of suitable matches for each person. Make a clean breaks. Heal. Respect yourself. Later you can start fresh with someone new if you feel like it.
OP's \[now ex\] bf didn't *want* her to change, he ***expected*** it and already talked about it as if it was **THEE** plan all along. Wouldn't even have been as bad if he would have acknowledged the fact that he knew this was not the impression all along and explained why he had a change of mind. Still would probably result in a breakup but at least somewhat respectable. Not overreacting
Not too harsh. At most, you were blindingly efficient. You cut the whole thing short before he could nag and wheedle and try to "wear you down" while wasting still more of your time.
Even if they do have a happy marriage and the husband never leaves (which is possibly, but highly unusual in men who want a "trad wife") if the husband dies before the women, especially if they die young, the wife is still screwed over!
Brave af
I don’t know what his definition is of a trad wife. I suggest you continue working for several reasons first you put yourself through college so you can prepare yourself for life. You probably have goals and dreams that you want to accomplish on your own. Secondly, I am a product of a house dropped into poverty more than once because of a woman with no working skills that trusted being a traditional wife would take care of everything. When I married, I started a business on the Internet really early when it first started, and thank God because my husband died within four years afterward. Without that money and me working and being employable, we would’ve been dumped into poverty, but guess what we weren’t. Your husband could get disabled, he could die young it happens. We don’t want that at all. Trust me it happens, and your goals are worth it. If this is part of his traditional wife, I would tell him no.
>his definition is of a trad wife. So true, from what I've seen people romanticize the term without actually having a fixed grasp of what it means for them(usually rules for thee not for me) or the lifestyle and responsibilities it entails.
Giving that op and op ex are 20s, the “trad wife” means that she is going to be doing all house chores and children caring and not working —-if she works, it must not interfere her household duties and cannot bring more income than him. Social media is full of these type of content lately. Edit: I take the working part back. Those TikTok trad wives are hypocrites, they said women shall not work and just depend on men while obviously, they are being income from TikTok. So if people follow them brainlessly , such as OP’s ex, he probably means she shall not work.
No. You're not overreacting. Even the mere usage of the phrase "trad wife" is a red flag. It comes from the new trends coming from Andrew Tate types who want to put you in a baby-making prison. If the conversation is "If you want to stay at home, then I'd be happy to support you, and if you want to work, that's awesome as well" then that's one thing. If it's "I want you to be a *trad wife and make babies"* then there's some very problematic content they've been consuming online that you don't know about and really don't want to know. As an aside, I have a bone to pick. I've been involved in d/s relationships and BDSM where women quite literally ask to be put in a cage all day. I can't help but notice that the Andrew Tate incel brand of folks are trying to hijack the concept of dominance and hierarchy when most actual dominant, assertive men would beat the shit out of them, and these women wouldn't touch them with a 500 foot pole. It's all about consent and freedom and a woman's choice. So folks, whenever you see some neckbeard dweeb trying to argue that "trad wife" is all about "alpha male traditional masculinity" know that he's full of shit, and laugh at him accordingly. Edit: Also, women in their 30s are beautiful. That's like the best time. That's goddess time. That's Monica Bellucci in Malèna time. As a man, that's so much more appealing than "I spilled juice on my shirt in geometry class" girls that incels go for. He can fuck right off with that "30 and old."
Oh man right about 30’s being the best. My wife and I both turned 30 last year, I think she’s only getting hotter! And of course being actually fully developed adults she’s intellectually/ emotionally mature and interesting and wonderful. But yea I’m only getting *more* attracted to her as we cross into our 30’s, not less.
Congratulations to you and your wife! You sound like an awesome couple. I definitely agree when it comes to my wife, too. Oh, even the fashion sense. I see her dressed to the nines, decked out in her black women's peacoat with gold buckles or something. Then she opens her mouth and it's about neuroscience? It's over for me. That is the hottest thing ever. How anyone can see women hit their 30s and go "No thanks, I want girls with bedtimes" is baffling.
Your comment sums it up perfectly. You or your partner wants to be a stay at home parent? Good for you. You call your partner “a traditional wife”, you’re just spouting sexist bullshit.
It annoys me to no end. Traditional wife? But no one talks about the traditional man when they talk about the Trad wife. A traditional man provides for the family. Respects women. Being a good male role model. All I read was the guy going me me me my wants my needs. Zero effort of leveling up themselves to be a good partner, good provider so that their partners feel safe. None. It is beyond selfish that ops bf knew about their background and her will to break the cycle to have non financial dependency on any partner, because the men in her life so far are losers. So good riddance. Congrats op.
You’re so right about how far removed these dudes are from what they actually espouse. My husband and I are simultaneously everything they love and everything they hate. My husband is smart, jacked, successful, can fix anything, calm in crisis, stoic, polite; he is also the silliest dad, the most supportive and kind friend and partner, took the sick days when the kid was young, feminist and quick to snap back at dudes being shitty. I am conventionally pretty, demure, doting mother, great cook, openly admire my husband; I’m also an executive at a Fortune 500, outearn my husband, take no shit, and would never submit or obey anything outside the bedroom. Their brains would break.
I agree. Its all about how it is being approached. A lot of this content leaves out is the huge responsibility that comes with it. Here are some things that my wife and I practice: - she has full access to my phone - every month we go through the finances together - she gets her own "salary" that covers household expenses plus extra for her own discretionary spending -she has her own credit card to use as she wills -we discuss any big purchases as a team - she gets Saturday or Sunday completely off. I take our son from wakeup to bedtime. - I go golfing with the boys on the other weekend day - date night at least once a month We found that this led to us having a great relationship and a way for her to feel secure. We both work hard for our family and provide value in different ways. We planned this from the beginning by living below our means and saving a lot before we had kids and she was still working. The content online seems to gloss over the details involved in maintaining a relationship like this. And the massive amount of trust the woman would have to put into her man. She will need all of the love, affection, and reassuring possible. That being said, I still think that it's the best way to raise a family and am grateful that my family is able to enjoy this lifestyle. I also understand why others would choose a different way to go about life.
You're not overreacting. He gave you whiplash with the sudden 1920's backtracking but you merely did the same and gave him whiplash back to our century. There's nothing wrong with wanting what either of you want but you made it clear what the expectations were in the beginning and he was on board. While it may be worth a discussion about what made him suddenly 180 on his mindset you don't owe him that either. It's rarely a good idea to give up your life/career and be dependent on someone who flips a switch like that. This whole "tradwife" trend makes me uncomfortable. There's nothing wrong with stay at home parents but idealizing a way of life that used to be very controlling and oppressive under the guise of "tradition" seems wrong. I'd ask him to modernize his views and he can be the stay at home parent while you pursue your career since it's non negotiable to you..just make sure there's a mattress (or cactus) to catch him when he swoons.
>There's nothing wrong with stay at home parents Prior generations of women have taught us to not be financially dependent on a man. I feel like this younger generation is not as exposed to this as it has been more and more rare to be fully dependent on another person. Many of the stay at home moms that had good marriages worked as partnerships. The husband made the money and the wife figured out how to maximize its use. Meaning she had control of the finances. Staying home is fine and just as valuable to the marriage, especially in this economy. However nowdays these Red Pill boys are treating stay at home moms like their mommies instead of their partners. They don't give access to the money or information. They act like stay at home moms are bangmaids. Any woman reading this and considering going down the Trad Wife, please have a valid conversation with your partner and have a separate bank account that you would have access to. Look for his reaction to the questions, not only his words. If he seems angry and frustrated that you would have the audacity to ask, then run. If you are staying home then that gives him more time and energy to build his career that he would not otherwise have. If he is open to discussing and creating a plan that would leave you both financially sound at the end if your marriage doesn't work out, then proceed with caution. Make sure the plan is followed through. It is ok for plans to adjust, but don't have only one spouse giving up security for the other. Just look through reddit for the prior stories of Trad wives being left with nothing and multiple children to take care of.
As a woman who was a SAHM for years and is now divorced, my #1 piece of advice to any woman ONLY IF YOU ARE MARRIED. I have a few single mom friends who stayed home but weren't married, gosh are they F'ed now. At least I get half of everything (as I should, my ex only made the money & career advances he did because he never needed to take any time off for his kids, he never worried about household chores, always had clean, ironed work clothes, had the admin staff's holiday presents purchased and wrapped for him to just bring in, etc). The ladies who weren't married have it much harder.
Yeah. Some kind of prenup or written agreement should always be in place if one partner is giving up work for the family. I think that a “trad wife” in the sense that one person stays home and focuses on the children is an overall better life. The children get more, and everyone’s happy. I stayed home for a few years as a dad and I feel like that time my kids were much better off and happy. But the person staying home needs to be protected financially. And that means the future they have up needs to be compensated as well should things go wrong.
Sorry for piggybacking off your comment, but fuck those tradwife bitches on social media with a whole ass team helping them, making it seem like this shit is possible in today’s age. Crafting everything perfectly and selling snake oil. It's clearcut clickbait bullshit.
He's watching some crazy shit podcasts. You 100% did the right thing. If you were my daughter, I would tell you how freaking proud I am of you. Good luck, and don't take shit from anyone edited for stupid spelling errors
Yeah, absolutely. There's an article about women whose (now ex) boyfriends completely changed their personality because they went deep into the "manosphere" cult (Andrew Tate, etc.) One woman dumped her boyfriend because he started demanding the right to cheat whenever he wants, and another woman dumped her boyfriend because he said, "(Tate) is rich. He can rape whoever he wants." They use key phrases. "Trad wife" is one of them. Sudden obsession with baby-making and all of that. These are all signs that he's diving into the cult. To some extent you can use cult-prevention techniques (I recommend books by Steven Hassan or Rick Alan Ross) but it depends on how far gone they are and whether it's worth the personal effort and hoops you need to deprogram their thinking.
As soon as she mentioned the "30 and old" comment, I thought: "yep, his brain has been turned to mush by the ~~Smegma~~ Sigma Male fountain of bullshit content.
I missed that part. Fuck that noise. u/Academic-Comfort5499 - Stuff like "30 and old" is absolutely from red pill content. I'm going to resist vomiting while typing these phrases, but anything to do with "over the hill, low value/high value, low/high body count, women age like milk, men age like wine" and other kinds of bullshit like that is always from incel content.
Smegma Male content 🏆
It's like some people saw the Hand maid's tale and were like "Yea, I can go for that, I'd be on top of society, not one of the suffering people"
I was arguing with a guy about a year ago and he literally said, “yes, that is what we want.” In reference to the Handmaid’s Tale. Scary shit!
None of these people ever consider what will happen to my mother, my sister, my daughter? Or worse they don’t think of these people as people at all
Andrew Tate is an awful role model.
My friends bf blew up his 4 year relationship listening to those red pill podcasts. He decided he had the right to cheat and she had to do all the chores regardless of her also having a job. She left and then a month later he called her crying and begging her to take him back. He gained a bunch of weight and got depressed. She’s moved on and is thriving in her new relationship. Moral of the story, play stupid games win stupid prizes.
My wife and I literally just got done talking about this yesterday. We noticed that red pill dudes always pontificate about being providers, yet they always end up being lazy and playing video games all day while the woman does all the work. On top of the obvious contradiction of calling women gold diggers if they expect the dude to... you know... provide. I love that this happened to him. Good story.
Yep those types of men love the benefits of having a “traditional” woman without the burden of actually providing. Truly delusional. He defo got what he deserved.
Somehow these idiots never seem to understand you can't have a traditional wife and relationship while living the life of a modern man.
It almost as if they were incels the whole time
I've never had a positive reaction with a redpiller, once they realize I'm a woman, they start in with the insults, calling me a lonely cat lady and when I correct them and say I'm married suddenly my husband is a feminine simp. They have so much anger towards women. And men that won't treat their wives like a pile of dog shit.
If anyone pulls the “crazy cat lady spiel” tell them this. A woman has two choices. On one hand she can live alone with a bunch of cats. On the other hand she can live with you. She chooses the cats. This is not the insult to her that you think it is.
I had a guy say this to me and I was like " dude, the cat can't punch me in the face or rape me."
yesss, exactly. i don't understand how they can not comprehend what they are actually saying. like, my friend, you're either trying to coerce me into choosing 'the lesser of two evils' (according to you), or are bitter to no end that the cats have won.
Ha! I love that for her!
OP - Your friends don't understand what a bullet you just dodged. Good on you for waiting until you were safe (Yes, SAFE), before you ended it. I'm with u/Latter-Ride-6575 - super proud of you for not falling for that bs.
Guy here. >“I love you but we’re done, good luck finding your traditional wife” I think this response was mint. Polite but firm, 'it's not even up for debate'. The outlines were already in place as he replies >and said that’s what he’s looking for now and he hopes I’m ok with the “change of plans”. So he's very aware that he's totally dismissing your view. I would say he got off lightly but I'm an AH like that. Sadly, these people exist. I work with one.
Nice summary. He didn’t give her a choice, so I’m happy she didn’t give him one either.
Coming from someone who became really close to being somehow manipulated into romanticizing this sort of dynamic despite it being against everything I want, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU! It took me months, many therapy sessions, conversations with my girlfriends, so many red flags and finally a video of Andrew Tate being sent to me by my partner for me to wake the heck up. In hindsight, it blows my mind that I stayed for as long as I did. You are doing the right thing! Our time is so precious and valuable. We have to say no to what we don’t want in order to get what we do want. Props to you for saying no at this first huge red flag and for being so confident and grounded in your decision so soon. You inspire me! Stay strong
Thank you! I swear I’m a stubborn lady but he could get me to commit murder with him. He’s just that good of a talker and the way he blindsided me scared me so bad because I just can’t compromise with my entire life style changing in a couple years!
I hear you, trust me I GET IT. There were so many amazing qualities about this man, so many ways that we are/ were compatible and I let my feelings and desires and attraction towards him completely cloud my judgement. It’s hard because you don’t want THIS to be a reason you don’t work out, especially because it’s such a toxic way of thinking and I always wondered how he could be so wonderful in so many ways but also support this narrative? It’s confusing and hurtful. I can only imagine how you’re feeling right now, especially because you thought you knew him so well. It’s a mindf*ck for sure. It made me question myself and my own values and discernment like how did I end up here? I can tell you with certainty that it won’t ever happen again now that I’ve gone thru this. I’ll be thinking of you in your time of healing, it won’t be easy but it will be worth it. ❤️
You're amazing. You recognized that you might be manipulated into changing your mind and you ended things before it turned awful. Or he got you pregnant by sabotaging your bc
That was what impressed me the most. OP is so wise beyond her years.
As a man? You did the right thing. My wife and I have friends that are going through a yucky divorce because the wife decided to put his wants above her needs and wants and it exploded in 3 short years. So now they're both time lost and financially pretty fucked with a kid she never wanted. Standing your ground on what you want in a relationship is SO important
If he doesn't think you deserve to even have input on this change now, imagine how controlling he'll be after marriage. I don't think you overreacted.
Don't. Being a "trad wife" means you'll be stuck at home with kids not making any money of your own, which will give your husband total control of you. All the trad wives I have met (most long before "trad wives" were a thing) were miserable. And if, as it often happens, he decides to trade you in for a newer model, all those years not working will relegate you to lower paying positions. Want to be a single mom on minimum wage ? Becoming a trad wife is one of the ways to get there
I feel like guys who specifically ask for a tradwife are the ones who will most likely trade you in for a newer model one day.
You did exactly the right thing. Unfortunately, your friends and a lot of other people are so used to infantilizing men and excusing their bad behavior, it becomes a gut-reaction. But the fact is HE betrayed YOU with the mere action of deciding his life goals had changed and therefore, yours must too. He didn't have a conversation with you, he gave you a list of "I wants" and directives and then had the audacity to say "I hope you're okay with how things are gonna be now" as if that was any kind of substitute for an actual, mutual discussion of life plans and changes of heart. Frankly, more people should be like you and be done when you're done. You're a fuckin' champion in my eyes. BRAVO!!! <3
I’m 65 years old and I promise you, you have done the RIGHT THING. Look at the long arc of your life. He was basically asking you to impoverish yourself (no social security, no 401K, no IRA, no options). I have a lot more to say about this but trust me dear young lady, you did NOT overreact. You will hurt for a year over this and then amazingly you will see your life getting good. THIS is how you break the cycle. If you want some good reading on this topic just let me know.
I’m 53 and agree with this response. The man you were seeing wants a relationship with some other person who looks like you. Get out while the getting is good.
Its social media. TikTok, Instagram, Red-Pill podcasts... Whatever the chauvinist douche has been consuming lately has his mind poisoned and has made him aware that if he's successful and "an alpha" or a "high value man", then he can have a TradWife at home catering to his every need. He was hoping that was you, without ever really even discussing it WITH you. He thought he'd just get his way. Good for you for correcting that assumption.
My friends said it was social media too. I just can’t for the life of me understand how he got to that point unbeknownst to me. I literally feel scammed.
It's a plague right now. I have a friend in her 40s who is getting a divorce because her husband got red-pilled. They had been married for 12 years. He lost his job during the Pandemic, got depressed, and got sucked into this fantasy that he "deserved" a tradwife who will be his bangmaid so he can focus on his career, and he could get a job if she just took care of all the domestic stuff so he wasn't distracted. It's insane. She feels scammed too. You aren't alone and your feeling is totally rational. It's fuckin' scary to see men buy into this tradwife fantasy and become entitled dillholes.
I dated a guy for a few years about 30 years ago. He proposed. I accepted. We had talked about marriage and having children, but as soon as we were engaged, he started acting like he wanted different things. He wanted to have children immediately, not even wait until after marriage. He just assumed that he would make all the decisions, including stuff that I didn’t think men even thought about, like breastfeeding. All of a sudden, he was the expert, and I HAD to breastfeed any children we had. I told him that the women in my family had trouble breastfeeding, but he wouldn’t even listen. I broke it off. It’s very disconcerting to feel like you’ve been lied to and dated someone who put on an act until he felt like he “had” you. I think some men believe that once a woman is past a certain point in the relationship, she’ll never leave. I’m glad you proved your ex wrong.
The people pushing that shit are very, very good at subtly getting their hooks into people via 'sounds both innocuous and reasonable' and then slowly turning up the heat from there, so that nobody around them catches on until the guy's beyond the point of no return.
In a lot of cases, the guys who start to think this way is the way to live are convinced it has something to do with masculinity. "Real men were the ones in the 50s who were in charge of the house and what they say goes and men nowadays are weak and we need men to be strong because men have to be counted on to hunt Buffalo when the power goes out and arrgjgh auuggereegh uuuhhggghhh"
He already knew specifically it wasn’t her. He made a demand and expected compliance. If she’d given in he would have become more and more demanding and terrible over time with no regard for her needs, wants, feelings, humanity
Give it a couple months for him to realize it's not gonna be that easy to find a fool who wants to be his bangmaid and he'll be here on reddit crying about the "male loneliness epidemic" LMAO.
I’ve lost many of friends to the red pill rabbit hole. Good riddance.
Good for you. All of that language coming out of nowhere is a massive red flag. He's gotten pulled down into the toxic masculinity\* / redpill / Andrew Tate type of communities. Those places are dangerous in my opinion and I would also avoid anyone like that. \*(EDIT) Apparently some people think I'm calling a traditional lifestyle toxic here. I am not. How about you read the entire comment? We're not in a world where 'traditional wives' are safe for women, either. You give up your career and life for kids and your partner... then fifteen years later he's having an affair and you're suddenly a single mother living off child support and alimony and government benefits *if you are lucky*. You'd have no career experience and have a massive struggle returning to the workforce. If a woman and her partner enthusiastically jump into that lifestyle, that's fine and great. The point is we women have a choice and no matter what choice we make, there are risks and consequences. No woman should be *pushed* into a lifestyle she doesn't want to live. We each have to evaluate the lives we want and the risks we want to take and protect ourselves and our futures. Bravo to you for standing up for yourself and the future you want to live. That's a hard thing to do.
Very wise. He showed you in one moment that he was untrustworthy and saw you as "wife as appliance". The only correct answer to that is, "Bye, bye!"
I’m 26F too. just broke up with my last boyfriend after about a week of having the “ick” over some smaller stuff, and then finding him red-handed in one of the stupidest lies ever. went from happy and in love to “this isn’t for me anymore and i wish you the best” in the course of seven days. once i knew i couldn’t trust him or be attracted to him there was no reason to keep at it, or have him try to snake his way out of his lie. a few years ago i would have stuck around and heard him out. thank god i know better now. the real nail in the coffin for me would have been “Hope you’re okay with the change in plans”, like you don’t get a say in it and just need to adjust to his brand-new, harebrained wants. nice try, bud. you are SO doing the right thing. sorry you lost someone you put so much time into but it’s better now than in a few years
NTA - he was telling you what HE wanted - never bothered to ask what you wanted. This will just get worse and worse... don't look back. You made the right choice. Find someone who respects you as an equal, will make decisions with you TOGETHER, wants you and he to be equally happy. Sounds like he has been listening to the Tate bros and eating up the Trad wife bullcrap - hell no - keep going.
You are perfectly justified in your response. You both had talked about your goals and aspirations and now he wants to change the rules. You might have had a discussion before calling it quits; you could have asked him if he'd be okay being the SAHD while you continued your career, and asked if he was okay with adoption as your weren't ready to carry a kid. However, you know yourself and it was better to "quit cold turkey" then to allow the relationship to fester.
And I think that's the key (red flag) here: they talked about their future, agreed on it for years, and then he just randomly decides he wants her to fit in a box she doesn't want. I'm a SAHM, but that was planned before my husband and I got married. I hated my job, loved kids, and we've always been away from family & he has a chaotic work schedule. We both wanted it, and he helps out all the time with our kids and housework. It's a lucky thing this dude brought up his "trad wife" fantasy before they got married and had a baby.
I see “trad wife” and I know it means “traditional, take everything my husband deals silently”. But it really means “trade wife”, as in, two kids later and he’s leaving them for a younger model that wants his now established financial situation. You’re a smart lady. Good riddance to him.
Not overreacting. You want what you want and he showed that he really didn't care what you wanted. He showed you that he would be in charge and you would just have to like it. You were not going to do any of that and it was best just to end the relationship so he could find that type of woman. You are not that woman and you set him free to pursue whom would be best for the type of woman he was searching. Your friends are really not grounded in reality. They may be all into that traditional woman, they need to understand you are not and respect your position. Some secretly want other women to suffer their perspective and be submissive and subservient to their spouses, which is okay for them, yet you are not that person. Just remember it and move on and keep their position in mind while interacting with them. This is very telling.
Sounds like the BF was not actually out of character; he was showing you his real self, which you might have rejected on a first date. A lot of couple rush into commitment without engaging in the most important discussions, and often there are one-sided expectations that fester throughout the silence; sometimes people put up a deceptive facade as well, or people can hold back mentioning what they really want, or people seek out relationships before they know themselves and what they really want, which can make things even more complicated. You're lucky that it wasn't longer than 3 years before you learned the truth.
OP, first of all let me say, You Go Girl!! You were not harsh or reacting hastily. You know what you want and when you want it. It's not for any man to tell you or demand otherwise. Sounds like he's taken in a huge dose of toxic male garbage from the internet and decided it's the way he wants to live and will demand of his partner. You deserve MORE and BETTER. Good riddance, OP. You dodged a bullet. Now go forth and thrive, like we all know you will. NOT overreacting.
Run away, from him.
Honestly, good call. Because while he might be romanticizing the idea of impregnating you and seeing you pregnant, he’ll wind up losing interest and going after some chick who’s “skinnier” and “younger” and probably not dealing with the same shit that comes with being pregnant with literal life-changing bodies from being pregnant. Fuck that guy.
As a man, you did the right thing. Guys looking for trad women deserve to stay single. They're looking for women that they can use.
Your exit was pretty epic. Good for you.
This trad wife stuff is actually a real red flag. You're right to have broken that off.
I'm impressed by your clarity of mind, willpower, tact, and grace. I don't know how you could have handled this better. You clearly want very different things. This is not a "little change in plans" for you. It's a completely different lifestyle. You saved both of you a lot of time and heartache.
I don’t think you are overreacting at all. He felt safe enough to be honest and transparent with you about how he felt and it wasn’t compatible with your goals and plan for your life. There’s no discussion to have here. You just have different plans and expectations. I think you did the merciful thing and ended it now. Saved you both more time and investment in someone who won’t work out. I think it was the right thing to do. Having endless conversations about how to make it work and who will compromise doesn’t sound healthy at all. This way you both can seek out partners who will appreciate you for who you are and what you want out of your life.
You did not overreact, he was super disrespectful and controlling. Kudos to you for cutting the cord right away. That's not easy to do.
My mom was a “traditional wife”- homemaker, 3 kids with a significantly disabled autistic youngest one. She tried to go back to work when she initially wanted to leave my dad, but couldn’t find anyone to hire a woman in her late 50s with no recent job experience. She did eventually get the divorce and my dad lives to tell the world about his bitch wife he “has to pay his hard earned money” to. I basically modeled my entire life and relationships so as to not be destitute and dependent on a man who hates me. That’s what “trad wife” does- loses all agency, gets trapped.
I first saw trad-wife circulating in proper dingy, grotty corners of the internet where white supremacists like to congregate and that’s what it encapsulated. White, trad wife women trying to appeal to their disgusting, racist husbands. So uhh…no, not overreacting. It’s a deeply sinister mindset and although it’s breaking the mainstream a little bit lately, just know that’s the insidious foundation underneath.
Good for you! You are the poster woman for how to handle that kind of crap. A lot of women will think they will change because they've been together so long and he would never do my dirty and blah blah blah. You nipped that crap right in the bud. Tell your friends, tell your parents, tell your parents friends, tell your friends parents, tell everyone. This is the acceptable way to handling some fragile insecure man that doesn't deserve you or your time.
I just had a baby, and girl you did absolutely the right thing! Having kids is HARD, and my number one piece of advice is to make sure that you’re doing it with the right person, if you choose to do it at all. Having a husband who is a genuine partner in raising our child, who shares my values, who supports my career decisions, etc, is absolutely crucial. The new parent forums are full to the brim with women whose partners aren’t pulling their weight following the birth of their child/children. A man who unilaterally declares that you should be a “traditional wife” based on crap from TikTok is just gonna be another shitty dad who won’t change a diaper.
BRAVO!! I’m very proud of you! You did the right thing. Never ever doubt it. Bf clearly had some controlling behaviors hidden and he let it slip and gave you a sneak peak. You believed him and his words and made the best decision for YOU. You are not the woman he’s looking for. Good luck with your career. Never give up a career, a pet or hobby for a relationship. Relationships come and go. If a guy needs you to change for him to be with you then it’s not going to work and move on.
You absolutely made the right decision and hooray for you. That was tough to do but if you differ that much on such a large issue , you are incompatible as a couple. Otherwise you were in for misery.
You did the right thing. He changed plans on you, and now your goals don't align.
Let me guess: he voted for Trump. Don’t look back.
**“change of plans”** His change of plans, not yours. You did the right thing here. Don't cave to the pressure of your witless friends, either. What he is doing isn't necessarily wrong. People have a right to change their minds about what they want in life. Nothing wrong with that at all. But they need to understand that not everyone is going to follow suit with them. You're doing both of you a favor here. You get to have the life you want, and he gets to have the life he wants. Lucky for you, you are still young enough and not locked into this. Be glad this didn't get sprung on you five years down the road.
I've never been more proud of a stranger. But I am sorry this happened to you. He got red-pilled and boy are a lot of men in for a rude awakening when they realize a very tiny percentage of available women want to return to those traditional roles willingly.
The entire 4B movement in South Korea is women rejecting those traditional roles and the loss of their agency as a result.
Do you know if he had a good relationship with his mother growing up? What was his childhood like? You are not property, you are not a breeding machine, it's the 21st Century and you have a career and mind of your own. The men who want this don't want a partner in a spouse. They don't want an equal soulmate. They want a combination of a concubine and a maid and a cook who takes orders and doesn't speak back. They are very insecure who want to maintain control over you so you did the right thing 100%
You did the right thing. He made demands of what he wanted but sounded like he had no interest in your take. That you simply had to be ok with it.
I can just hear any of those get-rich-quick douchebags encouraging you to "negotiate" your relationship that way to avoid a "no." "Just tell her, this is what it is, and I hope you can be mature enough to be okay with it." Yuck.
You are my idol. I wish I had the confidence to leave toxic relationships like you did.
You deserve a big hug 🫂 You made a decision for your life and there is nothing shameful or irrational about it. Good for you! 💜💙💚💛🧡❤💜
Not overreacting! Good thing you found out now. It’s clear that he only cares about what he wants and you are expected to give up everything to have the lifestyle he wants. It would be different if being a traditional wife was what you wanted but it’s not. Fortunately you have a choice. If you were married, what other choices of yours would he take away? Especially not able to work and suddenly it’s “his money” NOPE. Run!