Recording the fit is a good idea. Posting it is an asshole move.
I’ve never tried to quit smoking since I never got into the habit of it, but I’ve watched my husband do it over and over again. Nicotine is extremely addictive, and it’s hard enough to go without a dose of it when you’ve planned to do it, going without it when it’s unplanned is pretty much guaranteed to cause distress for the smoker. This is why I think that he was deliberately winding her up. If he’d agreed to stop for the coffin nails, at least, the shit fit would have been much less dramatic. But he wanted that drama.
I don’t blame him for filming her, in order to have a record to show to a judge (and possibly even her). I DO blame him for winding her up and for releasing the video.
I hate smoking. Hate it. But I also understand that it’s extremely addictive, and if you live with a smoker, you live with the habit, as well. Stopping at a corner store could have taken less than two minutes, he didn’t even have to get out of the car, and the smokes would have calmed her down considerably. And THAT’S why I think that he was deliberately winding her up.
Remember, this is coming from a woman who used to put exploding loads in her husband’s cigarettes.
Honestly, I think the cigarette thing was a ploy on her part. Assuming it isn’t all staged. He doesn’t react to it and she jumps fairly quickly to another complaint- When cigarettes don’t work, then it’s a panic attack…
Suppose he stops and she goes to the corner shop- does it seem likely she’ll get back in without dragging more people into the situation? Or get back in at all, for that matter?
That said, I’m glad I don’t have to be in a room with either of them.
In my opinion, there are far too many variables to judge either of them. Maybe they really never do what she wants and she just went over the edge. Maybe he was being an asshole not stopping for cigs, or maybe she does little stuff like that all the time to try and retain that feeling of control over him. Maybe he used to act concerned when she did this and is just at his wits end, maybe he’s just an asshole who was winding her up. Maybe he tortures her in his basement every night and she used to be sane, maybe she committed genocide and he’s Batman taking revenge on her.
We just don’t know and I don’t want to read things that have happened in my relationships into it. My inkling was that the cigarette thing was her trying to do something to feel like she still had control over him, because my ex did stuff like that (and I didn’t even realize it until multiple people independently brought it up). Even aside from that, I’ve had a psychologist tell me that when somebody is acting like that, to never do anything they want, no matter how sane, mundane, or innocuous it is until they calm down (unless it’s like “play dead, there’s a bear behind you” I guess). However, it’s perfectly possible that she was having a nicotine attack and he was just being an abusive asshole and she really needed a cig. Without actually being them, or else being omniscient, I really don’t feel like I can tell.
Posting the video on the interwebs was lame, though.
I don’t think the guy was being an asshole at all. He’s probably spent the last few years putting up with this exact same shit and then getting home, signing onto facebook and seeing “My jackass husband decided to get his tires rotated instead of taking his wife to the beach I do everything for him and this is how he repays me” followed by a bunch of comments from her friends about what a jerk he is (for the record the article did state that he had been planning on using that day to do get his own stuff done).
I’m guessing he finally got sick of those comments, got sick of her friends hating him for no good reason and finally decided to show her friends what really happens when she says those things. Besides, in his mind, the marriage was already over at this point, what did he care.
It’s like the verbally abused wife that finally decides to put a tape recorder in the house so she can take it to the police/lawyer/friends and show them what she’s been dealing with…and now that I say that ‘outloud’, in this case the wife certainly wouldn’t be an asshole. Funny how that works out. In the video the wife is throwing a temper tantrum and acting like a brat, but the guy is an asshole. Reverse it and the guy is emotionally or verbally abusive and the wife is ‘brave’ or ‘strong’ for doing what she did and getting out of the situation.
Maybe he was justified in recording the incident, but there was no justification for posting it. He married this person and he lets their lives get to this state where they are both just wallowing in misery? He loved her once, how could he go out of his way to publicly ridicule her like that? Get out, or stick around, but don’t be a dick about it.
I’m with you- the first time some woman I was dating acted like that, she’d have found herself either walking home, or at the very least, without a boyfriend once we got home.
But he puts up with it, and may even egg her on, which is jerkish to say the least. Ultimately though, she’s responsible for her behavior and her reactions to any provocations on his part.
I was 30 seconds into the video before I thought “she sounds bad, but this video started exactly the moment after he stopped being a total asshole.”
He has clearly done something to wind her up and drive her over the edge, and THEN he started recording and played the “I’m not doing anything wrong” role. They’re both pieces of work.
I have. Twice. Well, I 've tried more times than that, but only managed to quit twice (the first time it lasted about 2 years, the second time was about 4 years ago and I haven’t had so much as a single puff since). FWIW, I was 2 to 2 and half pack-a-day’er
Anyway, it should not result in you doing stuff like that. It will make you want to, but resisting that impulse is what’s called being an adult.
I don’t think so. You say that he endured years of verbal abuse as if he had no choice in the matter. It pisses me off to no end when people do that. I was emotionally abused as a child and compared to my Mom, this lady is nothing. But I did not have the option to walk away. This guy did, and so does every other adult person who chooses to be in a relationship like this. If you want to believe she’s an evil bitch, believe she’s an evil bitch, but this guy was not a helpless victim. Nobody is ‘‘brave’’ for airing their dirty laundry to the entire internet just to get revenge. Quite the opposite in fact. It’s cowardly. Instead of taking responsibility for his piss-poor decisions he’s going to villainize her. I know from experience watching a hundred relationships fall apart, it doesn’t work unless both people take responsibility for their own actions.
Most people who have said the guy is a jerk have also said that she’s a jerk, too. I find that’s usually the case, bad relationships bring out the worst in both people.
Yeah, I smoked from age 9 to 18, and by the end, I was at a pack a day…so I know addiction to smokes. But, it’s not even about the addiction…she has a right to stop by a store; she is not a prisoner in his car.
[QUOTE=trucelt]
Clearly none of you have ever tried to quit smoking. She needed a cigarette, and he refused to stop. In fact, he didn’t even say “no” he just smirked and kept on driving. That kind of passive controlling behavior can make a person crazy. She was trapped, and unhappy, and given the interlock discussion she may also have been coming off of alcohol. She also mentions a panic attack, which hopefully means she’s discussed her problems with a doctor.
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She should quit drinking and sucking smoke into her lungs. No wonder she’s having “panic attacks”. Clearly typical drunk behavior. She was not “trapped”. Her problems are of her own making. She needed a cigarette? No…people need water and air. Be clear, she wanted a cigarette.
[QUOTE=Nzinga, seated]
I’m with you, Lynn. Not stopping for the cigarettes was wrong. He has no right to stop her from stopping at a store.
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Here’s a novel idea. Don’t be a drunk that gets her car interlocked, then you can be free to drive and stop wherever and whenever the fuck you want. The fact that she was at his mercy is no one’s fault but her own.
[QUOTE=Joey P]
I don’t think the guy was being an asshole at all. He’s probably spent the last few years putting up with this exact same shit…
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Then he should have left.
They are both stupid. I hate the victim mentality when there is no true victim. You can’t effectively play the victim when the perpetrator is your own stupidity.
This is why I say he’s an asshole. She’s definitely going nutso here, and he SHOULD have recorded it, but not to show it to the whole world. He should have shown it in court, during the divorce proceedings. Or just shown it to her lawyer, who would probably advise the woman to just shut up, take whatever offer is on the table, and get out of his life.
Yes, I should have addressed this. She had a right to be let out of the car. She didn’t have a right to insist on a day at the lake, but she had a right to be let out of the car in a safe spot, where she could have gone home, or tried to get someone else to take her to the beach, or whatever. He has no right to imprison her, and that’s basically what he was doing. Even as batshit crazy as she was being, she knew better than to try to exit a moving car.