Bill H, you're not nearly as smart as you think you are

The BBQ Pit
41

I just wanted to say that I think the oral sex problem could be worked out to both parties satisfaction, if both parties worked at it with love and patience and caring and blah blah blah. But dragongirl’s husband seems to be a bit short on that caring and sensitivity crap. It’s a moot point by now anyway.

It would be swell if she could hang around making money and planning ahead before getting away from this piece of shit. I sure as hell hope he won’t be receiving blow jobs in the meantime.

(debates adding more fuel to the fire, oh why not)
Does anyone think this guy really works 80+ hours a week?

42

I’ve been reading both these threads with great interest, and I wanted to comment on this. Bill H., while I do somewhat see your point of view, I think your hypotheticals are a little inconsistent with each other. Hypothetical one and two are not necessary to a family’s survival. In other words, if a woman does not want to have sex with her husband, or her husband would prefer that the wife mow the lawn, this will not prevent said husband and wife from having a place to live. However, in hypothetical three, if the family is in dire financial straits, like dragongirl’s appears to be, either person B would bend, or the family would be in the poorhouse. Assuming person B is reasonable and capable of understanding that, I doubt that would be an issue.

Still, while I do think there are two, possibly more, sides of dragongirl’s situation, and perhaps they should have come to some compromise about the whole blow job issue (maybe she could have lubed her hands up and given him a hand job, or perhaps they could have found some other non-traditional means of getting him off - regardless, she shouldn’t be forced to give a blow job if she can’t look at herself in the mirror in the morning regardless of what “other women” do), it sounds as though the couple is beyond compromise now. dragongirl’s husband refuses to go to marital counselling (perhaps this would help their emotional and sex issues), thereby indicating he is not committed to make this relationship work in a way they can both live with. He won’t compromise.

He’s taken away any access dragongirl had to money and transportation. She basically can’t leave the house unless she’s only travelling a short distance, so she now has no opportunity to leave or get a job. He calls her hurtful names on purpose, presumably knowing that it’ll make her feel bad (how is that not emotional abuse?), plays on her insecurities, then apparently lays the blame for their relationship and financial woes solely on her shoulders. Yes, he works hard; however, does working hard ultimately give him leeway to insult and degrade his wife? And why does being a stay-at-home mom seem to merit so much less respect than the husband’s job? Yes, the husband brings in money to support them; however, the house is run by his wife, and his children are being cared for, and both these tasks are often nearly 24/7 jobs. Because she’s not bringing in money, he has the right to make her feel bad about herself? She’s trying to get a job, but especially in smaller towns, that can be difficult - you need transportation to get to them, something dragongirl no longer has.

Since dragongirl has no place to stay, and no familial support, it would seem that a women’s shelter might be the way to go, as they could at least point her in the right direction. Many women’s shelters are designed as halfway houses - they provide women (and their children) who do not feel safe in their homes or whose husbands have taken away their means to leave (like dragongirl’s has) with a way to get a job, find a place to live and move on with their lives.

43

Even though it doesn’t sound to me like dragongirl needs to be (or wants to be) living in a shelter, I think they are probably one of the best places for her to contact (which is what several posters were advocating). Why? Because they have knowledge that she needs, i.e. what to do if you’re a woman without a job, transportation or family who needs to get out of a bad relationship. And that’s one of the reasons they exist – to inform and educate people as to what their options and rights are, so they don’t get screwed over.

Do me a favor – ask someone at the women’s shelter you’re involved with if they’d prefer someone in an emotionally abusive relationship not call them. (I can’t say that dragongirl is or isn’t in an emotionally abusive relationship – I don’t know her. But she could be, so let’s see what they think she should do if she was.) Let me know what they say.

44

yosemite wrote

I completely agree. I figure he probably feels the same way as dragongirl, when she wrote

yosemite continued

You seem to be saying that if you’re married to someone, and they do something you don’t like, that you just have to live with it, even if it’s important to you. I disagree. When my wife met me I was a slob and a packrat, but my wife married me anyway, even though she’s quite the opposite. She knew it going in, and I never promised to change, in fact it was never even discussed. But it’s an important thing to her, and I know that, so I do my best to keep things clean and orderly. Frankly, I think it would be wrong for me to say “hey, this is what you married, deal with it.” You aren’t suggesting that this posture is appropriate or even noble in some way, are you?

45

overlyverbose wrote

This is true, but family peace and happiness isn’t just about being able to survive. It’s about two people finding common ground. When one person refuses to budge on an issue that’s important to the other person, things break. Sometimes very minor issues can be very important. Also, I wouldn’t classify sex as a minor. As part of marriage, it’s pretty much the only thing that both partners give up with the rest of the world. If in my hypothetical, A doesn’t want to have sex, B does, and B has contracted with A to have sex with noone else in the world, well that’s a pretty rotten deal.

This is an excellent summary of the other side things, and I can completely see this point of view. There’s a lot wrong with things, and as I’ve said repeatedly, the husband is dead wrong to verbally harrass dragongirl. Now, it’s not clear to me that the husband has intentionally stranded dragongirl with no transportation, and it’s not clear to me that she has no money (he only took away access very recently, and as I believe she pays the bills, I’m really not sure that she has no access), but in general I agree with your assessment of her side of things. And I feel for her.

46

I disagree. You voluntarily elected to change - good on you. And good on Dragongirl should she voluntarily elect to start giving blowjobs.

On the other side, your wife married you knowing full well you were a slob, so she voluntarily made the choice to live with you knowing how you were. Dragongirl’s husband did the same thing. What if you had not changed your ways and all of a sudden she decided she couldn’t handle it anymore? She could sure ASK you to change, but she has NO right to order nor expect you to change. **Dragongirl’s ** husband has NO right to order nor expect her to change.

OTOH, if it’s an important thing to Dragongirl NOT to give blowjobs, shouldn’t her husband do his best to respect that? I think it’s wrong for him to say, “hey, I know I agreed to respect your aversion to blow jobs when we married, but I’ve changed my mind, so deal with it.”

It works both ways. Because of this, IMO, the onus should be on the person who accepted the other person on certain terms and now wants the other person to change.

Good lord, that’s, like, Rule Number One in Relationships - don’t marry a person expecting that you can change them or that they will change. That’s just stupid no matter how much you love them, and it’s YOUR problem if sometime down the road you decide you can’t deal with the way they (still) are.

Besides which, this is all moot. I doubt that Dragongirl’s husband is not so unable to deal with a lack of blowjobs that he can no longer function. I HIGHLY suspect that he is simply using this as a control tactic and a way to pressure, threaten, and humiliate Dragongirl, and he’s a complete dick for doing so.

47

I do agree with this - sex can be a very important part of a marriage. And if you (hypothetical you, of course) refuse to have sex with your spouse, but your spouse is a very sexual person, there will be some sort of breakdown in the marriage.

However, the problem I’m seeing with the oral sex thing is that dragongirl has budged but her husband won’t. She clearly stated that she has given her husband blow jobs, even though it makes her feel disgusted with herself after, and yet it appears that her husband refuses to even attempt understand her feelings, insisting he needs regular blow jobs to “justify” their marriage. He’s threatened to leave her if he doesn’t get these blow jobs - sounds to me like dragongirl has been the one doing all the compromising in that situation.

48

Thing is, doesn’t this cut both ways? It seems as though **dragongirl’s ** SO has always been an ass. The problems she has seem to be an escalation of the same issues, rather than something new that has just popped up. So then, should she just grin and bear all of this?

While his tone was probably out of sync with the thread, I don’t find much fault with **Bill H.'s ** points. It’s infuriating to hear someone make themselves the victim, rather than take responsibility for things. The truth is, **dragongirl ** is in a bed of her own making. But the truth is also that she can just as well get out of it. She ceded every bit of her power to this guy, cut off ties to her family, and entered a financial situation that leaves her at his mercy. It’s like watching some sort of Lifetime special…‘it’s called a cliche because it’s true, dear.’

It’s not going to be easy (she took 13 years making this bed) but it can be done (I look to my Lady as a shining example of this). I agree that contacting a shelter for advice is a sound move, but I still can’t wrap my mind around this being abuse, since it appears that she handed him the keys, and he just drove off with her life.

I am overjoyed at **dragongirl’s ** resolution to move on. I hope she follows through.

and **gobear ** - I understand and appreciate your point about ‘intruding’ on the other thread (as a married man, I thought you were on track), and am kind of surprised at the animosity. Just wanted to say that. Though I could have lived without knowing what a great cocksucker you are. It introduces me to feelings i’ve not experienced since prep school.

49

I guess I’m one of those people who shouted “Hie thee to a shelter, now!” I would like to explain why.

No, she’s not in fear of her life. It’s not a dire emergency. Some other posters suggested that she stay with him for another year and squirrel away a little money at a time for a starter egg so she would be comfortable when she first moved out. That sounds all well and good, and I would say that she should do that instead of looking to a shelter if (1) She had a working automobile to get to said job (2) Her husband didn’t have control of the finances.

A shelter is reasonable here because she is being emotionally abused (please don’t downplay her husband’s insults) and now, possibly, sexually abused. She is trapped with no car and no money from aforesaid lack of control of finances and no car for a job. She has nowhere to go.

I am not trying to inflate her husband’s dispicable conduct into physical abuse. Physical abuse, and fearing for her life, is not part of this equation. A shelter is still reasonable in this situation.

Shelters do “save” spots for those women who are hiding from their husbands/boyfriends because when they catch up they will kill the woman. However, they do have spots open for women who are in abusive relationships like dragongirl’s. Sometimes, if there is no room and a truly needy woman arrives, the less needy are told to look for somewhere else to stay.

Lest you think that shelters are nice places like hotels, consider: women in hiding clean and take care of their rooms and bathrooms and common areas. They have to share bedrooms and bathrooms like a dorm. They cook and do laundry. They work outside the shelter and are strongly encouraged to become self-sufficient. This is not high quality housing, this is a stopgap measure when your boyfriend has been stalking you and beating you, and you need somewhere to hide so you don’t get killed.

I hope that explains the “kneejerk” reaction.

I found a lot of comments made highly insensitive and unworkable. A lot of people posting had not read the OP carefully and were not familiar with her situation. They came in as seagulls: flying in, shitting, and leaving. Unfortunately this is the internet and assholes are allowed to do that. I wish they wouldn’t, but oh well.

50

I have talked about this off-board with Dopers IRL before. My mom’s very livelihood is teaching women how to take responsibility for themselves. 99 times out of a 100, an SO doesn’t just wake up one morning and start hitting their partner. Victims of domestic abuse are groomed - they are isolated from their family and friends, they are crippled financially, their self-esteem is ground down with systemic degradation. If you are an adult, it is your responsibility to not allow yourself to be treated that way. Those are all early signs of an abusive partner, and most of them show themselves before any sign of physical violence or sexual assault.
Loving someone does not entail putting yourself at their mercy. If we’re going to discuss dragongirl’s responsibility for her own situation, IMO that is where it begins and ends. Her SO showed the signs of an abusive partner and she either didn’t know what those signs were, or ignored them.
So yes, she did abdicate some of her responsibility. By preparing to leave, she is now taking that responsibility back onto herself.
And now I send her all my best wishes for success.

This is the other side of harm-reduction. Many people think of HR as woolly-headed bleeding heart Liberal thinking, but there is an element of personal responsibility to it that goes like this: abusers are out there. Rapists and predators exist. They shouldn’t, and shame on them, but they do. And it’s your job to protect yourself. It’s the little things, like not hanging your purse on a public bathroom door (theives can just reach over and grab it while you have your pants down). It’s also the bigger things like knowing the warning signs of an abuser and having the courage to recognize them when they’re sitting across the breakfast table.

51

So she…what? Deserves it?
Dragongirl made mistakes and got herself in a bad situation, but if what she has told us is true, there’s no doubt that he is abusing her.

52

CanvasShoes wrote

And I believe I saw you this morning selling crack to school children. Unfortunately, like you I only have inflammatory accusations and no cite.

Here’s my posting algorithm, for what it’s worth:

In areas of business, job hunting, computers, networking and a couple other areas where I have a solid level of experience, I post advise.

In areas of music and art, I occasionally post my thoughts.

In areas involving morality, especially as related to social contract, such as marriage, employment, and especially child rearing, I post my opinion. In these sorts of matters, I rarely post if I agree with the OP, and especially if others have already said what I have to say. Typically, I post where I disagree with the OP and am in the minority view. Not because I love dissent (ok, maybe a little), but because I hate one-sided discussions involving right and wrong, especially when it’s obvious there is another very viable side. Such lopsidedness seems unethical in my estimation.

I don’t keep count, but I think it’s a fair to say that males and females receive equal proportions of my opinion.

A higher proportion of my opinion goes to people who abuse their relationship with another person, in whatever form that may take. A lot of my opinion goes to people who choose to be weak. Not people who are small and have been beaten down, but people who choose that for themselves. Both of these are in play in this case, in my estimation.

53

No, she doesn’t deserve it. But she needs to take responsibility for her life. It’s not like her husband ran up to her on the street and slapped a pair of handcuffs on her. She chose him.

Anyway, the fact that she is looking for help to get out shows that she is taking responsibility for her life, so it’s moot. It’s just that sometimes we need to point this stuff out, because pity-parties aren’t very empowering.

54

Right you are. I’m just reacting to the idea that verbal abuse somehow doesn’t count as the real thing.

55

Ahhhh. Got ya. I found that sentence problematic as well. My brother used to say that (IHHO) men make themselves less emotionally vulnerable than women, so they can’t wrap their heads around emotional abuse, since they’re less likely to experience it. Maybe there is a grain of truth to that.

56

If you weren’t a total retard, you would realize that my comments had to do with the OP’s distaste for a normal sex act and my astonishment that an act that is pleasurable for both parties is viewed as “dirty” and a chore. I hijacked nothing; I posted a comment that you disliked. I weep at your displeasure. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]

It’s weird how in this post you can say the same thing with out describing your methods and procedures whereas before you felt some need to go all Penthouse Forum on us.

Oh and cry me a river, but I wouldn’t waste the water on your foolishness.

57

My dear, if you think my previous post was Penthouse Forum-quality, I have to congratulate on your sheltered, tender innocence. You sound like the stereotypical James Dobson drone who writes fevered letters to the editor about complaining that Desperate Housewives is PORNOGRAPHY!!!

May I suggest that if you are unable to discuss grown-up matters like sexuality, without cringing then I suggest you go read a game thread in MPSIMS. You’ll be happier, trust me.

58

RE: blowjobs being a reasonable expectation

For one thing, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect anyone to do anything, pedestrian or not, that actively repulses them in bed. Sex is supposed to be about spreading the good feelings around, and that’s just not possible when one of you is hating every second of it. Frankly, I’ve got to wonder about someone who would either not notice their partner isn’t having any fun, or notice and not give a shit. Kind of defeats the whole purpose, imo.

And even if it were reasonable to expect certain sex acts, this isn’t an expectation or a request. “Do something you hate and find demeaning twice a week, or I’m going to walk out and leave you with two kids and no means of taking care of them” is a threat. It’s fucking sexual extortion, and extortion is neither reasonable nor defensible.

RE: sex, lawn mowing, and holding a job

These hypotheticals are horseshit for one very simple and vital reason: comromise isn’t about 50/50, even-steven, right down the middle splitting the difference. It’s about both parties feeling they’re being treated fairly, whatever arrangement you might come to. If both parties are okay with the arrangement, then it’s a fair and moral thing to do, even when it’s not only uneven, but totally one-sided. What’s the moral thing to do thus varies from couple to couple, and over time with any one given couple, so it’s just not possible to give a definitive answer to any of those scenarios.

In my particular relationship, at this point in our lives, we have a totally equitable split of the yardwork wherein I do all of it. He hates yardwork. Hates it. I, on the other hand, really don’t mind it at all. So it’s totally fair for his little paws to never touch a lawnmower or rake. Because we’re both okay with it. If I were unable or unwilling to do all the yardwork, it would be a totally different story. But for now at least, this arrangement works for both of us.

dragongirl’s husband, though, doesn’t give a rat’s ass if the arrangement works for her. His only concern is if it works for him. There is no “we” in his conception of the world, only “me”. That makes it really, really hard to come to an equitable arrangement, if not downright impossible.

59

True, CCL, quite true. But I think the unstated assumption is that (outside of the sympathies-only thread) we’re hearing only half of the story, and that half from one of the parties, so any categorical conclusions we reach are necessarily going to favor Dragongirl’s point of view. From what she says, he’s a crude, unfeeling beast, and that may well be the case, though I’d hate to be judged solely on the testimony of my ex-, and I’m the sweetest, gentlest guy in the known universe.

60

I would just point out that there is a difference between not enjoying oral sex and being affected by it to the point that you can’t look in the mirror the next day.

I can only speak from experience, and then I’m gonna try to bow out for my own emotional health.

There are “normal” or “pedestrian” sexual behaviors that I may not always enjoy but am willing to do on occasion because I’m in the mood or feeling extra-outgoing or whatever.

And then there are “normal” or “pedestrian” sexual behaviors that throw me into such a complete tailspin psychologically that, were I to engage in them, I’d be having nightmares for the next few weeks, or panic attacks in the library.

There’s a difference, and I don’t get the impression that dragongirl is on the “nah, I’d just rather not” side of the fence. That may be something she will be able to deal with eventually, but she’ll need a supportive partner to do so.

Just sayin’.