In this thread, a poster asks advice concerning his business relationship with his son. After 20 years of marriage the son left his wife for another woman who is a married employee of the son’s with “rather large boobies.” The son’s business is relatively successful, primarily as the result of the son’s efforts. The son has leased an “up-market” apartment and moved in with his lover who has also left her spouse. With respect to his wife of 20 years, the son proposes to continue to pay the lease on their last home but only for 3 months, he’ll also contribute towards other costs but again for 3 months maximum, then she, his wife, has to sort herself out.
I made the comment that the son “sounds like quite a heel.” I thought that was a pretty modest term to use for someone who chooses to end a long-term relationship in the son’s manner. I was a little surprised that the following 2 responses took issue with my use of the word heel.
What say you? Is the son acting like a heel? If not a heel, what words would you believe best concisely describe his choices/actions? And if the son’s actions do not qualify a person as a heel, what might?
I thought the term you used was fair and accurate. I divorced my wife after 20+ years but I treated her equitably and fair–the way I would wish to be treated. Regardless of your current feelings towards someone you are divorcing, you have spent a substantial part of your life with that person, and in my case she was the mother of my child. Thus I felt a moral and ethical obligation to treat her fairly. She helped support me through graduate school (and I also supported her during that time period).
He is a heel/cad/tool whatever term you wish to use because he is thinking he can get away with 3 months of support. Unless the divorce system is different there he will be in for a rude shock. If he had approached her and tried to solve the issue equitably I wouldn’t consider him a heel. Unless his wife undercut him along the way, he is where he is today partly due to her assistance and he should recognize that (or the courts likely will do it for him) in my opinion.
I’d say it’s pretty much the definition of acting like a heel.
My favorite use of the word is the wrestling “heel turn”, when a “face” goes bad. I think it’s cute that they use a word that’s just a tiny bit archaic.
I think leaving someone you are no longer in love with is doing both people a favor. I fell in love with someone else is a perfectly valid reason to end a relationship, no matter how long it has lasted and nobody should be called a heel or any other name for being honest. In fact i think a lot more people should do what he did rather than either live miserable lives or cheat on their spouse. That said he DID try to fuck over his wife financially, that DOES make him a heel. Breaking up with someone doesn’t make you a bad person, this is something i wish more people understood.
I think his son is acting like a heel according to all the information available to us, but chowder is still his father and is of course, going to bristle at a stranger casually calling him insulting names. So being surprised that he disagreed with that characterization is being a bit unrealistic.
If his wife had an affair and threw him out, we’d be voting that he was a sucker for paying anything on her behalf.
If you separate the large-breasted woman from the equation and just said they they’ve separated and he was paying expenses for a couple months, I’d say he was being reasonable.
Not said in your OP was whether the wife of 20 years had separate income already and just had to spend the time to find another place to live, or had to come up with an entire job/home/lifestyle from scratch. If she already was employed, I think he’s being reasonable. If not, I guess I’d vote that he should pay enough until she’s reasonably employed.
To back up my opinion, I paid my separated wife’s bills until she got a job and I paid the deposit and first month’s rent on her new apartment and helped her move. Most of my motivation was related to our children, not her, but I did pony up the money (and lived like a pauper in response).
I agree with your description, but I wasn’t at all surprised at the father’s response - it is his son after all, and he has seen a lifetime of non-heelish behavior from him. The other response was a bit odd - it seemed to claim that since this isn’t uncommon behavior, especially for egocentric salesmen, it’s not heel-like?
Yeah but it was strange, to my reading chowder intimated that son was responsible for girlfriend’s wrist injury in a previous post. Then got upset with “heel,” truly the mildest of epithets.
Maybe I was reading that through my own lens though. The phrasing was pretty ambiguous.
Yeah, I saw that as a “WTF?! Weird timing” kind of a response - like maybe it wasn’t broken and she was taking time away from work for some unknown reason.
I guess I was kind of confused by his remark that “other than this. . .” the son was a fine upstanding individual. I know it is more extreme, but made me think “Well, other than his having murdered those people, he has always been a loving son!”
I didn’t think heel was all that horrible of a term. And I’ve got no problem with people getting divorced. But I think how you choose to go about it can suggest a lot about your character.
If one of my kids did something that I thought was rude, indefensible, whatever, I would readily acknowledge that they were a jerk - or worse - at least in that instance. Doesn’t mean I would cease to love them, or think them irredeemable.
I agree if you’re talking about relationships, but I emphatically disagree if you’re talking about marriage, which involves a commitment not to dump your spouse if someone more sexually attractive becomes available.
As I said in the original thread, the son is sounding pretty heel-y to me at this point. Fairly stereotypically heel-y, actually. I can understand his dad not wanting to describe his son that way, though (and I too had a bit of a WTF moment at chowder’s comment on the girlfriend’s wrist getting broken).
Agree with this. Also, that bit about the wrist injury is very odd. And this…
Sometimes I wonder how much some parents really know their adult children. I can definitely understand just wanting to see them happy, healthy and out of prison, but I wouldn’t use the lack of substance abuse or a criminal record to make my case for anyone being a good person.
Oh well. It’s only a matter of time before a newbie posts here wondering whether she should take her partner back after he cheated on her with someone from work, and that could be the ex-wife or the new girlfriend.
