'WIBTA for wanting to divorce my husband because he calls me a 'tradwife'?' UPDATED 2X
"WIBTA for wanting to divorce my (39F) husband because he (41M) calls me a 'tradwife'?"
I am a SAHM. I left my career to stay home with our child (3F) a little over a year ago. She's autistic, and requires a lot of support. Being a SAHP was never in my plan. I do not like being without my own money. My husband makes a decent living for us as the sole earner. All that being said I have taken to the role fairly easily.
I enjoy meal planning, cooking & baking. Generally experimenting in the kitchen. I built a small garden in our backyard, and I do majority of the cleaning. When my husband is home he also does chores and parenting. He's not one for traditional gender roles or so I thought ( We've been together for 10 years).
I was vacuuming his office about a week ago. He'd left his monitor on before he left for work. Not uncommon, and I went to shut it off. What threw me is that he had X/Twitter open. At first I was just confused by the posts about tradwives, until I saw a picture of me getting something out of the oven.
The more I looked. This was his account and he was bragging about having a tradwife. Lying about our dynamics. There were other pics of me in the garden and one of me reading a story to our daughter. Thank God her face wasn't in it. I was so upset, angry and creeped out.
I didn't even think, I just called his phone and when he answered I snapped. I don't even really remember what I said. I do remember him saying to calm down and it was just silly posting.
After that I told him I want a divorce, that he was a creep and hung up. He of course came straight home. We argued a bit, but I have fairly strict routine I keep with my daughter. He made me promise we'd talk at night. We did, and he showed me he deleted the account.
It's been a week and my anger hasn't calmed down at all. This is not the man I thought I knew. He says it started as a joke, and got out of control because he liked the attention. So WIBTA if I divorced my husband for pretending I'm a trad wife online?
EDIT:
Yes, I am a traditional wife. I am not a #tradwife. Since our dating years I've always made it known that I wanted an equal partner. I did not want weird gender roles forced on any children we might have. He always agreed and is self identified as a feminist.
I have been mostly avoiding him. I have a temper, and I don't want to be mean to him. So I've been keeping my distance. We've been sleeping in separate rooms, but trying to act normal around my daughter.
No, there have been no other glaringly bad issues in our marriage. A couple of times early on he would crash at friends houses after a night out, and not communicate he where he was. After we talked about it he never did it again.
I do not regret being a stay at home parent or resent my daughter. She is a sweet girl with a lot of challenges in front of her. We're doing our best to get her early interventions, therapies and etc.
My husband has other social media. These photos never showed up on them. Not as an appreciation post our families could see. Yes, I do expect him to ask my permission to post me. Or in the very least that he let me know he has posted me. We do not under any circumstances post pictures of our daughters face online. We agreed on that 5 years before we had her.
There were about 30 posts that I saw. Yes, my face was visible. I didn't read them all. My head started to spin after seeing the one with my daughter. The caption was something like "I thank Jesus everyday for these beautiful ladies." My husband is an Atheist.
I'm going to try and have a conversation soon. I'm not sure when. I need to be in a less easily set off head space. Because I just can't get over the sneaking and lying. It's so bizarre.
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
Efficient-Tart4412 said:
NTA, this is really weird and creepy. Posting photos of you without your knowledge or consent (especially to show strangers on the internet) is not something a caring partner does.
He’s intentionally twisting the perception of your relationship to suit a fantasy of a subservient wife, and getting validation from random people. There’s something deeper here, and I have a bad feeling it ends in realizing your husband has swallowed the red-pill kool-aid.
Start an exit strategy in case you need it. Reach out to trusted friends and family. Get things prepared for yourself and your daughter on the chance you need to leave. He’s shown you who he is, believe him the first time.
AlexRyang said:
NTA. That’s disgusting behavior. At a minimum you both should do couples counseling, but in this case I would argue you do not owe him to participate in that. There is a gulf between being a homemaker and a trad wife.
Also, (maybe it is just me being younger, I am not sure? And maybe this is a bit off topic?) I personally dislike stay at home parents not having at some level, access to their own finances. Your contributions are just as valuable as his. I personally dislike the idea of a stay at home parent not having a separate IRA and some percentage of the household income that they get for themselves.
Wereallgonnadieman said:
Just him posting your image without consent is enough to divorce him. The disrespect is just the icing on the cake.
Update from OP 1 month later:
I'm going to try and keep this short as possible. I have talked to a family attorney, my old lab and we have attended two sessions with a marriage counselor. I am still not convinced that I will be staying married.
The attorney I'm working with is pretty confident that we can keep things civil and quick if I decide to go through with filing. If I want we can pursue searching his devices, but it will cost and drag things out longer, but it isn't an unreasonable request.
He's also suggested that we go for 50/50 custody since we'll both be staying in the area. Our families and lives are here. Another suggestion he's made is that I look into a qualified full time nanny for my daughter. That it can be agreed in court that we split the cost.
I left my career as a research pharmacist, and my husband works in corporate pharmacy for a large well known chain store. I reached out to my old lab director, and she was ecstatic to hear from me. They don't currently have a position open, but nearer to fall there will be. She assured me that if I needed something before she'd give me a glowing recommendation.
On to the counseling. I wouldn't say the first was a session. More introductions, and laying out why I feel things are irreversible. He stuck with his joke/I'm just overreacting narrative during this session. The counselor gave us homework. We're to really listen when the other is speaking, and be present in our true feelings, and not default to anger.
Second session husband said he got caught up in the fantasy of me being a tradwife. That he makes very few decisions in our marriage, and that he often takes the submissive role.
"Just hand over the paycheck and shut up."-his words In his made up X world I was submissive, and he enjoyed the power and attention. I am blindsided by this. I truly thought we were equals, and we were making decisions together. Then he went on to say that he isn't unhappy with any of the decisions made.
I'm still wildly uncomfortable in his presence if I am doing anything. All of my ability to be intimate with him is gone, and replaced with ick. We have tried to talk, and we just go round in circles.Ge says I'm totally overreacting. He makes my skin crawl, and he refuses to believe he broke my trust irreparably. Turns out this wasn't very short.
Some comments from after the update:
Counseling has its limits, and when both spouses insist on different visions of a marriage, there may not be enough common ground to work with.
The only hope is to make him understand that being the sole family breadwinner and decision-maker sucks in real life, and that's a damned faint hope. People who cling to comforting fantasies will always resist thinking too hard about them, because then their favorite source of comfort will be gone.
Good for you. This could be some kind of mental break for him. He prefers to detach from reality. Not good.
A few days later OP posted this second update:
It's over. There is another woman. I'm done. My husband completely freaked out before our therapy session yesterday, and told me he's done. He confessed that there is a 22 year old girl at his work that introduced him to the tradwife lifestyle, Twitter/X, and the whole thing. They've been having lunch dates for months, but nothing physical has happened. "She's not like that."
He said at first the fantasy was enough. Now it isn't enough. He called me an insufferable Mary-Sue ( I'd never heard this phrase before). He said he's tired of my need for routines, and constant control over everything. Then went on to say that maybe a young traditional wife can give him "normal," children.
My heart is broken for my daughter, and I'm at a loss. I just feel numb. In his rage he told me to keep the house. He'd be moving in with this girl before the month was over.
After the update people chimed in:
Ooooohhhhhhhhh. The comment about your daughter was low. Lower than low.
Throwaway-tradwife82 OP responded:
The comment about my daughter is what is upsetting me the most. I couldn't believe he could say that about her. It's so out of character for the man I married. I can recall the number of times he's been angry, there are so few. To say something so ugly about his own daughter.
I have no idea the kind of kool-aod they're serving him, but he's clearly enjoying it. I'm writing an email to my attorney over today and tomorrow. I will definitely include the question about the locks! Thank you for the kindness.
I’m so sorry, but it’s for the best. The moment he posted those things on X it was kinda over.