memfree

I’m doing better without him, so don’t worry too much about it. Old women tend to live alone simply because men die younger, so it’s no biggie if some of us start that trend a bit early.

I remember an old guy who really wanted to remarry when his wife died, courted and married someone new, and then expected her to do all the household chores because that’s what women do. She was aghast. He hadn’t given any indication that what he wanted was a free maid while wooing her, and she backed out of the whole thing immediately – much happier to be on her own than take on his expectations.

The reddit hivemind gets triggered by the very idea of cheating. As far as I know, there was no cheating in my marriage and eventual divorce, but it didn’t matter to me if he cheated or not. It mattered to him that I didn’t cheat, so I didn’t. From my point of view, I’d have a problem if he was spending all his free time with someone else instead of helping with the house, chores, relationship, and so on, but random sex was fine by me – as long as it didn’t result in pregnancy or become a full-blown relationship.

Years ago I read some paper about how humans have two primary and competing reproductive strategies: monogamy versus promiscuouness. It theorized that cultures tend to codify monogamy as the standard to follow because its proponents get very hostile to the promiscuous whereas the promiscuous do not much care what the monogamous do.

He’d tell you because I was crazy.

I’d say it was because he wanted us to both move in with his (wonderful and supportive) family.

I was crazy, but not THAT crazy.

We had been living far away from his family, but he’d landed a fantastic job in their home town. Before the move, his mother started calling me and telling me that if I wanted to live in her house, I’d have to be respectful, and not go out drinking all night and coming home drunk – something I’d never done or conceived of doing – or what chores I would have, or how loud I could be, and when we would eat, and so on. I told him that I could not live 24/7 with his mom. I said I was moving to MY mother’s and when he got us a place of our own, I would join him. He didn’t. We divorced.

The divorce was fairly amicable. That was all about 30 years ago and I never remarried. I did shack up with a wonderful man for about 20 years, but I eventually kicked him out because he’d shrink into the shadows when I most needed support and I was tired of feeling emotionally devastated when I reaching out for succor and instead finding a void. I explained that I’d rather know that no one is there to help if I’m flailing about than to have someone I trusted stand by and do nothing. Yeah, I’m bitter about that one. I still love the guy, but sheesh.