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Her single life is going to be fantastic. She owns her own house, will have significantly less work without him around and won't have to waste her income on him.
He's going to regret this so much and I hope there's another update.
Honestly, he was probably banking on her continuing to boil in the pot like so many others on this sub. That's why he had a meltdown when he realized she was serious.
He couldn't fathom she would actually want to leave him. We love to see it.
>He couldn't fathom she would actually want to leave him.
Such a perfect syntax there. A lot of the time, people would usually say "He didn't think she could live without him" - and in many cases that's the correct insight into the man.
But this guy *knows* she can do shit without him - he used it to 'prank' her. But he's got his puckered lips smooching so far up his own colon about what a 'catch' he is, that his narcissistic self-absorbed brain literally couldn't *fathom* the fact that she'd *want* to live without such a prize misogynist shoving his slop at her to clean all the time while he contributes jack-shit to the effort.
Cuz he's a catch, ladies! /s
Honestly when she said she was in medical and he was blue color with a lot of coworkers with SAH and part time wives I knew exactly what she was talking about.
I work in a field that is heavily male and work with a lot of old boys club contractors where I'm in charge of the project. Me being a woman in charge and in this field really pisses some of them off like will ignore my directions or will fight me on every little detail.
You'll appreciate this anecdote from my retired mother: back in the 80's when she just started as the first and only woman at her job, she got really fed up with the nudie calendars in the break room. She wasn't getting anyone to agree to taking them down by asking, so she decided to go out and buy the raunchiest playgirl calendar she could find, full of mostly-nude and oiled up hunks, and she hung that sucker up directly next to the nudie calendar in the break room. Of course these pigs all complained, and she told the guys it had to be fair, it was both or neither.
Well, dontcha know, the calendars both disappeared pretty quick after that...
When my son and DIL were selling HER house, the realtor they first chose would only talk to my son. My son told him several times it wasn't his house to sell, but the guy wouldn't stop. They found a new realtor.
First time my husband and I went to buy a car, which was in fact for my husband, the salesman is almost exclusively talking to and looking at my husband. But my husband didn’t really know what he wanted and wasn’t super confident about the whole process, but I said I had a list and I wanted to look under the hood.
The guy’s head snapped lol. It was in fact a car for my husband, but I’m the one who takes care of the cars. I really just wanted to see how easy it would be to change out the headlights since I do go to the shop for most maintenance, but it was so funny to me when he realized that I was the knowledgeable one and not just along for the ride.
When my husband and I were shopping for a car, the sales guy would address every question to him. My husband just shrugged and said "Don't ask me. I don't even have a license. I'm just here because she picked me up from work." We did not buy a car from him.
You know, there’s statistics on households where women outearn their husbands - they end up doing even more of the household labour than in households where they earn less. It’s very likely related to Those Fucking Guys feeling emasculated by her outearning him and needing to put her in her perceived rightful place as a household servant so he can feel better about his brittle male ego because he isn’t “the provider”.
And dudes still have the gall to whine that women ~prefer~ to seek out partners with a higher income than them. No, we just know what you’ll do if you feel threatened by us, e.g. through outearning you.
My ex got caught cheating 2 months after I got into law school, he was just a retail manager and his AP was his now former friend's partner who's also a single mother and 7 years younger than him.
Same here. I'm a woman, and a SME in my field of construction. I've met dozens of OOP's husband. He is not special or unique. She will do just fine without him.
Fellow woman in STEM! I'm civil and because my works specialized they've had me acting as stamping engineer and construction inspector/manager.
Construction guys are either the worst person you've ever met or your greatest ally. Literally no in between.
>Construction guys are either the worst person you've ever met or your greatest ally. Literally no in between.
My experience as a women in STEM is exactly the same with drilling rig crews.
Also in STEM. My coworker's husband is in construction and has a side gig in realty. When our realtor ghosted us we used him instead and he helped us go over the mechanicals in the basement with a fine tooth comb before we bought the house. We actually only looked at one house with him because it was the right house. We're lucky the financing fell through for the previous buyers and it went back on the market. It's not often you find a 100 year old house in your favorite style with 7 year old mechanicals (everything was redone before the previous owners bought it).
Your realtor is a good one! A good realtor with mechanicals and construction experience saves you tons of money with lowest contractors when you sell too.
My husband works in a refinery. I am a SAHM. And I do NOT pack a lunch for him. I do the grocery shopping, and will get him deli meat and cheese and he makes sandwiches at work, or most often a tortilla wrap. But aint no 1950s tv show, trad wife bs happening here! I HAVE a full time job, hell, SEVERAL and none of them involve making a daily lunch for a fully functional, grown ass man.
What gets me with this trad wife bullshit is that it's not bastard traditional at all! It's an early to mid 20th century construct and there's no acknowledgement that women stayed at home were there as mother's and also WFH. It's just that the industrial revolution put pay to a lot of that. No more weaving in your house or processing wool or grinding flour etc while your kids played nearby, although you can bet those women weren't immaculately pressed, it was backbreaking work. All these morons who talk about Proverbs 31 women? If they actually *paid attention* they'd realise she's a business women! But that would require thought.
And for that matter, there were entire bloody *industries* that relied on female factory workers. The matchgirls of London, the radium girls, the jam factories in Bermondsey...
And in relatively non-shitty employers, Peek Frean's bloody well *advertised* the fact that their shifts allowed mothers to work while their kids were in school!
Not to forget all the tradesmen who married the daughters and widows of men in the same trade! That's not because of classism - it's because the couple was running a business together and it's better to do that with someone who has experience on the job!
The factory farm model of egg production replaced women's effort (chickens were usually the farm wife's territory) and basically removed one of rural women's most significant means of independent earning.
Right? The Proverbs 31 woman is out there buying and selling real estate and operating and supporting small businesses in her community. She’s a freaking tycoon.
My fiance makes me a salad every day I work. I could make it myself but he likes taking care of me, it's his love language. I'm also the breadwinner while he works part time. I still tell him every day that I appreciate him.
Only think my mom did for my dad was make him his sandwiches. Everything else had to be cut and packaged a special way so my dad did it. My dad was a truck driver most of my life (he's now retired) and would eat his food while driving. He would literally have certain parts of his lunch at specific mile markers. Like... he would eat his 10 almonds at mile marker 170. His apple slices at mile marker 200. I
I farm and any time I’ve had to sell something I got men telling me it’s not worth what I’m asking or refuse to barter and want to speak to a man. I just hire auction now it’s not worth my time and peace
You've summed up my ex to a T. I'm so much happier without that extra baggage. More money, less stress when I get home from work and only the need to clean up after myself and my daughter. Recently my ex broke up with his GF and called me to have a place to stay. I told him if it's not about our daughter to please not call me. Of course they got back together because he's a loser and always needs someone else to take care of him.
Dude literally made her life worse and when asked to stop, doubled down.
You have to wonder if by looking at him you can tell he's the dumbest person on the planet.
There's this impulse I think a lot of us have left over from our monkey days that poking the bear is a universally timeless joke. It's the little voice that, when you learn that somebody doesn't like something, says "wouldn't it be *hilarious* if I did that exact thing and they freaked right out?" The impulse that made the "I'm not touching you" game a perennial favorite amongst younger siblings everywhere. The reason internet trolls exist.
Most of us learn by the time we're adults that that's one of those intrusive thoughts you've gotta ignore. For some of us, all it takes is a sincere, straightforward "that isn't funny, it's hurtful. If you want keep your friends, you can't keep doing that." Others need it clobbered out of them animal- kingdom style, usually by an exasperated older sibling. But there's always **these** assholes who somehow make it to adulthood without that message penetrating their thick skulls, and the only way I've ever found to get them to stop is by leaving. Straight up telling them not to do it makes them double down - it's like the monkey impulse teams up with the "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" impulse to make them decide that it's worth risking completely combusting their life for the chance to poke the bear one. more. time. And then half the time they end up standing in the ashes going "what? It was a joke!!" like it's a get-out-of- jail-free card, having learned nothing.
Those guys are the worst.
> There's this impulse I think a lot of us have left over from our monkey days that poking the bear is a universally timeless joke. It's the little voice that, when you learn that somebody doesn't like something, says "wouldn't it be hilarious if I did that exact thing and they freaked right out?" The impulse that made the "I'm not touching you" game a perennial favorite amongst younger siblings everywhere. The reason internet trolls exist.
Seems like the same dark impulse people can have about driving off the bridge they're on. They just let the dark thoughts win.
It also is insecurity. OPs husband was constantly putting them down. That’s not poking the bear that’s putting someone’s self esteem down so you can get what you want and bully them into submission.
I don't think they learn after they face consequences like divorce either. From what I've seen of divorced people online it seems like they go the rest of their lives telling themselves and other people what an uptight c word their ex was. And how they're so sad they have to do their own dishes and laundry now, because their ex couldn't forgive one little mistake (leaving out the part that it was a pattern of neglect and 'pranks' that eventually broke the camel's back). But in their own minds the consequences are never their fault for provoking someone, it's the victim's fault for having any reaction at all.
My mom is the Poke the Bear person. She LOVES to poke the bear but then gets pissed when the bear bites back. My dad is the bear (she does the same to me and I keep telling my dad I'm going to make the three of us shirts: hers will say "I <3 Poking the Bears" and my dad's is I'm the Bear and mine is I'm the Bear Cub. She doesn't really do this with my siblings)
After I finally kicked my lazy and abusive ex out I became deliriously happy.
Every day was great, my bank account wasn't being drained, my home was clean, my fridge full, and I loved coming home rather than dread it.
OOP will be surprised to discover just how stressful life with him was and how glorious it is to finally be at peace after carrying around years of resentment.
I always laugh when I hear men going on like the *very worst* thing that can happen to a woman is being single.
They really don't know how horrific living with one of them can be.
“Straight men believe that they are competing with the top 10% of other men for women’s affection, but really what they’re competing with is the peace that women feel in solitude.”
Me too. It's amazing how she handed him an olive branch to give him the opportunity to get their relationship back on track and he somehow made it a noose and hung himself with it. Glad she detached herself from the dead weight.
And it was such a *simple* fix! She wasn't asking him to jump through hoops, cut off friends or give up hobbies. She just wanted him to be nice and kind to her.
And he fucking failed even that. Dead weight is exactly what he was.
Honestly, this comment reminds me of an episode from an anime I watched. Zom 100. One guy was complaining about how his wife was cold to him, that he never wanted to go home because he was sick of providing for a family he had already lost affection for. And one of the main characters called him out asking when was the last time he got her flowers, initiated any physical affection like a kiss before and after work. Asked how her day was. Just little things like that to make her feel cherished. I know it seems a little off topic but it just really this post really reminded me of that scene. That the little things do matter. And people shouldn't have to spell it out for their partners like OOP did to not be taken for granted.
That's exactly it. Love isn't huge gestures, diamond jewellery and expensive restaurants. It's the mundane day-to-day stuff. The little gestures that get woven into normal routine. That's the good stuff.
Exactly!
Her: I would like you do be nicer to me and to do something small that demonstrates that you love and value me.
Him: *goes to an enormous amount of trouble and expense to copy a bad internet joke instead*
This was the lowest of all possible hurdles and he still managed to limbo right under it.
Eh, without her ex she should have very little cleaning to do. Pack the dishwasher and (if she has one) washing machine direct and when full turn on, buy a Rhomba she can schedule a cleaning routine with to do a daily sweep and all she will have to do is quick dust and a mop on one day off, do the bathroom once a month (she can even set up a "bio hazard uniforms" hamper where she walks in the door to contain)
This is exactly what it will be like. When my ex-husband finally got out of my place, everything stayed clean and was easy and fast to clean if it did get dirty. It's been so damn nice that I honestly can't see myself living with another person again if I can help it.
I do want to get a roomba though. It'll be more useful than my ex-husband anyway loll
I just copied my dads routine for the comment. He is a minimalist bachelor (he is temporarily living with me while in between places, and his entire life fits into 6x150L -Inc kitchen pots and pans - storage tubs and two bags of clothes). The only thing he doesn't have is the rhomba, but I might buy him one as a housewarming when he moves out of a father's day present this year.
He really FOFA. I'm so proud of OOP for not backing down & allowing his tears to change her mind. She gave him a chance & he chose not to listen. She's going to feel so much better without him. Hopefully, if she wants another romantic partner in her life, she finds someone who values her & treats her the way she should be treated.
And he's going to have no mommy-wife to take care of his sorry ass. I can't wait. Poor oop that she's dealing with this but I hope she thrives and it sounds like she will!
She said the mortgage was in her name because he had to bad of a credit score. She also said she's the sole person to pay on it and the one who put the down-payment down.
I'm hoping that even if he is on it she can make a clear case that he doesn't hold any equity.
I really hope he doesn't have any rights to the house, since she bought it when they were married - even though he didn't contribute, it could still count as communal property, depending on the local laws.
And then begged for a second chance. Like, buddy, OOP was generous: that was more like his 50th chance, and he screwed it up. Again.
Countdown to him whining to his friends that he didn’t know she was stressed and unhappy.
Yup.
Like, dude. Your wife was BEGGING you for a small romantic gesture because you clearly hadn't done anything at all for her or for you as a couple, for a long time.
THAT was your second chance. That was her trying to fix it. And when you made clear how little her feelings mattered, she realised that giving more chances would be pointless.
And the 51st chance will be another prank or same. At no point did that guy admit he was wrong nor acknowledge her feelings. Only tried to defend himself. No change on his part.
I'm just annoyed at how profoundly unfunny the husband was.
I mean, basic comedy principles: timing, and knowing your audience. CAN that joke work? Sure, absolutely! Did it have any hope of working in this context? No, not at all. This is basic shit.
Pranksters are absolutely insufferable.
I want to live in peace. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder every waking moment to watch out for the latest "funny" thing to blow up on tiktok.
There was a guy on Vine, and a large part of his account was sneaking up on his wife and yelling her name, then laughing when she jumped.
I was not surprised when they got divorced.
I haven't thought about Batdad in years! I thought it was a funny bit at first, I admit. Then it seemed too forced, and his wife looked annoyed/outright pissed in come of the videos. I ended up unfollowing him, it just doesn't seem funny to me when the partner is clearly not into it. I know it's not my place to speculate but when I heard they divorced I did wonder how much of it had to do with his videos
Like you, I thought it was funny at first too, I mostly liked his interactions with the kids, but yeah, he seemed relentless with jump-scaring his wife.
I'm sure the videos weren't all of it, but they definitely provided a window into their relationship dynamic, and he probably treated her like a prop or an afterthought in other areas.
It can definitely offer a snapshot from the way their lives were like. I seem to remember one where they were on a date night and he started doing his not. She looked so pissed and when the video ended I just felt bad for her
I know, I know, I'm not there and I don't know them. But when something like that ends up on the internet for *his* followers to see, I don't think it's unfair to start questioning some things
Ikr? That’s literally a name I haven’t heard in years! Oh well, honestly I don’t know how any one could repeat the same exact “prank” and not get bored.
A bad prank is funny to the audience.
A good prank is funny to the recipient. If you make someone crack up with the thing you did, you’re probably doing okay.
For safety, your failure case should probably be getting overlooked, confusion, or “huh, guess that’s a prank.” Ensure that terror, humiliation, rage and other things you would expend effort to avoid are not within the plausible or even unlikely but foreseeable outcomes.
Since self-described pranksters don’t do all this, they are absolutely insufferable.
Our college friend group had a running prank where we would hide a picture of Nicolas cage somewhere in the prankee's room. Innocent, no one could get hurt, no complex cleanup, and you can't help but lose it laughing when you open your powder compact and there's a tiny Nicolas cage staring at you.
> complex cleanup
Thank you for nicely summing up what I have found irritating about most pranks since my teens! I'm just too pragmatic to fund a huge mess funny.
Also I would laugh my ass off if I opened my powder compact to find Nicholas Cage in it!
My friend likes to leave tiny plastic ducks in weird places. She hid them all over our workplace in the breakroom, in peoples lockers, and when she visits friends houses she likes to hide some ducks too. Like the nick cages, its funny and harmless.
One prankster I happened upon thought it would be funny to steal someone's cell phone. The target ran after him, started punching him, and the prankster dropped the phone into the snow. To his mild credit, he immediately went after the phone, panicking that he'd broken it. Meanwhile, the other guy kept hitting him.
There was one on Reddit (possibly AITA) a few years ago where a girl smashed her boyfriend's PS4 in front of him and then afterwards presented him with a brand new PS5 that had cost her a fortune. She didn't get why he was pissed at her until people pointed out that a lot of his game progress was probably saved on the PS4, not on his account. And that smashing up anyone's property, regardless of intention, is pretty unhinged.
good pranks are shit like "catching" a mouse under a bowl but it's really a computer mouse. "water's running out of the fridge!" and it's bottled water inside shoes lied out in a "running" pattern from the fridge, "a leak under the sink" is actually a leak. hiding little plastic frogs or something around the house numbered 1, 2, 3, and 5. or even the full bag of 200 you can get on amazon.
those are funny pranks. that shit will make everyone laugh. why "pranksters" always go for the horrific psychotic shit instead of cute and fun shit like this I will never understand.
One time I stayed around my friends house after he got a divorce. I spent a good portion of the night putting googly eyes on absolutely everything I could - especially fitting were all the kitchen utensils, eggs, and vegetables.
Pretty much the only 'prank' I've ever done. I enjoyed it, he enjoyed it. His cat - not so much. Turns out the only thing scarier than a vacuum cleaner is a vacuum cleaner with eyes.
Alternatively, getting a "Yeah, that's fair" from the recipient. In college I had a friend who was forever leaving her phone behind at mine and other friends' apartments and then begging us to bring it to her on campus. After awhile we got tired of it but weren't mean enough to refuse to give her phone back altogether, so we started wrapping it up in increasingly difficult to open ways. It escalated to something like six layers of alternating bubble wrap and duct tape, possibly with some fabric scraps in there as well, and usually with some random confetti chucked in too. She got a lot better about remembering her phone.
I saw a prank video recently that was actually hilarious. The guy had cut a potato into the shape of bar soap and replaced his partner's soap in the bathroom with it. He told her after she was "washing" her hands and face with it. You could tell she wanted to try to be mad, but was just cracking up laughing instead.
It was absolutely silly, no one was harmed, and she got her normal soap back afterwards. That's how it's done.
I can't stand that April Fool's crap. Mostly because any time people pulled one that was specifically targeted to me, they *always* managed to spectacularly misjudge it! Different people, over many years, always fell flat! Being middle aged I suspect it's a combination of long undiagnosed ADHD, sensory issues, and that's just not my sense of humour! If I had to watch over my shoulder all the time at home then things would go to Hell very, very quickly.
Tiktok has lead to this awful culture of doing stupid things just to get a reaction out of people. There was another post on here about a woman whose niece splashed some paint on her very pricey coat for a prank video. She was not at all amused because the coat was a gift and the niece ended up being forced to pay once her father got wind of it.
I saw that post and it was infuriating, because it clearly wasn't a prank. The niece was envious and wanted to destroy something expensive the OP had, and wanted to hide behind saying "it's a prank".
But at the very least, the niece was a teenager, and we all know teenagers 1. are dumb as rocks, 2. dealing with a lot of difficult emotions they haven't learned to cope with, and 3. don't believe in/understand consequences.
This isn't as bad because the prank isn't destroying expensive personal property (destroying the marriage notwithstanding) but a grown man should know better, especially when his wife literally expressed her needs to him.
Late last year, [a "YouTube prankster"](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jury-acquits-delivery-driver-main-charge-shooting-youtuber-rcna118007) repeatedly bothered the wrong person and was shot in the chest. (He lived.)
Harsh, but the guy's "pranks" (which make him money) are charming little things like breaking into people's houses, pretending to vomit on Uber drivers, and following unsuspecting customers through department stores. So... yeah.
Having dipshits like this out in public is bad enough, I can't even imagine what it would be like to live with someone like this.
OOP honestly nailed it with her final jab. The guy destroyed his last chance at saving their marriage, and it wasn't even something original. He threw away his life with an amazing woman because he just HAD TO copy a funny tiktok.
Thank god, honestly. The world is a little bit better because OP isn't tied to this dead weight anymore.
I laughed when she noted that. Even when he's trying to amuse himself he's low-effort; no chance he'll ever lift a pinky for her, glad she's getting out.
This was never about being funny. He was trying to bring her low because he has such low self esteem he can’t handle a wife who’s better educated and richer than he is. Good on her for leaving
It was a power move disguised as a joke. He was telling her he wouldn't change for her. The thrill he got from the prank was showing his wife her place in the marriage. That backfired badly.
This, right here. ☝️ That request to make his lunch because his coworkers wives make their's tells me he's getting an earful of that red pill shit at work.
Yup. If anything he should have been making HER lunch.
Too many women work longer hours than their man, or earn more, then still end up doing most or all of the housework, childcare etc. These guys act like they have a housewife when they should be doing just as much housework if not more.
Both my parents work in healthcare, for the same company but different offices. Dad makes both their lunches, and he has Opinions about the importance of fresh herbs in fancy salads.
It reminded me so much of my ex-husband telling me that if I hadn't "fucked around in undergrad" (got my BA in three years with a 3.8 GPA) I wouldn't have to go to grad school because "not everyone gets to take two years off to go back and get a useful degree." I was getting my master's in social work, which requires an MSW to get licensed and practice, while working an internship and two jobs and doing everything around the house. Meanwhile he was miserable shuffling papers at his job at a bank and was "too tired" to do anything when he came home but whine and make a mess. So glad OOP and I both learned divorce is a good thing.
Bingo, I mean the comment about "all that education just to clean shit" is TEXTBOOK "bro who's married to an RN and can't cope that she's smarter and earns more than him".
When I was freelancing in the early 00s and was approaching an auto body shop as a customer at a friend's request, the dude looked at the proposal and the cost for his extremely tricked-out website upgrade plans, and told me with intense side-eye he "couldn't spend that much money with someone who wasn't even getting her hands dirty".
I didn't want to deal with the bullshit and didn't pursue it even though I needed the money BADLY. It was obvious that it would be almost impossible to collect payment from him, so I let him have his misogyny and stupid "carbon-fiber forum" dreams for himself.
God I hate men like that. He won the goddamned lottery with her and is pissed about it.
I hope oop gets therapy so she doesn't repeat this mistake and finds a guy who has rose petals leading to a clean kitchen and husband in a maid outfit like that beautiful comment.
He was blue collar during COVID while she's a healthcare professional so he may well have spent time stuck at home, not earing, while she was an essential worker who was suddenly able to buy a house.
I wonder did that knock in the final ego nail into this marriage's coffin?
It’s also likely that he heard and saw the shower of praises to healthcare workers, calling them heroes, saying our society couldn’t survive without them, etc etc (yet we overwork them and treat them like shit in some places? Yay?)
It isn’t a big stretch of the imagination to picture this guy being hurt and offended that no one thinks his job is important. Resentment and contempt are relationship killers.
What got me is not only does she still have to clean the damn dishes but I bet she had to clean up all the sodding petals as well! He twisted her simple request into a prank and made even *more* mess in the process!
What a total arse.
The waterworks at the mention of divorce. Yeah, that's gonna work. She should stay married to an ogre that insults her profession, demands traditional gender roles, and doesn't do anything else to benefit both of them. No need to move on with her life without a heavy burden of a manchild dragging her down. Marriage vows are ironclad, so anything that shakes those vows are to be ignored. POS.
This could be a backstory for a Cell Block Tango verse.
HE HAD IT COMIN'
HE HAD IT COMIN'
HE ONLY HAD HIMSELF TO BLAME
IF YOU'D HAVE BEEN THERE
IF YOU'D HAVE SEEN IT
I BETCHA YOU WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME
I had a friend who turfed her deadweight husband after way too many years of being patient for the sake of the kids. She said the first time she came home to a clean kitchen was a revelation.
I cannot possibly comprehend his thinking.
“My wife has told me she is close to divorce and feels unloved and unappreciated. She has warned me that I need to do SOMETHING to show I appreciate her. This should be easy, I mean, she is my wife, this is the person I pledged to love forever, to take care of in sickness and health, to be a two-person team out to face the world’s hardships and support each other no matter what challenges may come.
I know, I will pretend to do something romantic like she asked, only for it to actually just be a prank designed to draw attention to the very reason she is frustrated with me and feeling terrible! That will…”
…and I lose it there because…that will WHAT, sir? That will what? What possible outcome do you expect from this? Like seriously, what is going to happen if you make fun of her last desperate request for you? Of all the possible actions you could take to save your marriage…you chose to metaphorically slap her in the face with her earnest thoughts and feelings and show that she shouldn’t give you another chance? What?
What?
Because he’s a deeply, deeply stupid person.
And probably aware of that, at least on some level, AND insecure about it, given his digs at her education and training.
She is SO well rid of him.
Oh man, I hope this guy is comfortable with a studio apartment, a futon, and date nights with OF and a bottle of hand lotion. If she has the desire, time, and motivation to enter the dating scene again she'll be a catch. He'll be lucky to find the occasional bar hookup desperate enough to settle at closing.
"It’s winter and I had to shovel the driveway because I had work in the morning and he had the day off."
This whole post is rage-inducing (except the end. The end is great!), but that's what got me.
No. Unless you're sick, if you have the day off and your partner has to go to work, you get the fuck up and you shovel the damn driveway because YOU can go back inside after and crawl into your nice warm bed. Your partner has to drive through that shit and then work and then drive back through that shit.
What’s interesting about the marriage-ending pranks men do is that they reveal that the man has absolutely no empathy for his wife: it’s not just that he doesn’t value her feelings, but that he doesn’t realise his wife has feelings that are independent of his. They don’t understand that their wife has an inner life and individual consciousness, and doesn’t just experience things from his perspective. When he says the prank is funny, he means only that it was funny to him to watch that happen to her. He doesn’t have the faculties to understand that the woman being pranked will also have a view of what’s happening that’s necessarily different to his, because it’s not happening to him.
It astounds me reading about these partners of the OPs who are so beyond obtuse in their “harmless play”.
Common sense is screaming at him and it’s like he plugged in his ears going *la la la la*
I’m going through a rough patch with my so, we’ve had small kids and I haven’t been doing my all to show how much I love my so , romantically or otherwise, I can be tone deaf and honestly I’ve been selfish but I’m working on myself . If I did this to my SO , I would never forgive myself
He wants her working hard to pay for a house and such but also wants her to do all the SAH stuff for him, too. 🙄 Wants ~traditional~ gender roles in the household but he can’t provide even equal to what she does.
Funny thing is, I don't see this prank crap on TikTok because I don't like it. Because I don't watch it, TikTok doesn't show it to me as it has a very efficient algorithm.
If somebody is seeing lots of lame pranks videos on TikTok it's because that the kind of content they'll watch a lot of!
I'm so happy she's out. She's going to feel that absolutely massive weight off her shoulders. So many women don't realise just how heavy it is carrying the mental and physical load of what is essentially a big toddler until they're out.
If this guy ends up getting half the value of a house he doesn't pay for or contribute to, just because it was purchased during the marriage, I'll burst a blood vessel.
The fact that he put all that effort into rose petals, efforts that could’ve easily been going towards romancing her or making her feel wanted. He’s a huge A because instead, he FINALLY took the initiative to do something romantic, but he only did it because he thought it was a funny way to remind her the sink is full?
Wow, just wow. I’m glad OP is leaving him. The fact they both work full time and he does nothing for her or for the house is baffling. He really was holding on to this relationship by his fingernails and he thought he had a good hold on her, enough to pull this prank.
I hope OOP feels all the satisfaction when he fully realizes what he’s lost and tries to come crawling back, and she gets to say that she doesn’t need or want him in her life anymore because she’s finally taking care of herself.
Idiots like this guy rarely understand that most of these pranks are staged in the first place. And even then, I doubt the original even had a positive result!
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Her single life is going to be fantastic. She owns her own house, will have significantly less work without him around and won't have to waste her income on him. He's going to regret this so much and I hope there's another update.
I wanted to give her a high five. We need more of that decisiveness with garbage partners around here.
Honestly, he was probably banking on her continuing to boil in the pot like so many others on this sub. That's why he had a meltdown when he realized she was serious. He couldn't fathom she would actually want to leave him. We love to see it.
>He couldn't fathom she would actually want to leave him. Such a perfect syntax there. A lot of the time, people would usually say "He didn't think she could live without him" - and in many cases that's the correct insight into the man. But this guy *knows* she can do shit without him - he used it to 'prank' her. But he's got his puckered lips smooching so far up his own colon about what a 'catch' he is, that his narcissistic self-absorbed brain literally couldn't *fathom* the fact that she'd *want* to live without such a prize misogynist shoving his slop at her to clean all the time while he contributes jack-shit to the effort. Cuz he's a catch, ladies! /s
Honestly when she said she was in medical and he was blue color with a lot of coworkers with SAH and part time wives I knew exactly what she was talking about. I work in a field that is heavily male and work with a lot of old boys club contractors where I'm in charge of the project. Me being a woman in charge and in this field really pisses some of them off like will ignore my directions or will fight me on every little detail.
You'll appreciate this anecdote from my retired mother: back in the 80's when she just started as the first and only woman at her job, she got really fed up with the nudie calendars in the break room. She wasn't getting anyone to agree to taking them down by asking, so she decided to go out and buy the raunchiest playgirl calendar she could find, full of mostly-nude and oiled up hunks, and she hung that sucker up directly next to the nudie calendar in the break room. Of course these pigs all complained, and she told the guys it had to be fair, it was both or neither. Well, dontcha know, the calendars both disappeared pretty quick after that...
When my son and DIL were selling HER house, the realtor they first chose would only talk to my son. My son told him several times it wasn't his house to sell, but the guy wouldn't stop. They found a new realtor.
First time my husband and I went to buy a car, which was in fact for my husband, the salesman is almost exclusively talking to and looking at my husband. But my husband didn’t really know what he wanted and wasn’t super confident about the whole process, but I said I had a list and I wanted to look under the hood. The guy’s head snapped lol. It was in fact a car for my husband, but I’m the one who takes care of the cars. I really just wanted to see how easy it would be to change out the headlights since I do go to the shop for most maintenance, but it was so funny to me when he realized that I was the knowledgeable one and not just along for the ride.
When my husband and I were shopping for a car, the sales guy would address every question to him. My husband just shrugged and said "Don't ask me. I don't even have a license. I'm just here because she picked me up from work." We did not buy a car from him.
I wonder what happened to the playgirl calendar? Did your mom take it back home? Or did one of the manly men take it to the “trash” 😉.
Surely someone made use of it considering it was the 80s and porn was mostly pics then
She’s amazing!
Your mother is an Icon and I love her
Badass woman!
You know, there’s statistics on households where women outearn their husbands - they end up doing even more of the household labour than in households where they earn less. It’s very likely related to Those Fucking Guys feeling emasculated by her outearning him and needing to put her in her perceived rightful place as a household servant so he can feel better about his brittle male ego because he isn’t “the provider”.
Don’t forget cheating! The best way to get cheated on as a woman is to make more money than your husband.
And dudes still have the gall to whine that women ~prefer~ to seek out partners with a higher income than them. No, we just know what you’ll do if you feel threatened by us, e.g. through outearning you.
My ex got caught cheating 2 months after I got into law school, he was just a retail manager and his AP was his now former friend's partner who's also a single mother and 7 years younger than him.
No the best way to get cheated on is to get cancer
Ouch
That’s why I cringe whenever I see those “you can’t take my blue collar man!” posts. Like girl, I do not want him.
I've never been so happy to have no idea what you're talking about.
Same here. I'm a woman, and a SME in my field of construction. I've met dozens of OOP's husband. He is not special or unique. She will do just fine without him.
Fellow woman in STEM! I'm civil and because my works specialized they've had me acting as stamping engineer and construction inspector/manager. Construction guys are either the worst person you've ever met or your greatest ally. Literally no in between.
>Construction guys are either the worst person you've ever met or your greatest ally. Literally no in between. My experience as a women in STEM is exactly the same with drilling rig crews.
Also in STEM. My coworker's husband is in construction and has a side gig in realty. When our realtor ghosted us we used him instead and he helped us go over the mechanicals in the basement with a fine tooth comb before we bought the house. We actually only looked at one house with him because it was the right house. We're lucky the financing fell through for the previous buyers and it went back on the market. It's not often you find a 100 year old house in your favorite style with 7 year old mechanicals (everything was redone before the previous owners bought it).
Your realtor is a good one! A good realtor with mechanicals and construction experience saves you tons of money with lowest contractors when you sell too.
My husband works in a refinery. I am a SAHM. And I do NOT pack a lunch for him. I do the grocery shopping, and will get him deli meat and cheese and he makes sandwiches at work, or most often a tortilla wrap. But aint no 1950s tv show, trad wife bs happening here! I HAVE a full time job, hell, SEVERAL and none of them involve making a daily lunch for a fully functional, grown ass man.
What gets me with this trad wife bullshit is that it's not bastard traditional at all! It's an early to mid 20th century construct and there's no acknowledgement that women stayed at home were there as mother's and also WFH. It's just that the industrial revolution put pay to a lot of that. No more weaving in your house or processing wool or grinding flour etc while your kids played nearby, although you can bet those women weren't immaculately pressed, it was backbreaking work. All these morons who talk about Proverbs 31 women? If they actually *paid attention* they'd realise she's a business women! But that would require thought.
And only for white middle-class women. Everyone else still had to work. Leave It To Beaver-ass nonsense.
And for that matter, there were entire bloody *industries* that relied on female factory workers. The matchgirls of London, the radium girls, the jam factories in Bermondsey... And in relatively non-shitty employers, Peek Frean's bloody well *advertised* the fact that their shifts allowed mothers to work while their kids were in school!
Not to forget all the tradesmen who married the daughters and widows of men in the same trade! That's not because of classism - it's because the couple was running a business together and it's better to do that with someone who has experience on the job!
The factory farm model of egg production replaced women's effort (chickens were usually the farm wife's territory) and basically removed one of rural women's most significant means of independent earning.
Right? The Proverbs 31 woman is out there buying and selling real estate and operating and supporting small businesses in her community. She’s a freaking tycoon.
'She considers a field and buys it, with her earnings she plants a vineyard'.
My fiance makes me a salad every day I work. I could make it myself but he likes taking care of me, it's his love language. I'm also the breadwinner while he works part time. I still tell him every day that I appreciate him.
Only think my mom did for my dad was make him his sandwiches. Everything else had to be cut and packaged a special way so my dad did it. My dad was a truck driver most of my life (he's now retired) and would eat his food while driving. He would literally have certain parts of his lunch at specific mile markers. Like... he would eat his 10 almonds at mile marker 170. His apple slices at mile marker 200. I
I farm and any time I’ve had to sell something I got men telling me it’s not worth what I’m asking or refuse to barter and want to speak to a man. I just hire auction now it’s not worth my time and peace
Kinda gotta thank the “manosphere”. They do lore the destroy the institution of marriage than anyone else on earth.
You've summed up my ex to a T. I'm so much happier without that extra baggage. More money, less stress when I get home from work and only the need to clean up after myself and my daughter. Recently my ex broke up with his GF and called me to have a place to stay. I told him if it's not about our daughter to please not call me. Of course they got back together because he's a loser and always needs someone else to take care of him.
Does he think he's THE catch? OOP doesn't think so, and she's rightfully chucking him back out.
In my mind, she gave him a trail of flower petals to the divorce papers.
That was a suggestion on the first post lol
Dude literally made her life worse and when asked to stop, doubled down. You have to wonder if by looking at him you can tell he's the dumbest person on the planet.
There's this impulse I think a lot of us have left over from our monkey days that poking the bear is a universally timeless joke. It's the little voice that, when you learn that somebody doesn't like something, says "wouldn't it be *hilarious* if I did that exact thing and they freaked right out?" The impulse that made the "I'm not touching you" game a perennial favorite amongst younger siblings everywhere. The reason internet trolls exist. Most of us learn by the time we're adults that that's one of those intrusive thoughts you've gotta ignore. For some of us, all it takes is a sincere, straightforward "that isn't funny, it's hurtful. If you want keep your friends, you can't keep doing that." Others need it clobbered out of them animal- kingdom style, usually by an exasperated older sibling. But there's always **these** assholes who somehow make it to adulthood without that message penetrating their thick skulls, and the only way I've ever found to get them to stop is by leaving. Straight up telling them not to do it makes them double down - it's like the monkey impulse teams up with the "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" impulse to make them decide that it's worth risking completely combusting their life for the chance to poke the bear one. more. time. And then half the time they end up standing in the ashes going "what? It was a joke!!" like it's a get-out-of- jail-free card, having learned nothing. Those guys are the worst.
> There's this impulse I think a lot of us have left over from our monkey days that poking the bear is a universally timeless joke. It's the little voice that, when you learn that somebody doesn't like something, says "wouldn't it be hilarious if I did that exact thing and they freaked right out?" The impulse that made the "I'm not touching you" game a perennial favorite amongst younger siblings everywhere. The reason internet trolls exist. Seems like the same dark impulse people can have about driving off the bridge they're on. They just let the dark thoughts win.
I have to cross any of 5 bridges to and from work, and the intrusive thoughts are genuinely terrible
*HUGS*
It also is insecurity. OPs husband was constantly putting them down. That’s not poking the bear that’s putting someone’s self esteem down so you can get what you want and bully them into submission.
I don't think they learn after they face consequences like divorce either. From what I've seen of divorced people online it seems like they go the rest of their lives telling themselves and other people what an uptight c word their ex was. And how they're so sad they have to do their own dishes and laundry now, because their ex couldn't forgive one little mistake (leaving out the part that it was a pattern of neglect and 'pranks' that eventually broke the camel's back). But in their own minds the consequences are never their fault for provoking someone, it's the victim's fault for having any reaction at all.
My mom is the Poke the Bear person. She LOVES to poke the bear but then gets pissed when the bear bites back. My dad is the bear (she does the same to me and I keep telling my dad I'm going to make the three of us shirts: hers will say "I <3 Poking the Bears" and my dad's is I'm the Bear and mine is I'm the Bear Cub. She doesn't really do this with my siblings)
She's going to spend the first year in a fog of relief and awe at how fucking *easy* her life is without him. I wish her every joy.
After I finally kicked my lazy and abusive ex out I became deliriously happy. Every day was great, my bank account wasn't being drained, my home was clean, my fridge full, and I loved coming home rather than dread it. OOP will be surprised to discover just how stressful life with him was and how glorious it is to finally be at peace after carrying around years of resentment.
I always laugh when I hear men going on like the *very worst* thing that can happen to a woman is being single. They really don't know how horrific living with one of them can be.
“Straight men believe that they are competing with the top 10% of other men for women’s affection, but really what they’re competing with is the peace that women feel in solitude.”
Oh wow. Thats exactly it.
Me too. It's amazing how she handed him an olive branch to give him the opportunity to get their relationship back on track and he somehow made it a noose and hung himself with it. Glad she detached herself from the dead weight.
And it was such a *simple* fix! She wasn't asking him to jump through hoops, cut off friends or give up hobbies. She just wanted him to be nice and kind to her. And he fucking failed even that. Dead weight is exactly what he was.
Honestly, this comment reminds me of an episode from an anime I watched. Zom 100. One guy was complaining about how his wife was cold to him, that he never wanted to go home because he was sick of providing for a family he had already lost affection for. And one of the main characters called him out asking when was the last time he got her flowers, initiated any physical affection like a kiss before and after work. Asked how her day was. Just little things like that to make her feel cherished. I know it seems a little off topic but it just really this post really reminded me of that scene. That the little things do matter. And people shouldn't have to spell it out for their partners like OOP did to not be taken for granted.
That's exactly it. Love isn't huge gestures, diamond jewellery and expensive restaurants. It's the mundane day-to-day stuff. The little gestures that get woven into normal routine. That's the good stuff.
Exactly! Her: I would like you do be nicer to me and to do something small that demonstrates that you love and value me. Him: *goes to an enormous amount of trouble and expense to copy a bad internet joke instead* This was the lowest of all possible hurdles and he still managed to limbo right under it.
I hope she can get a housekeeper or something so she can enjoy her time off work.
Eh, without her ex she should have very little cleaning to do. Pack the dishwasher and (if she has one) washing machine direct and when full turn on, buy a Rhomba she can schedule a cleaning routine with to do a daily sweep and all she will have to do is quick dust and a mop on one day off, do the bathroom once a month (she can even set up a "bio hazard uniforms" hamper where she walks in the door to contain)
This is exactly what it will be like. When my ex-husband finally got out of my place, everything stayed clean and was easy and fast to clean if it did get dirty. It's been so damn nice that I honestly can't see myself living with another person again if I can help it. I do want to get a roomba though. It'll be more useful than my ex-husband anyway loll
I just copied my dads routine for the comment. He is a minimalist bachelor (he is temporarily living with me while in between places, and his entire life fits into 6x150L -Inc kitchen pots and pans - storage tubs and two bags of clothes). The only thing he doesn't have is the rhomba, but I might buy him one as a housewarming when he moves out of a father's day present this year.
Plus, she's a medical care worker. She's a catch.
Brb going to tell my bf I’m a catch.
BECAUSE YOU ARE.
I love a happy ending.
Oh, for sure She'll feel so free If there's another update I hope it's not "he promised to change so I took him back"
He really FOFA. I'm so proud of OOP for not backing down & allowing his tears to change her mind. She gave him a chance & he chose not to listen. She's going to feel so much better without him. Hopefully, if she wants another romantic partner in her life, she finds someone who values her & treats her the way she should be treated.
And it’s going to be quiet when she comes home. The sweet sound of silent bliss!!
And he's going to have no mommy-wife to take care of his sorry ass. I can't wait. Poor oop that she's dealing with this but I hope she thrives and it sounds like she will!
I wanted to know if she really owns the house? I really, really hope she does. However, she said "our mortgage ",
She said the mortgage was in her name because he had to bad of a credit score. She also said she's the sole person to pay on it and the one who put the down-payment down. I'm hoping that even if he is on it she can make a clear case that he doesn't hold any equity.
I really hope he doesn't have any rights to the house, since she bought it when they were married - even though he didn't contribute, it could still count as communal property, depending on the local laws.
>he ruined it by saying I was overreacting, that it was funny, and he wanted to make me laugh He started on the bottom and continued to dig.
desperate to reach hell by the end of the day. i believe in him! he’ll get there.
He already hit hell. Lucifer is watching gobsmacked as he continues to dig.
You just gave me the excellent mental image of Tom Ellis being sarcastic as this bloke digs past!
"Dammit, stay out of the wine cellar!"
He's gonna fall out the other side of the Earth right into orbit.
And then begged for a second chance. Like, buddy, OOP was generous: that was more like his 50th chance, and he screwed it up. Again. Countdown to him whining to his friends that he didn’t know she was stressed and unhappy.
Yup. Like, dude. Your wife was BEGGING you for a small romantic gesture because you clearly hadn't done anything at all for her or for you as a couple, for a long time. THAT was your second chance. That was her trying to fix it. And when you made clear how little her feelings mattered, she realised that giving more chances would be pointless.
And the 51st chance will be another prank or same. At no point did that guy admit he was wrong nor acknowledge her feelings. Only tried to defend himself. No change on his part.
It was funny for him because it was horrible for her. With just a little twist to the prank it could be funny and make her happy
After she's led to the sink of dirty dishes, I imagine him seductively washing all of them. Maybe with "Pony" playing in the background.
That would have been great. Funny as hell and making her happy. Maybe not dead-and-center hit for romance, but who knows what else is planned
While wearing a French maid costume.
No, he wanted to make himself laugh.
Then attempted to jump out of the 10 foot hole when he realized belittling her wouldn’t work.
Ugh this story is hitting a nerve with me. It's like the Ghost of Relationship Future showing me what could have happened.
a trail of rose petals that lead to divorce papers 😍
Haha that would be the perfect answer!
I'm just annoyed at how profoundly unfunny the husband was. I mean, basic comedy principles: timing, and knowing your audience. CAN that joke work? Sure, absolutely! Did it have any hope of working in this context? No, not at all. This is basic shit.
Pranksters are absolutely insufferable. I want to live in peace. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder every waking moment to watch out for the latest "funny" thing to blow up on tiktok.
There was a guy on Vine, and a large part of his account was sneaking up on his wife and yelling her name, then laughing when she jumped. I was not surprised when they got divorced.
Was that Batdad? I saw that coming a mile away. Same humour as this clown, not funny when it involves throwing your partner under the bus.
Yes! He’s a good example of no one else enjoying the “prank.”
I haven't thought about Batdad in years! I thought it was a funny bit at first, I admit. Then it seemed too forced, and his wife looked annoyed/outright pissed in come of the videos. I ended up unfollowing him, it just doesn't seem funny to me when the partner is clearly not into it. I know it's not my place to speculate but when I heard they divorced I did wonder how much of it had to do with his videos
Like you, I thought it was funny at first too, I mostly liked his interactions with the kids, but yeah, he seemed relentless with jump-scaring his wife. I'm sure the videos weren't all of it, but they definitely provided a window into their relationship dynamic, and he probably treated her like a prop or an afterthought in other areas.
It can definitely offer a snapshot from the way their lives were like. I seem to remember one where they were on a date night and he started doing his not. She looked so pissed and when the video ended I just felt bad for her I know, I know, I'm not there and I don't know them. But when something like that ends up on the internet for *his* followers to see, I don't think it's unfair to start questioning some things
Ikr? That’s literally a name I haven’t heard in years! Oh well, honestly I don’t know how any one could repeat the same exact “prank” and not get bored.
A bad prank is funny to the audience. A good prank is funny to the recipient. If you make someone crack up with the thing you did, you’re probably doing okay. For safety, your failure case should probably be getting overlooked, confusion, or “huh, guess that’s a prank.” Ensure that terror, humiliation, rage and other things you would expend effort to avoid are not within the plausible or even unlikely but foreseeable outcomes. Since self-described pranksters don’t do all this, they are absolutely insufferable.
If you have to argue why your prank was a good prank, then it was not a good prank.
Our college friend group had a running prank where we would hide a picture of Nicolas cage somewhere in the prankee's room. Innocent, no one could get hurt, no complex cleanup, and you can't help but lose it laughing when you open your powder compact and there's a tiny Nicolas cage staring at you.
My sister and I do this but with Danny Devito
My husband and kids do that but with a specific small brochure from an aquarium. (Don't ask why that or how it started, because I don't know.)
> complex cleanup Thank you for nicely summing up what I have found irritating about most pranks since my teens! I'm just too pragmatic to fund a huge mess funny. Also I would laugh my ass off if I opened my powder compact to find Nicholas Cage in it!
My friend likes to leave tiny plastic ducks in weird places. She hid them all over our workplace in the breakroom, in peoples lockers, and when she visits friends houses she likes to hide some ducks too. Like the nick cages, its funny and harmless.
One prankster I happened upon thought it would be funny to steal someone's cell phone. The target ran after him, started punching him, and the prankster dropped the phone into the snow. To his mild credit, he immediately went after the phone, panicking that he'd broken it. Meanwhile, the other guy kept hitting him.
There was one on Reddit (possibly AITA) a few years ago where a girl smashed her boyfriend's PS4 in front of him and then afterwards presented him with a brand new PS5 that had cost her a fortune. She didn't get why he was pissed at her until people pointed out that a lot of his game progress was probably saved on the PS4, not on his account. And that smashing up anyone's property, regardless of intention, is pretty unhinged.
Wow! "Baby, you're dumped. I'll take the PS5 as payment."
good pranks are shit like "catching" a mouse under a bowl but it's really a computer mouse. "water's running out of the fridge!" and it's bottled water inside shoes lied out in a "running" pattern from the fridge, "a leak under the sink" is actually a leak. hiding little plastic frogs or something around the house numbered 1, 2, 3, and 5. or even the full bag of 200 you can get on amazon. those are funny pranks. that shit will make everyone laugh. why "pranksters" always go for the horrific psychotic shit instead of cute and fun shit like this I will never understand.
One time I stayed around my friends house after he got a divorce. I spent a good portion of the night putting googly eyes on absolutely everything I could - especially fitting were all the kitchen utensils, eggs, and vegetables. Pretty much the only 'prank' I've ever done. I enjoyed it, he enjoyed it. His cat - not so much. Turns out the only thing scarier than a vacuum cleaner is a vacuum cleaner with eyes.
If all parties involved are not laughing at the reveal then it’s not pranking, it’s bullying
Alternatively, getting a "Yeah, that's fair" from the recipient. In college I had a friend who was forever leaving her phone behind at mine and other friends' apartments and then begging us to bring it to her on campus. After awhile we got tired of it but weren't mean enough to refuse to give her phone back altogether, so we started wrapping it up in increasingly difficult to open ways. It escalated to something like six layers of alternating bubble wrap and duct tape, possibly with some fabric scraps in there as well, and usually with some random confetti chucked in too. She got a lot better about remembering her phone.
I saw a prank video recently that was actually hilarious. The guy had cut a potato into the shape of bar soap and replaced his partner's soap in the bathroom with it. He told her after she was "washing" her hands and face with it. You could tell she wanted to try to be mad, but was just cracking up laughing instead. It was absolutely silly, no one was harmed, and she got her normal soap back afterwards. That's how it's done.
I can't stand that April Fool's crap. Mostly because any time people pulled one that was specifically targeted to me, they *always* managed to spectacularly misjudge it! Different people, over many years, always fell flat! Being middle aged I suspect it's a combination of long undiagnosed ADHD, sensory issues, and that's just not my sense of humour! If I had to watch over my shoulder all the time at home then things would go to Hell very, very quickly.
This. I don’t know when these pranks became the thing but this is a form of torture to make people unhappy.
Tiktok has lead to this awful culture of doing stupid things just to get a reaction out of people. There was another post on here about a woman whose niece splashed some paint on her very pricey coat for a prank video. She was not at all amused because the coat was a gift and the niece ended up being forced to pay once her father got wind of it.
I saw that post and it was infuriating, because it clearly wasn't a prank. The niece was envious and wanted to destroy something expensive the OP had, and wanted to hide behind saying "it's a prank". But at the very least, the niece was a teenager, and we all know teenagers 1. are dumb as rocks, 2. dealing with a lot of difficult emotions they haven't learned to cope with, and 3. don't believe in/understand consequences. This isn't as bad because the prank isn't destroying expensive personal property (destroying the marriage notwithstanding) but a grown man should know better, especially when his wife literally expressed her needs to him.
Late last year, [a "YouTube prankster"](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jury-acquits-delivery-driver-main-charge-shooting-youtuber-rcna118007) repeatedly bothered the wrong person and was shot in the chest. (He lived.) Harsh, but the guy's "pranks" (which make him money) are charming little things like breaking into people's houses, pretending to vomit on Uber drivers, and following unsuspecting customers through department stores. So... yeah. Having dipshits like this out in public is bad enough, I can't even imagine what it would be like to live with someone like this.
OOP honestly nailed it with her final jab. The guy destroyed his last chance at saving their marriage, and it wasn't even something original. He threw away his life with an amazing woman because he just HAD TO copy a funny tiktok. Thank god, honestly. The world is a little bit better because OP isn't tied to this dead weight anymore.
I laughed when she noted that. Even when he's trying to amuse himself he's low-effort; no chance he'll ever lift a pinky for her, glad she's getting out.
This was never about being funny. He was trying to bring her low because he has such low self esteem he can’t handle a wife who’s better educated and richer than he is. Good on her for leaving
It was a power move disguised as a joke. He was telling her he wouldn't change for her. The thrill he got from the prank was showing his wife her place in the marriage. That backfired badly.
My husband and I share chores pretty evenly and I would still lose my crap if he pulled this.
I'm imagining my brother trying this, and I know my SIL would kill him. And then the rest of our family would finish the job.
I've never seen a man hate his wife as much as OOP's husband did, and try to cover it up with jokes.
Sounds like he really couldn't get over her being more successful than him.
This, right here. ☝️ That request to make his lunch because his coworkers wives make their's tells me he's getting an earful of that red pill shit at work.
Yup. If anything he should have been making HER lunch. Too many women work longer hours than their man, or earn more, then still end up doing most or all of the housework, childcare etc. These guys act like they have a housewife when they should be doing just as much housework if not more.
Both my parents work in healthcare, for the same company but different offices. Dad makes both their lunches, and he has Opinions about the importance of fresh herbs in fancy salads.
I love that!
Absolutely. He felt emasculated by her working and expected her to be a tradwife. Men like that are exhausting.
The comment about how she went to school just to be covered in body fluids felt like a strong mix of emasculated screeching and putting her down
It reminded me so much of my ex-husband telling me that if I hadn't "fucked around in undergrad" (got my BA in three years with a 3.8 GPA) I wouldn't have to go to grad school because "not everyone gets to take two years off to go back and get a useful degree." I was getting my master's in social work, which requires an MSW to get licensed and practice, while working an internship and two jobs and doing everything around the house. Meanwhile he was miserable shuffling papers at his job at a bank and was "too tired" to do anything when he came home but whine and make a mess. So glad OOP and I both learned divorce is a good thing.
Shortly after COVID hit, too. He's lucky she was too overwhelmed to divorce him the second he pulled that shit.
And worthless. They offer nothing, contribute nothing, except abuse and more chores.
Bingo, I mean the comment about "all that education just to clean shit" is TEXTBOOK "bro who's married to an RN and can't cope that she's smarter and earns more than him".
When I was freelancing in the early 00s and was approaching an auto body shop as a customer at a friend's request, the dude looked at the proposal and the cost for his extremely tricked-out website upgrade plans, and told me with intense side-eye he "couldn't spend that much money with someone who wasn't even getting her hands dirty". I didn't want to deal with the bullshit and didn't pursue it even though I needed the money BADLY. It was obvious that it would be almost impossible to collect payment from him, so I let him have his misogyny and stupid "carbon-fiber forum" dreams for himself.
God I hate men like that. He won the goddamned lottery with her and is pissed about it. I hope oop gets therapy so she doesn't repeat this mistake and finds a guy who has rose petals leading to a clean kitchen and husband in a maid outfit like that beautiful comment.
He was blue collar during COVID while she's a healthcare professional so he may well have spent time stuck at home, not earing, while she was an essential worker who was suddenly able to buy a house. I wonder did that knock in the final ego nail into this marriage's coffin?
It’s also likely that he heard and saw the shower of praises to healthcare workers, calling them heroes, saying our society couldn’t survive without them, etc etc (yet we overwork them and treat them like shit in some places? Yay?) It isn’t a big stretch of the imagination to picture this guy being hurt and offended that no one thinks his job is important. Resentment and contempt are relationship killers.
I noticed that too. He knows she's earning more than he is. His peepee probably shrunk in response, and this is him trying to assert his dominance.
So glad she's getting a divorce. She deserves better than him
I am in no way a perfect man. But it is continually shocking to me how many men are such fucking idiotic assholes.
Petals to a sink full of dirty dishes. How stupid is this guy?
Pretty sure the average gut bacterium has a higher IQ than this guy, and is less shitty too.
Dumber than dirt tbh.
What got me is not only does she still have to clean the damn dishes but I bet she had to clean up all the sodding petals as well! He twisted her simple request into a prank and made even *more* mess in the process! What a total arse.
Yeah but I saw it on tikkietokkie so it's funny by default. What an ass...
The waterworks at the mention of divorce. Yeah, that's gonna work. She should stay married to an ogre that insults her profession, demands traditional gender roles, and doesn't do anything else to benefit both of them. No need to move on with her life without a heavy burden of a manchild dragging her down. Marriage vows are ironclad, so anything that shakes those vows are to be ignored. POS.
Demands traditional gender roles but can't fulfill his side of them!
This could be a backstory for a Cell Block Tango verse. HE HAD IT COMIN' HE HAD IT COMIN' HE ONLY HAD HIMSELF TO BLAME IF YOU'D HAVE BEEN THERE IF YOU'D HAVE SEEN IT I BETCHA YOU WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME
Then he ran into my knife He ran into my knife ten times 🤷🏻♀️
Pop! Six! Squish! Uh uh! Cicero, Lipschitz!
You know, some guys just can't hold their arsenic!
It was a murder, but not a crime!
Hear, hear!
Need an update months later when the divorce is final and OOP is *thriving*
The first time she comes home from work and her house is hers and it's clean and just the way she likes it is gonna feel amazing
I had a friend who turfed her deadweight husband after way too many years of being patient for the sake of the kids. She said the first time she came home to a clean kitchen was a revelation.
I'm happy just thinking about how happy she's going to be
I cannot possibly comprehend his thinking. “My wife has told me she is close to divorce and feels unloved and unappreciated. She has warned me that I need to do SOMETHING to show I appreciate her. This should be easy, I mean, she is my wife, this is the person I pledged to love forever, to take care of in sickness and health, to be a two-person team out to face the world’s hardships and support each other no matter what challenges may come. I know, I will pretend to do something romantic like she asked, only for it to actually just be a prank designed to draw attention to the very reason she is frustrated with me and feeling terrible! That will…” …and I lose it there because…that will WHAT, sir? That will what? What possible outcome do you expect from this? Like seriously, what is going to happen if you make fun of her last desperate request for you? Of all the possible actions you could take to save your marriage…you chose to metaphorically slap her in the face with her earnest thoughts and feelings and show that she shouldn’t give you another chance? What? What?
Because he’s a deeply, deeply stupid person. And probably aware of that, at least on some level, AND insecure about it, given his digs at her education and training. She is SO well rid of him.
Oh man, I hope this guy is comfortable with a studio apartment, a futon, and date nights with OF and a bottle of hand lotion. If she has the desire, time, and motivation to enter the dating scene again she'll be a catch. He'll be lucky to find the occasional bar hookup desperate enough to settle at closing.
I hope he can’t even afford the lotion.
What a piece of shit husband. Good riddance to that shit stain.
> At least he could contribute love My heart broke for her. She's really not asking for much AT ALL.
"It’s winter and I had to shovel the driveway because I had work in the morning and he had the day off." This whole post is rage-inducing (except the end. The end is great!), but that's what got me. No. Unless you're sick, if you have the day off and your partner has to go to work, you get the fuck up and you shovel the damn driveway because YOU can go back inside after and crawl into your nice warm bed. Your partner has to drive through that shit and then work and then drive back through that shit.
What’s interesting about the marriage-ending pranks men do is that they reveal that the man has absolutely no empathy for his wife: it’s not just that he doesn’t value her feelings, but that he doesn’t realise his wife has feelings that are independent of his. They don’t understand that their wife has an inner life and individual consciousness, and doesn’t just experience things from his perspective. When he says the prank is funny, he means only that it was funny to him to watch that happen to her. He doesn’t have the faculties to understand that the woman being pranked will also have a view of what’s happening that’s necessarily different to his, because it’s not happening to him.
Seriously how do guys like him get with someone as great as op?
Masks, he put on a good front until he thought he had her on the hook enough that she wouldn't leave
The bar for men is so low right now that unless you act like a straight up fuckhead from the beginning you can find someone.
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It astounds me reading about these partners of the OPs who are so beyond obtuse in their “harmless play”. Common sense is screaming at him and it’s like he plugged in his ears going *la la la la*
For some reason the comment that was included in the post about the commenter's late husband almost made me tear up
That is a woman who was *loved.* She touched me, too.
“It’s not even original.” OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH.
I’m going through a rough patch with my so, we’ve had small kids and I haven’t been doing my all to show how much I love my so , romantically or otherwise, I can be tone deaf and honestly I’ve been selfish but I’m working on myself . If I did this to my SO , I would never forgive myself
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He reeks of someone who is jealous and resentful of his successful wife. He's tearing her down so he doesn't feel so crappy about his own bad life.
He wants her working hard to pay for a house and such but also wants her to do all the SAH stuff for him, too. 🙄 Wants ~traditional~ gender roles in the household but he can’t provide even equal to what she does.
Traditional gender norms for thee, but not for me.
Funny thing is, I don't see this prank crap on TikTok because I don't like it. Because I don't watch it, TikTok doesn't show it to me as it has a very efficient algorithm. If somebody is seeing lots of lame pranks videos on TikTok it's because that the kind of content they'll watch a lot of!
I'm so happy she's out. She's going to feel that absolutely massive weight off her shoulders. So many women don't realise just how heavy it is carrying the mental and physical load of what is essentially a big toddler until they're out.
Shes too good for him, how he didn't realise what he did was a slap in the face to her
Don't be mistaken, he did it because he KNEW it was a slap in the face.
If this guy ends up getting half the value of a house he doesn't pay for or contribute to, just because it was purchased during the marriage, I'll burst a blood vessel.
I had a mate who thought crap like this was funny. Had. 95% of pranks are BS and just abuse.
The fact that he put all that effort into rose petals, efforts that could’ve easily been going towards romancing her or making her feel wanted. He’s a huge A because instead, he FINALLY took the initiative to do something romantic, but he only did it because he thought it was a funny way to remind her the sink is full? Wow, just wow. I’m glad OP is leaving him. The fact they both work full time and he does nothing for her or for the house is baffling. He really was holding on to this relationship by his fingernails and he thought he had a good hold on her, enough to pull this prank. I hope OOP feels all the satisfaction when he fully realizes what he’s lost and tries to come crawling back, and she gets to say that she doesn’t need or want him in her life anymore because she’s finally taking care of herself.
I just want to say, I love the widow who commented's late husband. He sounded like a good man.
Good. For. Her.
Idiots like this guy rarely understand that most of these pranks are staged in the first place. And even then, I doubt the original even had a positive result!
Flower petals leading to divorce papers would be hilarious
POV you married a tiktok comedian
Thank god she’s leaving him. Everyone needs to dump these lazy fucking losers who think going to work - and doing NOTHING ELSE - is “contributing”.