Where do you think the line is for standing by a man vs letting him walk all over you? I’ve met some women gone the moment he even thought about cheating- and some women stay when he got his mistress pregnant… Then there’s staying by a man who fell on hard time vs supporting a dead beat. How do you know if you’re being fickle vs have self respect?
Edit: What do you think of women who accept less than you? I’d love to live and let live but at the same time you see a girl tolerate absolute hell from a man and start to wonder if she suffers from a low self image and needs help.
Comments
You define your comfort level but I’m not standing with you through you wronging me or creating problems
Great question, it’s a personal decision obviously and when I ask myself those questions for me it comes down to happiness. Because a relationship is never really 50/50, people fall into their roles so to speak, and fill eachothers cups in different ways so to speak so for me it comes down to- am I happy with this person? I don’t see myself as a materialistic person, I don’t date a man for status or money, I don’t perceive myself as shallow and I do my very best to take my partner as he comes. Honestly, I love my partner but I ask myself questions like you’ve asked very often. We run into quite a bit of conflict and I wonder how happy am I really? I really try to see our dynamic and ways of being either eachother from an outside wholistic viewpoint but it’s so hard. And I do wonder.
As long as effort is being made from both ends and there is no cheating I believe in standing by your man. It takes a team effort in tough times. Cheating is a hard no for me. I don’t give any do overs for infidelity.
Overall, if whatever is happening is drawing so much from me energetically that my peace and fulfillment not just within the relationship but within myself and my life is interrupted, I’ve gotta go. Relationships are optional, and I’m not gonna choose to suffer in the name of someone who clearly isn’t choosing me.
If my partner is just going through a tough time, then it needs to be contained and there needs to be effort towards correction or resolving the issue. Someone’s bad month can’t become a bad life for me
I’ll support my husband through hard times anytime. We are a team. It is us against whatever problem occurs.
A hard time doesn’t mean cheating or mistreating me. That’s where I draw the line. That’s when I am gone.
I believe standing by your spouse means you are there for them through good and bad times. Like when they get sick, lose a job unexpectedly etc. If your spouse is being actively harmful, like cheating, staying unemployed by choice, being abusive, I believe you have no obligation to stay with them.
Cheating and any form of abuse are immediate deal breakers. No second chances.
What does “fell on hard times” mean? Laid off through no fault of his own, makes getting a new job his full time job until he lands one? All good.
Got fired for stupidity, criminal behavior, or unethical behavior? Decided he couldn’t be bothered to work? Sits around drinking and whining while refusing to work? He can fuck right off.
>How do you know if you’re being fickle vs have self respect?
If you have factual information that your partner has wronged you, harmed you, or violated a known expectation or boundary, leaving is not “fickle.” It doesn’t matter if your partner thinks it’s an overreaction, or if anyone else does either. YOU get to decide what you want in a relationship and what you won’t tolerate. Only you. Nobody else’s opinion matters.
I’m not judging anyone for any decision they make that doesn’t hurt anyone. I feel sad for people who make decisions that don’t help themselves.
I have historically been someone who stays too long. My goal these days is to leave situations that don’t allow me to be happy at least 80% of the time.
The other persons attitude and effort help inform my direction. My husband was unemployed for a year after we moved for my job. He sent in applications daily and did all of the housework that whole year. Then, a job opportunity finally arose. I didn’t feel like I was being walked over at all.
I’ll be honest, I don’t care when I see someone else in a relationship I wouldn’t accept. It isn’t my life, if they’re in an unhealthy relationship, it doesn’t impact me. I focus on myself and what I want in my relationships and life. If someone else is accepting less than they deserve due to their lack of self-worth or self-respect, that’s on them to figure out.
My Mum lets my Dad openly mock her and demean her and get her to run around doing little favours, all while he lives off her income.
No matter what I say, I can’t get her to leave him, because he had a rough childhood, and because she wasn’t nurtured enough as a child by her misogynistic parents. Never mind that he made my childhood harder than it had to be…
I’m going with the balance theory – I want to get back what I offer (or the equivalent). For example, my bf lost his job and I had to pay for everything for 5 months until he found another one. During that time, he did all the housework and also finished a couple of big home improvement projects we had ongoing.
I never had a problem with cheating, mostly because I am pretty straightforward about sex outside the relationship (as in, as long as I get everything I want from him, he can do whatever in his free time as long as there are no consequences). However, I acknowledge that my stance is unusual (I’m into BDSM and multiple partners are common and accepted). At a time I had 2 partners also, but I was having penetrative sex with just one of them (my choice).
Usually I end a relationship when I find it unbalanced or when our desires no longer align. I don’t do drama, so I am on good terms with most of my exes (as in, we say happy birthday and chat if we bump into eachother).
Overall, I think that each person is responsible for her/his own life and decisions. I know people who enjoy drama and angst and I know people who stay in bad/cold relationships for material reasons. I give opinions if I am asked and offer help if asked, but don’t go out of my way to meddle into someone else’s life.
I would rather err on the side of being fickle. I have seen what happens when little disrespects wear away at women over time. I love my own company so I have no issue walking away from a situation that does not serve me.
In regards to how I feel about other women, I’ve come to realise that some women value the status of being a wife/girlfriend over their own personhood. And that’s their right. A friend’s recent circumstances helped cement that notion for me. I have asked her to ask herself where she actually draws the line in what she will tolerate, and advised her to at least start putting money aside for a plan B.
I do find it hard to manage my feelings of judgement and/or pity rather than empathy in these situations and I’m probably not the easiest friend to talk to about this stuff.
The line is individual. Different women are in different situations, have different levels of support, money, education, rights, etc. and make their choices accordingly. I generally assume women are making the best choice for the circumstances they are in.
So Ive been married a while. It really depends on patterns of behavior. If there is regular contempt, I’d be out immediately. But as I age, unless it was egregious, because of our great history, I’d probably stay if he was appropriately apologetic and changed his actions. It just depends on what YOU can to,erase. For some, once they picture it in their head, they can never stand by. And that’s ok.
Nobody, man or woman, is a valuable person to the extent that someone should forgive them for cheating. Nobody is worth that much or is that special. Everybody is replaceable and should be replaced if they can’t behave.
Ways to check in with yourself:
– would I want my hypothetical or real adult child to accept this behavior in a relationship?
– what advice would I give a friend in a relationship like this?
– the moment you have to poll a bunch of people about your relationship to make a decision. I’m not referring to asking a friend or one Reddit post. If you’re needing like 4 -20+ opinions to weigh in on what you should do, you already know the answer most likely. If it’s multiple times and multiple sources, it’s been time to exit. If you’ve asked your therapist, your dog, your next door neighbor, reddit strangers, your friends, your parents, your choice of deity, the man in the moon, and your tarot card reader, and they all agree… You can ask infinity times, and the consensus answer isn’t changing.
– for marriage or any long-term serious commitment: if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.
– for casual and more: safety, respect, and fun are essential. Vetting is key.
About women––and men!––who accept less: I have empathy for them, generally. Personally though, there comes a point where I am moving on from a friend who has complained about poor treatment in a relationship for several years. I’d love her as a friend, wish her well, hope that she gets some solid therapy, and her situation improves. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. At the same time, it’s grating to listen to the same complaints for years on end for someone bent on self-destruction and self-sabotage; it’s what it becomes when someone chooses comfort over their own safety and emotional well-being. There’s a difference between normal venting with relationship annoyances versus years on end complaining about ongoing abuse/neglect/poor treatment. Generally I make clear that the lines of communication are open if the friend ever needs to exit an abusive relationship, but I cannot continue being her sounding board. That said, emotional abuse is insidious, and it’s like slowly boiling a frog. Getting out is like deprogramming to leave a cult. At that point, it’s above my expertise level, and they’d need a solid counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist to help them process the trauma, rebuild their self confidence.
Friends who are just venting will talk about real, legitimate ways that their partner is solid, decent, and respectful by displaying ongoing patterns of kindness, grace, empathy, and emotional openness. Some examples are: willing to take ownership of mistakes, willing to learn, willing to go to couples counseling/individual therapy, willing to try to manage their own mental illnesses, and showing up for the other person in a multitude of ways. They don’t purposefully embarrass their partners in public; they communicate. Secure people don’t internalize or weaponize their partner’s shortcomings or they have learned to not do that anymore.
People who have healthy, interdependent relationships often do not make a huge, ongoing shows on social media about it, because they are secure in their relationships and don’t feel the need to justify it to others. It’s not like they don’t have their challenges. They do; they may experience some very hard problems. At the end of the day, they are partners who are committed to being there for each other and nip disrespectful behavior in the bud.
I will never put up with bullying or abuse. I would forgive a cheater if it was say, a one night stand on a business trip and he immediately confessed. I wouldn’t forgive an affair.
I tend to be fiercely loyal because I don’t form too many close relationships, but there was a lot of learned codependency from early life I had to work through. It’s important to keep boundaries around what you’ll tolerate so that you don’t lose respect for yourself. You’ll find also, when you accept bad treatment it leads to more because abusive people will take it as confirmation of your inferiority.