Meddling Friends and Neighbors

I remember when I first bought my house in a local middle class neighborhood. Despite just starting my own law firm with an uncertain future and having law school loans that still needed to be paid back,   I managed to save money to put a decent down payment and moved in ready to conquer the world. It was a little weird seeing a nice house next to mine where no one seemed to come or go. I would later learn that it was a family of welfare people who somehow managed to get into a house using government programs. I could not believe I had bought a house next to people that did not make me feel overly comfortable and didn't seem to work. Little did I know that after they moved out I would wish for their return because the lady that moved in to the house would be a big reason why my marriage would end.

Whether you want to believe it or not, people love to see others fail. They don't want to see people happy and their self hate and jealousy gives them motivation and to try and destroy what other people have. This can be in the form of theft of property like my ex wife did to me to help confirm I made the right decision to leave her, but it can also be more subtle and more damaging when it comes to destroying a person simply because you do not like them even if that person never did anything to you. People that have gotten old, have been divorced a couple of times, and are isolated from their own family, too often don't want to see a good looking couple succeed and build a family. If one of that couple is weak or not in the marriage for honorable reasons, someone like that will have a field day destroying a marriage.

While there are bad people who have motives, you would hope that your spouse could see these people the way you do and more importantly have your back and not be swayed by the behavior of someone else who uses the disguise of friendship to ruin her relationship. The person I married was not strong enough to do this and while I didn't expect anything less from the neighbor who was clearly a mean and evil person who had been divorced multiple times and was filled with hate disguised as a fake and friendly neighbor, the fact my wife and her became fast friends and seemed to enjoy the mental abuse they heaped upon me only gave me further confirmation that I married the wrong person who clearly had a motive. Someone just like her could see what needed to be done to get her to abandon her relationship in exchange for affirmation and adulation, as fake as it was. While my wife certainly did not value me, the self centered mindset would not have changed the outcome no matter who she married. A man was a mean to an end and she just had to fake her way through things long enough to have it end on her terms or for her stay married while only meeting her own needs while the wimpy man pays the bills and isolates himself because he simply tired of the years of abuse and unable to muster the courage to walk out.

Before this lady moved her way into my life and marriage, I had to first meet my wife and move her into the home that I bought alone and was so proud of and kept clean. Once she moved in and we got married, and in addition to the wedding ring going into a drawer never to be seen again, my house slowly became a pig sty. Then the new road lizard neighbor woman moved in next door. She was old and washed up, divorced a couple of times, and didn't really do anything. It was clear she wasn't paying the mortgage on her house. She had plenty of free time despite the work she claimed to do from home and once she moved in, she was soon at our house making my wife her new friend. I was nothing more than polite to her but could tell she was trouble. She was a trashy busy body and while the contempt had formed toward my wife because she would not wear her wedding ring, I was not to the point where I believed my wife would allow a loser person to drive a wedge between her and her husband. I was wrong.

As with all the wife's new friends, the relationships were fake and sporadic. If you couldn't do anything for her, you weren't someone I would see often. Once we had our first child, the arrogance increased and the value of her husband became less. The fake mom groups and people who could be used as babysitters were everywhere. As a man who wanted kids and saw the joy of a new child, I tolerated it. I watched the neighbor start to act like she was my kids grandma, and behave in a way that was inappropriate. They were her grandkids in her mind and she could see that I saw her for what she was so she avoided me rather than spew her fake bullshit that my wife took hook line and sinker but with her own agenda to benefit from it. Any attempts to discuss the lady overstepping her boundaries were met with resistance and the accusation that I had a bad attitude and needed to be nicer and more social. So much for thinking my wife had my back. I knew she didn't but I wanted kids and pushing my mid to late 30s in a loveless sexless marriage, the fact we got pregnant easily was outweighing all the hate I had for myself because I allowed myself to be treated poorly by a wife. One child turned into two and the neighbors behaviors became more emboldened while the wife further ignored and disrespected me. You are only treated as bad as you allow it, so it was on me. Despite all the bad written about in these blog posts, I would have stayed for a third kid which wife refused so again its on me for not leaving once the contempt existed.

As with the neighbor, there were other people who crossed our paths that seemingly wanted there to be problems in the marriage. Over time friends and activities with neighbors and strange people that put my wife on a pedestal became priorities over time with the husband. The lesson learned was that if you are married to a woman who allows outside influences to cause problems in her marriage, she is basically a piece of shit. Marriage is hard enough but any person who allows others to influence their marriage needs to be divorced immediately. I knew deep down that I was not valued as a man by my wife. It was my own fault for allowing it to go on in exchange for the chance at kids. I was not a young man when I got married and I was not going to be a cuck and raise another mans kids by marrying a single mom so options over time became limited in terms of finding a wife. While this blame for not being able to get a wife as a younger man falls on me, once I got married, I treated the wife with respect and would never prioritize anyone or anything over my wife and family. What many men fail to realize and accept is that their wife will do this and we allow it for reasons that vary.  Your wife may not value you but she will know you like the back of her hand and most have the ability to push things right up to a line. My wife thought she did and was good at it for awhile.

For all the neighbor did to help destroy my marriage, she actually did me a favor because toward the end her behavior became so blatantly disrespectful that even someone as desperate as me to be married to a pretty woman and have a family, there was a line that even my blue pilled ass would not allow to be crossed without ramifications.

At the time as a new father, despite being married to someone who was mentally abusive and disrespectful to me, I was going to handle it and let things pass using whatever excuse I could to justify it to myself. However, when it comes to my mother, once she was disrespected, something had to be said. Prior to the moment that told me I was going to end my marriage, I watched my wife use and disrespect my mother just enough to where it was a problem but not to the point where I was ready to create conflict. The neighbor got in on the act calling my kids "her grandkids" and saying she was "their other grandma" while being rude to my mom when their paths crossed. The words were subtle yet hurtful and the behavior was disrespectful along the line of how my wife treated me. While it seems like yesterday this was years ago and I hate myself for the wimpy man I was in the same way I hated myself for allowing my college girlfriend to treat my like crap in exchange for some good sex. 

The final straw came quickly and swiftly when we took my young daughters to their dance recital. My family arrived in our vehicle and my mom and neighbor lady arrived in separate cars. Why the neighbor lady felt the need to attend I don't know but by that time I had dealt with four years of watching her try to be my kids grandma replacing my mom while my wife went from using my mom  and showing some fake respect and friendliness to using the neighbor to meet all her needs. Once we arrived at the auditorium, I had barely gotten the kids out of the car when the neighbor suddenly appeared and pulled the kids from my arm and just started walking them toward the entrance. She did not say hi to anyone and did not even wait for the rest of us. These kids were her possessions and she was pushing the envelope even more to create conflict. I saw how upset my mom was and how indifferent the wife was and could not believe what I was seeing. We all finally made it to the entry way and my wife knew I was pissed at the level of disrespect. While my wife is not responsible for the bad behavior of others, she is responsible for showing respect to her family and that includes her husband when others try to disrespect me. She acted like it was no big deal and we all just were supposed to go forward into the building.

Prior to this day despite all the disrespect and bad treatment I had suffered at the hands of my wife, I stayed quiet and kept the peace because I wanted a family and would hope that maybe my wife was just overwhelmed with being a new mom and she would mature into someone who would value the man who gave her everything. However before we walked into the building to catch up to the neighbor who hijacked my kids and walked right in without care for anyone else, I cussed my wife out in the entry way in front of a bunch of people. I was purposefully loud. I told her how I felt in no uncertain terms and let a lot of cuss words fly. I created a scene with my yelling and cussing at my wife for her lack of disrespect to me and my mother. I got in the car and went home. I did not stay for the recital. When the wife got back home instead of discussing the issues of neighbors and friends over stepping their boundaries and what type of family we were, the wife went next door and hung out with the neighbor for hours leaving me with the kids to stew. That day was the end of my marriage and I knew I would soon be divorcing.

For you men who are in marriages where your wife allows outside influences to destroy your relationship, ask yourself who does she value more, you or your friends. I am not saying that her having friends is an issue and there are probably people that she has known longer than you. However, as her husband you have a new level of value that her friends simply cannot be for her. Otherwise she would have married them. Men can usually recognize the difference between these healthy and unhealthy friendships and if you allow the disrespect to continue it will get worse. Women will do what you allow them to get away with if they do not respect you. Toxic friendships and behavior will never come from a woman who is quality and wants to be with you as your wife. It is common sense but often ignored by men who want a family knowing how hard it is to get a desirable woman who will have kids with him. Hopefully there is enough information out there that no man should be staying in a bad marriage, kids or not. 

The irony of all this is once I saw the behavior and disrespect was more than I could take, I chose to leave to gain some level of respect but I still had to pay for her bad behavior. She paid no price for her behavior and got a nice packet of money in the divorce that she never earned including my house, which she now owns mortgage free. Now that I am fully awake and tolerate no bullshit from any woman no matter big her breasts are or how pretty her face is, I wonder if men would have to deal with this behavior if women following a divorce had to pay alimony for bad behavior or the husband was the default primary custodian of the kids leading to child support for him or a wife having to walk away from regular contact with her kids because she could not afford the high cost of a lawyer to go to court where getting equal custody of her kids would not be guaranteed and where most judges would scoff at any woman who would dare ask for equal or primary custody of her kids. I wonder what the divorce rate would be if the respect and honor given to women in court was given to men and the women had to fight for everything.

That is for another discussion.
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