She Loved Well. She Was Not Loved Well.

Hello Anti-Misogynists!

Today we are delighted to bring you a guest post by Sarah O’Kelley, whose Substack Healing Out Loud shares stories of motherhood, domestic violence, and trauma and fosters supportive and healing community.

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Recently, I was listening to an episode of my favorite podcast, We Can Do Hard Things entitled “Why Are There No Pictures Of Us?!” when host Amanda said something that reverberated through my entire being: “She loved well. She was not loved well“.

I don’t have a picture of the first moment I held my son, when I brought him up from the waters of the birth tub and laid him on my chest. There are exactly two pictures of my two-hour labor with him, both taken by my mother before she had to leave to take care of my then 20-month-old. You could try to defend my ex-husband by saying that he was busy supporting me while I was in labor, but this isn’t true. He stood in the room to solely to meet the obligation of being there and cycled from apathetic glares to full out disdain while I deep breathed through contraction after contraction of unmedicated agony. Forcing him to be present for the birth of his child. The injustice. He told me that he shouldn’t have to be in the room at all, that he should get to go play video games while I labored, that they had the right idea when fathers could stay in the waiting room.

I can’t tell you how many times I begged him to take pictures of me with our children. To document that I did, indeed, exist. Almost all the photos I have with my children are selfies I took. The only picture he took of me with our second as a newborn was of us napping, with my boob completely exposed. He thought it was funny. Maybe it would have been if it weren’t actually a glaring symptom of a deeper issue: that I was so exhausted from solo parenting two children under 2 years old, with 13 stitches in my literal asshole, that I passed out while feeding the baby after putting the toddler down for nap, starting a load of laundry, and meal prepping dinner. That a mere 2 weeks postpartum, I was back to doing everything, on my own, because he worked 40 hours a week, and I should be doing everything else gratefully. Anything outside of those 40 hours was a favor to me. Parenting our children? Favor to me. Picking up after himself? Favor to me. Going outside to smoke pot? You got it, another goddamn favor.

Comparatively, if you went by photos alone, you would think my children’s father was the most involved, loving dad around. In truth, he hardly interacted with us, so when he did, I made sure to document it for them. Model the behavior you want to see, right? Except that you shouldn’t have to train your husband to be a decent human being. Still, I treasured those moments where we felt like a family, instead of hostages dependent on his mood.

I cooked, I cleaned, I did all the laundry, I managed the calendar, I got the kids to the doctor, to speech therapy, to occupational therapy, to play dates. I made sure his mom had a Mother’s Day present. Me? “Why would I do anything for you? You’re not my mom.” What a gift.

I had to be his therapist, his mother, his maid. I was expected to submit. If I tried to say no, I was met with whining, coercion, or rage, followed by arctic coldness and a complete deprivation of any connection at all. Because, naturally, he couldn’t connect to me emotionally unless I had sex with him first. Don’t you know it’s just how men are hardwired? Excuse me while I try not to be sick.

I was expected to listen to him drone on and on about anything and everything, to be the good little attentive wife. And I did. I listened. I made thoughtful comments. I asked questions to show I was engaged. And when it was my turn to share? I rarely got one, and when I did, I couldn’t get a sentence out without being interrupted by him trying to change the subject, making a snide comment, or just flat out telling me he had better things to do than listen to me.

One night after I had already folded 3 baskets of laundry, stuffed the cloth diapers, and put things away, I asked him to watch one more episode of Schitt’s Creek. I wanted to spend some time one-on-one, while the kids were asleep, while we could be just us again. He told me the 30 minutes we had already spent together should have been enough. The 30 minutes where I folded laundry like a machine while he half-assedly folded half a basket of his own laundry. He lamented that nothing was ever good enough for me. When I asked him to just stay for one more episode, he snapped at me. “You said you were going to bed at 11. It’s 10:45. I’m not staying in here with you. That’s not fair,” he whined. When I tried to explain I would rather go to bed a little later so we could spend time together he interrupted by saying, “Can I go now?” and when I called him out he gaslit me: he hadn’t interrupted, I take super long pauses when I’m talking, he thought I was done, I had decided to start talking at the same moment as him and then claim to be interrupted, I hadn’t been talking at all, etc.

Don’t you think the person speaking would know that they were in the middle of a sentence? It was ludicrous. He left to play video games. I cried. It was a typical Thursday night for us.

We had the same arguments over and over and over again, always cycling back to the way he dehumanized me. It is not only unethical, but flat out abusive to buy your leisure time with your partner’s exhaustion. I don’t care if your mama and your therapist did it before me and they say it’s not as hard as I’m making it seem (yes, he said this). I was tired of being treated as less than a human being. Because not only was I expected to handle all of the responsibilities, I was also name called for telling him we didn’t have money for beer, for asking him to put his bong away, for reminding him not to leave knives out on the counter where toddler and baby could get them, for reminding him to scoop the litter box, for asking him to spend time with me first before he tried to initiate sex. I entered modest estimates into an invisible labor calculator. It calculated that I was doing over $208,000 of unpaid labor per year. He claimed I didn’t contribute at all.

Men seem to think their only obligation is to go to work and provide a paycheck. That anything else is above and beyond and they should be praised for it.

Your time is not worth more than your wife’s. You do not deserve rest more than her because you do 40 hours of paid labor vs her 168 of unpaid labor. 112 if she gets to sleep 8 hours a night.

I was a stay-at-home mom to our two children. Daycare cost as much as my teaching salary paid. If my salary is going to be voided, I would rather be at home. Which points out another flaw in that thinking. Why is it my check has to pay for daycare? It all would have come from the same account, but people still said to me, “Why would you trade your entire salary for someone to raise your child for you?”

This kind of power imbalance does not solely exist in male/female partnerships. There can, of course, be power imbalances in any relationship, and while I use the term wife, it’s important to note that there are many people who do not identify as wives or as women, but who were socialized as girls and are similarly exploited. Power imbalances can exist in any relationship. So, my dear LGBTQIA+ friends, I see you, and I honor your pain. Your experiences are valid. Please know that it is not my intent to erase you in my choice of terminology. I chose these terms because these are issues I have witnessed predominantly in cishet relationships.

I’ve read countless testimonies from wives whose husbands won’t use a joint account. They can make 3x more and still expect us to pay for 50% of the expenses, putting us in a position where we have no expendable income left and nothing to save, and they’ve kept 2/3 of their salary for themselves, not the family. It’s financial abuse, plain and simple. After bills are paid and savings are set aside, any extra money should be split equally between partners, if you’re privileged enough to have a savings or any expendable income.

Men want a mother, but don’t you dare act like it, or they’ll rage at you to stop treating them like a child and call you controlling.

They’ll deny you emotional connection and then bitch at you for not being in the mood for sex in the next breath.

Our brains aren’t really that different biologically, despite the lies fundamentalists want you to believe. There’s no reason a man who can win literal awards at work for his attention to detail can’t notice that the trash needs to be taken out and the laundry hamper is getting full. And on the off chance my friend’s ex is reading this, yeah, I’m looking straight at you, B.

As a society we can come up with a thousand reasons why men can’t do the same tasks women can, or why men are supposedly less emotional than women. He’s autistic, he’s ADHD, men just aren’t wired that way, he doesn’t realize he’s being rude.

I am autistic and also ADHD. I will be the first to tell you that neurodivergence looks different in everyone, and different people struggle with different things. But the double standard is glaring: we don’t give neurodivergent women the same leeway we give men, and honestly? Excusing blatant rudeness and lack of regard for your life partner with *possible* neurodivergence is fucking disrespectful to those of us who are ND. Neurodivergence isn’t an excuse to be a raging asshole, nor does it make you abusive.

For years, my ex claimed that he was just a forgetful guy, that he was “a little” ADHD (problematic wording in its own right), that it wasn’t his fault he was so disorganized, that he couldn’t help it. I clung to any excuse or explanation I could, because no one wants to believe that the person they’ve chosen to spend their life with sees them as inferior.

We raise our daughters to be submissive and to tend to everyone else’s needs first. We teach them that boundaries are rude and that if a boy is mean to you, it means he likes you. We teach our children that feelings are weak and immature, except for anger, which isn’t an emotion if you’re a man. We raise our daughters to always be helpful, to spend thanksgiving cooking in the kitchen while the men watch football, to do the planning and organizing, and we’re told that women just like doing that stuff, like that absolves men of any responsibility. If she’d just tell me what needs to be done, I would be happy to “help”, they lament. At this I sing like Ms. Rachel: Where are your eyes? / Where could they be? / Where are your eyes? / Point to them with me.

It’s no surprise so many men grow up underdeveloped. My ex never had to cook, never had to do his own laundry, never had to balance a budget, never had to make his own appointments, never had to do housework. His mother did it all for him, because they have “traditional values.” His father conveniently goes to mow the lawn every time company is coming over and waits until the day of the holiday to shop for a gift. Instead of spending Christmas, birthdays, Mother’s Day, etc., with his family, he’s at the store, shopping for a last-minute gift.

The first Christmas we were married, my ex got mad at me for being upset that he didn’t get me anything. “Why would I get you anything? We’re married. It’s coming out of the same account. If it matters so much to you, get something for yourself. You’re so material.”

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE GIFT. We want to know that we MATTER TO YOU.

For years I tried to excuse this treatment. To say that it was me being overemotional, that he’s just forgetful, and he felt bad afterward. If he really felt bad, why did it keep happening? If you know you’re forgetful, set reminders in your phone. Leave sticky notes in the house. Make gift idea lists slowly over the year to make it easier when it’s time to buy one for someone. Do something. Use the resources that you have to help yourself, instead of writing it off completely because you’re “just a forgetful person”. No, you’re just an asshole. It doesn’t help that society continuously excuses this type of behavior: boys just mature more slowly; something clicks when they get married, have their first child, turn 30/40/50, he’s just reserved, still waters run deep, he means well, he just has a hard time showing it, etc. I heard it all.

But hey, let’s say it is unintentional. Let’s say they really “don’t know better”. How many times do they have to be told they’re hurting us before it becomes intentional? I know women who have tried explaining what they need to their husbands every way they know how. I was one of them. I carefully measured my words. I tried everything I could think of to get him to understand how his words, his lack of participation in the mental, emotional, or domestic load, refusal to participate in family events, constant prioritization of his own wants over our needs as a family was hurting us. He twisted everything back around, so the problem was always my reaction, and never his hurtful actions.

Inaction is a choice. Knowing that your lack of accountability, lack of participation in the family unit or any of the responsibilities that come with that, knowing that your partner is exhausted and cries herself to sleep at night and still coming home to take a 45 minute shit then put your feet up on the couch for 2 hours because you need to “decompress” while she tries not to fall apart makes it intentional. That level of entitlement, of thinking that you deserve rest more than she does, of minimizing all her contributions to justify your greed? It’s abuse.

We want to be appreciated for who we are, not what you can get us to do for you.

I spent 10 years begging to be treated like a human being, and I finally had to accept that he would never see me as one. That if he wanted to change, he already would have. That if he actually loved or valued me as his life partner, I wouldn’t have had to beg for decency. I wouldn’t have been accused of being selfish, rude, or difficult for trying to have basic boundaries. Love doesn’t require you to abandon yourself, to chop yourself into smaller, more digestible pieces, to try to meet impossible standards only to hear each and every way you didn’t measure up at the end of the night.

I decided that I couldn’t live without being loved and I left my marriage, and I’m not alone. Many women are fed up with this kind of treatment and are filing for divorce. And what do those husbands say? She left me because I didn’t do the dishes, I never knew she was unhappy, she took the kids and left out of nowhere. It’s not the why that surprises him, it’s the fact that she followed through. He’s mad she actually left, because he thought she should tolerate a state of permanent unhappiness.

When you love someone, you want them to be happy. You do your best to avoid what causes them pain. And yet, every single day, I hear testimonies from women whose low value husbands continue harmful patterns and behaviors, even while promising to change. Empty promises and platitudes. It leaves me wondering, do cishet men even like women?

The bar is literally in hell. I wasn’t even asking for the bare minimum from my ex. I just wanted him to love me, and that was still too much to ask.

On Mother's Day, I'm sure I wasn't the only one grieving the shortage of photos I have of me with my children. We shouldn’t have to hire a professional just to make sure we have photos with our children that have our entire heads in them. It’s not that fucking hard to take a picture of your wife, guys, and the shortage is telling on you.

Let’s say you’re with a group of friends, sitting around a fire, sharing stories. You look at your wife. Her skin is glowing in the light of the fire, her joy evident as she laughs at something someone said. Is it really so hard to take 5 seconds to take a picture, to capture that? This is supposedly the person you love and cherish above all others.

Here’s another scenario: she’s playing with your toddler, the lighting is beautiful, both she and child are smiling, playing, enjoying the moment. You can’t take a few seconds to take a picture so you can all treasure that memory for years to come?

We take pictures of the things we love. Why don’t you take pictures of your wife?

I can guarantee you she has plenty of you.