Why I Left My Beta Husband

MSN Lifestyle ^ | August 2007 | Amy Brayfield

[Caipirabob]

A few years ago, my husband, Mark, and I were at one of those hip downtown restaurants sipping mojitos and nibbling on lime-spiked seviche when one of my bosses appeared from a cloud of Cuban-cigar smoke and patted my shoulder. When I introduced him to Mark, he naturally asked what he did for a living. We both froze.

"I do some freelancing," Mark said.

"He studied film at NYU," I said at the same time.

Mark looked at me and shrugged. "I stay home with our daughter," he said, as my colleague quietly balked.

"He makes it possible for me to do my job," I said, laughing. But inside, I was mortified. Technically, I had it all back then, including a gorgeous toddler and a cool job.

What I didn't have was a husband I felt proud of.

[Mamzelle]

re: She met a man that did not have a job and/or did not have a job of any personal interest. He quit his job (if he had one) fairly quickly after they got together (another very bad sign) to babysit her kid, because he saw an overall free ride. And this is turn on central? The woman is a mess. It sounds like she just wants someone to be a nanny and nursemaid to her.)))

While the writer of this article is a moral and mental lightweight, I do find this judgement a bit harsh. Do women just want a free ride when they opt to take care of a husband's home and family? I think a lot of people believe that.

I happen to have among acquaintences three "househusband" fathers who are utterly content and happy. Their wives earn the bread because they happen to be able to earn a lot more money, and easily able to afford a full-time parent for their children, not to mention a husband to attend to their own comfort.

I see a lot in this discussion that rather glosses over the other problem--the devaluing of domesticity that the feminists brought about. You used to be able to get a college degree in home economics and take classes in home management. It used to be respectable to be a housewife. The "what do you do?" question is one that women sometimes dread if their Real Job is to take care of a family, workplace husband, home and garden. You feel that sudden drop in status shortly after you quit your job.

But if it's not respectable to be a housewife, even less so a househusband. This was a story about status as much as feminism. The first husband could not handle it--and a lot of women have the same problem.

Unless one comes to terms with domesticity, and learns a personal value in living in cleanliness and comfort, eating good meals at a dining room table with family that you nurture yourself, being "available" (worth repeating--available) to attend to the needs of the other family members (the most valuable soldier is the one who stands sentry!).

To do this requires comfort in one's own skin, experience and maturity.

[HungarianGypsy]

I have a friend who is working. But he admits that if he and his wife didn't have to both work to meet the bills (he's even looking into a second job himself) he would love to stay at home with his kids. Perhaps it makes it seem like he has no ambition, but if a family can afford it, I see it as having great priorities. Why spend $1000 a month extra on daycare if dad can afford to stay home with the children.

Not much different than me staying home to take care of my children, instead of working just to pay someone else to do it.

[AppyPappy]

I worked with a guy who had to take the kids to school because his SAH wife went to the gym at that time. Why she couldn’t go after she took the kids to school is a mystery to me.

[riverdawg]

You just described what you think she is, but my point has to do with what I think he (hubby #2) is - yet another loser. Eventually, she’ll figure that out and either move on to the next guy or have a mid-life epiphany.

[Aquinasfan]

I worked with a guy who had to take the kids to school because his SAH wife went to the gym at that time. Why she couldn’t go after she took the kids to school is a mystery to me.

I can even top that. My mother-in-law used to babysit for a woman who didn't work and who also had a live-in nanny! She spent her days at the gym, the spa, and shopping. I don't even think she prepared meals. And I wonder if she ever spent any time with her children.

I don't know how she could keep her sanity living such a self-centered existence.

[durasell]

I think in terms of freedoms and obligations like this: if everyone did it, would the world work?

---

Very simplistic way of thinking.

[Mamzelle]

re: I’ll run the dynamic down for you. She’s a very valuable commodity to the boss: an ambitious young woman who is the sole breadwinner of the family with a presentable hubby who has already had the kid. She’ll work 80 to 100 hours a week, travel widely and run herself ragged. She won’t be pandering to the investment banker or hedge fund husband earning $10 mil a year. She won’t taking time off cause the kid is sick, the nanny didn’t show up or she has a yearning to have a kid. As an employee she’s perfect.)))

And perhaps she comes home to someone who has prepared a nice meal, has attended to the bills/doctor's appts/utilities/PTA, has the kid clean and happy, the house is comfortable, and other comforts available as well.

Hey, who wouldn't want a wife like that? And I even know a few husbands like that.

[durasell]

Would you consider such a man harmless and just living his life as he wanted?

---

Happens everyday.

[durasell]

In NYC it’s never that easy.

[Mamzelle]

The "househusbands" I know have had careers, are no longer young (their high-earning wives are somewhat younger than they), and are the unusual kind of men who desire and enjoy children. The wives are harried and exhausted and the husbands tend very kindly to them--and they are probably more appreciated than wives doing the same thing for working husbands.

Thankfully, none of these are the "do-over" men that I happen to resent highly. That is, the guy who couldn't cut it with one family, gets rid of them, and starts over with a younger woman he's devoted to while the previous family looks on.

[LexBaird]

Happens everyday.

So do many things. Drug abuse, for example. Being common doesn't make the practice harmless.

[durasell]

Couples split up every single day. Men leave women, and women leave men. People pretty much get to do what they want in a free society.

So, are you advocating changing this by a new law or do you just enjoy sitting on the sidelines hissing disapproval?

[roamer_1]

Here's the cure:

"Rough and Ready" by Trace Adkins

Mudgrips, white-tip cigar stickin' out of my face
Earnhardt racing sticker on the window, banged up fender
Four by four, straight pipe roar
Primer and rust all over the door
Scarred up knuckles. Mack belt buckle
White t-shirt, ain't afraid to work
Got a 'what-are-you-looking-at-asshole' smirk

(Chorus)
Cold beer, hot wings, wranglers, skoal ring
Get just what you see
Gun rack, ball cap, don't take no crap
Ain't a pretty boy-toy
I'll rock you steady, rough and ready

Work boots, one blue suit,
Size too small don't wear it at all
Unless somebody kicks, gets hitched
Thats a bitch, it makes me itch
Up with the sun, off on the run
Makin' money money cause I wanna have fun
Five o'clock whistle, off like a missle
Got a hot date, girl named Kate
Thinks im cool, 'cause I shoot straight
Ain't one thing about her fake,
She's long and tall and she goes great with

(Chorus)

Rough and ready baby
ahhh. Here's Johnny)
(band solo)
(just like that)
(Ah there you go Gordo)
(I Never heard anything like that)

Well, you are who you are, and thats alright with me
Well, I am who I am, and thats all I can be

(Chorus)

Rough and ready
Yeah, rough and ready baby..

Ahhh, thats me and my buddies
We're all just alike
We say... watch this!
Well that didnt turn out too good...

Yeah, OK... Uh... What you looking at?
(is that a real gun?)
Yeah, that a real gun on that gun rack.
(you have a permit for that thing?)
No, I don't have a permit for it.
You have a permit to ask stupid questions like that?
you hurtin' boy

[LexBaird]

That’s commonly known as the logical fallacy of “False Dilemma”. I’m advocating changing it by the old fashioned method of social disapproval. Like calling this self-absorbed narcissist exactly that. No laws needed.

Are you advocating just sitting on the sidelines, and saying “oh well, that’s what happens every day”?

[jpl]

The purpose of feminism is to destroy Western civilization. Period.

What's scary is that of all the tools in the communist toolbox, it's probably the one that's succeeding the best at that.

[durasell]

I’m advocating letting folks live their lives according to their own best judgement.

[Polybius]

This woman wouldn’t be happy with anyone. As soon as she lands a new man, she’ll find something wrong with him. She emasculating these metrosexuals.

At the end of the article, she does find a new man, another stay-at-home except this one actually does do his stay-at home job and does not paint himself as a victim like the first one did.

...when I got home, I seethed. I couldn't walk across the living room without tripping over some plastic toy or container of wipes. The baby was in the same little nightgown she'd slept in the night before. There wasn't a hint of dinner on the horizon. He was home all day—couldn't he at least run a freaking load of laundry? .. "Don't you think I resent you for how easy it is for you?" Mark asked me during one session. "You have this great job, and I'm home like a slave, running errands, taking care of your shit, and you can't even spare me five minutes of conversation at the end of the day."

[stillonaroll]

There aren’t a million like her. At most, there are 50,000 like her in the entire country. And they are centered in three or four metropolitan areas. She’s a type, but a harmless type.

I must disagree. She is a self-centered femi-nazi and is well connected to the media. She is using those connections to evangelize other women to adopt her mindset and lifestyle.

Personally, I don't give a rip about how screwed up her family is. What disgusts me is that she is trying to encourage others to live like her--women beyond the Manhattan/San Francisco axis. The way she thinks and the way she lives are bad for America, and it's hard for me to envision a conservative argument to the contrary.

[durasell]

I didn’t see the story as encouraging other women to act like her — but yeah, I agree, if the typical middleclass woman in a family struggling to keep their financial head above water acted like she did, then it would be a mess.
She obviously has the kind of options that most people don’t enjoy.

[Riverman94610]

I say send those Mojitos back across the border!
Oh,sorry,I thought you were talking about Mojados!