How Can We Help, Prevent, and Stop the Abuse of Men in Relationships?

I'm an abused husband in the physical and verbal categories, and my wife has had at least a few affairs. I chose to stay married even though I could divorce Biblically. Because I can doesn't mean I should. My wife pretended to be a Believer before I married her. I'll leave that to the Lord as to whether or not she's saved. She's got a lot of issues and as my knowledge grew it became easier to forgive. I reckon everything I've been through in my marriage will have helped to develop me into the person I'll be in all of eternity, so I thank God for everything that has happened in my life. I won't go into more detail on this Board as the population seems quite mixed here.

I was really tempted to say, when I got backlash on the divorce thread, that maybe the divorced men were afraid I was hurting their chances with Lanolin, but she doesn't seem very interested in marriage.... based on my own observations.

So, I am at the place in my life where I know what I am trying to say, yet also consciously aware of how my words could easily be misconstrued because people really do not know me.

With this in mind, I just want to say something to seoul before I retire for the evening.

I get where you are coming from, and what you mean about life's nuances. Even in what I said earlier about God knowing the answers, I could easily understand how someone might read that as me basically saying, "Hey! Here is God's band-aid! Just put it on, and shut up!", but that is not what I was trying to say. There are people who I have literally been trying to help for decades. In other words, it is not enough to just quote some scriptures to people. Instead, we need to be willing to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty, in a figurative sense, or we need to be willing to give of our time, energy, and possibly even our resources, in order to genuinely help people at times.

I am not even sure where I am going with this (I should be sleeping, and not posting), but what I am trying to say is that I mean you no offense whatsoever. I actually was consciously aware when you were not posting, and I missed seeing you around here, and I believe that I did reach out to you once in your absence. I also think that you pose good questions or raise good topics for discussion. However, i also believe, based upon certain things that you have shared or explained, that you have been either hurt or unjustly judged in the past, and I think that, sometimes, when someone here posts something with good intentions, it sort of triggers a bad memory in you, and you might see that person's intentions as being bad. Like in the case of presidente's OP on the "divorce" thread.

Anyhow, I like you, I am not judging you, and I hope you do not unleash the flying monkeys on me...lol. I truly like to know what makes people tick, and I appreciate your transparency on these threads. If I have caused you any unintentional offense, then I am truly sorry.

I need to go to bed.

Good night.

Makes me think of the song "Victim of Love" by the Eagles.

Just out of curiosity, since you feel that you've married down, and in your words, "way down" and "settled," does your wife feel that she married "way up?"

I have personally stood on the corner in Winslow Arizona

Pillows people, pillows. A man is not a pillow. His shoulders are hard from working all day.

I’m skeptical of women friend zoning men and then be crying on their shoulders over bad boys.

I have met someone, and we are married, so I'm talking past situations. But, and how do I say this without sounding tacky or offensive, I married down. Way down. In the end I 'settled' because she was the only one to show an interest. But no, we are not equals, in any sense.

Friend zoning them then waiting till they are actually in a good stable relationship with someone else and then playing the damsel in distress needing her best friend Prince Charming to come save her.... I've seen it RUIN marriages.

In what ways do you feel you are superior to your wife?

In extensive cognitive testing she scored 15% I scored 85. I've never been in debt, she's been bankrupt twice and almost a third time. I consider the alternatives and outcomes before acting, she runs on pure impulse. I periodically seek counsel, she accepts input from no one. I learn from mistakes, she repeats her mistakes endlessly. I break six figures in income, she barely breaks 4. I look at new situations with the intent to learn and experience things, she thinks whatever was good enough for her mom in 1965 is good enough for her now. When a counselor gives me advice I take it to heart and put it to action, she insists she is who she is and isn't going to try to change. When I need her attention I consider if she is busy, she expects me to stop whatever I'm doing at the drop of a hat to handle her issue. We both have a heart for helping people, she takes it to the level of her own detriment while I put reasonable limits on how big a hit assisting will have on us. I pull my own weight and then some, she expects to be carried and entitled in life. I'm a night owl who respects her need to to go to sleep early, she's a morning person who doesn't hesitate to disturb me at 5 am. When I make a promise or commitment I keep it, she makes promises and commitments with absolutely no intention of honoring them. I speak the truth, she says what she thinks the other person wants to hear.

I know they say opposites attract, but how was it that you two wound up marrying?

Or did this become evident long after the wedding?

Btw, I only recently (like within the last 30 minutes) read some of the first page on your divorce thread, and I definitely believe that some of the backlash you received was way out of line. In fact, the little bit that I read confirmed something that I recently said on this thread. Again, it seems to me that some people here get all bent out of shape if somebody has the audacity to post scriptures that are pertinent to the topic at hand, and on a Christian site, no less.

You have no idea how many conversations in different sub-forums here I have either avoided altogether or quickly dropped out of because I heavily sensed, discerned, or perceived a very real aversion to the word of God. Of course, people will deny having the same, but, as the old expression goes, "the proof is in the pudding".

To add to something that I said before, my number one problem, without a doubt, as a Christian man who would be interested in possibly dating a Christian woman is that I am actually a Christian. In other words, as soon as I start suggesting things like having a Bible study together, or as soon as I start talking about the lost and my burden for them...well, suddenly they are busy for the rest of their lives. Of course, this is only one man's experience, but it definitely has been my experience for years.

You show me a woman who has no desire to discuss God's word and who has no care for the lost, and I will show you a woman that I have no interest in whatsoever.

Not that anybody cares, mind you, but I am just saying...

I think some girls kind of like a guy a little, not enough to go all in, but enough to keep him as a second choice, and pull this. Or maybe when they see another girl like him so much, the guy becomes desirable.

I read a bit of 'manosphere' stuff after I read the term and wanted to see what it was about. The pickup artists and other manosphere people call this hypergamy, that women are attracted to men who other women are attracted to. So some guys will go in a bar, chat with other girls, then target the one they are interested in after she has seen other girls be friendly to him.

Avoiding men like this is one of many reasons women should avoid going to bars.