I’m in a baby loss support group. Every couple of weeks, the same thing will happen: a woman will share that, a day or two after her baby died, her husband screamed at and verbally abused her, never apologized, and continued a pattern of verbal abuse at the most awful time of her life. Other posters will chime in with similar stories.
And then they’ll all come to the same conclusion.
Is it that they need to leave their husbands? That their husbands are abusive?
No.
“Men grieve differently.”
Can you imagine a world in which men accepted, justified, and defended this behavior from women? Of course not. If women sleep an extra 2 minutes or forget to vacuum, they’re bad mothers. The notion of verbally abusing your spouse after a death is unfathomable. And defending that behavior? Truly ghastly.
We see this phenomenon any time women need anything from men—because, of course, a core belief of misogyny is that women are not allowed to want things, and that all women’s needs are really just wants.
When she’s just had a baby, it’s normal for him to ignore her needs—but if she asks him to make her a sandwich or expects him to do the majority of household labor when he’s ill or recovering from surgery, she’s a monster.
If he works full-time, he’s the breadwinner and that means she has to do everything else. If she also works full-time—or even if she’s the only one who works full-time—well, you can’t go expecting men to care for children, now can you?
If he’s neurodivergent, she’s expected to accommodate whatever he wants, no matter what he does, forever. If she’s neurodivergent, society weaponizes that against her and still expects her to do it all.
We’ve built an entire motherhood culture around defending men. We thank them for not hitting us, or for remembering (as we do, usually without thanks) that children need food. When they act badly, we claim that they have a different love language. Or we assume we just need to better understand them and their needs.
Even supposedly “feminist” authors don’t recognize exploitation of women’s time and labor as abuse—because even in leftist circles, we can’t fully grasp women’s humanity. We’re not willing to accept that men who steal their partners’ labor are stealing their partners’ lives.
Men are buying their free time with their partners’ exhaustion.
Abuse of pregnant and postpartum women isn’t just common; it’s normal.
The whole world wants to convince women that their feelings don’t matter, but that no matter what their husband does or says or neglects, his feelings are central.
Over and over, on post after post, I see the same tired bullshit.
“Sure, he does this objectively abusive thing, but I know he really loves me.”
The result is that marriage is terrible for women’s emotional, physical, and financial health.
Love has to actually mean something, or it is worthless. If love is just the label we put on abusive behavior to justify it, then love doesn’t matter.
And of course, if she ever threatens to leave, he’ll weaponize his “love.” He’ll cry, threaten her, threaten suicide, or maybe do all three at once. Or he’ll tell everyone she left for “no reason,” because living a life that makes her happy is, to him, not a valid reason.
If your husband can’t be bothered to pull his weight around the house, to care about your emotions, to listen to your needs and adapt, to treat you like a person who matters, to apologize when he was wrong, then the problem is not communication.
It’s not that you need to work harder to understand his needs.
It’s not that you need to communicate more, or better, or differently.
It’s not your hormones. No, you’re not too emotional or expecting too much.
It’s that he doesn’t love you.
We have to stop pretending that men who mistreat their partners and children. We have to stop believing their hollow insistence of love. We have to demand a world where love actually means something.
And we have to stop demanding perfect love from women when their partners can’t manage any love at all.
Love prioritizes the needs of the other person. And it’s something too few men are doing.
For too many men, a wife is not a person but a role—part servant, part sex doll, part emotional crutch.
You deserve more than to be someone’s servant.
If you’ve been trying to make things better for years, if he blows up every time you try to make a change, you are in an abusive relationship—even if there’s no hitting.
Abusers don’t love you.
Make a plan to get out.
You do not have to spend your one precious life on a man who doesn’t love you, when others will.
You do not have to suffer enough to earn the right to leave.
Treat your needs with the same respect you would treat his.
Women are human beings, too.
Women’s needs matter, too.
Maybe your husband doesn’t love you.
Considering the possibility may be the first step toward freedom.
