I’m so angry on my friends behalf

[lessee167]

My Best Friend is not in a very happy marriage. Her Husband has always been a tricky character and is very very tight with money. I think he’s financially abusive she thinks he’s just a bit tight. They mainly have separate finances but this benefits him much more than her.

Any way, they have an online shop delivered once a week, they both add to it as needed. Today it’s been delivered and her sanitary towels were not on it. She assumed they were out of stock so she logged on to check the order and saw they had been removed. She asked her husband and he replied “you can pay for your own luxuries from your own money”.

I mean this is just ridiculous, it’s not as if she had added expensive face cream or make up! It would be the final straw for me

Agree

Do not underestimate the courage it has taken your friend to tell you this. If you live with someone abusive so much energy can be spent trying to pretend everything is normal. Keep offering her your ear and the promise of a safe place when she needs it

That's not just about financial mean-ness, it's misogynist and humiliating. Using his power to leave her without sanitary protection when she needs it.

Emotional abuse

I agree with @GreyCarpet above.

Do not encourage her to engage in any of the passive aggressive tit for tat suggestions above, gently encourage her to explore what emotional abuse is on the Women's Aid and other websites.

And just be there for her.

I had a friend in a similar situation but it took her far too long to wake up and see him for the person he was and not what she wanted him to be. I had to step back at one point as he was emotionally abusive to their DC as well as her, and it was just too horrific to keep having to listen to without her doing anything. She had great support from her family and friends, I'd add.

Gently support her but don't wade in too deep. Abusive relationships are complex and deeply layered.

My genuine advice to her is to free bleed for this cycle. When he comments she should say ‘ah, I agree that they are a luxury item and not essential in anyway!’. He certainly wouldn’t ever kick up a fuss in the future and would probably be straight down the shop to get her the items she needs.

It will not teach him if she removes his shaving foam from the shopping list. It will put her in danger, whether physically or emotionally, perhaps both.

We put up with morons like this because they were not morons to begin with. They charmed us, made us laugh, made us fall in love with the nice person they were portraying.

Then they bought us the wrong drink one day. They must have made a mistake but we don't say anything so as not to hurt or embarrass them. Without our knowing we've ticked their first box.

However many years later they're taking a necessary for our wellbeing off the shopping list having ground us down to accepting all manner of shit because whenever we have tried to call them out on some of their behaviour they've told us it's our own fault, that we're mad and need help and we soon learn that life is easier if we don't rock the boat. We have no control at all over that boat.

It can be very hard to see what you are enduring when you're in an abusive relationship. They keep your brain filled with them and their highs and lows precisely so you don't have the headspace to see their behaviour for what it is. It's often not until we are away from them that we can see what we've been through.

It does beggar belief, not that we have "put up with it" but that they have behaved like that.

He does not feel she is his inferior, he knows he is her inferior, that's why he has behaved the way he has. He is not a strong man.

That is very calculated cruelty. I suppose he sees loo roll as a necessity to wipe his arse with yet sanitary products are luxury items!? What a piece of shit.

Personally I don't get relationships that operate like 'your money, my money' anyway.

I would too. Luxury item? My arse!

🤣🤣

I couldn’t live my life with a man like this. Cripes, I hope she sees the light.

Dear God, this sounds so reminiscent of my abusive ex its given me goosebumps.
I left mine over 30 years ago and can still remember the feeling of hopelessness like it was yesterday.
Thank god she has you to confide in @lessee167 .

Well she can start by wearing his undies/ stuffing them in her pants then go on to his socks, leaving him to wash them. Bleeding on the bed/furniture will create more work for her

Actually feel repulsed reading this. Poor woman.

My son’s dad once refused to get me conditioner. Because “the women in my country don’t use such luxuries” (we’d move to this godforsaken hellhole)

a part of me died that day and it was the very beginning of the end

What the hell have I just read?!! omg what a petty little man this is!! When was bleeding every month a luxury!!?? Reading things like this makes me feel so grateful I'm with my hubby who would say “ add anything you like to the basket”.
poor lady leave him now!!😞

That's just plain nasty..Have you suggested that maybe she'd be better off on her own. Does she show signs that he is abusive in other ways. I'd never stay with a man like that. What a pig.

Oh sweet mother of all that is good and sane in the world!!!!

He is a prick, pure and simple. I am angry for her and I don't know her.

The friends and family who the OP can turn to help for need to be aware of this, so together with the OP they can make sure if it does end in separation, he does not get away with hiding any income or savings that could be hers.

controlling, abusive and a misogynist who is clearly repulsed by women's bodily functions. Glad she has you for a friend

Thats awful - I hope your friend doesn’t have teen daughters ?!?

OP does your friend have sufficient money to buy sanitary products without him being aware of it?

How did she actually seem when she told you what he'd done? Was she mad, did she try and make light of it, or did she say something like I can't put up with this much longer?

I know you say that as her friend you listen, but have you ever indicated to her that in your opinion his behaviour toward her is unacceptable, and that perhaps she should think about ending the relationship? I know that if one of my friends told me their DH had done this, I wouldn't have been able to hold back, and would have told them what a disgusting, misogynistic pig they're married to, and encouraged them to leave a.s.a.p.

It’s not petty and mean. It’s abusive and deliberately humiliating. I feel sick reading this. Such joy awaits her in life once she gets rid of this cunt.

i understand your anger- it’s hard to believe men like this exist.

That is truly shocking.

He's a nasty character. No decent human being would do that. I hope she finds the strength to end their marriage and be free of him.