In Facebook groups these days, many posts read, “I just need to vent…” in the first sentence. What always follows is an extended complaint about the poster’s husband.
The complainer tells the story of a husband who isn’t doing enough child care or household work, who has made insensitive or unkind remarks, or who has had grating personal habits laid bare by the constant togetherness couples are currently facing amid the coronavirus quarantine. It’s always wives making these posts, never husbands, and they seem to have no shame about blasting out to thousands of strangers about their latest fight.
If the frequency of posts is any indication, marital fights are increasing in lockdown. And so, it seems couples’ ability to deal with these arguments appropriately is diminishing by the day.
What is to be gained by posting about a marital argument in large Facebook groups composed almost exclusively of strangers? Validation, mostly. Posters want to hear that their spouse is the bad guy, that he is entirely in the wrong, and that they, the sympathetic wife, are completely in the right.
These posts usually complain about a fundamental lack of respect on the part of the husband.
Often, the wife complains her husband is not pitching in and doing his fair share of the housework and child care or that he is expecting too much of his wife in a time of great stress. Yes, seriously: These wives accuse their husbands of not respecting them while simultaneously putting them on blast to an audience of thousands of strangers.
The lack of self-awareness is profound. “Why doesn’t my husband respect me?” they exclaim to an audience ready to pounce in judgment of him. Why doesn’t he respect you? Well, I have some ideas.
What message do these postings send to the outside world? This is a question nobody who writes them seems to consider, and so, I’d like to fill you in on what it’s like to be an anonymous stranger uncomfortably reading these missives.
Obviously, the marriage doesn’t appear to be in good shape, but those posting misconstrue who comes off looking responsible. When I see these kinds of posts, I think about how my husband would feel if he knew I trashed him in this matter without any remorse. I cannot even fathom him doing the same to me. It would be such a betrayal of the privacy and respect of our marriage, I’m not sure how it could possibly recover.
When I see these posts, I find myself feeling immediately more sympathy for the husband. If this person would betray their spouse in this matter publicly over a silly fight, what must they be like to live with?
The poster is obviously very quick to litigate a mundane spousal fight in public, but it’s certain that there are key parts of the story being left out. Wives venting on Facebook aren’t exactly reliable or trustworthy reporters; there are undoubtedly many offenses the poster is committing that we aren’t being told about. That’s the worst thing about these posts: Husbands are unable to defend their good name being defamed widely.
Those members of the peanut gallery participating in these public pile-on posts don’t come off looking that much better, either.
They are often litigating their own marital fights in the comments or, at the very least, alluding to them and thus validating this bizarre practice of eviscerating one’s spouse publicly. What strikes me often is how many times those participants refer to their “ex-husband” in their rants about the inherent wickedness of the male species; they are a peek into the future for the original poster and a clue into what went wrong for the woman making the comment.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic and the associated lockdown aren’t leaving our lives anytime soon. This means that, if struggling married couples want to make it through to the other side, they need to get off Facebook and actually spend some time communicating with each other in a more healthy and constructive manner. If not, divorce lawyers are going to experience a post-coronavirus spike in business.
Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a stay-at-home and homeschooling mother of four and a freelance writer. She is an editor at Ricochet.com, a columnist at the Forward, and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
