Regrets And Perspectives

[u/Timbucktwo1230]

[u/Some-Tear3499]

My late wife, (my third wife and I was her third husband )had some discussions about our 15 yrs together. She was close to or already in hospice care at home. Stage 4 breast cancer. We knew what was coming. We talked about the ‘gifts’ we had given each other. She told me that I gave her freedom. Freedom?

She said when I wanted to build a Faire Garden in the front yard, you said go ahead. When I wanted to go back to school at age 50, you said yes, When I wanted to build The Tea House in the back yard, you said yes. The Faire Garden could be seen from the street, people,from the neighborhood could see it, and the first yr they came and visited it. The Tea House is a 12 x14 feet structure, 16 feet high. She designed it, she built it almost completely by herself. I was grunt labor, for hauling materials, and buying her tools for birthdays and holidays. It took 3 yrs to complete it. She went back to school to get a 2 yr. Technical Degree in Engineering. That enabled her to really advance in her job. Suddenly she was making almost the same money I was making after almost 18 yrs on a now union job. She said I gave her the freedom to pursue her Spiritual expression, with friends and with groups, she became a Pagan. She told me that was the best thing I gave her. The freedom to do what she wanted to do,,what she wanted to pursue. If she wanted to dress up for the Renn Fair, she said I told her to do it! Be want ever you want to be!

She said no one else in her life before me let her do what SHE wanted to do.

She has been gone 22 months now. Forever 55.

[u/TitaniumButtercup → u/Some-Tear3499]

https://giphy.com/gifs/K2g1dILdecepq

[u/The_Judge_Of_That_ → u/TitaniumButtercup]

[u/largelyinaccurate → u/Some-Tear3499]

My heart loves that this is who you are.

[u/Some-Tear3499 → u/largelyinaccurate]

I didn’t start out this way. I bought this house and property ( 1.3 acre) 6 yrs before I met her. Got it back after the divorce.It was MY HOUSE. It became ‘our home’.

[u/Erikawithak77 → u/Some-Tear3499]

Thank you for sharing this beautiful story of your wife’s experiences. You are keeping her alive, to all of us.

I’m so sorry for your tremendous loss.💙

[u/Some-Tear3499 → u/Erikawithak77]

🫂

[u/Pendo-illsmackabitch → u/Some-Tear3499]

Isn't it crazy and totally weird that grown women have to ask for permission as if they aren't fully capable beings? Grown and mature and responsible enough to carry a fetus, birth a baby, grow/raise a human, but yet, not fully cognizant to just do things without permission.

Of course, things are a little different now. I think about 40% of women can do what they want when they want without permission, but we still have a long way to go.

[u/Frylock_dontDM → u/Pendo-illsmackabitch]

In a relationship you make decisions together.

We plan together and come to decisions together and express how we can/can't support each other in various ways.

We've lived together now for 10yrs with two fulltime jobs, a child, a house, and on a single car for nearly a decade, but the joint decision making is how we make it work.

[u/Some-Tear3499 → u/Frylock_dontDM]

This

[u/painterlyjeans → u/Frylock_dontDM]

Are you really sure it’s joint? Or is she just agreeing and not voicing what she wants?

[u/IllustriousNeck8219 → u/Pendo-illsmackabitch]

My wife had to ask me permission to do some things...... like stop working to stay home with the kids (reducing our income by about a third and only reducing our expenses by less than half of her take-home pay, while also leading to worse health insurance for the family with a higher premium), adding a semi-permanent decorative touch to a wall in our house, going out with her friend and leaving me to do bed time alone, getting a rabbit, buying a dining room table, etc.

And in return I ask her permission to do things that affect her, like turning a large chunk of our yard into a vegetable garden, going to pay cards with my friends and leaving her to do bedtime alone, going back to school for my masters, etc.

When you decide to have a partner in life, that means consulting them when you make decisions that affect them.

[u/NinaNeptune318 → u/Pendo-illsmackabitch]

In all my customer service jobs, by far, more men said they needed to ask their wife for permission. Just something to chew on.

[u/Vivid__Data → u/NinaNeptune318]

That's a common joke.

[u/Icy-Ad29 → u/Vivid__Data]

It's also a common truth

[u/Vivid__Data → u/Icy-Ad29]

Except people like you don't really care about experiences, just hurting other people. You don't want to understand, you want to "debunk". Which is actually so harmful to the victims.

It makes no sense at all.

[u/Thedarb → u/Vivid__Data]

… is there context between you two missing here? That’s a wild turn otherwise.

[u/NinaNeptune318 → u/Thedarb]

What did they say? They deleted.

[u/SureEntertainer7818 → u/NinaNeptune318]

its not deleted, they probably just blocked you.

It says:

Except people like you don't really care about experiences, just hurting other people. You don't want to understand, you want to "debunk". Which is actually so harmful to the victims. It makes no sense at all.

[u/Icy-Ad29 → u/Thedarb]

None I know of. Nor am I really sure what they said, cus they then immediately blocked me after posting that. So all I can see is the notification of "people like you..."and message trail off...

So yeah, single post leads to a message starting like that and a block, is pretty wild.

[u/Western-Sport500 → u/NinaNeptune318]

My ex would say this to his friends if they wanted him to go on a trip etc. and he wanted to think about it. Turns out, I was never asked, I was told whether he would be going or not. Not one time did he ask for permission, or worry about childcare while I worked and he was gone etc. And I simply didn't have the money to go on like vacations etc.

[u/NinaNeptune318 → u/Western-Sport500]

Oh for sure, just like the character in the OP that is playing the role of the woman who wanted to go to nursing school. She could have just decided to go to school and made moves to do so. If she was genuinely incapable of going to school, that wasn't a matter of permission anymore.

My comment was in response to someone who seems to think that only women are expected to get "permission" from men when in reality, there is a difference between couples who prefer to communicate and make decisions together vs those who have one person as the authority for certain decision-making.

In the cases I am referring to, there are even times the couple is in together, and the woman is the one making all the decisions. Sometimes to the point that the man wants something, but because she doesn't like or eat it, it doesn't get bought, period. Another family near me runs a convenience store, and the wife doesn't eat meat and forbids meat to be brought into the house. I'm asking that individual commenter to consider that there are plenty of relationships the other way around, and neither are good if the person is being controlled or denied and not an equal partner.

[u/MasterpieceBrief4442 → u/Pendo-illsmackabitch]

How would you feel about a husband who decides to quit his job to go back to school without even running it by his wife, I wonder?

[u/Some-Tear3499 → u/MasterpieceBrief4442]

She didn’t quit her job. Just as I didn’t quit my job when I got my RN, or my Bachelors degree. I was still married to the other wife. We had two kids as well. I worked days and she worked evenings for a long time, that was so we didn’t spend so much on day care. I was in charge of caring for my 2 daughters from about 5 pm until she came home around 1130 pm.
She worked at least one day on the weekends, but I always had week ends off.

[u/gobby94 → u/MasterpieceBrief4442]

Yeah, flip the script and all of a sudden it becomes problematic. Certain subs are full of toxic gender biases and this happens to be one of them. Bitter women will be bitter women, the same way bitter men will be bitter men.

[u/Vivid__Data → u/gobby94]

Sometimes it feels more like a reason to downplay the actual toxicity that women experience. No one is saying the opposite can't be true, but that's called an outlier.

[u/Pendo-illsmackabitch → u/MasterpieceBrief4442]

I think making decisions without consulting/telling/talking to the person you supposedly love is emotionally wrong. I also think putting off the valid dreams/goals of one partner to their complete and utter detrimental is also wrong.

If a partner quits their job without regard on how both people will fair on, that's the beginning of an abusive behavior. Them talking about it and deciding how to both compromise(if it's even an issue) is the answer

[u/SnooCauliflowers9874 → u/Some-Tear3499]

What a lovely story. It made me tear up a little. It’s wonderful that you found each other.

You have had the kind of partnership that most people dream of…

[u/Some-Tear3499 → u/SnooCauliflowers9874]

She granted me the same freedom as well.

[u/All_the_Bees → u/Some-Tear3499]

This is a beautiful memorial to a woman who sounds like someone I would love to have known. How lucky you were to have each other.

[u/Royal_Mechanic_5245 → u/Some-Tear3499]

It sounds like you guys had a wonderful marriage. I'm so sorry for your loss. 

[u/stink3rb3lle → u/Some-Tear3499]

I'm so sorry for your loss, she was gone too soon and it's still so recent. I hope you keep telling stories about her.

[u/LobabyChick → u/Some-Tear3499]

That’s beautiful