Heterosexual relationship culture is so alien to me and I don’t know if it’s the fact I’m not cishet or the fact I’m autistic but I hear so many things that make me go “Am I insane or are they?”
There’s a lot of hate on widowers and I saw a woman say “You cannot compete with a dead woman.” which is perhaps a reasonable statement to say if he’s constantly comparing you to his dead partner but that wasn’t what the post was about. And I realized “Oh my God, these people genuinely feel like they’re constantly in competition with their spouse’s exes and the ex being dead makes them feel insecure that they cannot best her.”
There’s also been an uptick in the ‘men and women cannot be ‘just’ friends’ rhetoric which I feel like is extremely dangerous and reflects the rise of fascism and sexism. Some of these stories of women feeling threatened by their husband’s female best friend have some merit and others are like “I feel angry that my husband still talks to the girl he grew up next door to and she and her wife are invited to family gatherings and included in family photos sometimes. Am I right to be suspicious?” No. No you’re not. I cannot imagine being you and living with that high level of stress and paranoia and constant torment and jealousy about your husband having a positive relationship with anyone who isn’t you.
okay look i know this isn’t relevant to this post past the second paragraph but. here’s the thing. the facts of the case are as follows:
1) I am widowed. my Beloved Wife of Blessed Memory™ died in 2019
2) I got together with my current partner about 18 months later
3) when I am committing acts of Foolishness my current partner loves to gesture at the sky to my dead wife, like “do you see this shit, my liege” and regularly says to me things like “[wife’s name] was right about this” when my Foolishness inevitably comes back to bite me in the ass
4) this happens. all the time
more importantly:
5) my current partner is on tumblr
6) they love to incessantly send me posts
WHICH MEANS:
7) they just sent me this post with this commentary:
ALT
8) they really, really are ganging up on me with her. god help us if there’s an afterlife and those two ever actually meet. “eternal rest” my ass, i will never know peace again
you’ll spend so long in deep discussions of gender online and then go talk to someone in your real life family and find out they still havent gotten past “women can be good at things” and its like oh okay jesus christ i forgot some people are still on the baby steps huh
ALT
