rSlash - r/Bestof My Husband Beats Me

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

0:00 Intro 0:09 Marriage story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. There you are, pushing your newborn baby in a stroller through the park. The first time out of the house in weeks.

You have your Starbucks, venty, because, you know, sleep deprivation. You meet your best friend. She asks you how it's going. You immediately begin to laugh. Then cry. Then laugh cry? That's totally normal, right? She smiles.

You hug. There's no one else you'd rather share this with. You know, three and a half hour sleep is more than enough. Starbucks, it's never just coffee. Welcome to R-slash Best of Redditor updates, where O.P.'s wife is a certified nut job. Our next Reddit post is from R-slash marriage. I'm a 46-year-old guy, and I've been married to my 45-year-old wife for 20 years. We have three teenage kids.

Until recently, I would have said that we had a wonderful marriage. But as I look back, I think out of pure love and obsession, I've been looking at things with rose-colored glass. We met in college. Her best friend went to the same college as me, and that's how we met. She had a tough upbringing. Her mom was very young when she was born, and her parents were never married. She didn't meet her biological dad until she was in her 30s, which is a story for another day. Her mom isn't really a good person, and they're no contact with one another. Until my wife was a teenager, she shared a bedroom with her mother in her grandparents' house. They were more like sisters. When she was a teenager, her mom got married to another awful person. She had an affair

with a married guy. Eventually, he got divorced and married my mother-in-law. He had two kids who were slightly older than my wife. Imagine what that was like. Merged two families with teenage kids when their dad cheated on their mother and then shacked them all up in one house. I can't imagine. There are countless stories of the horrors that my wife went through as a child. Her mom told her that she should have aborted her, tried to push her out of a moving car. There were smacks and slaps. My wife was never complimented growing up. I've never heard my mother-in-law compliment my wife.

My wife was always smart, did well in school, didn't get in trouble, helped around the house, cooked for her family, she was and is very pretty. Her mother only criticized her, and it was constant. As if that wasn't bad enough, she was sexually assaulted in college by some friend of her stepbrother. To say that this has taken a mental toll is the understatement of the century. I've loved her with every sense of my being, have supported her, supported her in her therapy. I am by no means a perfect husband, but I've tried my best to be supportive and loving. Anyway, fast forward to today.

I've been married for over 20 years. My wife obviously has a lot of issues stemming from the above. I love her more than anything in the world, but it hasn't been easy. I've borne the brunt of some pretty outlandish treatment, and I'm wondering if I've been blinded by love, and if this is not a safe and healthy environment for me. I don't know if I could ever leave. I don't know if I could do that to her or do that to my kids,

but I'm starting to feel like I'm only here to serve the purposes of providing support, financial, emotional, physical, parenting. Here's some things that have happened. Five years ago, we'd gone to a beach location for a long weekend with a lifelong friend of mine and his family. It was all around a great time. One night, while we were leaving an amusement park, we were walking with the kids for ice cream. We walked past a bar and a baseball game was ending. My friend and I say to the wives that we want to grab a drink and watch the end of the game while they can get ice cream next door.

Everyone seemed fine with it. This is something I never do. My friend and I were gone 20 to 30 minutes. When we got home, my wife lost it. Couldn't believe that I abandoned the family for a half hour tops while they ate ice cream. This was the first time she hit me. She punched me, geez, she punched me four times and threw a chair at me. I was shocked.

This pattern escalated over the next few months. She slammed the shower door on me, breaking it and effectively trapping me naked in the shower. If she hadn't brought me a screwdriver to remove the shower door, I'd still be. be in there. Right before the holidays in 2019, four months after this hitting started, my wife had a disagreement with my daughter. My wife made a mistake and said something she shouldn't have. It should have been easily fixable with a quick apology, but my wife turned it into World War III with my daughter. After my daughter went to her room punished, my wife and I went into our room. I tried to call my wife down, but apparently she wanted me to match her level of outrage and my wife unleashed

the fury on me. She punched me countless times. I ended up with a bloody nose and a cut beneath my eye. I'm over six feet tall and a pretty fit guy. My wife is almost a foot shorter than me and maybe 80 pounds lighter than me. I sat there and let her punch me countless times. I remember being frozen and also being afraid. I didn't even want to grab her hands out of fear that I'd be blamed for the fight and arrested. She was unhinged, screaming, as she pummeled me. It was awful. It was really fun to coach my daughter's basketball game with a badly bruised and cut up face the next day. After this, I freaked out. I realized the situation had gotten way out of hand. My wife apologized profusely. I said that I couldn't go on like this.

Our kids heard the commotion, and we later had to talk to them about it. I told my wife this wasn't safe for me. She had a near breakdown out of fear that I would leave her. She discussed it with her therapist. We went to couples therapy for the first time. It was a mess. I've come to realize that therapists, or at least the ones that we've seen, focus on the patient with the most needs. Given my wife's past, she has the most mental health issues, and so that's where the focus was. It was really hard for me to be put on the back burner. COVID came and the couple's therapy stopped. We tried again last year, and that was worse for the same reasons. What else has this marriage been like? Well, we've always been very sexually active. My wife is very beautiful. She gets attention anywhere she goes, although she

usually seems oblivious to it. I sometimes feel infatuated with her, but she grew up with a mother that hated her and constantly took her down. I've always complimented her, her beauty, her intellect, how wonderful of a mother she is, how incredible of a cook she is, how incredible of a hostess she is for the holidays. She's amazing in so many ways. One night, after we were intimate, she told me how small I was. This was a completely unsolicited comment after 15 years together. I think that I'm average down there. I've measured myself and I'm just under six inches. I always thought that she was pleased, so hearing a complaint in that department was quite a blow. She later admitted that she said it to hurt me out of some sort of anger. She wasn't even sure what she was mad about. She tried to

walk it back, but it's been tough. Not long after that, I asked her what was physically attractive about me. I was just looking to feel better about myself. She told me there was nothing. Those were her words. And she was kind of shocked that I was taken aback by that and hurt by it. Hey, I asked, so I guess I deserve it. She tried to walk that back a lot over the years as well. Around that time, we went to dinner and I sort of said, hey, I'm over 40, and for the first time ever, I'm feeling anxiety and stress over work, the kids, and life. I asked if she could try to be more supportive and caring. She said, no, that she was a good wife already and was providing support already. She couldn't do any more.

We actually talked through a lot of it. I expressed how it made me feel. She apologized for what she said. She's actually way more giving up compliments now than she's ever been. She's improved there, but it feels forced, like it's only being said because I asked her to. It doesn't always feel sincere. I've discussed it at length in therapy, and I'm basically good with my appearance and what I can and can't control. but I still think that it was unnecessarily mean of her.

My wife has a massive fear of abandonment and has massive trust issues. She regularly accuses me of cheating. I've been nothing but faithful. I have to travel some for work, on average about three days a month. She regularly wakes me up in the middle of the night to FaceTime to see if anyone is in my room. There obviously never has been. One night last year, I had to travel to give an important big presentation. I had to give it first thing in the morning.

I prepared for weeks and it was stressful. I'm presenting the work of my team, so pressure's on me to show the good work that everyone's done. My wife and I spoke around 10 p.m., talked for about half an hour, and I went to bed. At 2 a.m., I woke up to banging on the hotel door. She had somehow convinced the hotel manager to check on me because of an emergency. I realized I had maybe 10 missed calls and maybe 30 text messages from her. I'd been asleep. So we faced, time we confirmed there's no one there in the room with me. She wasn't sorry or anything. She was mad that it took her so long to get a hold of me. I was now wide awake and I had to give this presentation. Then I had to work a full day, attend to work dinner on basically three hours of sleep. My wife has always been insanely jealous of other women. My first boss after college was like

four years older than me. Her husband worked to the same company. My wife hated her. I guess because I would talk about her. She was the person I worked closest with. I basically gave up any female friendship that I had. Not that I was particularly close with any other women. One thing that was a particular issue for her was bachelor parties when all my friends were getting married. She hated the idea of me going to a strip club. Okay, fine. I don't particularly enjoy strip clubs. So anyway, neither of us had strippers or anything like that at our bachelor slash bachelor's. I had a great time at mine. We played golf, went to an awesome dinner, and then gambled afterwards. Anyway, some friends of mine did go to the strip clubs for their bachelor parties. I always told my wife,

and she wanted me to attend. I offered to skip that part, but I don't think she wanted to be seen by my friends or other wives as controlling or a stick in the mud. I really don't know, but she wanted me to stay in contact with her the entire time. That was a little over the top, but I did it. I would literally text her nearly the entire time I was there, describing the situation, just talking about the night. I'm not sure why I even went to that part of the bachelor party. This happened three or four times. When I got home, I got the third degree. She examined me, smelled me, examined my body for evidence, examined my underwear. It was crazy. Before the last one, I said that I don't want to do this. I don't even want to go. But she didn't want that. She wanted

me to go and for me to stay in touch. She promised to back off some, but she didn't really. At one point, a bouncer came over and told me to put the phone away when I was texting, so I did. I guess he was worried I was taking pictures. No, I wasn't taking pictures, I was staying in touch. Typing this out makes me realize how ridiculous it was. All of this would have been no big deal. These bachelor parties all happened over 10 years ago. Recently, she was talking about her best friend's Bachelorette party, which was years ago. My wife was the maid of honor. She had always insisted that she never went to a strip club ever. Well, recently, my wife said something about the men pulling her friend up on stage and embarrassing her. I was like, where was this? Even in that moment, I wouldn't have cared

that they went to a strip club. I trust her. Or until all this, I fully trusted her. She insisted that it was a typical bachelorette party restaurant that wasn't a strip club. I don't know what that is. Does anyone know? I said that it felt like she wasn't being honest. She was offended. I said that I thought the real issue was that she thought I might have put her through the same thing she put me through. I said I didn't like it, but it was so long ago I don't really care. But she doubled and tripled down. So she goes to the other room and texts her best friend and comes back and hands me the phone to show me the texts. She asked her friend, did we go to a strip club for your bachelorette party? Which seemed like an odd question to ask

someone out of the blue, and the response seemed odd. So I asked my wife, is this the full text exchange? It feels like something is missing. So I looked in her deleted texts, and sure enough, there are deleted texts. I restore it, and the response from the friend is, oh, that is a definite yes. So I look at my wife, shocked. I don't even know why she went down this path. She says her friend is wrong. Now, I'm annoyed, and I'm asking what happened that you would lie about this. What'd you do? Horror stories about Bachelorette parties are running through my mind. We have an argument over this where I'm gaslit to hell. She doesn't remember, her friend is wrong, that's why she deleted the text, she didn't cheat or do anything wrong. All the comments

about her level of attraction to me come back to my mind. There's no real resolution, but she promises me that she'll figure out exactly what happened. Fast forward about a month to a holiday party that we went to. We see her best friend for the first time in months. course, they talk a lot amongst themselves, which is obviously fine. We leave and 20 minutes later we're in the car driving home and she gets a text from her best friend. It includes a screenshot from one of their other friends and the best friend's text says, I just cannot remember what we did for my bachelorette party. Do you remember? And the response is this whole description of a comedy show that they went to. The entire thing is so contrived, it's almost comical. There's

No way this is true, and it's so clear that they discussed this at the party that they were just at, and they came up with this plan. I feel so manipulated. My wife is in the passenger seat, and she's almost giddy reading the texts and saying how they've now solved the mystery. I have no idea what happened at the Bachelorette party, but the whole story and the lying was so unnecessary. She's still holding firm to her story, whatever it is. I wouldn't have even cared if they went to a strip club, because I trusted my wife. But this story has made me lose trust. And now all the abuse over the years is coming back to me and making me see things differently. Have I ever been loved? Is my wife capable of love? Did she cheat on me? Am I the world's biggest fool? I love her and the family we've created. Obviously, there are so many positives to our relationship that I didn't list. But can all the positives in the

world make up for all of this? Then six and a half months later, OP posted an update. So back in February, I insisted on a two-month separation. We told the kids that I was traveling for work, and when I was home, that my wife was traveling to meet friends. My wife hated every second of the separation. We had some conditions for returning. We tried marriage counseling again. This was our third counselor. This one was better, I guess, but my requirement was that my wife take the lead.

Find the therapist, give all the backstory on the abuse, the insult, etc. She did all that. I further insisted that she told the complete truth on anything inappropriate that has ever happened with another guy, including at her friend's bachelorette party. This took a while. At first, she held to the same story. Then, she started saying things like she was working on it with her therapist, working on how to tell me. She somehow didn't understand that a statement like that was awful for me to bear.

Obviously, my mind went to all the worst places. A couple of weeks ago, she wanted me to do. join a session with her therapist. She wanted to do a therapeutic disclosure. I wanted to throw up. I go to the therapist office, and she tells me how at her friend's actual bachelorette, they went to some show, no strippers, just drinking and silliness. Then she says that her friend's work friends through her bachelorette at a hotel, and there were strippers there. In my wife's words, it was wild. She said that she never touched any stripper, even though multiple approached her many times. At first in G-strings, and eventually, fully naked. Lovely. But she says that's all that

happened. Who knows if it's true. I don't care anymore for reasons I'm not about to get into. So then my wife said that I asked if there was anything with any guy that she hasn't told me about. Brace yourselves. She had this other friend who was in the middle of a divorce in 2016. The friend was a fitness instructor at a gym who met a retired professional athlete at that gym. I remember the friend being obsessed with this guy, all while technically still married. Well, my wife and this friend would go out and meet up with retired athlete and his entourage. My wife would effectively play wingman for her friend. And one of the guys in the entourage took an interest in my wife. My wife claims nothing ever happened other than flirting, but that when they were out, this guy always had his arm around my wife, constantly groping her butt, trying to kiss her, sending dick pics, bought her a thonged bikini for her to send pictures back to him. My wife said that she never wanted it, but never fought it either, that she liked the attention and mostly wanted to support her friend. The friend eventually had a falling out with the retired athlete who moved away, so the whole thing sucks. So I'm completely stunned. The wife is

crying. The therapist is spewing some nonsense about my wife's bravery, that I requested disclosure of anything that might have been remotely inappropriate, and she's come through for me. I leave and my wife follows. My phone starts blowing up. It's my wife's best friend who calls 10 times. She then starts texting me, swearing to me that what my wife is saying is true. There were strippers at Bachelor Party number two, but my wife did nothing. The texts start pouring in from other friends confirming this story. And then I get a text from her friend who paired up with the athlete, and she confirms the story. The wife was only doing her a solid, taking one for the team. So great, let's get a few more people involved in my life, my humiliation, the crumbling of my marriage. She could talk to all

these other people about all this, but not me. She needed a therapist there to talk to me about it. It just feels like one big manipulation. So anyway, I feel completely done. I still love my wife because I guess I'm just a simp, but we're separated. I've spoken to a lawyer. My kids know and are furious with me because I'm the one leaving. What the hell? Oh, man, this was a rough ride. Just when we get to the end of all this misery and abuse, we find out the kids resent O.P. Because O.P. is the one leaving.

Oh, my God. There's no justice in the world. I guess when you're in the middle of abuse, it's hard to really stop and say, you know what? I'm being abused. But it's just so crazy that O.P. can make a Reddit post saying, guys, I think things are kind of rough with my wife, but I'm not really sure. And then he describes the wife beating him up. up and giving him a busted lip and scratching up his face and him saying he was so scared to just defend himself because she would have escalated. He's like, huh, is this abuse? I don't even

know. Man, I'm glad O.P.'s getting out of this relationship. This woman, uh, this woman's a mess. That was our slash best of redditor updates. And if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.