Twelve Years and a Wake up

The author effectively captures the dichotomy of the uncommunicative, emotionally immature, and aggressive main character (MC), that unironically likes to vent and shout when angry. Many of the author's stories feature a similar character type and plot progression, which, although not the most complimentary portrayal of masculinity, does resonate with the reality of some men.

However, my issue with this narrative is its narrow perspective, where the wife is blamed for everything, and the MC's response's are deemed 'normal,' which they're clearly not.

The marriage deteriorates because the wife is perceived by the MC as not being sexually available enough. While again unironically, the wife believes that the MC thinks only of her as something to paw and have sex with.

It doesn't take a genius to realise that we're only seeing this relationship through the very biased lens of the MC and that it's probably worlds apart from the actual reality. Reading between the lines, you get a picture of a delusional MC that has no idea of the needs of anyone around him. It's almost enough to give credence to the oft too frequent complaint by newly single women today that their partner was a narcissist.

Into this disintegrating marriage dynamic the wife seeks some relief from the day to day grind, some 'me' time, an opportunity to decompress among friends, free from the ever present childcare and the angry husband. Enter the Girls night out. Unfortunately, on one of these nights the wife experiences a traumatic event, which as depicted would be classified as rape. Not that the MC GaS.

Instead of attempting to communicate and mend the relationship, the MC uses this as a pretext to abandon the marriage and act reprehensibly. His actions, while excusable by some, given the context, were neither appropriate nor conducive to his later stated desires or intentions.

Setting aside other factors, the author creates a scenario where reconciliation seems possible for both parties, placing them in an ideal situation for success. However, the outcome is unexpected. The couple is practically living together, co-parenting, and intimate, yet the author chooses this moment to have the wife date others, supposedly to demonstrate her undying love for the main character and her focus on family reunification (/sarcasm).

This act effectively blocks any reconciliation, signalling that the wife is moving on, which contradicts later insinuations of her lingering hope and love.

Furthermore, the MC enters a relationship with an attractive woman who has a child, reinforcing the trope of the man moving on quickly. This not only serves to counteract any perception of the MC as an friendless incel but also to spite the wife, who is portrayed as still yearning for him. Yet, ironically the MC is now involved in raising another man's child, while the wife has more important things to deal with.

It's fortunate that I have never personally encountered an adult male who thinks or acts like the MC. While such behaviour was common among boys in school, one would expect maturity to bring about change, which evidently is not the case here.

If none of this has holds any resonance with your way of thinking, ponder on this. Most normal women have enough respect for themselves that they would have moved out and onwards the second their supposedly loving spouse screamed at them calling them a whore etc. The MC did similar from the very first page. It's not the 1950's. Women are more than capable of working and providing for themselves and their children. They're not trapped by marriage laws, society, or finances and some men need to wake up and smell the coffee. Respect goes both ways. The MC killed this relationship, it's very unlikely that his children didn't pick up on the fact that he's a PoS and his happy ending is about as likely as me marrying Ariana Grande. You may disagree, but a leopard doesn't change it's spots.

Oh, stfu nallus. He's not a jerk by design. He's a jerk because his now ex wife treats him like shit for months. And then over a year before he's finally had enough. Do you know death by a 1000 cuts. That was his old marriage. There was nothing to fight for after that. His delusional ex wife finally admits to being a complete and total bitch....it only took 1 DNA test that proved she was lying about 1 thing. Before that moment, she wouldn't even really admit to her abuse. She called it a rough patch. Do you know how hard it is to forgive someone that doesn't believe they were ever wrong? It's impossible.

That's why he was rude to her. It's called standing up to a bully that's what she was for a long while. He had given up. It'd be sexist to expect him to keep taking abuse with polite indifference because men should or some such sexist notion.

By the end of page one I think this guy is an asshole, yes, they have troubles but when she tries to talk, you don't insult her. Jerk deserves all the bad things he gets if she is not cheating.

Nice, slightly different story line, characters were real, ( nobody’s doing it right all the time) , I can see that this could be your life for real and your just putting it down on paper for us to read and gloat about, life isn’t great most of the time.

So I like this, you put some good thoughts in front of us in this, plot was good, characters were good and you didn’t go over the top with your descriptions.

overall,this is just sad . i know hubby was feeling a little unloved and wifey was kinda being a bitch . but it ALL kinda went to hell and hubby was the only one who seemed to have a happy ? ending . i understood both sides and agree with another commenter that the rape of the wife and hubby's reaction really sucked . you can't claim to love someone and treat then that way .

Uggh. I think the husband was worse than his ex wife. He had no evidence rofl her cheating until he forced the issue with accusations and she went out and got essentially raped and impregnated (hello plan B pill?). They make up when the paternity test fails he dumps her. Talk about self fulfilling prophecy. What a mess. She wasn't blameless with the lack of sexual intimacy, but she wasn't thr monster, he was convinced she was. If anything he was a petulant child who help contribute to the death of his marriage. Ick.

So he was the architect of this whole sorry affair. Did he get burned? No. Heather made mistakes but none of this was really her fault. Roll on girl there are better men out there.

This

is

un-freaking-readable.

Awful x infinity.

Take it down as a public service.

Let me see if I have this timeline right. MC is angry that his wife is never being intimate with him and always grousing at him. He suspects she is cheating and starts to get angry with her. She then retaliates by going out on a girls night and basically gets raped (and impregnated). He's convinced when she comes back that she's been unfaithful and retaliates by sleeping with someone else. They somehow manage to patch things up, almost going back to normal, but then the paternity test comes back that he's not the father. They divorce and everything else after that is pretty much inconsequential. I don't know how I feel about this story. Basically, I can't tell if it was well written or not because the first person voice of the main character sounds barely literate - which is a shame. Also, I guess it has this whole "self fulfilling prophecy" thing going on, but in reality - their relationship was garbage. I have to admit, I don't get why this was called "12 years and a wakeup"?? They were only married 10 right? Who woke up? The MC certainly didn't establish much, if any character growth and ended up with a woman who had her own child (not his) - basically the same as his ex-wife more or less. That's a sideways trade pretty much. I don't know. I kind of disliked this one, which is a shame as I've liked other stories you've written.

An unbelievably sad story. The first couple sounded and acted like petulant children. Some of it was stress but they were too irresponsible to deal with it jointly, so their children and their .own parents suffered for it. My question would be where were their friends and gender companions to help through the extremes of overreaction? Neither tried to moderate their behavior and hear the other ne out, and so their extremes prevailed so much their marriage collapsed.

Didn't care for this at all it was depressing the whole story. The wife was obviously cheating and probably was the whole time since she never wanted sex with her husband.

Didn't make Victoria loving enough to see her love as a happy ending for the husband. previous wife and marriage was shit and you wrote that well.