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I have heard this play out too many times. Most recently here, a college junior's wife revealed four months after marriage that she is actually a lesbian (she

I have heard this play out too many times. Most recently here, a college junior's wife revealed four months after marriage that she is actually a lesbian (she didn't share it – he caught her in their bedroom with a colleague of hers when he returned home early from the office), and he would be free to do what he wants; she should be too. Hit him hard, but he said they should go for an annulment— out of question; a divorce— out of question. Her point was if she had to do all this, why would she have agreed to a marriage in the first place! It was to get society off her back and her parents. Well, he filed for divorce, and it resulted in false dowry cases (yes, it's that part of the world), cruelty.. a long list. He was in lock-up for almost a month and a half, his almost 80 father and 70 mother was in a case of beating her up - (they met her exactly once – two days after marriage for a day when they went to his native village and after that they barely even talked to her on phone when they came back to they city they worked in), he lost almost everything he had, and finally, he just broke down in court and, against his lawyer's advice, just told the judge to give her whatever the judge wanted and just grant him a divorce. This was after almost three or four years of struggle. This guy is damaged now. We were in two sports team together in the college. One of the gentlest people I know. He had a minor stroke recently. He has sleeping issues. He is still fighting to just stay alive. It's difficult for him to get jobs because there's police record against him. He worked for a major MNC bank and he was fired summarily. No, this is not an isolated cruel example of extreme and from the hinterland of the world - this is an example of people fucking others over, mercilessly. No, this is not fighting to stay afloat in the water. It's like kicking someone off the boat because they were closer to the life jacket on the boat by few feet of another available lifeboat that the person could have taken instead. No, it's actually worse! I am sorry for how the world treated you and him, but no, fuck no! Life fucked him – or could have fucked him, so he gets to fuck others, right? Awesome! > but that doesn’t mean he was a bad person. No, he is a bad person! Ffs.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
woodpanel 11mo ago
[flagged]
geoffmanning 11mo ago
> No, he is a bad person! Ffs That is quite the judgement of a person you've never known, based solely on the view of one person's brief writing processing a deeply emotional experience. Your judgement reflects poorly on you.
- l2silver 11mo ago
  There's too much apologizing for people's horrible actions these days. Nearly everyone is a sympathetic character when you get to know them, but that doesn't excuse them. There were other people, in his situation, who took different approaches that didn't result in locking a woman away in a loveless marriage for her entire life. I'm sure a lot of us come from easier situations, but the people who come from hard situations will probably tell you, yeah, it was hard, it was horrible, but he didn't have to do that.
  - geoffmanning 11mo ago
    I'm not apologizing for anyone's actions. This is not to say he is a good person. It is to say that there isn't enough evidence to judge one as a bad person. A lot of good people have made bad choices, and these writings reflect a mere sliver of a man's life choices from the very thin perspective of one person's grief laid bare.
    - schneems 11mo ago
      I agree. To me, it's like a blameless retro. You can either seek understanding or seek blame, but not both at once. The author seemingly had a lot of judgement and blame for the dad before finding this out. It sounds like they are seeking understanding. I think the last line makes that clear: > the evening we found the love letters. his entire life, and mine as well And it's not to say someone can't attach judgement to characters, or that no one should hold blame. But I think it's important to honor what the author is seeking.
      - 101011 11mo ago
        > You can either seek understanding or seek blame, but not both at once. This is the first I've heard this statement (not necessarily the idea), but I found it incredibly beautiful in it's simplicity - thanks for sharing! Are there origins to this that you're aware of? With some searching I found some adjacent thread lines to stoicism and Buddhism, but nothing quite the same.
l2silver 11mo ago
I think I am totally naive on this subject, why was the divorce so hard for him? In that society, they just don't let you get divorced unless both parties agree to it? And with the evidence he had of her being a lesbian, does that mean nothing? What is even the point of divorce in that society?
- mallets 11mo ago
  I'm guessing India, and it's dowry part of it that complicates things a lot. And once either party goes into legal proceedings, it becomes a shit slinging mess of he-said she-said. Hence why most people try to "settle" things out of the court even if they were the victim. You wouldn't wish the Indian legal system on your worst enemy.
- fakedang 11mo ago
  Because it's the great nation of India, where harassment and dowry cases and custody laws swing hard in favor of the wife. Which has resulted in the worst of both worlds - poor women who won't even see a the light of day in front of a courthouse, never mind inside it, continue to be oppressed by their husbands, while wealthy women tired of their marriages hire ever-more-eager lawyers and slap false dowry cases on their ex-husbands. A guy, Atul Subhash, recently (about a year ago) committed suicide because his ex-wife and her family slapped false dowry cases against him and his extremely aged parents. Another case, a woman named Jasleen Kaur falsely accused a guy of sexual harassment, because they had a minor argument on the street. That case took 4 years, and in the meantime, Jasleen went to Canada to study, received the then Chief Minister's support and never appeared in court even once. Meanwhile the guy, Savjit, was arrested, had to post bail, was called "National Predator" and "Delhi's Pervert" on mainstream media, and received zilch for all the harassment he received. After he was acquitted, he pressed criminal charges against Jasleen and her family for false accusations, but the courts threw that case away because apparently "loss of reputation" isn't enough to press charges. All of this in a backdrop where poor women are raped, sometimes even murdered, every single minute, while actual rapists walk free and often even freely contest and win elections on the current ruling party's ticket. Yeah, India is super fucked.
  - 11mo ago
judahmeek 11mo ago
Your comment definitely made it sound like the victim/husband's suffering came from the culture they lived in, not the wife's actions directly. So I vote for bad system, not bad people.
- StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
  I think marrying someone despite being attracted to the other sex without telling them and then having an affair with someone definitely makes you a bad person. But that’s me.
  - judahmeek 11mo ago
    I think judging a person's actions without considering their circumstances, which includes culture, is a mistake
  - anon84873628 11mo ago
    I can even tolerate / excuse / forgive up until that point, because it is indeed an unfair system. She took a gamble and got caught, at which point she ought to have made a deal with the guy. Not exploited the other unfair system of state violence against him.
    - judahmeek 11mo ago
      He was the one who filed for divorce after she tried to make a deal with him.
shswkna 11mo ago
There is another, third perspective one can have on this. One can both find good reasons and explanations for his behaviour, and at the same time his choices can be judged harshly. I feel we have to heed the complexity of life and the situations people end in. Each of us has different tendencies. Some are by nature straight shooters. Others again, overthink a situation and lack the cognitive or emotional intelligence to always arrive at the perfect answer for a situation we are in. Both things can be true: Him making a choice that seems inevitable for the situation he is in. Also can be true, him wasting the life of another person (his wife) and him not seeing it this way. This is a bad deed from her perspective and can remain so. But consider, for example, that he probably resented her and she was proxy for society’s pressure to confirm. Or, he thought that he gave her what she wanted (kids) and provided for them. In his eyes he paid his dues and got nothing out of it. He might have realised that if he doesn’t get those small escapes (the affairs), he might not make it. You won’t know the make up of his reward system and his emotional make up. When she wanted the divorce, his coping behaviours became habit. And he might not have been able to see a way out, or not have had the strength to change his reward seeking habits. We also don’t exactly hear how he died in detail. Im am not excusing him, but I am trying to be devil’s advocate to your absolutist stance, to provide a counterweight.
- itsalwaysgood 11mo ago
  The author refers to their dad as a coward. When the wife wanted to divorce, the dad recruited his mother-in-law to convince the wife to stay on the marriage. He was selfishly hiding information and making lifelong decisions for everyone because "he knew best." The dad died of a heart attack. His family was too ignorant to know a quick drive to the hospital was the best action. They didn't know because the 911 operator told them to wait for the ambulance (for legal reasons, they will not tell you to rush to the hospital. Imagine the liability of a wreck). There's no need to play devil's advocate. Private decisions were made, and we all have the privilege of reading about the outcome. It gives us much to consider, and not much else.
the_arun 11mo ago
I didn't think he is a bad person. I felt he is not brave enough to take the challenge.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

woodpanel 11mo ago

[flagged]

geoffmanning 11mo ago

> No, he is a bad person! Ffs That is quite the judgement of a person you've never known, based solely on the view of one person's brief writing processing a deeply emotional experience. Your judgement reflects poorly on you.

l2silver 11mo ago
There's too much apologizing for people's horrible actions these days. Nearly everyone is a sympathetic character when you get to know them, but that doesn't excuse them. There were other people, in his situation, who took different approaches that didn't result in locking a woman away in a loveless marriage for her entire life. I'm sure a lot of us come from easier situations, but the people who come from hard situations will probably tell you, yeah, it was hard, it was horrible, but he didn't have to do that.
- geoffmanning 11mo ago
  I'm not apologizing for anyone's actions. This is not to say he is a good person. It is to say that there isn't enough evidence to judge one as a bad person. A lot of good people have made bad choices, and these writings reflect a mere sliver of a man's life choices from the very thin perspective of one person's grief laid bare.
  - schneems 11mo ago
    I agree. To me, it's like a blameless retro. You can either seek understanding or seek blame, but not both at once. The author seemingly had a lot of judgement and blame for the dad before finding this out. It sounds like they are seeking understanding. I think the last line makes that clear: > the evening we found the love letters. his entire life, and mine as well And it's not to say someone can't attach judgement to characters, or that no one should hold blame. But I think it's important to honor what the author is seeking.
    - 101011 11mo ago
      > You can either seek understanding or seek blame, but not both at once. This is the first I've heard this statement (not necessarily the idea), but I found it incredibly beautiful in it's simplicity - thanks for sharing! Are there origins to this that you're aware of? With some searching I found some adjacent thread lines to stoicism and Buddhism, but nothing quite the same.

l2silver 11mo ago

I think I am totally naive on this subject, why was the divorce so hard for him? In that society, they just don't let you get divorced unless both parties agree to it? And with the evidence he had of her being a lesbian, does that mean nothing? What is even the point of divorce in that society?

mallets 11mo ago
I'm guessing India, and it's dowry part of it that complicates things a lot. And once either party goes into legal proceedings, it becomes a shit slinging mess of he-said she-said. Hence why most people try to "settle" things out of the court even if they were the victim. You wouldn't wish the Indian legal system on your worst enemy.
fakedang 11mo ago
Because it's the great nation of India, where harassment and dowry cases and custody laws swing hard in favor of the wife. Which has resulted in the worst of both worlds - poor women who won't even see a the light of day in front of a courthouse, never mind inside it, continue to be oppressed by their husbands, while wealthy women tired of their marriages hire ever-more-eager lawyers and slap false dowry cases on their ex-husbands. A guy, Atul Subhash, recently (about a year ago) committed suicide because his ex-wife and her family slapped false dowry cases against him and his extremely aged parents. Another case, a woman named Jasleen Kaur falsely accused a guy of sexual harassment, because they had a minor argument on the street. That case took 4 years, and in the meantime, Jasleen went to Canada to study, received the then Chief Minister's support and never appeared in court even once. Meanwhile the guy, Savjit, was arrested, had to post bail, was called "National Predator" and "Delhi's Pervert" on mainstream media, and received zilch for all the harassment he received. After he was acquitted, he pressed criminal charges against Jasleen and her family for false accusations, but the courts threw that case away because apparently "loss of reputation" isn't enough to press charges. All of this in a backdrop where poor women are raped, sometimes even murdered, every single minute, while actual rapists walk free and often even freely contest and win elections on the current ruling party's ticket. Yeah, India is super fucked.
- 11mo ago

judahmeek 11mo ago

Your comment definitely made it sound like the victim/husband's suffering came from the culture they lived in, not the wife's actions directly. So I vote for bad system, not bad people.

StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
I think marrying someone despite being attracted to the other sex without telling them and then having an affair with someone definitely makes you a bad person. But that’s me.
- judahmeek 11mo ago
  I think judging a person's actions without considering their circumstances, which includes culture, is a mistake
- anon84873628 11mo ago
  I can even tolerate / excuse / forgive up until that point, because it is indeed an unfair system. She took a gamble and got caught, at which point she ought to have made a deal with the guy. Not exploited the other unfair system of state violence against him.
  - judahmeek 11mo ago
    He was the one who filed for divorce after she tried to make a deal with him.

shswkna 11mo ago

There is another, third perspective one can have on this. One can both find good reasons and explanations for his behaviour, and at the same time his choices can be judged harshly. I feel we have to heed the complexity of life and the situations people end in. Each of us has different tendencies. Some are by nature straight shooters. Others again, overthink a situation and lack the cognitive or emotional intelligence to always arrive at the perfect answer for a situation we are in. Both things can be true: Him making a choice that seems inevitable for the situation he is in. Also can be true, him wasting the life of another person (his wife) and him not seeing it this way. This is a bad deed from her perspective and can remain so. But consider, for example, that he probably resented her and she was proxy for society’s pressure to confirm. Or, he thought that he gave her what she wanted (kids) and provided for them. In his eyes he paid his dues and got nothing out of it. He might have realised that if he doesn’t get those small escapes (the affairs), he might not make it. You won’t know the make up of his reward system and his emotional make up. When she wanted the divorce, his coping behaviours became habit. And he might not have been able to see a way out, or not have had the strength to change his reward seeking habits. We also don’t exactly hear how he died in detail. Im am not excusing him, but I am trying to be devil’s advocate to your absolutist stance, to provide a counterweight.

itsalwaysgood 11mo ago
The author refers to their dad as a coward. When the wife wanted to divorce, the dad recruited his mother-in-law to convince the wife to stay on the marriage. He was selfishly hiding information and making lifelong decisions for everyone because "he knew best." The dad died of a heart attack. His family was too ignorant to know a quick drive to the hospital was the best action. They didn't know because the 911 operator told them to wait for the ambulance (for legal reasons, they will not tell you to rush to the hospital. Imagine the liability of a wreck). There's no need to play devil's advocate. Private decisions were made, and we all have the privilege of reading about the outcome. It gives us much to consider, and not much else.

the_arun 11mo ago

I didn't think he is a bad person. I felt he is not brave enough to take the challenge.