Seeing family regularly is important – how else are you supposed to keep in touch and spend quality time together? Still, most families prefer to spend time together among themselves and meet up with extended family occasionally. In fact, 56% of Americans say they have dinner with members of their household every day.
But when your in-laws come for dinner uninvited every weekend, it’s a bit too much. That’s the problem that this woman faced, and when she tried talking to her husband, he shut her down every time. Later, she found out the real reason, which shocked her and roused commenters to urge her to run away.
A woman kept getting unexpected visits from her in-laws on weekends, and her husband never sided with her
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She tried to bring it up by saying that all the cooking and cleaning was just too much, but to no avail
Image credits: Dimaberlin (not the actual photo)
Image source: ThrowRA_Coat_1245
He never helped her either, since he was “the man” of the house
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When the two talked one evening, the wife discovered the horrifying real reason why he thought the visits were okay
Image credits: dasha11 (not the actual photo)
Image source: ThrowRA_Coat_1245
Husbands are more likely to leave their wives when they get seriously ill than vice versa
Image credits: Getty Images (not the actual photo)
This story started off as a tale of family enmeshment, but it ended as a cautionary tale of what can happen when one spouse becomes ill. Perhaps the most shocking part of this story is not that the family and the husband kept disrespecting the wife’s boundaries, but that they started planning for life after she was gone even before her passing.
Unfortunately, ill people may face this problem more often than we think. What’s even more interesting is that women (or wives) experience this sort of betrayal more often than men (or husbands). A 2009 study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center shows that women (20.8%) are six times more likely to be abandoned in the face of a serious illness than men (2.9%).
A 2025 Italian study with couples aged 50 and older had similar results. The researchers found that couples were more likely to divorce when the wife was in poor health than when both partners were healthy. In contrast, the husband’s health didn’t have the same effect on whether a couple would split up or not.
The researchers contemplate that traditional gender roles have something to do with this. Women might be the default caregivers in families, and the couple experiences more stress when the wife is ill vs. when the husband is. The wives might also be more economically dependent on the family unit than the husbands, preventing them from walking away as easily.
An expert on single people and author of Single at Heart, Bella DePaulo, Ph.D., suggests that many men may go into marriage expecting to be cared for. So, when the tables are turned, they’re simply not ready to step up and find that leaving is easier.
The husband might be making these plans because he’s experiencing anticipatory detachment
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Perhaps the husband is not a jerk; maybe he’s just so overcome with how he will have to continue living without his wife that he doesn’t know how to deal with those feelings in a healthy way.
He could be experiencing what experts call “anticipatory detachment.” If he knows that his wife has terminal cancer and will inevitably leave him and his daughter after she passes, he is consciously detaching himself from her. Some people develop this coping mechanism in anticipation of a loved one’s passing. They emotionally and physically disconnect from the person they anticipate losing to make the grief process easier.
Experts say that people who experience anticipatory grief in maladaptive ways may feel this way. Certified grief recovery specialist Charlotte Archuletta, NCC, BC-TMH, LPC/MHSP, FT, says that things like caregiving demands, the illness trajectory, and finances can drive people to detach prematurely.
“For some clients, it allows for the emotional preparation and gradual integration of the impending loss,” she explains. “For others, it may intensify anxiety, contribute to caregiver exhaustion/burnout, or lead to premature emotional detachment from the dying person.”
However, taking into account the inheritance, his manipulative rhetoric, and the fact that the wife is not terminally ill at the moment, his reaction seems suspicious. In the end, the wife will probably never be able to trust him again, regardless of what excuses he makes.
The commenters urged the woman to stand up for herself and stop being her husband’s pushover
“This is sociopath level lack of empathy,” commenters reacted
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