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I have always prided myself on being low maintenance. I don't get massages, get my hair colored, go to salons, get fake nails, buy convenience foods. I shop almost exclusively for clothes at thrift stores (still cute though). I do 90% of the outdoor work, would rather DIY than call someone, would rather go for a hike than get jewelry. I'm not materialistic. But have I undervalued myself by being low maintenance?

I see plenty of women whose husbands help carry their luggage, pitch in if they see them struggling, automatically get them a drink at a party, help them with projects. I've always wanted to be the strong one, the "I can do it myself if I have to" one. But this seems to have set me up as the Cinderella of life. The one who cooks, cleans, works, takes care of the garden, the kids, buys the gifts, plans and executes the parties. What does he do? Orders shit on Amazon. Boom, push a button, aren't I a great guy? See what I did for you?

Are a lot of BS low maintenance? Taken for granted? Too nice?

I put a new flower bed in a couple months ago. Some native plants my son gave me for mother's day, some from his yard, and some dahlia tubers I dug up and saved from last year. I moved an entire load of firewood onto a holder I MADE MYSELF . This firewood he had ordered, showed the guys where to dump it and there it laid for a YEAR, looking like shit. I was so proud of this project, realized once I moved the firewood that I had a ready made flower bed, perfect to plant up with my gifts and dahlias. I planted them, used the leftover wood chips as mulch and voila, instant flower bed. That was at least 6 weeks ago. I told him all about it. Showed him what I did. I was so proud. He saw me watering it every once in a while.

They were finally growing. Maybe a foot tall. A few weeds in there too, but not bad. A month ago he hired a lawn guy to cut and they cut down several of my plants. I complained about that to him. But what did he do today? Cut it all to the ground with the edger. I was screaming mad. I had gone out to finish the edging because the trimmer had broken while he was using it.
I drove to my son's to borrow his, came back and got started. It wasn't long before I saw what he had done. If he ever listened to a word I said he would have known.

He is sooo sooo sorry, wants to know what the plants are so he can buy more. Ffs. I am just disgusted. DD#2 cannot come soon enough.

Also just found out he lied to me, about, of all things, my own birthday cake. Insisted we HAD to go to niece's house on my bday because she had a surprise cake for me. His flirt friend who calls me auntie was going to be there. Just saw a text where he ASKED niece to pick up my cake. Wtf. And guess who brought it out to me after my kids and grandkids had already left? Yep, patty. The one I saw him put his hand out on her chair for her to sit on, the night I had just thrown a memorial gathering at our home. Right in front of my face. She brings the cake out to me. SHE is who is in the picture with me. Dear God.

I am sorry you are here….Id like to respond but am a little confused by your story? Have you experienced infidelity???

I’ll just say for me I am pretty low maintenance but not taken for granted. My Uh helped with housework and things…….

I was screaming mad.

You have every right to be made. I'm so sorry.

I am just disgusted. DD#2 cannot come soon enough.

Sorry that he has kept up the lie. You don't have to wait for DD@2.

Yes, I was first here in 2020 because of an hpv spot in my mouth that I had removed. Been together 35 years, never with another man. He traveled a lot for work. I was devastated, scheduled the procedure to have it removed. I discovered quite a bit of porn, some interaction with women on tumblr. Before I could truly investigate, I couldn't take it anymore and abruptly confronted him, crying, screaming, the whole shebang. He denied any infidelity. Swore up and down. Suggested it might have been a toilet. Maybe it lay dormant in him for 35 years. He never never would. The biopsy results were, believe it or not, LOST by ups. We had many talks. I decided to believe him and forgive his porn. He swore to lots of things regarding his alcohol use, porn use, lying.

That was short lived. My dad was slowly dying horrifically in 2021. He was not really there for me. Some days I came hone from a horror show at the nursing home to find him drunk off his ass.

Patty is a family friend who has strongly insinuated herself into WH's niece and sister's lives. And by extension into our lives. She is very obnoxious, pushy, and flirts with my husband.

Last summer BIL passed away suddenly. SIL came to stay with us for 6 weeks or so. Patty was around more. We had the memorial here at our house. I cooked, cleaned, made flower arrangements, worked my tail off. BIL was an awesome person and SIL is one of my best friends.

I had expressed to WH several times that I don't like how Patty excludes me, calls me auntie (she is 51 and I am 56)and in general behaves like she belongs and I don't.

The night of the memorial we had a fire and drinks. WH is sitting in a chair next to me, Patty goes to sit on the other side of him. I watch him put his hand, palm up, on the chair before she sits. She glares at him. This is "our thing". He has done this forever, haha, I wanna touch your butt. He was drunk, didn't realize I saw it all. To add salt to the wound he never even thanked me for everything I did to pull this off, for caring for his sister in our home for weeks.

A couple days later he finally asks what is up. I had been SEETHING. I tell him what i saw. He laughs, says it was just a bad joke. I tell him off, he swears he will put more effort into our relationship. He doesn't.

8 months later he says he is picking me up after work for a "surprise", and I have to be up for anything. Cool, I am hoping for a new restaurant, a walk on the beach, a hike, even the movies. SIL texts and says when are you guys gonna be at "@#$" bar and grill. We've been there plenty, nothing special. Why pretend it's a surprise?

On the way there his phone rings, an area code from where patty lives. He never answers calls if the contact isn't in his phone, but this one he answers right away. It's patty, took me a few minutes to figure it out, SIL is now thoroughly drunk and wondering where we are.

We get there and he sits next to patty. I have nowhere to sit. Eventually I ask a guy if I can take his chair. I am on one side of the table and they are on the other side, looking like they are together, elbows touching. Turned toward one another. F-ing disgusting.

When we get home and he is asleep I take his phone into the bathroom. Can't find much but see he has 2 snapchat profiles. I search my phone for how to turn on snapchat locate. The next morning I catch him putting my phone down when I came in the room. The next chance I had to look at his phone, snapchat was gone entirely.

He Is ALWAYS on his phone. He has 2 other work phones. When he gets out of bed in the am and goes into the bathroom, his phone goes with him. A month later, we are watching a movie and, yet again he is on his phone. I lean over and very casually kinda silly say, whatcha doin? He explodes on me, says leave me the hell alone. I explode right back and say I will leave you all the F the way alone, while he is apologizing, i tell him to go F himself and get my purse and keys and leave.

I drive 45 minutes and check into a hotel. He never texts or calls the rest of the night. In the morning he asks if I'm OK. I say yes. I come home, let him have it again, and he apologizes again.

But this sits with me. I need to investigate. June 17th I start looking in his computer. Tons of porn visits, almost daily, multiple sites. But then I stumble upon his maps timeline in Google and realize I have access to everywhere he has been from August of 2015 to January of 2023. I dive in and find SO MUCH. Short daytime visits to local hotels, bopping between 2 different hotels while on work trips. Just a lot of stuff. Lies about personal loans, unknown cc charges. So much debt I know nothing about. So much more. Looking like affairs and probably sex workers.

Our kids are all grown. I told my girls. I am still gathering as much in detail as I can. I should be done in a few days. Then I will tell my boys. I have a detailed timeline now. It is for me to remind myself but also so I have what I need when I confront him. After that I am telling him to leave.

Beyond that I have no clue. I am on the roller coaster from hell. Everyone but me and our kids think he is a saint. He apparently used to beat our kids when I was at work. I never knew. He knew I didn't believe in hurting a child for discipline. Sad thing is I still love him. We have fun together. But I also have no clue who this man is.

A fully-functional person would appreciate a low-maintentance, fully-functional partner in life.

A person who has low self esteem and needs ego kibbles? They want to be knight in shining armor. They want someone who looks at them and speaks to them adoringly.

So, it was about what he was lacking, not you.

With that said and IMO, when we carry too much of the household and childcare burden, we sure do make it easier for waywards to have the TIME and ENERGY to carry on affairs. Yet, many waywards would express surprise that they don't carry their fair share of the load. Much of their life is filtered through a pretty self-centered filter though--so their contributions are magnified, while ours are often invisible to them.
The above is not true in all cases, of course. I acknowledge the generalization, but my experience (not just in my marriage, but in witnessing the marriages of others) has highlighted this trend.

Just noted this:

He apparently used to beat our kids when I was at work. I never knew. He knew I didn't believe in hurting a child for discipline. Sad thing is I still love him. We have fun together. But I also have no clue who this man is.

[Since you use the term "beat," I'm using the term abuse in my comments. Apologies if you feel like this is too strong an interpretation.]

That is distressing information. This abuse was carried out behind your back--which shows intentionality on his part, since he clearly knew how to "restrain" himself when you were around and knew how to keep the kids from revealing this to you while they were younger. So, for me, this would be SO much more destabilizing than even affair betrayal.

I get the cognitive dissonance of still feeling that you "love" him. It's really hard to turn off an emotion that you've held for so long.

Yet, do you really love who he actually is? Who he actually has been? Abusive, deceitful, self-serving, disloyal, destructive?

Perhaps you love who you thought he was?

Are a lot of BS low maintenance? Taken for granted? Too nice?

I'm actually very low maintenance. I don't even buy new clothes most years. I wear everything until it literally wears out then I replace them and I only buy things that I know will last.

I get what you are saying, before our D-Day, my wife and I were having some kind of disagreement. I said to her "I think you and the kids don't appreciate me because I've not been mean enough".

It really pissed her off.😱

I was actually trying to make a serious point, we had teenagers, she was upset with me over something I don't even remember, but the reality is everybody's life was so much better than what my life had been for most of my life. This was largely due to a large amount of effort on my part to make sure this was so.

But at the same time, there wasn't a lot of tolerance for my limits. Having said that, anyone who's had teenagers knows that that is a very stressful time in general. Still, my parents would never have put up with half of the bullshit I had put up with. I'm not saying that was good. My case, it just seems that no matter what I did, it was never enough, I couldn't get things right.

I was actually thinking it was me.

Turns out it wasn't me, turns out it was my wife, struggling to deal with the fact that she's been lying to me since we got together the very first time, she had secrets upon secrets, she had an affair, that the "friendship" she had insisted had been nothing but friendship had actually been full on sex in our house with the kids at home. My wife was going around with all of this guilt, anxiety, worry, etc., wondering when her story was going to unravel. She was afraid one of her siblings or friends would say something that would unravel all the lies about the past and the present.

So no, it wasn't because I was low maintenance, it wasn't because I had a very demanding occupation, it wasn't because I made a lot of money, it wasn't because of our business challenges, it wasn't because I didn't dress fancy enough, it wasn't because of me at all.

It was all because of her emptiness inside, family of origin, issues, etc, and her failure to actually deal with these things in a constructive fashion.

Online source:

Reciprocity is a vital component of healthy relationships, and it's important to ensure that it's balanced. It involves a mutual exchange of love, care, emotional investment, and support.

Not sure that low maintenance matters as much as possibly "minimizing myself in the relationship." Do you minimize yourself? Or do you get as much as you give--emotionally, physically, personally-- from the relationship? Does your WH meet your needs as much as you meet his? Do you allow yourself to have needs?

It is important for both people to feel that they matter.

I have always prided myself on being low maintenance.

Genuine question, why is being 'low maintenance' a good thing? Did you ever read Gone Girl - specifically the "cool girl" passage? If not, I highly recommend you do.

I wont do it justice, but it's essentially about the the 'cool girl' trope that you, like so many of us (myself included), have been conned by. It goes something like this, the ideal woman is a a 'cool girl' - she's beautiful, but she doesn't put much effort into it (because that effort might be expensive or time consuming and a cool girl, above all else, needs to be low maintenance). She eats whatever she wants, but always stays thin. She is easygoing or 'chill' and never gets mad (because if she is not, a man might actually have to put some effort in and treat her well or pull his weight). A cool girl never nags - and in the case of the 'cool girl' wife she is undemanding takes care of everything at home (so that her husbands can maintain his career, social life, hobbies without interruption while also having a family at home). Her interests include football, videogames, and beer (or whatever the man is interested in), and she is always down to fuck at a moment's notice. Essentially she fits seamlessly into a man's world (to serve his needs/interests happily and with a smile) and is 'low maintenance' meaning he will never (or rarely) ever actually need to put effort in, compromise, or alter his plan of doing exactly what he wants to do, when he wants to do it.

Obviously a true 'cool girl' doesn't really exist, but because the patriarchy (which many of us have been willing participants in) has effectively set this as "the standard", young women strive to be this mythical person. In doing so, we put our own wants and interests and identities to the side, and eventually internalize the idea that any divergence from the 'cool girl' standard, anything that makes us or other women 'high maintenance' is a bad thing. We might even look down on women who "try too hard" - partially because we've been trained to do that to conform to the standard, and partially because we're jealous that those women don't feel constrained by the same standards that we do.

The problem with being the 'cool girl' though is that it's a self-inflicted trap. Because we've made our wants/needs invisible, our partners often fail to see them (or we attract partners who were never motivated to put in the effort in the first place). Once the standard is being tolerant, agreeable, understanding, and easygoing in the face of little or no effort from our partners....it is difficult to establish or enforce boundaries if we're being taken advantage of as anything less than the standard, is viewed as high-maintenance, nitpicky, inflexible, or "crazy". So many women, still striving to be cool girls, hold their tongues and pretend it's not a big deal when they are disappointed... so they keep being disappointed. We make excuses for bad behaviour (out of love) until eventually, after bottling up our feelings for so long, it builds up to resentment, and when that resentment bubbles up, it often seems like it's coming out of left field. Infidelity is often the final straw.

Note: this is an intentionally gendered trope that I'm describing to OP who is a woman in a heterosexual relationship, but I don't wish to dismiss the experiences of of 'easy-going" men who were also taken advantage of and I do believe that many of the same principles would apply.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 10:15 PM, Monday, July 15th]

'easy-going"

I understand what you are saying, but I don't know that it's necessarily about being "easy-going", I'm low maintenance, but I'm the opposite of easy-going.

I suppose it depends on how you define "low maintenance" and I may not necessarily be understanding what people are referring to, so keep that in mind when people are looking at my previous post.

For me, low maintenance has always been being "able to take care of myself" and not needing other people to pick up my loose ends, and keep things together for me. I've met many guys who didn't even wash their own clothes, basically did not know how to take care of themselves, even as they worked in occupations that clearly meant they were intelligent.

These were guys who always needed somebody around to take care of all the other stuff, their mother, their sister, their wife, or in the case of some of the older ones one of their children who was usually a daughter. At the same time, they always needed to have a really nice car, a really nice watch, really expensive shoes, nice suits, they're always working on their hair/mustache/beard. Also always needed to be reminded that they were important, either by a staff member, or one of the above people.

the reality is everybody's life was so much better than what my life had been for most of my life.

But standinghere, why do you consider this to be a strength on your part? Why do you think that denying your own needs to the point of "everybody having a better life" something that someone would respect? Why is living like that a sign of heroics and not a sign of low self-esteem in the relationship?

why do you consider this to be a strength on your part? Why do you think that denying your own needs

I don't really consider it "denying my needs", my life was/is also way better than it had been in the past.

That's why I cautioned about interpreting my previous post, I am "low maintenance" but I'm also "very self motivated". i've always been like that. I don't complain about what I don't have. I really enjoy life, and I'm grateful that my life is as good as it is. I try to take my small part of the world, my house, my job, my family, and make it better.

Now as for "denying my wants", That's a different story. If there were no negative consequences, for acting out and releasing all my inhibitions, I expect my behavior might have been a lot different in the past. and I would no longer be eligible to be a saint. 😁

Of course, I could've ended up like a distant family relative who was married and divorced seven times. So I try to make sure I balance things out.😱