Jobs: The New Abusive Spouses

Thanks to Women's "Rights", the Sexual Revolution, and other causes implemented by the idiotic Feminazis of the Baby Boomer generation to "improve" women's lives, there is a new breed of abusive husband running amok in the 21st century. With this abusive husband, you get all the detriments of being with an abuser-controller, and none of the benefits that even the worst of marriages have to offer. After five years of this hellish "marriage", I am starting to wish I could stuff Earl in the trunk, so to speak.

Here are the "warning signs" of an abuser, lifted from a women's shelter homepage, and here is how a job meets these criteria:

Jealousy and Controlling Behaviour
Controlling behaviour is often disguised or excused as concern. Concern for your safety, your emotional or mental health, the need to use your time well, or to make sensible decisions. Your abuser may be angry or upset if you are 'late' coming back from work, shopping, visiting friends, etc., even if you told him/her you would be later back than usual. Your abuser may question you closely about where you were, whom you spoke to, the content of every conversation you held, or why you did something he/she was not involved in. As this behaviour gets worse, you may not be allowed to make personal decisions about the house, clothing, going to church or how you spend your time or money or even make you ask for permission to leave the house or room. Alternately, he/she may theoretically allow you your own decisions, but penalise you for making the wrong ones. Concern for our loved ones to a certain extent is normal - trying to control their every move is not.

A job will control your life. I am now accustomed to being called out of town at the last minute, bitched out if I wish to attend the funeral of an immediate family member (at my last job, some fucking whore called me three times in an hour while we were burying a woman I lived with for the better part of 2 decades). Imagine five years of being forced to provide a doctor's note/ court papers/death certificate and obitiuary saying exactly what was wrong with you/that you were in traffic court that morning/that you were burying your family, and did indeed, have obligations besides your goddam job. Imagine being followed to lunch, the bathroom, etc, and finding out later that your coworkers were cross examined about who you were meeting with for lunch, and what you were doing in the bathroom, and why do you have to go so much. Let's not forget the countless lectures I've gotten about how I sure as hell better not marry, have a family, or have outside activities, it would make me a worse employee. Plus, they micromanage me (despite years of stellar performance reviews) and that's just annoying.

Unrealistic Expectations

The abuser may expects you to be the perfect husband, wife, mother, father, lover, and friend. He/she is very dependent on you for all his/her needs, and may tell you he/she can fulfil all your needs as lover, friend, and companion. Statements such as: 'lf you love me, I'm all you need.', 'You are all I need.' are common. Your abuser may expect you to provide everything for him/her emotionally, practically, financially or spiritually, and then blame you for not being perfect or living up to expectation.

And how often have I been told "this job is all you need"... We are expected to be the "perfect employee", wholly and utterly devoted to the firm, the industry, the client, with trivialities such as our families, health, friends, hobbies, home and goals to be totally ignored. The mofos I work for now have no issue calling me out of the blue and telling me to be on a plane in an hour for the next indeterminate amount of days.

Isolation

The abuser may try to curtail your social interaction. He/she may prevent you from spending time with your friends or family and demand that you only go places 'together'. He/she may accuse you of being 'tied to your mother's apron strings', not be committed to the relationship, or view people who are your personal friends as 'causing trouble' or 'trying to put a wedge' between you. He/she may want to live in the country without a phone, not let you use the car, stop you from working or gaining further education or qualifications.

Hmm... I am stranded in a hotel room with no cell phone reception, Internet, or cable in a strange city for days and weeks at a time. At this specific location, if I choose to step outside, I will be immediately killed. The hotel's nice enough, see, but it's the eye of the storm, the business travelers' hotel in the middle of the ghetto. Literally. Not to mention the long ass hours they force us to work (try 75 a week) basically isolate us from the rest of the world.

Blame-shifting for Problems and Feelings

Hey, when does YOUR boss ever admit that it was his fuck up, rather than project it onto you?

Hypersensitivity

Let's face it - at my job, nobody's going to die or even come close if we make a mistake or miss a deadline. National security will not be breached, nothing terrible will happen but some megalomaniac asshole will be annoyed. Imagine spending your 75 hour weeks surounded by megalomaniac assholes for whom everything - from you making a typo in an email to your having a degree from a higher ranked school than they - is the end of the world.

Cruelty to Animals

Not specifically where I worked, but I guess if you worked for a non-treehugger cosmetics company that tests on animals, you could make the argument that yours does.

Cruelty to Children
Since abusers want all your attention themselves, they resent your spending time with the children or any normal demands and needs the children may have. .

Again, my particular job is not cruel towards children. However, if I had a dime for every time I have been told that women are no longer welcome at the company/industry/workforce when they have children, I wouldn't have to flippin' work. Oh, and the women at work who BRAG about having abortions because a baby would get in the way of your career? Congrats, bitch, you murdered your own child so you could get that 3% raise. Don't encourage the rest of us to do the same, the last thing I want is to be in hell with you for all eternity. (not the exact definition of hell, but not too far either).

Rigid Gender Roles
Abusers usually believe in stereotypical gender roles. A man may expect a woman to serve him; stay at home, obey him in all things---even things that are criminal in nature. A male abuser will often see women as inferior to men, more stupid, unable to be a whole person without a relationship. female abusers may expect the man to provide for them entirely, shift the responsibility for her well-being onto him or heckle him as being 'not a real man' if he shows any weakness or emotion.

Again, if I had a dime for every time I worked for a sexist asshole who held the fact that I have a vagina against me, including my SOB former supervisor who demanded to know if I was pregnant every fucking time I went to the bathroom or stepped out of the office for any reason, I wouldn't have to flippin' work again unless I lived past 200. In fact, the maybe 10 women I've ever heard of who've made manager in my industry may as well be men - they're all dried-up, childless, unmarried, bitter old hags. Oh, and supervisors who think women are stupid? Don't have to be men. "It sucked for me to be a twentysomething female worker in the 1970s, now I must make it suck for you!"

Verbal Abuse
In addition to saying things that are meant to be cruel and hurtful, either in public or in private, this can include degrading remarks or running down any accomplishments. Often the abuser will tell you that you are 'stupid', could not manage without him/her. He/she may keep you up all night to 'sort this out once and for all' or even wake you at night to continue to verbally abuse you. The abuser may even say kindly things to your face, but speak badly about you to friends and family.

Again, if I had a dime for every time I have been screamed at for mortal sins like using the wrong color pen to copyedit a document, followed to the bathroom, told I was stupid, told I was never going anywhere, told I would be nowhere without this job, and that the economy is so terrible and I'm so stupid I'll never find another one, told I was a bitch who creates a poor working environment because I do dirty tricks like tell my married coworker to stop asking me out or tell my office stalker that being the partner's nephew does not give him the right to phone me repeatedly at 3AM or harass my boyfriend ... Let's not forget the countless supervisors who have interrupted my work (the last time I was stupid enough to work for a woman, the bitch would follow me into the effin bathroom to yell at me!) to scream at me, insult me, or some such shit --- all clearly designed to eff up whatever it is I'm trying to do.

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

Very rarely do abusers conform to the stereotypical image of a constantly harsh, nasty or violent person, either in public or in private. More frequently the abuser portrays a perfectly normal and pleasant picture to the outside world (often they have responsible jobs or are respected and important members of the local community or Church) and reserves the abuse for you in the privacy of your own home. Nor are abusers always overtly abusive or cruel, but can display apparent kindness and consideration. This Jeckyll and Hyde tendency of the abuser serves to further confuse the victim, while protecting themselves from any form of suspicion from outsiders. Many victims describe "sudden" changes in mood - one minute nice and the next explosive or hysterical, or one minute happy and the next minute sad. This does not indicate some special "mental problem" but are typical of abusive personalities, and related to other characteristics such as hypersensitivity.

I swear all the abovementioned megalomaniac nutjobs I work with or for are like this - can be very suave and charming in front of clients and when they want something, and complete psychos when it's just you and them. it's just like turning off a lightswitch. "I'll send flowers to your mom's funeral because it'll reflect badly on the firm if we don't, but I swear to God I WILL scream at you for taking the time off work, call you to harass you during the funeral, and make fun of you if I hear of you crying in the bathroom an hour after you found out. I still haven't forgiven you for how angry you made me by taking a day off to go visit her when she had that heart attack."

Drink or Substance Abuse
Everyone in my industry seems to have a drinking problem. You're not part of the in-crowd if you're not skanking around at happy hour every night at 10PM when youleave the office. Don't like the superficiality, married men older than your dad hitting on you, and secondhand smoke of the bar scene? Then you're not "cool." No wonder they drink so freaking much, your life sucks if you work in my industry and you are probably better off dead than staying in your current career.

Threatening Violence

They threaten to fire you... repeatedly. And tell you how screwed you'll be when you're unemployed. Then the ratbastards don't deliver. Fire me! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I'd be able to sleep past 4 AM (the time concentration camp inmates had to get out of bed) and have a life.


So all in all, thanks to my abusive spouse, I have stomach problems, a messed up heartbeat, too many wrinkles for a woman my age, massive dental problems (not my job's fault, but I have been trying to schedule an appointment to get the root canal, crown and bridge for two flippin months now and they keep putting me on travel at the last second), carpal, a bad back, migrane headaches, and of course a bad attitude towards work and careers. I will never get a masters' degree, which would just shackle me to debt and to more years of this happy marriage.

If I could go back and time, I would tell Susan B. Anthony, Gloria Steinem and all those other stupid whores who screwed the rest of us over by pushing for woman's "rights" to sit down and shut the fuck up. And then I would stop back to my highschool self, and tell her, "Put that stupid book down! Forget college, just find some loser guy who will knock you up before you're old enough to drive and spend the rest of your lives beating the shit out of you! You will save all that tuition money, because your life will just turn out the same anyway!"

What awful book am I?

http://mewing.net/heartofdarkness.gif">
>
I first read Heart of Darkness in 1997, the last book for my senior year high school AP English class. Being days away from graduation/escaping my parents' house, I skimmed through it not really caring if I passed the multiple choice test. Come to think of it, I think I remember our class launching a coup d'etat of sorts and not even taking the test.

Too bad I didn't read it for class my senior year of college, when I'd have appreciated it much more. The story of a man from a developed country going to live in a third world jungle and slowly losing his mind would have been much more germane to my life - I was back in the US after a year in a third world jungle of my own on a junior year abroad. Seriously, there is just something about corruption everywhere, being harassed by psycho cops whose last thought is law and order, being turned away from hospitals because my skin's the "wrong" color, people not air-conditioning buildings when its 40 Celcius (approx. "hot as hell" Farenheit), and seeing malnourished children dying on the streets that brings out the worst in a person. Or at least this person. I was totally evil by the end of my study abroad program, having lost much idealism and faith in humanity. To a point, yes, one does have to fight tooth and nail to survive, but having that fight kicked into high gear and sustained that way brings out the evil in me. I thought back to that book often. Unfortunately, they don't have libraries in third world rathole countries so I couldn't re-read Heart of Darkness. Of course by the time I got back to the US, I was too busy reading other books for senior year college classes, and didn't have time for pleasure reading.

I have seriously never understood why English teachers, most of whom seem to be reasonably good people, take such pleasure in cramming shitty books down teenagers' throats. Why the hell do you make us read Herman Melville, Beowulf, Shakespeare and other crap when there are multitudes of fascinating, deep, enjoyable to read books out there. How about The Poisonwood Bible, The Stand, anything VC Andrews (not her ghostwriter) wrote, Gregory Maguire's fractured fairy tales, Valley of the Dolls, A Wrinkle in Time... the list of interesting, enjoyable, quality books from which one can glean foreshadowing, symbolism, etc stretches on and on. What I should have learned in high school english is that reading = frustrating. Thank God the Internet and cable still sucked when I was a child, otherwise I'd be illiterate.

So they're not all complete morons in DC after all...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/AR2006031502409.html

Definitely one of the worst things about my exile in Liberal Yuppieland has been the throngs of freakin' girliemen in this area. I'm sure they were raised as "feminists" by parents who consider themselves "progressive", but girliemen or metrosexuals or whatever the hell "enlightened" society is trying to mold them into, are in fact useless as men. Girliemen have no manners (even the most obnoxious of men at home will hold the door or help you lift something heavy); girliemen are so "enlightened" that they empower you to walk to your car by yourself after dark in the violent crime capital of the US and risk getting attacked. Again, the morally bankrupt, HIV-infected asshat attempting to rape you can tell the difference between a man and a woman; a "girlieman" is too educated and "progressive" to know the difference. Not to mention, what use is a straight man who can tell you all about moisturizers, but can't change a tire? Thanks, but that's what I have female and/or gay male friends for. Congratulations, you're "enlightened". You're also screwed when you blow a tire, clog the toilet, etc.

Metrosexuals: They're here, they're not queer, but they're close!

Although in all fairness, one of the more manlymen I know here is, in fact, gay.

And don't get me started on all the whackjobs who want to challenge "traditional gender constructs." Men and women are not equal, dumbasses. We're biologically, chemically, physically, emotionally, and socially different. Medical science has proven this again and again and again. Not inferior or superior. Just different.

And YES, there is a huge distance between my stance and the "they should never have given them the vote!" camp. Yes, there is. Get over it.

If these "progressive" intellectuals truly respected humanity and wanted people of each gender to be the best they can be, they wouldn't try to make people deny their natural selves to fit some whacked-out dystopian ideal embraced by the over-educated elite who have spent maybe 2 seconds outside the Ivory Tower in the real world. Sure, gender equality looks good on paper. So does Communism.

This is why I got a C+ in Computer Programming

If someone can help me out with this freakin' HTML, I'd appreciate it. I want my sidebar thing to be up more. I don't know how I screwed up the code.

Cuddle Party My Ass

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/211251p-181992c.html

He says people come - and return to - his cuddle parties because as adults they don't get their "Recommended Daily Allowance of Welcomed Touch."
After a session of cuddling and non-sexual affection, they feel good about themselves for the rest of the week, he says.

Try getting friends, or better yet, a spouse like adults have been doing since the beginning of time. If you are that desperate for human contact... that's probably because you're lonely because you've been filling your life with meaningless pursuits like career, material things, and yet another feather in the cap that is your resume.

We're communal animals, folks. People need people. How sad and pathetic is it to have to PAY to be hugged?

Idiots! You're not in college anymore

People wonder about and bemoan the state of twentysomethings and why we're not getting ahead. Sure, there are cards stacked against us in the race to standard adulthood - job market sucks (most of what is out there, they want to own your soul for a few decades), forget about owning a house, and who the hell knows what is going on with the whole "marriage is out of vogue" sentiment of the media/pop culture.

However, could it be in part that we're doing it to ourselves?

Yeah, there's the "get in debt up to your ears in buying things" fad that proliferates around here, but the irresponsibility also extends to where you live and how you spend your free time. In the Liberal Yuppieland Metro area, there are echelons of "I'm not ready to leave college" communities, which are basically like college dorms for older people... Their residents don't let go of the fratboy/sororitygirl party days of yore, with the disastrous results.

"The thing to do" if you're an attractive, educated, "successful" "young professional" is live in one of these communities, which are centered around:

• - luxury buildings with insanely high rents (sure, fork over 1/2 your salary to pay someone else's mortgage, ALL 22 year olds need marble fireplaces and jacuzzis in the home).
• proximity to bars, and the subsequent lifestyle of going to bars several nights a week, drinking oneself into a stupor, inhaling tons of secondhand smoke, being in the meat market, being judged on how expensive your clothes are/how "pretty" you are (by WASP standards of course; all non-WASPS are fugly)/how skinny you are/how easily it seems you'll put out by shallow drunk guys, and of course making out with/going home with random people and pray to God you don't get one of the million STDs going around.
• proximity to absolutely nothing else to do if one were inclined to develop healthier habits.
• a general snotty environment, in which everyone brags about what kind of car their flavor of the month drives, the countries they've visited, the restaurants they've tried, the multiple graduate degrees they have or plan to get.
• limiting yourself by not owning a car (who can afford the insurance, not to mention the car payment, when all your $$ is going to rent and car tabs), thus further delaying the passage to true adulthood.
• having neighbors/roommates who are within a half-decade of you agewise, all went to one of ten schools, all do one of twenty jobs, and all share the same interests.

I spent a year in one of these neighborhoods, before moving out to an "uncool" community, closer to work at the time, closer to bookstores/bike trails/craft stores/stuff I like, quieter and "goes to sleep" earlier, twice the space and quality for half the rent, actual age diversity in my neighbors. I've been saving money for my retirment and more immediate future. Got mostly friends between 5-10 yrs older, as of late been blessed with some friends 3-5 yrs younger, and I'm happier and probably healthier having options besides going to some smoky bar.

I tell my twentysomething coworkers where I live and it offends the living shit out of them. I am referred to as "the one who lives in "the ghetto". When asked why they feel that way, my coworkers tell me that despite the significantly lower crime in my neighborhood, not being near any bars, clubs, etc qualifies it as "the ghetto". They cannot figure out how I spend my time on the weekends, what I do. I guess needing to have savings qualifies me as poor or slumming it.

Awhile back, though, a guy at work had our team - men and women - over at his place in Yuppieton (a "cool neighborhood") for a football game and I dropped by for a bit. This guy is, despite his myopic worldviews, pretty nice. I was there not 30 seconds when I was offered a beer.
"No thanks, I'm driving." Smile and grab a diet coke.
"Come on, don't be LAME! Have a beer."
"Thank you, I'm fine".
"Something else alcoholic?"
"Nope."
"GODDAMN IT! HAVE A BEER!" 300 pounds of my coworker's tub of lard roommate (aka, early 30's manager at his firm) is in my face screaming. People are looking at me funny; some guys are giving me dirty looks. Nobody comes to my defense. I guess a size 0, 5'2 woman can defend herself physically. Making me almost 100% certain that said keg had roofies in it or something. That or they WANT me to get a DUI. OK then I'm gone. People weren't this pathetic at high school parties.

This isn't a rare occasion though. Happened before, many a time, largely at work functions. I've tried the (IMO perfectly valid) "I'm a diabetic, I can't have alcohol and you're being an immature asshole to try to pressure me to do something that will make me very sick" line, just makes people angry. It's no wonder I don't even go to parties or try to be friendly with my coworkers any more really.

Let's not forget my former college roommate who's convinced I'll never find a husband because when I would go to bars, I didn't drink. "That's really the only way to meet somebody, and even when you do go, you never drink." Did I miss an Eleventh Commandment?

And I am referred to often at the office or by friends of friends as "the one who lives in that ghetto Quietton", "the one who doesn't drink".

So you have to go to bars a lot, sleep around a lot, and live in neighborhoods where you party a lot, pften well into your early 30's around here, to be accepted by your peers. That means you'll come out of your 20's with

• no savings
• lots of credit card debt
• perhaps a borderline drinking problem/liver damage due to too much alcohol
• decreased fertility if not lung cancer due to inhaling all that secondhand smoke
• perhaps decreased self-esteem from having your worth as a human being judged solely on your looks, material possesssions, address, resume, and stamps on your passport
• perhaps an STD from too many drunken hookups
• perhaps not such a great career due to showing up late/drunk pretty often

and you have the nerve to wonder why a management position, house, spouse, nest egg, all the stuff our parents had at our age aren't being handed to you on a silver platter? Part of the reason our parents had that stuff in their twenties was they didn't DO the shit that twentysomethings do today until such a late age. Not to mention, they didn't seem to NEED several private school master's degrees, the latest techie toy, uberexpensive highlights, eating dinner out every night, and so forth.

Yeah, the cards are a bit stacked agaist us, but really, twentysomethings have a lot of blame to put on our individual selves and our peers for the way things are.

Sellout is a compliment

Sellout - n. Someone who succeeds at doing something that you, either as an individual or as a group, have told yourselves that you cannot do because you have X characteristic. The Sellout has X characteristic also, but accomplishes Y with flying colors, thus invalidating others' excuses for their own shortcomings, challenging their worldviews, and exposing their laziness/incompetence.

Antonym - sheep.

See also - Black people who do well in school and their careers, Intelligent women who in addition to doing well at their jobs became mothers, Idealistic folks who don't choose jobs that leave them impoverished, Twentysomethings who don't live to get drunk and party.

You're Just Not That Wealthy

To all you Manolo Blahnik-wearing, coach-bag-carrying, BMW-driving, $14-martini-drinking grad students and "young professional" yuppie wannabes making $40K/yr at a nonprofit....

You can't afford it. We all know it. It's okay.

I know you want to look "successful" and have all the accoutrements of success, but don't you think that when you are parking your sports car or SUV (the one that cost more than your annual pretax salary) at your RENTED apartment, you look like a douchebag? If you need that car to get a woman, or to impress your boss - that woman is a gold digging whore, and your boss is a megalomaniacal moron if he expects you to afford a shiny new Beemer or Benz before you're even old enough to rent a car! Especially onwhat he's paying you. A practiced, semi-intelligent golddigger will put two and two together, realize that you probably are up to your eyeballs in debt, and move on to the bigger better deal.

Ladies - yes, your highlights that cost $200/month to maintain are stunning. Maybe or maybe not in the good way. If you're an obvious brunette (ie, you have really dark eyes and skin) though, the blonde highlights look a little fake. And the black roots look ridiculous. And I am sure you HAVE to have the bobbi brown makeup, designer handbags, $5 lattes several times a day, Prada clothes, etc, but here's another thing... looking that way isn't going to get you promoted faster, get you a better boyfriend, better friends. Your boss sees you dressed like a million bucks (literally), knows what you're making, and assumes you either have a trust fund or a sugar daddy. Fair or not, nobody likes women like that at the office no matter how good a job they do. And those guys at the $14 martini bar? Only care how thin you are (anorexic is best, so easy on the calorie-laden marinis) and how fast you put out. If you are prettier than your girlfriends, they secretly hate you; if you are uglier, they secretly pity you. You are their competition.

That's what "keeping up with the Joneses" is all about - competition. The average consumer debt alone - not including mortgages and student loans - is around 60K. Why else do you think you can finance freaking everything, from coffee tables to television sets? You do realize you pay about 2X sticker price that way... oh, you didn't. The only real thing you're keeping up with your competition on is debt and fiscal irresponsibility on the way to acquiring Almighty material things.