The Year When My Husband Started to Act Like a Tsundere Teenage Girl to Get My Attention

by Anonymous

Editor’s note: The following story is true. It was sent to me by a reader who thought it would be cathartic to share her experience here. She wants to help people going through something similar feel less alone.

Later this week, I’ll share a longer response piece. This piece is gut-wrenching and much heavier than what I usually share here.

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“That poor counselor,” I thought to myself.

My husband and I were sitting in the marriage counselor’s office. When he found an opening, he launched into a monologue about how financially successful he was–well–we were. The counselor, a quiet woman in her 60s, seemed uncomfortable. Neither one of us could get a word in.

I was in my mid-20s, and he was in his early 30s. 

He was right. Our finances were in pretty good shape for our age. But I wondered why he felt the need to focus on our finances when we were trying to save our marriage. Maybe he meant to convince the counselor that our marriage performed just as strongly as our portfolio. 

Or maybe it was just that not many other people had listened to him so intently. He just wanted her approval.

The counselor I found for us didn’t comment on our finances, her face blank. At a certain point, she told us our time was up and ushered us out of the office. Although my husband seemed to enjoy talking to her, I did not make another appointment.

*

According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website, I would get a temporary green card in a year.

I could file for divorce as soon as it arrived.

Alternatively, I could divorce right away and restart the green card application process through my job. If I did, I would have to keep my job throughout the process for some years. Middle management had been acting chaotic lately. Some of my coworkers were pushed out. A divorce would make me happier immediately, but it would be a risky move.

There is another option that I could wait for another three years in this marriage to get a permanent green card, but did I want to? I didn’t think I was even capable.

One year, I could wait. Three, I couldn’t.

*

My husband hinted that he was browsing r/deadbedrooms, a subreddit for couples who had stopped having sex. I didn’t give it much of a thought. But when I checked the site, I found men on it very whiny. They didn’t seem to care about improving their connection. They just blamed the lack of sex on their female partners.

Later on, my husband told me he wanted to get an anime waifu pillow. I wasn’t sure why he had to tell me about it. 

I wasn’t his boss. He could buy whatever he wanted without my approval.

He ordered a pillow straight from Japan and showed it to me. It’s a body long pillow with a sexy anime girl printed on it. I said something along the lines of, “Nice pillow. The price is reasonable too. It’s great you can directly order stuff from Japan these days.”

He deflated it and put it somewhere in the storage.

I didn’t know when or if he “used” it.

*

I liked Reddit for a while. I liked reading people’s conversations.  

There were people from all walks of life talking about what they did. Teachers, nurses, police officers, blue-collar workers… As an immigrant, I found America’s ever-squabbling population fascinating. They can be annoyingly ignorant about the other parts of the world, but they are almost never boring to observe. And here they were. You can catch a glimpse of their lives on Reddit.

My husband liked the hentai subreddits the most.

He told me about some categories of hentai he enjoyed, some of them seemed fine, but many of them were disturbing.

The most disturbing ones he told me about included “hard vore,” “a paraphilia characterized by the erotic desire to be consumed by, or to personally consume, another person or creature.” He liked the drawings in which anime girls were swallowed whole by monsters.

The other thing he liked was images of sexual intercourse that involved penises so large that the women’s belly “inflated.” She was being impaled by an impossibly large dick. It’s hentai, so I guess people can draw whatever they want. But it looked painful. It didn’t look sexually appealing.

He also liked r/hentaihumiliation. Again, it didn’t look sexually appealing.

My guess was he was desensitized from an early age.