Why I Believe Women Even When They Haven’t Said a Word

Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offA man at the gym today started telling everyone about his unfaithful wife. We didn’t ask him to. He simply sauntered up to everyone who entered, greeted them, paused, and then launched into his whispered tirade.He didn’t approach me. I kept my distance. But I observed him and I didn’t like what I saw.He had the mannerisms of a child predator. I’m not accusing him of being a child predator. I’m just saying that there’s an essential part of me that screams an alarm when it sees certain signals. If I’d seen him coming down the street, I would have gently directed my children across the road.“My wife didn’t come home last night,” he said again and again. “In twenty-seven years, this is the first time. She slept in somebody else’s bed. No matter what happened, that’s a fact.”I realized that he kept retelling the story as much to convince himself as anyone else. Over and over he told it. I heard about how he’d caught her texting before she drove off to her AA meeting. I heard how she sent the kids a text that said, “Good night.”“Not I love you, nothing like that. Just good night!” he said this over and over as if it proved something.He told the story about how she got drunk and fell down the stairs. He told everyone about how she accused him of pushing her. He said that she told the cops that he pushed her. He said that when they took her into the hospital, she just kept saying over and over that he pushed her.He told this story to a man. He shook his head in solidarity.He told this story to a woman. She broke eye contact and went to grab some weights. She wasn’t rude, but she turned her back on him and excused herself from the situation. I watched, ready to intervene if he pursued.He didn’t.But then the next person came into the gym and he latched on again. “My wife didn’t come home last night. In twenty-seven years, this is the first time she hasn’t slept in my bed.”I’ve seen this guy in the gym before. His inflections are grating. When he says “right,” it’s like there’s a “w” at the front of the word, and the word “eye” in the middle. “I’m gonna teach her what’s right.”The word “right” drags on and lingers like a threat.He told us about the lawyer that he hired and how he has a restraining order set to be delivered in a few days. “She’s gonna come face to face with reality in a few days,” he said with a smug grin. He looked a bit like James Carville when he said it.He thinks he’s inevitable.This went on all throughout my workout. It didn’t escape my notice that this man belonged to a class of men that behaves this way. I can’t recall ever seeing a woman come into a public place and start telling every person in the room about how her husband didn’t come home the night before. This guy was talking like he was campaigning. It was deliberate that he kept repeating the same speech over and over just loud enough for everyone in the whole gym to hear.He wanted us to hear.I’ve never seen a woman do that.I call men like this the “whisper society.” Throughout my life, living in rural spaces, they’ve always been there. In rural towns, you have the appearance of rule of law, and elections, and participation in democracy, but everyone knows who really holds the power.In every town meeting, in every public event, there are two or three old guys who sit in a corner and observe and never say anything. When the meeting is over and the public has gone home, the mayor walks over, bows his head, and gets his orders. It’s not up for debate. The whisper society makes its decision and the elected officials do what they’re told.This guy in the gym was following that pattern. He was turning strangers into his flying monkeys. He was programming them so that they’d take his narrative and spread it to the winds.Men do this. Women don’t behave this way.I found myself thinking of the wife. If I was married to a guy like that, I’d probably start drinking too. Among his talking points, he was demanding full custody. These disgusting men are always like this. They demand full custody because they know it hurts.We live in a society where men don’t take their responsibilities seriously. That’s how we ended up with restrictions on reproductive healthcare. Men don’t bother to familiarize themselves with how women are sentenced to death by agony if doctors are prohibited from addressing complications due to pregnancy.The majority of men just don’t care. They’re never going to have an ectopic pregnancy, so they don’t even bother to recognize that such a thing exists. Most men don’t know that babies get fevers, or that they need their diapers changed, or that they need to be fed.The list goes on and on and women do it all. But then, after decades of being forced to carry every burden, when the time comes to get away, these same men know full well how to leverage all the injustices of our legal system.“I got myself a lawyer,” the man boasted. “I called and asked for a female lawyer.”Whenever a man uses the word “female,” it’s more than a red flag. It’s a flashing red light accompanied by a fire alarm.“I told this lawyer, ‘I need the mama bear. Will you be the mama bear for my kids?’”It was all a carefully constructed narrative. This guy wanted to present himself as the victim. He was a prisoner to the grievance ideology. He was speaking in a shouted whisper to everyone who came near as much to convince himself of his righteousness as anyone else.The people let him talk.I finished my workout. I was sorely tempted to approach him. “Sir, I overheard your situation. I have one question for you.”“Yes?”“Who did you vote for? Did you vote for Kamala? Did you vote for reproductive healthcare rights? Did you vote for child care? Did you vote for education?”But I didn’t have to ask. Even as I type those questions, I can see his face contort into rage. Men like that can approach you with a smile, but it doesn’t take long to see the true face beneath the mask.I wonder if there’s an age difference between the man and his wife. Was he thirty-five when he met her, and she was eighteen? Today, he’s spending his free time complaining to every stranger about how the life he was promised will never be his to claim. He’s telling everyone that his wife is to blame.I didn’t approach him. I just left. I knew the answers to all my questions.The wife wasn’t there. She didn’t speak one word. Yet, after listening to him, I find myself believing her.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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