Mom Speaks Out About Husband Berating Her For 'Riding My Income For 10 Years' — 'A Lot Of Mormon Women Suffer Silently'
At the end of her rope, one woman exposed her husband's abuse with a secret video.
@ocean_dreamer_julie / TikTok It's certainly nothing new that the work of stay-at-home moms all too often goes not only unappreciated but entirely unnoticed. One mom's husband, however, has apparently taken that lack of appreciation to a hurtful extreme.
When she filmed him berating her to expose his denigration and misogyny, it caused scores of women to rally around her and to call out the dynamics of her marriage for what they are — abuse.
The stay-at-home mom secretly filmed her husband claiming she leeches off of him because she does not have a job.
TikToker @ocean_dreamer_julie's TikTok videos have mainly focused on the often humorous ups and downs of motherhood. But after a month-long break from the app, she returned with a shocking video that upended everything.
"When you catch patriarchy live in action," she captioned the video. The visuals don't say much — Julie is obviously trying to hide the fact that she's filming — but the audio says everything and then some. "I've been doing what for 10 years?" Julie is heard angrily asking her husband. "You've been riding on my income," he angrily replies.
"I've been riding on your income for ten years, being a stay-at-home mother, which you wanted me to be," Julie shoots back.
Photo: @ocean_dreamer_julie / TikTok
In her video caption, Julie wrote, "I have never posted publicly about the realities of my ten-year marriage." But as she went on to recount, her situation is anything but rare, especially among women who are part of devout faith communities, as Julie herself is. "A lot of Mormon women are not okay but live in marriages like this and suffer silently. You should be worried about them," she wrote.
Of course, situations like this are not limited to marriages within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — or any other patriarchal faith tradition, for that matter. As the responses to Julie's video make clear, women of all backgrounds find themselves trapped in the same dynamic of being punished for taking on the roles that have been forced upon them.
Many women who viewed Julie's video called her marriage abusive and urged her to leave.
"This is exactly how it plays out," a woman commented in response to Julie's video. "They force you out of a brilliant career then resent you for it." Julie responded that she "never even went to college" in the first place, implying that the choice was one that was against her will and expected of her.
For many women watching, one particular phrase came to mind — financial abuse, considered a form of domestic violence. "This is so triggering," a woman wrote. "Financial abuse is such a hugely underlooked form of abuse!" Julie agreed — and said that financial abuse is another all too common dynamic among women she knows. "The number of women I know that are a [stay-at-home moms] and are given an allowance like $20 a week to spend on herself is insane," she wrote. "That is financial abuse."
People were also deeply disturbed that Julie's husband was berating her in front of their children, which she says is a common tactic of her husband's and one she is trying to use to model better behavior for her sons. "I stand up for myself so the boys don’t learn women should be quiet," she wrote.
But women who had been there before urged her to go several steps further — to leave her marriage as soon as she was able. "Leave. My ex didn’t appreciate my time as a stay-at-home mom and resented me for it every day. You can do it alone, it’s easier I promise," one woman wrote. Another was a bit more straightforward. "Run. This will never change."
Julie has begun making plans to leave her marriage and credited the support she received from other women online with helping her make changes.
In a follow-up video, Julie sobbed with both grief and appreciation for the women who had spoken out to validate her experience and offer help. "In patriarchal systems where women are taught that we are responsible for nurturing and caregiving," she wrote in her caption, "we often end up neglecting ourselves and not knowing how to ask for help, what to ask for or how to be okay receiving it."
Julie is of course absolutely not alone in that experience — not only is domestic abuse shockingly common, but financial abuse is a feature of a staggering 99% of abusive marriages according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and it is often what keeps women from leaving abusive relationships or returning to them if they do. Religiously devout marriages like Julie's also have a particularly strong problem with abuse. According to the right-wing, pro-marriage think tank the Institute for Family Studies, one in four religious marriages is abusive.
Although the teachings of the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints explicitly forbid violence and abuse in marriage, members of the church and those who have left it have reported widespread patterns of domestic abuse borne of the religion's patriarchal structure, combined with patterns of inaction by Church officials when abuse is reported. These dynamics have resulted in activism by women currently and previously affiliated with the Church to push back on the patriarchal and abusive dynamics women have reported.
Photo: TikTok
For her part, Julie seems to have become one of them, and she credits those who have reached out to support her with helping her make changes. "The patriarchy can only survive when women are isolated and feel helpless," she wrote in one of her captions. "Thank you to the thousands of you (nearly all women) for your encouraging words... In the words of Glennon Doyle 'we can do hard things…together.' We shouldn’t have to do it alone, we were never meant to."
If you or someone you know are struggling with domestic or intimate partner violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE or text START to 88788
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.