I’ve known Liezel for some years now. She’s a calm and decent Filipino woman. Her boyfriend, Hunter, is White, about 5’8 and pretty cool too. They have been together since college.
Hunter was one of the popular guys, while Liezel was a weirdo and often got bullied by Hunter’s friends. He never had an interest in her because she wasn’t physically attractive.
Although she secretly admired Hunter, as every girl in school did, she kept her feelings to herself. They graduated and ended up in the same college. This was where their love story began.
Liezel had matured into a beautiful lady and Hunter couldn’t resist her. Liezel still had her insecurities. However, her shyness did not stop Hunter from pursuing her. He even helped her to get over her insecurities and they both fell in love.
Hunter was Liezel’s first and she knew she wasn’t his first. He has had girlfriends since high school. Although that did bother Liezel, she had hoped she would be his last.
Four years into their relationship, Liezel raised the top of marriage and children. As a typical Filipino girl, marriage was first on her list of achievements.
They were both at the start of their careers and had no stable jobs to consider settling down. Liezel simply wanted to know where they stood.
Hunter shrugged off the subject and said he wasn’t ready to settle down. But if they will get married she will quit her job and be a full-time housewife.
Liezel didn’t like the idea of being a housewife. She was doing fine with her job and supporting her family back in the Philippines from her salary.
Giving up her job will be letting her family down. She weighed her options since that was the only condition Hunter gave in order to marry her. She accepted his condition but they never talked about the subject of marriage again.
About two years ago, when Liezel turned 29, she decided to bring up the topic. She noticed Hunter wasn’t making any plans to propose and she was getting desperate after seeing many of her friends married with kids.
But again, Hunter shut her down and walked out on her. Whenever the topic of marriage was raised he would either lock himself in their bedroom or go out with his buddies.
Liezel had reached her wit’s end. She decided to seek advice from her friend who told her to wait, and that she was worrying over nothing. Liezel had told her friend she was going to break up with Hunter since he had not proposed after 8 years together.
Then her friend told Liezel’s elder sister who strongly kicked against the breakup plan. Liezel’s sister even accused her of cheating on Hunter and said she was using the proposal as an excuse to run off with another man.
Everyone from both sides of the family was against the breakup. They said Hunter was a great catch and that she would be making a big mistake if she lost such a man. They also threatened to tell Hunter about her plan. Some said she was being selfish for not considering how amazing Hunter had been to her all these years.
No one knew their relationship had been on the rocks. Hunter would get angry over little provocations. Liezel felt she was waking on eggshells and didn’t voice her opinion on most matters just to keep them from quarrelling.
She thought fights were a normal thing in relationships and held onto the hope that one day he would outgrow his tantrums. They even went to therapy to resolve their issues once, which helped in fixing Hunters trust issues with her.
Like they say, a player will always be afraid of getting played. Hunter was always guarded and feared he was getting played by Liezel’s modesty. Maybe he thought she was too good for him. And she was.
However, the pressure Liezel was mounting on herself about marriage led her to make a decision to leave if Hunter didn’t propose to her after another year.
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If you’ve noticed “The Next Girl” has been trending on social media for a while now and most women are openly admitting how they were fooled into wife duties without officially securing the title “Mrs” or even getting a ring for their commitment in the relationship.
Some women who became “the one” said the men they married had dated other women for years but got married to them shortly after their breakup because their husbands felt they were the ones who genuinely cared about them and not what they would provide.
That sounds wildly true to me. If a man sees your desperation to be married he will take it that you only care about what you will get from him and the marriage rather than what you will bring into his life, which is love and peace.
As much as men want to fool us into believing they are not emotional creatures, I think they are. A man will only marry a woman he feels emotionally connected to. And that feeling doesn’t take years to manifest.
Men often know who ‘the wife’ will be within three months of courtship. If you’re dating a guy and he’s not feeling that emotional connection, he will string you along until he finds the woman who does. This is called “husband crashing.”
Husband crashers are time wasters. They date you to get all the husband privileges but will dump you in a heart the minute they find their ideal wife.
If you are dating a man and he wants you to do 50/50 on bills but will gaslight you when you ask him to contribute equally to house chores he’s full-on crash mode.
He’s crashing as a leave-in husband and since you are giving him everything a wife does for her husband he will be demotivated to take you seriously.
But we, women, are quick to jump to conclusions and believe a man giving us his time and affection is serious about us.
We think we are the complete package and the man should count himself lucky for being with us but we have no clue how the man feels inside. We neglect the warning signs even when their actions speak for themselves.
Physical attraction can get any man to fall for a woman but at the end of the day, men go for what’s inside the woman.
So when a woman stays hooked on a guy for more than 2 years, he’s wasting your time. I have also noticed that most couples that get married after five years of courtship end up in divorce.
These couples settle for each other because they have stayed in the relationship for too long and they think they owe it to themselves to be married.
But after the marriage, when they find the person they have been waiting for, they will divorce their partner or abandon them emotionally to begin an affair outside.
Unfortunately, women have been programmed to be conscious of their biological clock and when we approach the last thirties we get worried about our fertility cycle. Therefore, it’s understandable why most women get desperate about marriage.
However, it is better to know if the man you are dating will make you his wife or not very early into the relationship and save yourself the pain of getting dumped many years later.
So to know if your man is a husband crasher, below are some red flags that says he is.
Someone who loves you will show you by their actions, not just words. I spoke with twelve women who were deceived by husband crashers during my research on this topic and one of the things their exes had in common was never making promises.
It’s natural as humans to declare our love through promises when we want to secure our spot in someone’s life.
We promise to “never stop loving them, ”to always be there when they need us, or “to make them ours forever.” We say anything to show how much we care about them and how far we can go to keep them by our side.
But a husband crasher never makes promises. They might be sweet and caring at the early stage of the relationship, but when the love begins to fade you never hear them say things to assure you of how much they want you in their future.
If your man often avoids conversations about marriage, babies, or moving in together, it is possible he’s only crashing in as a husband with no intentions of keeping the position permanently.
However, beware of love bombers. These ones will overpromise but never follow through.
One of the tricks that works to reveal a husband crasher is fake pregnancy. If you notice your man is love bombing you, test him with something that will tear off his mask or prove to you that he is for real.
Another way you can tell if your man is husband crashing is through his conversation with his friends. Guys know when their friend is ready to settle down.
If your man is not having that conversation with his guy friends then he is not ready to wife you. Men don’t leave their girlfriends in the dating market once they know she’s “the one.”
He will be afraid to lose her so he will make wedding plans as soon as he finds the woman he wants to marry. This is why you see most husband crashers marry the next girl barely two months after they meet.
Finally, this one will draw out people’s skin but I won’t hold back because we should be aware of all red flags when choosing a life partner.
I have heard a lot of single guys say they won’t marry a woman who won’t split bills on their first date. And that’s a fib. A man who loves you and wants to spend eternity with you will not ask you to go dutch.
That’s right!
His intention is to be irreplaceable so he will do everything in his capacity to make sure you don’t have a reason to turn him down.
Now there is nothing wrong with going 50/50 with your boyfriend but a man with true intentions of marrying you will not ask for 50/50 in expenses even as a boyfriend.
But you see, a husband crasher will be logical to the tee. He wants you to fulfil the expectations of a traditional wife and still split bills equally. While he brings in the bare minimum.
Most times he will only contribute financially and gaslight you into doing all the physical and emotional labor in the relationship.
I have seen women who had nothing when they got married and these marriages last longer than that of those who split bills. For example, Gabrielle Union and her husband, Dwyane Wade, split bills 50/50 but their marriage is filled with lies and betrayal.
Men like to protect their pride. They like being the leader in the relationship and the only thing men appreciate more than the woman’s financial contribution is respect.
Most men don’t care how much the woman makes as long as she recognizes his position as the leader of the household. If the woman is taking equal financial responsibility as the man, he will think his position is threatened.
He will see the woman as his competition not a partner. He may allow you to take care of some of the bills but he will do the majority of it.
So if your man is insisting on a 50/50 split and hasn’t married you after two years or made plans to secure his position in your life permanently, he’s not ready to be tied down.
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Have you had any experience with a husband crasher? Share the signs that gave him away. Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter so you get my next story in your inbox.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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