“Guys, be careful how involved you get with this season’s awesome crop of video games. Your wife may try to sell you off. Kyle Baddley learned this the hard way earlier this month, when his wife Alyse got frustrated by his constant Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 playing and offered him up to the highest bidder on Craigslist.
“I am selling my 22 year old husband,” the ad read. “He enjoys eating and playing video games all day. Easy to maintain, just feed and water every 3-5 hours. You must have Internet and space for gaming. Got tired of waiting so free to good home. If acceptable replacement is offered will trade.”…”
The photo is one of Alyse and Kyle, the young wife and her advertised military husband.
Earlier in November marked the passing of another year since I lost my husband, and looking at this couple, along with reading about Alyse’s ‘unique’ response to deal with her husband’s interest in gaming got me thinking:
Why can’t she see how lucky she is to have him home and alive, with her?
“The ad, of course, was a joke. But that didn’t stop people from replying.
One woman offered to retrain him. Another guy said he was willing to trade spots with Kyle, noting that he was both house-trained and preferred books to games.”
I actually heard about this story on the evening news broadcast after work on Tuesday (November 22, 2011) while I was pulling things out to start making dinner. Hearing the news anchor talk with them and discussing the story with the other anchor was annoying; reading about it made me angry. Yes, a silly and ‘insignificant’ little joke in the form of an ad on craigslist made me angry. This wife’s trivial problem led her to put an ad out about ‘getting rid of her husband’ and on top of that she thought it would be ‘cute’ to include the bit “free to a good home”.
In all marriages, at least those involving human beings, there are flaws and quirks. Each individual brings their own collection of these things with them everywhere they go and into every relationship they have in addition to the baggage they accumulate over their lifetime. When you’ve been raised and continue to believe that when you get married, divorce is not an option – you eventually must realize that the only thing that you can control or change is how good (or bad) this relationship that you’ve pledged to stay in for the rest of your life – that is, unless you already understood that truth on the day you made that vow to your spouse in the eyes of God and witnessed by your friends and family. Though they all witnessed this pledge between husband and wife, it is important for the couple to recognize that they are the only two people who can, should, and must make the decisions, choices, and bear the responsibility for this relationship, the marriage. They have made a vow – two individuals – become one, forsaking all others and leaving their family homes to begin this new life.
I wonder, how would Alyse feel if her husband decided to put an ad out to offer HER to the highest bidder – in trade for things that he could use and beneficial for himself alone, but not necessarily in actual cash form which is conveyed with the words “free to a good home”. What would SHE feel if her husband decided to put an ad out, hoping to get rid of her through a trade arranged to give her to someone else who happened to have something her husband wanted more than he wanted to keep her around. After all, he’s still young and could always find a new wife if he decided he wanted one – why not accept the offer of goods made by a stranger who was interested in carting off this wife Alyse, leaving him free to take a new one, one yet-to-be-explored by him whenever he wished? Perhaps his ad would list some similarly trivial reasons for putting up the offer – she let herself go, she was boring, she nagged him all the time, or maybe he wouldn’t give any explanation for why he decided to look for a stranger who would be willing to take her off his hands. If it were the latter, and suddenly one day there was a stranger at the front door – and her husband traded that person for a couple of new video games and a six pack of his favorite beverage, and sent her off with the stranger, saying “go, you belong to them now” before he closed the door and locks it behind him – how would that feel?
What would it feel like if something happened to him one day, and he never came home to her again, his life cut short, without warning or explanation. No way to prevent it. What would she feel then, would she think about when she put out the ad (joke or not) because she was ‘tired of waiting’ for him and thought to herself that if someone else would take her husband off her hands she might not mind so much?
“Among the unconcerned was Kyle’s mother. She not only encouraged Alyse to run the ad, she helped her write it.
Kyle, it seems, has learned his lesson and has pulled back a bit from his Modern Warfare 3 playtime. His father notes that the couple is headed to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with Kyle’s sister.
Kyle’s taking it in good humor — but he points out for the record that his wife was in line with him when the game went on sale.”
His dad should be ticked off about his wife getting involved in their son’s marriage – it’s not as though their daughter-in-law was being beaten or beating her husband, or beating the grandkids. The time that Alyse’s mother-in-law had any right to make rules or complain about her son’s activities was over when he got married. Just because his wife is someone that she can easily convince to do things which will give her back some of the control over her son that she lost, doesn’t make it right. Sadly, Alyse is accepting a marriage that is currently being manipulated by her mother-in-law for whatever reason. If she was smart, she’d ask her husband to take a stand – with her – where he chooses his wife and tells his mother not to interfere in their relationship again with complete and total clarity in the meaning of his words. He can’t simply escape or run away like he is by going with his wife to spend Thanksgiving at his sister’s house every time his mother decides she wants to exert some control over things that should be his and his wife’s alone. Even if he thinks he can.
**** Quoted sections taken from “Frustrated wife puts gamer husband up for sale on Craigslist (by: Chris Morris http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/frustrated-wife-puts-gamer-husband-sale-craigslist-192001926.html)” Italicized to emphasize the segments from the source article.
