But it is a valid point that this kind of drama at home impacts male behavior at work in a way that is exclusionary towards female colleagues and I appreciate the fact that some people are willing to admit it here.

While I also appreciate the fact that people are willing to be open about it...

Drama at home is drama at home. It's a reason, but not a convincing one to behave differently towards female colleagues at work. The real problem is that person's unusually unhealthy personal relationship issues, which colleagues shouldn't be expected to tiptoe around.

No one is asking anyone to tiptoe around anyone else's issues, and I think it requires a certain degree of tendentiousness to read this conversation in that way. We're not talking about men who are unhappy at home so they take that out on female colleagues at work. We're talking about men who are uncomfortable or even afraid to interact in any significant way with female colleagues, because they know that if they do so and their wives find out, punishment will result. If you think that sounds fucked up, you're right. Imagine how it must be to live a life like that.

It is, to say the least, not easy for anyone to speak publicly, even under a pseudonym, of being or having been abused by intimate partners. But it's something worth doing and worth encouraging. That's true because abusers rely on secrecy to escape the opprobrium their actions deserve. It is also true because every time someone describes abuse clearly as what it is, there's a chance that someone else, who hasn't yet realized the true nature of their suffering, will see in that description something which may be of value to them.

When you respond to such statements in so callous a fashion as this, you may very well in so doing make those to whom you so respond less likely to make such statements in the future. Please think about whether that's something you really want to do. I don't ask this on my own behalf, because you cannot harm me. But it is very possible that you can harm someone else. If it were me, that's not something I would want to do. But perhaps you feel otherwise.

Hell, more than a divorce, if the beating is literal. No one should be beating anyone.

I'm glad we sorted out that problem.

The commenter several up in this thread mentioned the threat of a beating from their wife so casually, like it was no big thing, like of course their wife would beat them for talking to other women. I presume it was just colorful language on their part, but if they are laboring under the idea that this would actually be a reasonable situation (fucked-up gender norms perhaps playing a role here), it's important to stress that it is not. Wives should no more express displeasure with their husbands through violence or the implicit threat of such than vice versa. (Nor, as noted, should anyone behave this way toward anyone)

Of course it's a crappy situation, but it is how life is for a lot of people.

I'm not quite sure where you're coming from here, but you give me the impression that by declaring a reality "not OK", we can act like that reality doesn't exist.

I'm not blaming any abuse victim for being in their position; I'm just saying "Hey, I'm sorry you're in that position. Maybe you've been led to believe that kind of relationship is normal and healthy, but I want you to know it's not. (Perhaps, in the cases of this thread, you've been especially trained to dismiss the idea of this counting as abuse because of the gender dynamics of the situation not matching a common image. But it remains abusive regardless). So if you ever get the opportunity to leave it or otherwise perhaps to change it, please don't hesitate to do so. Again, sorry for what you're going through."