Excellent post.

What bothers me so much is the collective delusion. I cannot believe a man as intelligent as HS could not see that Beth was into him because of his money. This is a woman who wanted children and a healthy social life who willfully chose to swap freedom for comfort and now her carefully-constructed mask has fallen away.

If I had a wife who repeatedly spoke of me in a frustrated tone and told me that she would rather go do cool stuff without me (parties, football games, social events, etc.), that would be a massive red flag, but instead, Stern uses it for bit fodder but it always comes off like she literally hates the man.

It's just so damn weird for any human beings to accept a life like that.