in

Intimacy & Relationships

Is this the first real “Red Flag?”

I’m a young mom (24 with a 4 year old daughter) and my husband (the father) is the same age as myself. We were just married in August of last year, but we have been together for 6 years now. This past week, I’ve been facing some serious anxiety around our relationship.

Following my graduation for my undergraduate degree, I have been struggling to find a job in my field, largely due to the sudden burst of AI in 2025. I had a very horrible experience last year with a job that resulted in a severance package and an NDA. I’ve had anxiety about trying to start in my field again, so I have been focusing on freelancing and other arts skills while returning to my previous part time job. He’s encouraged me to continue to try to pursue my arts career path options, but I’m starting to worry that I can no longer pursue this and may need to change directions for my own stability.

We’ve had classic weaponized incompetence issues for years. He is WFH where his job is either really busy or he has absolutely nothing to do. Oftentimes, he plays games on his personal PC that is set up next to his work laptop/monitor. He’s finally started doing more simple housework during his free time, but we end up having arguments over his continuing to mess up laundry (shrinking my clothes). I oftentimes have to ask him to do things, and there is so much general clutter that gets overwhelming. It’s too much to explain here, but that’s the general idea.

Him and his friends/family convinced me to finally drop my (now ex) best friend that was the maid of honor at our wedding. Although I still agree that it was the right choice as we were more like acquaintances for years, I’m now hyper analyzing whether this could be an isolation tactic.

The kicker starts earlier this week. He was informed that his best friend’s sister, after we had left a gathering, called me some nasty names and asked “when will they get a divorce.” Apparently many of them have been discussing my attitude problem lately, which I can understand. I’ve felt like a failure in my career and pretty dependent on everyone around me, which has been bleeding out into other areas of my life. However, this sister called a couple days later to “apologize” for her drunken words, and my husband quickly forgave her. At the end of the phone call, she asked him to be a professional reference for a potential client. He agreed, and after the phone call was completely baffled that I thought this was inappropriate. His response was that he will forgive those he considers family no matter what they do. (Which, as his wife, rubs me the wrong way. Shouldn’t he prioritize me a bit, and isn’t this pretty quick for him to forgive someone that said things like that?)

The biggest piece is that earlier today, he HIT our daughter in the face with a light tap, twice, in a slapping motion???? I didn’t want to tell anyone that I know because it could be a fluke, and she wasn’t hurt, just shocked. This physical nature is so uncharacteristic of him, but now I’m analyzing all of our interactions over the years. I’ve been feeling like I’m going crazy, and I’ve suspected gaslighting. I’ve just never trusted my gut enough to act on it, because I don’t want to make a mistake that will derail my life any more than those that I’ve already made.

Is this a big enough deal to start taking any action, or should I wait? All I can think about is how I could not afford to move out even if I wanted to.