Aren't you a bit generalizing?

You see, relationships are complicated and they take a lot of work and effort for them to work, and sometimes women need some advice or a different perspective, so if she is talking about her husband's negative aspects in front of her girlfriends and family, it is not necessarily to defame him or bring him down, sometimes it is just venting because if she does not take it out to someone close to her, it will keep building up inside her and snowball till it explodes and takes everything beautiful with it ... so if a few words said to friends and family can help a woman sane and happy ... why not?

Women are different than men .. we think differently and we act and react to things and people in a different way ... so maybe it is just a woman thing .. but I cannot say for sure as I am not married but I can tell you from my experience with my married girlfriends .. they do talk about their husbands and they mention the good, the bad and the ugly sometimes ... so my advice to you is not to analyze it much and just let it go :)

its simple, when women are at the dating stage, the competition (between them and their girlfriends) is who has the better bf...when they're at the husband/wife stage the competition is about who has it harder :p

I think it's because many men behave contemptibly, both before marriage and after. I think it's worse among certain ethnic/religious subgroups of the species. I'm sure the women in those subgroups are more resentful because of it. ;-) Yet societal and familial pressure forces the women to accept marriages which suit the male much more than they suit the female. It's inherently unbalanced. Hence the contempt and resentment.

In my humble opinion as a disinterested observer.

hmm its ok no one knows where i am :p..but maybe i should sell this kind of info instead of giving it away for free he3 lol

I'll have to admit, there are a lot of women who speak negatively about their spouses. One thing that I have come to realize, is that in some cases, it is like Marvin said, "societal and familial pressure forces the women to accept marriages which suit the male much more than they suit the female", and because these females resent that fact, they lash out by venting their resentment.
Maybe they want others to acknowledge how unhappy they are in their lives. I'm not saying that kind of behavior is acceptable, but there is always a reason why people behave negatively.

well although i am not married yet, i can say that sometimes woman does that just to prove to other women that she is a "victim", so plz do not envy!!! even if her husband is great!!!

one more thing also: there is no other things for women in general to talk about!! seriously most of women gatherings and talks all revolve about man and husbands!!! that is why most of time wife get back with a lot of negative ideas from such gatherings while the opposite happens with men, they come back with a good mood !!!

I heard a story about a girl who by the time she hung up the phone with her fiance after a big fight sent a message to one of her best friends critisizing him and calling him names.. her bad luck made her send the message to him by misntake.. they almost broke up but the parents interfered and fixed it..