Okay, so during the I Love Lucy years, Vivian was married to Phil Ober, who grew increasingly jealous of her professional success. He was also an actor, and they met on Broadway (while each was still married to other people). As we know, their marriage didn't survive Viv's television breakthrough. Ober took supporting roles in Hollywood (both film and television) but his accomplishments never came close to Viv's and he retired from acting in the 1960s.

We also know that he was physically and mentally abusive. Lucy hated him, and production refused to give him supporting roles in ILL, with the exception of "The Quiz Show" (early in the first season, I assume before they knew what type of person he was); and "Don Juan is Shelved" (presumably because they had few other options when the real Schary backed out at the last minute.) He seemed to delight in tormenting Viv. According to the standard narrative, most of the abuse stemmed from his near pathological jealousy (but, with that said, I doubt he suddenly "became" abusive during the ILL years). He was very possessive and controlling and tried to sabotage her friendships.

My question is this: if Ober had such a problem with Vivian's success on the show, why didn't he just ... tell her to quit? He obviously had a lot of control over her in other areas, and it also clearly tortured him to watch her succeed. Vivian later said she would have quit the show to save her marriage. I know that these situations have a lot of nuance we can't access, but it clearly seems like it would have been the best outcome for him. He could have even returned to the stage, where he'd had professional success.

I don't think Ober's a particularly sympathetic figure, obviously, but this is something I wonder (especially as a person who admittedly struggles with jealousy)