What Heebs said. Particularly about the porn thing not passing the smell test. Something in the milk ain't clean, for sure, but to be able to give advice that is more specific than the "if you love something, let it go" variety, I'd need more, accurate, info.
I will say that I think it's kinda weird, and seems...resentful? passive aggressive? for her to be cool with staying with you just until she finishes her dissertation, esp knowing that you know that. That's kind of...there's something there.
Just thought I'd stake out that corner of the advice space early.
Particularly about the porn thing not passing the smell test.
If you spring for the nice monitor, you can smell porn?
Also, my sympathies. Apparently, bad jokes have priority.
2 is almost certainly right, without all the details. I mean, I usually have to go through all the messy details to get to the obvious conclusion, myself, but maybe you don't. In current incarnation, and w/o a lot more info, your relationship sounds pretty dead. I am also really, really sorry.
I've heard tell from her and inside my head that she won't stick with me once/if she finishes
From her, or from inside your head? There's a big difference.
Also, writing but not finishing a dissertation does fucked-up things to your head. As you finished yours, you may not appreciate the difference.
One more vote for the 'just looking at porn can't be the problem' axis. This sounds like couples counseling to me -- not that it'll necessarily, or even probably, fix anything, but if it works at all, it should help you figure out what the actual problem is so that even if the relationship doesn't survive, you can get out more sanely.
And I'm sorry, the situation you're in must be heartbreaking.
Like many other such requests to advice columnists, no advice is possible in the absence of any redeeming features being presented about the person's partner.
I diagree with everyone else about the porn thing. It's a nonissue for most people here (hedonists), but I know plenty of people for whom that is a huge issue. I know women who are dead serious when they say they'd divorce their husband if they found out he'd been looking at pornography, and I've known relationships that have been really tramatically rocked by it. It's not necesasrily a trivial issue; for some people it's no different than adultery.
That said, it is weird that she'd be so upset about it that she'd truly want to leave you in a few years. If a porn incident is really the issue, and a sincere apology is offered, I'd think that if she's otherwise interested in preserving the relationship, and that she's generally happy in the relationship and still cares for you, then her hurt/anger would subside over the course of those years, and she'd forgive you and be able to move on. If she's not interested in preserving the relationship, then it can't be preserved.
We also need lurid anecdotes, and lots of them.
Was it particularly offensive porn? Has it destroyed the sex life you share? Tell us more about this sex life, regardless.
11.1: Plus, nobody has said what type of porn it was. I agree that it could matter.
11.2 That is very strange. While I'm sure it happens plenty, "I'll stay with you until I get established on my own" is not something that I'd expect somebody to say outloud.
||
Are you perhaps lacking in "20th-century classical, experimental, and electroacoustic music digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today"? The Avant Garde Project is for you!
|>
11: I'm stereotyping grad students here, but they seem demographically unlikely to be "porn is really that big a deal" people. Of course, the story could be more complicated: there's porn and porn, and there's almost certainly stuff that I'd be somewhere between disconcerted and horrified to find out that a partner was getting off on. And there's being inconsiderate about time place and manner, that could turn into a huge issue.
You're right about the timing being weird -- I'd kind of think that for anyone for whom the porn really was that serious, it would be a "You're disgusting, I can't live in the same domicile with you anymore" moment, rather than "We can stay married for instrumental reasons, but my love is dead."
It doesn't even have to be some kind of horrifying porn. Assuming heterosexuality, a man looking at teh gay could be a big issue.
I'm stereotyping grad students here, but they seem demographically unlikely to be "porn is really that big a deal" people.
Well, yes, you're sterotyping them. I agree they're demographically less likely to be "porn is really that big a deal" people, but I've known some who were, and I don't have any good reason to think That Guy's wife isn't.
That is, could be enough to make an ignored wife assume there is no hope for the relationship.
Ugh. Here's the thing: if the issue really is about porn, you haven't done her dirt unless you've been posting pictures of her. And no matter how much you love her, if the thought that you saw pictures of other people naked (regardless of what parts they're sporting) leads her to threaten an exit, she's got issues you can't fix.
Having been through a divorce I never asked for and watching most of my friends go through their own, here are a few things I learned that may or may not apply to your situation.
1. Loving somebody deeply is not sufficient to sustain a marriage with deep underlying fault lines. The Beatles were spouting a bunch of hippie bullshit about that.
2. The crumbling of a marriage is deeply disorienting, frightening, and emasculating experience that can make you believe that you're willing to endure all sorts of unhappiness/punishment/self-abasement to try to preserve it. But that sort of bargaining often ends up merely speeding the process because you end up resentful and the partner ends up contemptuous.
3. Living in a house with somebody that is just there until they can exit more conveniently is the worst goddamn thing ever and will ruthlessly destroy your self-esteem. Worse by far than living by yourself in a cookie-cutter rectangular apartment with bare walls and nothing in the fridge but ice cubes and leftover takeout, and staring out the window all night instead of sleeping. Honest. If that's where you guys are at, go ahead and rip off the Band-Aid.
4. I don't know any people who saved a marriage through counseling. None. I do, however, know a lot of people who negotiated a much more graceful and less vengeful ending thanks to it.
Could be. My sense of the implausibility of the porn being the problem was more what I said in my 18.2 -- that that kind of a problem, for someone who straightforwardly thought porn was that big a deal, would be more of a noisy blowup and move out problem, or at least an ultimatum and 'this marriage can survive under these conditions only problem', not a 'I just don't feel that way about you anymore' problem.
This is messed up. Love her all you want, ATMer, but you can't make any kind of good life with someone who is willing to use you that way. Run, don't walk. Apo's right.
How long has this been going on? (Most relationships have some kind of "I"m done!" period.)
My thought is that the only thing to really do is to regularly and consistently take the baby steps to improve your relationship.
ie: every day, demonstrate in some small way that you thought of her. Dont over do it. Just a small: "I thought of you."
work on improving yourself as best you can. physically and mentally.
From there, it will either work or not work.
Also, make sure that she doesnt get pregnant, keep your debt as low as possible, and try not to have a large income disparity so that you are at risk for spousal support. (ie see a divorce lawyer in your locality so you can decide what risks you have by staying with her.)
Yeah, I keep thinking about it, because I really don't want to do work, but: even if the dude was looking at some kind of horrible, soul destroying, video-from-The-Ring porn, this simply does not follow:
but because of the dirt I've done, I've heard tell from her and inside my head that she won't stick with me once/if she finishes. I'm fine with that, as she bought a product she wasn't sold
If she's gonna leave, she should do it now. Especially if the asker is committed to supporting her till she finishes (which...I dunno, seems like a bad idea; put a time limit on that), her sticking around seems more like she's trying to punish the asker than anything else. 'S fucked up.
25 to 25, also, but not to 17, come on.
I do, however, know a lot of people who negotiated a much more graceful and less vengeful ending thanks to it.
Like the movie where the Uma Thurman character looks at the camera and says, "I am going to negotiate an amicable end to my relationship with Bill."
work on improving yourself as best you can. physically and mentally.
"Yes, you said that you wished to leave me. But that was before I BECAME A GOD."
To add to apo's list, I did the support-after-breakup thing and it's probably part of what helped keep things amicable enough that we're still friends, though I'm sure in other situations it would breed a lot of resentment. I was the one who wanted to get out and I'm sure to some degree I was trying to buy out my guilt, but it's an option. And I do feel much less guilty than I'd have felt if I'd made a clean break and been the one to profit. (Not that the ATMer should aim to be like me!)
Assuming heterosexuality, a man looking at teh gay could be a big issue.
Funny, because the opposite would almost certainly not be a big issue. This feels like sort of a stealthy analogy ban violation, now that I've typed it, but I do think there's stuff there to be unpacked.
Also, make sure that she doesnt get pregnant
Like by using porn?
"being inconsiderate about time place and manner"
Well, to connect the threads of the story, maybe it involved something with the thesis committee and that's why she's not done yet.
eh, the line between a workable relationship and a non-workable relationship is often very thin.
Perhaps most importantly, he needs to really decide if he wants to be with her. Once someone says they dont want to be with us, many people hang on for dear life without examining whether they actually want to stay with that person.
22.4 I don't know the details because it'd freak me out to know in much depth, but I believe my parents would say counseling saved their marriage.
23: I agree completely, which was a lot of what I was getting at with 11.2. If that's really the issue, and she's staying, it would have to be more than an 'I just don't feel that way about you anymore' problem. It would have to be a coldly calculating 'You disgust me, but for economic reasons I can't leave you quite yet' problem. Which I'm sure does happen, but.
We need more details. Where's That Guy?
When she didn't know it existed
What does that mean? She didn't know there was porn on the intertubes? I could imagine that back in the very early days of the internet, but not any time in the last dozen plus years. And was this just porn or were you having sex chats or something like that? Or a serious porn addiction? From your description she's treating it like most people would a serious affair. A few commenters say that's plausible, but I don't think I've known anyone who would react that way to a few episodes of porn browsing, even those who find it fairly squicky.
In any case, what apo said, with the added comment that you might want to look into get shrinked to help you get over the relationship. Letting yourself sink into serious depression would be a bad idea.
22.4 seems like it's going to have serious selection bias, unfortunately. I think people talk a lot less about the relationship traumas that their (current) relationship has weathered than the ones that it hasn't. For example, I don't go around telling people about the painful, repeat-ultimatum-involving situations that led to my getting married, but I'm happy that I did it anyway.
I don't have concrete advice yet, but this reminds me of my parents. They met when they were both high school teachers, or a teacher and a guidance counselor or something. My dad decided he wanted to be a lawyer. My mother worked while he was in law school. I think a fair number of men get put through some kind of post-graduate school by caring spouses and then dump them for younger, hotter versions once they have more earning potential, and I think my parents think they dodged a bullet because that didn't happen. (I can't swear they've both been 100 percent faithful, what do I know, but they still seem happy together, so...) Well, here's a couple in which one partner was supported through school by the other. Now it seems to be ending, but he's trying to return the favor first. If nothing else, that's a good sign.
32
I'm sure to some degree I was trying to buy out my guilt, but it's an option.
I think putting it this way is being needlessly self-critical. Debts matter to people, whether they're financial, emotional, time-and-effort, or whatever. Just because they're hard to quantify doesn't mean they don't exist. Literally trying to buy out someone's guilt would be a crappy thing to do, but that's not what this looks like.
37, 40: Well, I assume it has worked for *somebody* or else there wouldn't be so many counselors out there. And your selection bias observation looks sound. Mostly, though, the couples I knew who were in counseling had one partner who was already planning their post-marriage life and another who was pushing counseling as a last-ditch effort to keep the other one from going. Maybe that says more about my friends than about marital counseling.
Did she not know the porn existed = he made the porn secretly??? Bc that would explain a lot.
39, 43: That turn of phrase puzzled me too. With the next sentence, saying that they're both in their thirties, it seemed as if it was saying "Didn't know the Internet existed" -- like, the porn event was back in 1998 or something. But that doesn't make sense either.
Here's the thing: if the issue really is about porn, you haven't done her dirt unless you've been posting pictures of her. And no matter how much you love her, if the thought that you saw pictures of other people naked (regardless of what parts they're sporting) leads her to threaten an exit, she's got issues you can't fix.
Okay, I have to disagree, conditionally, subject to further information. If both he and she see whatever he did (was the "looked at porn" bit in quotes an e.g.? or the actual deed?) as doing her dirt, then it's doing her dirt in the specific context of their relationship regardless of how any of the rest of us feel about it. Did That Guy know at the time this was something that would be a huge problem for his wife? Did the efforts at hiding it diminish trust and communication?
Guy, as someone who once tried really, really hard to hit the restart button, the best advice I can offer is to lose "I'm fine with that" post haste. For one, you wouldn't be asking the mineshaft if you were really fine with it. But, also, if the dirt was something that undermined her belief that you really love her, then the brave stoicism is going to kill you. If her leaving is going to devastate you, let her know that. I mean, yeah, acknowledge that you understand why she feels that way (as it seems you do) and that you can't force her to forgive or forget. But, if it's true, let her know that you will do whatever it takes to win her love and her trust back. And, of course, that means being open to whatever she says she needs from you as well as being willing to try everything in hopes of figuring it out yourself. Sometimes, the visible effort to make things right is worth more than whatever the particular gesture.
I have to ask, though, why you've ruled out helping with the dissertation or doing everything in the kitchen. To the extent that's reflecting the limits of the lengths you are willing to go to relight the grill of love, that may be part of the answer, too. Which I don't mean as any kind of judgment. Just something to think about.
I do know two couples whose marriages were saved by couples counseling. (We actually saw both of those therapists ourselves, with somewhat less success... ) But, as Apo note, whether counseling saves the marriage or doesn't, the benefit of negotiating a more dignified exit cannot be understated. (Which, okay, we also had somewhat less success with... But at least the counseling helped *me* preserve *my* dignity.)
Good luck.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I'm curious about this:
Literally trying to buy out someone's guilt would be a crappy thing to do.
...Would it? Necessarily? As you mentioned, debts matter. Financial support in the beginning of one's career is kinda huge. And when relationships go south, whatever sort they are, it's not like you can necessarily control how you feel. You can't say, "oh, this person paid my way through school, I will love them now." But the debt is still there. Is it a crappy thing to do to acknowledge the debt, try to repay it financially, as long as you acknowledge that has no bearing on the emotional aspects of your relationship? i.e., it's not like you can buy your way out of an affair; you're still kind of a shit for cheating. But attempting to reciprocate financial assistance by itself doesn't seem like a terrible thing to me.
22.4, 37, 40:
I wouldn't say that counseling saved my marriage, but I would say that counseling (both couples and separate) helped my wife and I put our marriage back together after a period of dishonesty on my part (as in, I think I'm protecting you, but really I'm caught in an insane fear spiral and can't see a way out). In support of apo's 42, however, both of us wanted to find a way to put it back together.
I'd go back to urple's first comment: I'm not sure we know enough to tell how much of this is awful truth and how much is guilty projection on That Guy's part. In either case, Actions Must be Taken. lb and apo are right that even if it doesn't save the marriage, counseling (and I'd recommend a total of three counselors, but a minimum of one for yourself) would be incredibly useful in your getting out of this sane and somewhat healthy.
Links to divorce-grade porn would be appreciated.
For example, I don't go around telling people about the painful, repeat-ultimatum-involving situations that led to my getting married
You could start, though. Right here, right now!
"Done her dirt"? wtf? Isn't this bizarre idiom that I've never heard before the real story here?
Well, I assume it has worked for *somebody* or else there wouldn't be so many counselors out there.
How many treatments persist by virtue of random chance and various selection/retention biases? Plenty of people have earned money by selling magnets to put into your shoes.
Couples counseling is saving my marriage so far but this is for anger management for Gerald, which is a very different issue. We went from daily arguments, frequently lasting 1-2 hours to a small blow-up about once a week.
@43: No, no not secretly made porn. It's just that back in the late '90s, it was possible to meet someone who didn't have a computer, didn't know what was online, and was shocked, in the early '00s, to find out what was.
@45: Yes, the porn led to trust issues, but since I rarely leave the house except to teach, they've been dealt with. It's the ripples from the initial stone that are still around.
@51: I sourced it, it's not that odd.
If TG properly buttfucked her, and she didn't like it, I'm sure he kind find someone who is into that sort of thing.
Meant to mention:
I have to ask, though, why you've ruled out helping with the dissertation or doing everything in the kitchen.
I haven't ruled them out, the opposite in fact: I'm already doing both -- extensively -- and it doesn't seem to be working.
More seriously, if porn viewing from ten years ago seems to still be rippling around the pond, I'd look to see what other rocks have been thrown in over the decade.
With the next sentence, saying that they're both in their thirties, it seemed as if it was saying "Didn't know the Internet existed" -- like, the porn event was back in 1998 or something. But that doesn't make sense either.
Actually, maybe that does make sense. Clearly everyone is having a hard time understanding: "I looked at pornography on the Internet when she didn't know it existed.") (So yes, I'm in my thirties, as is she.)" and also "because of the dirt I've done, I've heard tell from her and inside my head that she won't stick with me once/if she finishes".
It just occurred to me that maybe what happened is that That Guy's wife found out that he regularly looked at some particularly egregious (in her mind) pornography on the internet way back in 1998. That seems like something that, e.g., could have made her significantly more doubtful about a relationship that she already had doubts about, without necessarily triggering a noisy blowup and move out problem.
How well-integrated are the partners? Some people have consistent wants that they understand, others have deep internal conflicts so that they can genuinely hold different beliefs in different circumstances. If consistency or ability to identify what either asker or partner actually want are problems, then one more voice for counseling.
How clear was her statement that she wants out, in particular? Said in the heat of argument or the depths of despair after an academic setback? Does she weigh her words carefully before speaking? At face value, deep guilt over porn is nuts. Does asker overthink circumstances or tie himself into knots in other circumstances? Is this the first deep relationship for either?
I guess 58 came a few minutes too late.
OK, backing up, heebie is right that the first thing to do is to actually find out where she's at. You have to know if she wants things to get better, because, IME, nothing will work if she doesn't.
Do the things you've heard her say indicate that she's really just biding her time because you owe her or that she kind of wishes she could leave, but feels like she can't afford that? I think that second might actually be more workable, because the first one would seem to contain more of an attitude of contempt. I know you are (understandably) a bit frightened and desparate right now, but separating might not be the worst idea, as it would give you some time apart while the wound scabbed over.
55 shows the perils of responding to pre-Paulied Troll of Suck comments.
54.2: Okay, I now feel comfortable saying it's really not about the porn -- that's over a decade ago. Which actually sounds maybe a little more cheerful to me, in that you really don't know what's going on, and possibly there is something fixable that you might be able to unearth in counselling. (When I say "a little", I mean really a very little -- I don't have much experience at all of people with bad marital problems that successfully did get fixed.)
@58: It was 1998, simpler times, simpler porn. It was, by today's standard, R-rated.
@59: Very well-integrated. Inseparable, except for the coming separation. The counseling advice is becoming more and more compelling.
That said, there haven't been any fireworks. No loud arguments, just sad acknowledgments that This Guy wants to attribute to dissertation pressure, which he remembers very vividly as sapping the life from him and allowing him to do a damn fine impersonation of anhedonia.
It's the ripples from the initial stone that are still around.
You're using too much flowery language and too many damn metaphors, and it's hard for anyone to follow what you're saying. If the "trust issues" have been "dealt with", what on earth does this mean? That every time you fight she brings up that filthy pornography you looked at 10 years ago?
the porn led to trust issues, but since I rarely leave the house except to teach, they've been dealt with.
This sounds very weird to me -- if your partner trusts you only to the extent that you're not out of sight much, that's not trust. (Not badmouthing your partner, who I don't know anything at all, but just to give a flavor of how the sentence sounds, if it were coming from a woman talking about a male partner, I'd be thinking about raising questions of safety and abuse.) The weirdness may be in how she's treating you, or in how you're framing her feelings, but there's something off there.
You're using too much flowery language and too many damn metaphors
Didn't mean to be flowery, just that the trust issues from that first, and what to her mind is most shocking, revelation persist; moreover, one reason she's said she never wants to date again is that porn is now ubiquitous and she can't handle that. (I don't even watch it anymore -- too much stomach-knotting guilt involved, which should, to her mind, and she says as much, be a plus.)
This is probably neither helpful nor charitable, but reaching this point over a decade-old viewing of vanilla porn makes me think that she needs individual counseling worse than you guys need couples counseling.
Links to divorce-grade porn would be appreciated.
efukt.com, but I strongly recommend you don't unless you just want to hate the world and yourself.
"Done her dirt"? wtf?
This stuck in my eye, too, and then I decided it was a variant on "done her wrong" and That Guy is Frankie or Johnny, whichever one was the dude.
The weirdness may be in how she's treating you, or in how you're framing her feelings, but there's something off there.
I'm writing two books, she's writing her dissertation, so we're both, by definition, homebodies. Yes, something needs to be done about that, but ... not until she's finished her dissertation, I've finished my books, etc.
71: I know what you mean because that last time I was reading books I didn't want to leave the house until I found out if Harry lived or not.
(Also, my previous comment should register one reason we're still together: who else would put up with either of us?)
In light of 54 and 63, new advice. Since this isn't a fresh wound, separating probably won't help. What you need to do is work through the pain and sense of separateness that you are both experiencing. I'm guessing the "ripples" are really just a general sense that something's broken and a desire to connect it to particular events rather than quotidian drift. We all hurt eachother, in big ways and small, over the course of any meaningful relationship. The question is how you deal with that hurt and how you reconnect in between. You may need something from her that she's not giving you, in the way of love and affection, even if she still feels those things underneath the current stress. The question, again, is what she actually feels, wants, and is willing to do.
46
...Would it? Necessarily? As you mentioned, debts matter... it's not like you can buy your way out of an affair; you're still kind of a shit for cheating. But attempting to reciprocate financial assistance by itself doesn't seem like a terrible thing to me.
That's more or less what I meant, yes. Being rude to people and trying to make up for it with expensive gifts. What you described seemed not like that and needlessly self-critical, although I suppose I might be reading too much self-criticism into your phrasing.
54, 64: OK, so you still love her, but she's saying she's fallen out of love with you and wants out of the relationship as soon as she's economically independent, and the surface reason is that she doesn't trust you because of a softcore porn habit you used to have that ended 10 years ago, but you're hoping the real reason is just dissertation-related stress and depression?
Well, first and foremost, yes, go for counseling, stick with her if you love her, etc. Beyond that, the porn thing seems really flimsy to me. Sure, it can be a big deal to some people, and disturbing kinks and time-place-manner stuff matters, but the second problem doesn't seem relevant and as for the first problem, if 13 years isn't enough to forgive, then wow, she's putting a lot of work into nursing this grudge.
Also, I think 59's question about the "first deep relationship" seems relevant. It doesn't have to be the very first to have been more than the people involved were ready for. If you're now in your thirties, let's assume 35, then in 1998 you were 22. People can change a lot between 22 and 35.
re: 68
Dude, that's still pretty damn flowery. And what 67 and 69.1 said. Not to dismiss the porn thing -- I have known at least one person with a vehement dislike of same, founded in really very good reasons -- but 10 years later, fucksake?!
one reason she's said she never wants to date again is that porn is now ubiquitous
That is, by far, the strangest thing written in this thread.
moreover, one reason she's said she never wants to date again is that porn is now ubiquitous and she can't handle that.
what
77: Given the stated preferences, that makes sense. Anybody she meets is highly likely to be more porny that That Guy.
73 is a particularly bad reason, imho, to be with someone.
It's surprised me that the decade old nature of the dirt looked more hopeful to LB. To me, it looked less hopeful in that if she's still hanging on to something you have attempted for 10 years to make amends for, and keeps throwing it in your face, your situation sounds pretty miserable to me. But I suppose I see the perspective that this could indicate some different, possibly addressable, issue that she is using the porn thing to avoid confronting. If she's willing to try the counseling thing, it could give you both some clarity on what's going on.
At the risk of sounding insensitive, I can't fathom enjoying a happy future with someone who can't get over the porn thing as you've described it after ten years.
On preview, what apo said in 69.1. And "who else would put up with either of us?" was undoubtedly meant light-heartedly but struck me as incredibly sad.
77: Yes, I would think that would be something more likely to be said by someone that loved porn a little too much.
Yes, something needs to be done about that, but ... not until she's finished her dissertation, I've finished my books, etc.
This is a mistake of so many levels. Living your lives in deferal is, I strongly suspect, part of the problem and not the solution.
Good luck with everything, TG. Listen to the guys here, though. They're the best.
77, 78:That doesn't sound all that weird to me. If porn bothered you a great deal, and it does some people, I could see it being very uncomfortable dating knowing that porn is so common and easily accessed that nine out of ten, every man you went out with had viewed a fair amount of it. Even more uncomfortable given that being being that bothered by porn is unusual for a grad student, and explicitly looking for someone who shared your values in this regard would probably lead you more toward devout religious communities than other academic types.
Starting from her position, dating would be disturbing.
Wow, the porn really, really doesn't seem to be the issue.
Is she just depressed? It sounds like you guys have been slogging through dissertations one after another, which can be horrible and distorting in many ways.
Everything you've specified about what's actually wrong sounds a bit undermotivated. If you've reported the situation accurately, maybe it is just done, but it sounds like there's a little more talking to be done.
Between
I rarely leave the house except to teach
and
It's the ripples from the initial stone
it sounds to me like both are pretty fragile, maybe personalities who could benefit from individual counseling. There's a range of counseling styles, and figuring out how to choose therapista that are good fits is probably a useful next step. If you're in a college town with slim pickings, I hope that distance therapists who do skype actually exist.
Does she realize that this is an unusually small pea under the mattress and her response says something about her?
80.2: I think the thing that's unclear (to me, at least) from reading what That Guy has written is whether there have been continual relationship problems since the porn-viewing a decade ago, or whether things seemed basically happy until recently the issue flared up again in the middle of all the dissertation stress. In which case, maybe LB is right.
But, it kind of reads as if That Guy has been unrelentingly guilt-tripped for ten years over something minor, which seems pretty fucked up to me.
Starting from her position, dating would be disturbing.
Let's be honest. Dating is just inherently kind of disturbing.
how to choose therapista
That's a psychologist with an espresso machine.
90: Or an especially militant therapist. Or a hot Latina therapist, which given the circumstances could be either contraindicated or just the thing.
It's no substitute for counseling (don't even think about it!), but if you're looking for reading suggestions, I've found this helpful and insightful.
one reason she's said she never wants to date again is that porn is now ubiquitous and she can't handle that.
Of course I have no idea, but this makes me wonder if there may be some independent, potentially serious, issues. My ex-wife had a complete revulsion to the idea of anyone using porn, stemming from a very strong association between porn and an abusive ex.
And on the ubiquity thing in particular: a couple years ago, in one of those pre-breakup, "what do you like about me anyway?" conversations, high on the list of things my then-girlfriend cited was "you're not all porny," by which, she clarified, she meant that my mind wasn't "mired in porn". I thought that was a very weird thing to single out, and got hints of a specific bad history lurking behind it, too.
The reminder is probably not needed since this is from yesterday, but you could do worse than approaching relationship issues by asking yourself, "What would this guy do?"
It is starting to sound like you both have more serious problems. Not leaving the house and becoming fixated on single problems for long periods of time both sound like signs of clinical depression to me.
If I had a really big house and no need to work, I could see myself not leaving the house much.
Do not wait until she's done with her dissertation to go to counseling.
By which I mean, do not table things until she's done. A very close friend did this until she finished her dissertation, and then she finished her dissertation, and the situation didn't change, but there was a new urgent external situation to wait on, and then another, and then another.
Your relationship is worth a stupid hour per week at counseling, or getting out of. Do not wait, though.
Oooookay. Things seemed to have progressed. I'm gonna come squarely down in the "get individual counseling, encourage your wife to get individual counseling, and go to couples counseling" camp. Assuming you can't afford to do all of those at once, I'd prioritize them w individual for TG, then couples, then the wife.
One big mess.
I'm sorry, TG. I really hope it gets better.
but there was a new urgent external situation to wait on
"How can we work on our relationship when people in Egypt are being clubbed by pro-government thugs?"
To raise something else that's probably not really an issue, but the way the original question described the situation it sounded like maybe it might be -- TG, how do you feel about her completing her dissertation? That is, it sounds like you think that when she's done, so is your marriage -- is that turning into any kind of conflict about her finishing? Because that would be complicating, and something you should think about clearly if it's happening at all.
I'm still feeling pretty good about 2.
Also my therapist used to say that nearly everyone enters couples therapy after the point that the marriage can be saved, but (like everyone said before) it's incredibly valuable anyway. But she definitely felt that if people had entered couples' therapy earlier, when there was more goodwill left on both sides - not just the person who wants to stay together - then some of them could become happy relationships.
103: And new bike wheels!
... monster.
I agree with 2 and 99. 51 is ok; I've heard the phrase but it seems oddly out of place here, given that the reported transgression is not what I guess one could call a direct harm.
Jesus Christ this sounds like emotional abuse. Having to deal in a long-term way with someone else's untreated phobias as if they are reasonable, normal fears will do a fucking number on you. I have never understood how anyone could stand being in a very long relationship with someone who makes them feel like everything they do is shit, but of course 73's "who else would put up with either of us?" says so much. Who ever said that being in a shitty, resentful relationship in which you're calculating how much each has done for the other, and what you "owe" them, is better than being alone? Yeah, after what you've been through, it's probably going to be difficult to have a healthy, mutually trusting relationship for a while. Doesn't mean you should continue to allow yourself to endure more damage.
The thing that finally got me out of a long-term abusive relationship was realizing that I was getting something pretty powerful out of feeling like I was taking care of someone who couldn't really function on his own, when really I was making him feel functional when he wasn't, so he wouldn't get help. If TG's wife has some intense phobia about porn and he's gotten so used to indulging it enough to feel terrible for 10 years about it, they've already done each other way too much dirt. Get out.
My vote is to go to individual counseling to figure out why you feel that you deserve to be in such a lousy relationship.
Ok, maybe that is a little harsh.
But, what about this relationship are you interested in? It doesnt sound like it has any value to you.
Also I have some sympathy on the porn abhorrence. I have a similar abhorrence of strip clubs, even though as an industry it's probably got a wild spectrum of not-so-bad to detestable. And even though I know well-adjusted people can have well-adjusted reasons for occasioning one. But I just viscerally hate them.
109:
Even on a birthday?!?!?!? Birthday trip to the strip club?
I have a similar abhorrence of strip clubs
What about privately hired strippers?
It's way too cold out! Online birthday porn is way better.
I understand that people have ultimatums about porn or strip clubs or whatever, but it's very very cruel to continue a relationship with someone who violates your ultimatum and make them feel like they're so lucky to get to continue being your shitty, undeserving, groveling partner. Just break up and find someone who also hates porn.
Will should be punished for 110 by having to spend the rest of his birthdays at Chuck E. Cheese.
109: But your comment makes it clear that you realize that this is slightly irrational on your part. If the situation with TG was his wife saying "I know it's irrational but I just hate porn so much, that I really need you not to look at it" and then dropping it because he actually stopped, that'd be something it'd be easy to be somewhat sympathetic to.
Also, I agree with AWB.
114. Now I'm envisioning a Chuck E Cheese mouse in pasties and lucite heels.
I'm no expert in relationships, but I like to give advice. I think you should be very precise about what you did, what she did, and, to the extent it's possible, figure out why she wants out. In concrete terms. And then ask yourself, is what she's asking of me reasonable? Is this something I'd have agreed to ex ante?
Is the issue really that you looked at porn ten years ago? And she says she wants to divorce you, in the present, for that reason? It's hard for me to believe that. But I understand you love her, and you believe it. Maybe this has created cognitive dissonance. I think that might be what's behind the abstract language you've been using.
107, 115: I'd agree with this if I was sure that Mrs. Guy was making it explicitly about the porn. I'm sure TG is calling it like he sees it, but his sense of the situation seems pretty, um, processed? If what's going on is that the marriage seems to be in trouble in some complexly trust-related way, and TG has theorized that it all goes back to that porn thing way back when, he might be reporting his theory about what her issue is, rather than her actual issue, or even what she says her actual issue is.
||
Woohoo! Irritating case that's been hanging on for ages just finally settled, and I got the first big check. Even though I don't get to keep the money, I like big checks.
|>
I've told this story before, but when I started dating Max, he'd been in a 10-year marriage with someone who kept trying to convince him that his desire to have sex with her was offensive and disgusting. But instead of saying, listen, I don't want to have sex with you any more, her goal seems to have been to make him feel as though he was the most disgusting person in the world. She would tell him he was allowed to have sex with her, as long as she could lie completely still and it wouldn't last longer than 60 seconds, and then she'd yell at him for hours about how gross he was. (Meanwhile, she was, of course, having sex all the time with some guy from work.)
Max had previously exclusively been involved with women who really enjoyed sex, so I had such a hard time figuring out why, if sex was so important to him, and he knew what it was like to be in a relationship with someone who felt the same, how he could put up with being treated like that for so long. He came out of that relationship so hurt and broken and self-loathing.
Not wanting to have sex with someone is totally reasonable. We have the right to make decisions like that. But taunting, shaming, manipulating, and humiliating people for wanting to have sex?
What's the point of working for the government if you don't get to spend some of that big check on strippers and porn?
I like big checks
Allow me to be the first to recommend Pavel Novotný.
118: Yeah, I guess it's possible that she just doesn't have a spark for him and he's trying to figure out what, specifically, he can be ashamed about.
Thank goodness that people cannot make rational decisions and thank goodness couples have such poor communication.
118
I'm sure TG is calling it like he sees it, but his sense of the situation seems pretty, um, processed? If what's going on is that the marriage seems to be in trouble in some complexly trust-related way, and TG has theorized that it all goes back to that porn thing way back when, he might be reporting his theory about what her issue is, rather than her actual issue, or even what she says her actual issue is.
I disagree. 68 seems relevant here.
one reason she's said she never wants to date again is that porn is now ubiquitous and she can't handle that. (I don't even watch it anymore -- too much stomach-knotting guilt involved, which should, to her mind, and she says as much [emphasis added], be a plus.)
Seriously, "stomach-knotting guilt" should be reserved for things that are, you know, wrong, not a matter of aesthetic preference.
125: I'm sure nosflow would take issue with that.
125: Indeed, and if TG can no longer tell the difference between those two things then he needs to get out.
I'm pretty sure Mrs. Guy wouldn't characterize her abhorrence as a matter of simple aesthetic preference, AWB.
128: Fuck that. If I ever meet someone who thinks watching porn is morally wrong, but fully understands that it's not really in scale with things like committing actual rape, I'll be shocked. There's a kind of slippery-slope bourgeois feminism that likes to say that this or that is basically exactly the same as rape. Hearing the word "cunt" is rape, watching porn is rape, having to wait in line at the dry cleaner is rape. No, actually, rape is rape. Clicking on a website is not.
I'm sure she wouldn't. But she'd be mistaken.
If anhedonia and isolation are potential issues, standard advice to exercise, preferably outdoors, and to get out and do something you enjoy (hiking, throwing clay pots, whatever) seems like it's in order, independently of therapy.
Mrs Guy isn't Mongolian by any chance?
Suggest you make a practice of looking at the internet together and spice things up a little.
I.e., if your obsessive 10-year vendetta against your partner is based on them having once clicked on a website, you either need to get some actual problems, or you need to sort your emotional shit out.
If I ever meet someone who thinks watching porn is morally wrong, but fully understands that it's not really in scale with things like committing actual rape, I'll be shocked.
I'm not sure I even understand this sentence, unless you're using 'morally' in some technical sense that I don't full appreciate. Have you never met a conservative religious person?
125: I have no doubt that Mrs. Guy actually sees it as more than a matter of aesthetic preference.
Have you never met a conservative religious person?
Ask will. He's the one who goes to strip clubs.
134: Uh, I grew up Southern Baptist. My church was practically wallpapered with pictures of terrified, crying children under slogans about how this is what pornography does. (It rapes children? Children get raped when I masturbate?)
There is that whole god killing a kitten thing.
Urple, I can't help but be curious how she would characterize it. It doesn't necessarily affect the answers that are seeming inevitable here (see item 2 above), because it's being presented in a necessarily partial way. But I'm curious about the person who, in this story as we have it, appears to be 1) a joyless sadist and 2) worth any amount of groveling. Partly I'm curious because I've just been completely unfair to TG who is a person with reasons--what is the thing that transforms this from a story that provokes disbelief to just another tough situation, which it must be in the steakosphere. Nobody stays in a story like the one we've been told.
If she didn't know about online porn until the early 00s, I'd hate to see what happens when she finds out about unfogged advice threads.
Suggest you make a practice of looking at the internet together and spice things up a little.
But maybe start with the G-rated porn.
seriously, just because something is morally okay for you doesn't mean the Guys don't have the right to decide (individually, and as a couple) what their moral standards are. and 129 just seems like a huge strawman. i'm kind of shocked at the idea that people exist who think porn = rape. but we certainly haven't been given any info suggesting Mrs. Guy believes this.
Nobody stays in a story like the one we've been told.
People stay in openly abusive relationships right up to and including getting themselves murdered.
Sifu Tweety and AWB is right. The guy needs to bail. He doesn't have any kids. Just break up.
"Max had previously exclusively been involved with women who really enjoyed sex, so I had such a hard time figuring out why, if sex was so important to him, and he knew what it was like to be in a relationship with someone who felt the same, how he could put up with being treated like that for so long. He came out of that relationship so hurt and broken and self-loathing."
This is probably a gradual thing. If you have kids, it is hard to break up with someone so things just get worse. Things were probably pretty good at the start.
The issue isn't whether pron viewing should be a major moral transgression. Most of us think it shouldn't, but it really doesn't matter. The issue is whether it's okay to continue a relationship after a major moral transgression when it's clear that the transgression is unforgivable. To my mind, the answer is a clear no. Either you forgive the transgression and move on, or it's unforgivable and you get out. Since it seems to be the latter, Sifu nailed it back in 2.
but we certainly haven't been given any info suggesting Mrs. Guy believes this.
If clicking on a website 10 years ago results in a permanent icing out and shaming, and this is actually from someone who has a reasonable moral scaling procedure for violations of the relationship, I'd hate to see what her punishment is for, like, kissing someone else. Death?
i'm kind of shocked at the idea that people exist who think porn = rape
And it seems that the only reason TG hasn't scrammed already is that he is afraid of being alone. When a relationship is about to end, it is easy to romanticize it when you're afraid of the alternative.
Nobody stays in a story like the one we've been told.
Oh, I think they do. And worse. AWB's friend, for example. Currently I have a cousin who is putting her husband through a ridiculous, ridiculous hell -- she moved her girlfriend in; turns out she only married him b/c she thinks you shouldn't have children w another woman. (What? Whatever.) So, she had the kid, and then went out and got a girlfriend. And moved her in. Husband's scared to leave b/c house is in her name, custody of the kid, etc. Talk about buying something you weren't sold, right? (This cousin is, obviously, batshit insane.)
Although I guess I had trouble understanding how someone could love someone who was a frequent asshole to them until I went ahead and did it myself. It kinda sneaks up on you, I guess? And frequently those people aren't all the way bad?
I would say, though, from the little we've been told, no matter what the details, it's almost certainly a situation that TG shouldn't be in. Regardless of who's at fault or what happened, it's become toxic.
On the 129-144 train, it is strange how I don't get the feeling from descriptions that Ms. Guy is super religious like the fundies of AWB's background. I'm not sure why; maybe just because TG has been around here and I assume the very pious wouldn't hang about? And there wasn't any mention of big differences in faiths in their problems.
147 gets it right. But counseling is still a good idea. TG still loves her, whether anyone here thinks that is wise. He owes it to himself, at the very least, to work through that with someone who can help sort out how this became The Unforgivable Sin.
I don't want to turn this into a discussion of pornography per se, but it's crazy to me that everyone here just dismisses this out of hand as an absurd thing to be bothered by, or to treat as a moral issue at all (rather than a mere aesthetic preference). Would you as quickly dismiss someone who thinks eating meat is wrong and immoral?
Honestly, not wanting your partner to look at porn is an aesthetic preference in pretty much exactly the same sense that not wanting your partner to have sex with other people is an aesthetic preference. It's conceivable to characterize it that way, but odd to dismiss it on that basis.
149: Just seeing the term "Fun-Fems" makes my blood boil.
Sifu is right in #2; everything else is noise.
154: My guess, and only from the double-grad-student thing, is that we're looking at a feminist-type anti-porn position, with personal revulsion in it as well, rather than a religious-type anti-porn thing. If it were a religious issue, that probably would have come up already.
154: Oh, I wasn't suggesting that Mrs. Guy is religious, but the rhetoric of "porn is rape" is one of the many things the fundamentalists and the radical feminists happily get in bed together for.
156: I would have a very similar reaction to someone who made a huge guilt-inducing deal over someone eating meat 10 years ago. Also, analogies are banned.
The issue is whether it's okay to continue a relationship after a major moral transgression when it's clear that the transgression is unforgivable. To my mind, the answer is a clear no. Either you forgive the transgression and move on, or it's unforgivable and you get out.
That depends on what your options are, doesn't it? Economic duress has kept a lot of people in a lot of unhappy relationships for a long time, and it sounds like Mrs. Guy might be feeling some of that (although hard to say, on the details we have).
Now, that doens't explain why Mr. Guy would stay in the relationship under those circumstances, but that's a different question. (That he's already basically answered: self-loathing.)
It just astounds me that people can pronounce this marriage dead based on, what, 500 words or less description of the problem? (And, urple, I'm with you that treating porn as a moral issue is perfectly valid.)
145 People stay in openly abusive relationships right up to and including getting themselves murdered.
This is sort of what I mean. The story is never so simple as it looks from the outside or everyone in an abusive relationship would say "oh hm, you know what? I don't like being abused. Could you call me a cab?"
There is that whole god killing a kitten thing.
Nah, he outsources it to local limited-kill shelters.
Rehashing the great porn debates is awesome and all, but I'd like to restate my agreement with myself and endorse lb's 118.1. If TG is who I think he is (I'm pretty certain he is, but I really don't want this comment to translate into rounds of out loud speculation) this decade old porn thing is not the only episode that would produce issues of trust or communication.
Regardless, I don't think that's the real issue here. I think TG is looking for threads to make the mysterious loss of that loving feeling make sense. Because his presentation doesn't make any sense to us, we're having to inflate his claims wildly in order to have the whole thing hold together.
but it's crazy to me that everyone here just dismisses this out of hand as an absurd thing to be bothered by, or to treat as a moral issue at all (rather than a mere aesthetic preference).
I think the reaction here is getting flattened out by the magnitude of Mrs. Guy's reaction to a minor (on the scale of possible porn events) transgression a decade ago. That seems wacky enough that people are overstating how obviously unobjectionable porn is.
I've gone off about how creepy strip clubs are here, and I'd need a fair amount of persuasion not to think of regularly patronizing strip clubs as a moral offense. Porn bothers me less, but there are arguments for finding at least some porn usage morally offensive that I can respect, even if I don't go all the way with them. But that doesn't get me anywhere near Mrs. Guy's reaction.
Would you as quickly dismiss someone who thinks eating meat is wrong and immoral?
As a vegetarian, I'm deeply embarrassed by the "meat is murder" crowd. I think eating factory meat does involve one in economic forces and practices that are pernicious, but so does buying practically anything. If you thought meat was really morally equivalent to murder, or if that even made any fucking sense to say, your life would be an intolerable hell. If you really thought that watching a pornographic film was morally the same as committing rape, you would be haunted by the fact that you are surrounded, every time you leave your house, by terrifying, unrepentant, daily-rape monsters.
not wanting your partner to look at porn is an aesthetic preference in pretty much exactly the same sense that not wanting your partner to have sex with other people is an aesthetic preference
Um, is there no difference between seeing and doing? When you read a book, does it literally happen to you? When you watch a movie about a serial killer, do you become guilty of murder?
Would you as quickly dismiss someone who thinks eating meat is wrong and immoral?
To the extent that they shamed and punished the people they were close to for holding different opinions, or occasionally eating meat? Yeah, probably, assuming it wasn't kiddie or rape porn. It suggests a reaction totally out of proportion with the offense, to the extent that it's reminiscent of splitting in people with BPD. Or, absent an actual personality disorder, crazy fucking zealots. TG's wife is free to have that opinion, but then I'm free to dismiss her as A Crazy Fucking Zealot, or, at the very least, someone I don't want to hang out with.
165
True. I blame romantic comedies and dramas, and our natural ability to trust our feelings at the expense of common sense. Most leads in romantic movies should be thrown in jail for their creepy stalkerish behavior.
What about the feeling Apo mentioned in 69 where some porn makes you hate the world and yourself. I know there is stuff out there that can make me and most of the rest of you feel like this. (Its not even always porn. Actually The Giving Tree makes me feel like this.)
If a person is having this kind of reaction, even if they are having it to mild R-rated 90s internet stuff, I think it would be wrong to call the reaction merely aesthetic. It is based on moral emotions, even if they are missapplied.
And, just to complete my pwnage, what's the deal with people who use the term FunFem? Fuck right off, you sanctimonious turd.
152: Ok, I've been completely unclear. What I mean by "nobody stays in a story like this" is not that people don't stay in bad situations. It's that the version we have is simpler than what is being lived. In the version of what TG is going through that exists in Unfoggedspace, almost anyone would say "love is one thing but being endlessly punished is another, and there's more love out there." There is more to this, inevitably, as you can't sum most things that happen in real life up in a blog posting.
Build a pit and give them each one of these:
http://tosh.comedycentral.com/video-clips/cold-steel-blade
It rapes children? Children get raped when I masturbate?
I'm not on board with the porn=rape argument, but there's still a bit more to it than this.
125: I'm sure nosflow would take issue with that.
Indeed. Classing someone's dislike for or even abhorrence toward pornography and its consumption as an aesthetic preference rather than a moral issue is almost mind-bogglingly tendentious. (As if—for one—having certain aesthetic preferences couldn't itself be a moral matter!)
174
Even more true. You can never know what's really going on in a relationship, and the participants are the worst kind of unreliable narrators.
I don't want to turn this into a discussion of pornography per se, but it's crazy to me that everyone here just dismisses this out of hand as an absurd thing to be bothered by, or to treat as a moral issue at all (rather than a mere aesthetic preference). Would you as quickly dismiss someone who thinks eating meat is wrong and immoral?
Depends why they think it's immoral. It's quite obvious that the porn industry has some serious ethnical problems, (an old co-worker had worked for a dvd pressing factory where he had the not quite pleasant task of watching new porn titles to see if the actressed wheren't drugged up and/or underage), but from what's been told here it does seem her reaction is more one of offense at her man having the gall to look at another woman, that she thinks it's icky.
What's twisted is wanting to stay in a relationship with somebody who holds a grudge for ten years. You can stab and kill somebody with a knife and only get 7 years, as long as you're in California.
If you thought meat was really morally equivalent to murder, or if that even made any fucking sense to say, your life would be an intolerable hell.
Idea: let's all read Elizabeth Costello!
Surely, AWB, you don't believe that the only possible objection someone might have to viewing pornography is that one thereby becomes a rapist. I mean let's try to be charitable.
When you watch a movie about a serial killer, do you become guilty of murder?
I could imagine that if you paid to watch a snuff film with the knowledge that you were thereby financing the production of further snuff films, that would be pretty bad.
getting flattened out by the magnitude of Mrs. Guy's reaction to a minor (on the scale of possible porn events) transgression a decade ago
What was her reaction, exactly? Making clear that she didn't like it, when she found out about it? Making clear that she thinks it's the sort of thing he should feel guilty for doing?* I haven't heard any other specifics, so it's a little hard for me to judge the magnitude or her reaction. Both of those seem like fairly minor and straightforward reactions. The rest of what I've heard is vague psychoanalysis by Mr. Guy, which I'm not putting a ton of faith in at this point.
*I don't read "(I don't even watch it anymore -- too much stomach-knotting guilt involved, which should, to her mind, and she says as much, be a plus.)" as a statement that she's been holding a single porn incident over his head for 10 years. (I asked this in 66 and didn't get a clear response.) It sounds more to me like a simple statement by her that his feeling guilty about watching porn is a positive sign--a good moral trait. Which is exactly what you'd expect from someone who thinks of porn as immoral.
where some porn makes you hate the world and yourself
But, as reported, the comparison is somebody who is horrified by the violence of the Daniel Berg beheading video such that they don't want to date because pro football is ubiquitous.
169.2 is nonsensical. Of course there's a difference between seeing and doing, but there's no reason (other than aesthetic preference) for it to be a morally significant one.
180: Let's not be giving people ideas.
it does seem her reaction is more one of offense at her man having the gall to look at another woman, that she thinks it's icky.
Ill jibes with the claim that she's claimed that the ubiquity of pr0n would make dating intolerable for her.
To the extent that they shamed and punished the people they were close to for holding different opinions, or occasionally eating meat? Yeah, probably,
IMO if they really thought that eating meat was wrong and immoral (a position that I'm pretty sympathetic to), it would be really strange if they got on juuuuuust fine with people they were close to eating meat. (Unless the hypothetical meat-is-wrong person holds that eating meat is a pretty venial sin, which is a possible position.)
178: I feel like an asshole sometimes referencing my very brief time as a therapist because it's so fucking When I Was A Therapist, but there were some interesting things I thought about then, so sometimes I do it anyway. Ahem. When I Was A Therapist, I came to realize that, in that position, you have to abandon the idea that you're ever getting a fair account of the client's interactions with the people s/he talks about in therapy. Almost that you can't do any good if you think you're getting a fair picture. Also, when you are a blog comments section.
In isolation either the "she might be emotionally abusing him by holding over the 10 year old porn incident" or the "she might be emotionally abusing him by threatening to leave in a couple years" wouldn't be too conclusive, but the two of them together is what makes me inclined to read each of them uncharitably.
has some serious ethnical problems
For example, almost no Asian guys in straight porn at all!
182: Well, their marriage is in significant trouble. If the issue is the porn, ten years after the incident, that's a wackily disproportionate reaction just because of the duration.
If That Guy is trying to make it sound like this is a relationship worth saving, he should probably try to make his wife sound like slightly less of a deranged asshole.
||
Completely unrelated, but can I just say how awesome it is to have a government that finds it more important to stay pally pally with the Americans by refusing to refuel the Iranian justice ministers plane than try and get one of their citizens not hanged in Iran and which is now also making clear that too much democracy in Egypt might be a bad thing, because scary Muslims?
Carry on.
| >
There's no understanding people. She doesn't sound like a deranged asshole to me.
189: The difference btw seeing and doing doesn't ipso facto make seeing okay.
187
Isn't that the primary theme of the television show "House"? Everybody lies, and in order to treat them you need to see through those lies?
This isnt really that complicated.
She is entitled to her views.
He is entitled to live with her even though it makes him miserable.
It would seem healthy for him to try to figure out why/whether he wants to stay.
She doesn't sound like a deranged asshole to me.
But then look at the music you listen to.
195: Fine, it's not OK to her. Having a strict moral code for yourself and your household is something people choose for various reasons. But if seeing something is the worst thing your partner has ever done, and you'll never ever forgive them for it, I'm with F--let them go.
I'd just like to point out that this ATM is a great example of why one might be reasonably wary of dating grad students. (Not meant in a snarky way, Parsimon!)
Also, sweet christ, Apo wasn't kidding about 69.2.
I'm also really not clear on whether That Guy was hoping we'd have helpful responses on how to save a marriage or that we'd say tell him to bail. He's saying that he can't think of any way to salvage things on his own and that he doesn't want things to fall apart completely, but I'm not sure whether hearing, "Nope, you're right, things look pretty much fucked and there's no way out!" is going to be reassuring to him. I'm inclined to think yes, or at least somewhere tending toward yes.
Well, their marriage is in significant trouble. If the issue is the porn, ten years after the incident, that's a wackily disproportionate reaction just because of the duration.
Right, I agree, but my point was that's a huge and IMO unlikely "if". And this seemed to be the consensus in the first half of this thread, but for some reason now everyone seems to be taking the statement at face value, and calling her crazy.
There's no understanding people. She doesn't sound like a deranged asshole to me.
I'm seeing the germ of a solution to all of this.
Every so often I warn people that this or that link is one they really would be better off not seeing. That's not a warning I hand out frivolously.
195: I'm more in wonderment that actually performing an act is not morally significant from some other act.
I remember having a lot of conversations with people about my abusive relationship that started with, "We love each other a lot! And things are great! Breaking up is out of the question! There's just this one thing he does, and it's not that big of a deal, but you know... What can I do to get him to understand how much I love him so he'll stop?" IIRC it was getting a billion letters in this format that made Dan Savage coin DTMFA.
206 is to say that, if you're at the point where you're asking other people what they'd do, but all the evidence you give is stuff that you know will sound unreasonable, then some part of you knows you want out. Maybe the wife is a completely reasonable person who is not insane and vindictive. So why is That Guy presenting her in that light if his goal really is to make the relationship work?
196 Yes and no, as far as therapy is concerned. For a therapist, lop off the last part of "see through it" because you'll never have the input to do so. Realize this, instead, and that the help you can offer is not so straightforward as understanding an objective situation, fairly presented, and helping to sort through it.
Also, sweet christ, Apo wasn't kidding about 69.2.
Apo is pretty trustworthy about these things. You should heed his advice.
199: Perhaps. But I still want to push the counseling thing, first. I can't help but wonder if the Mrs. maybe has some serious sexual hangups (perhaps raised to believe sex is dirty? perhaps bad experience of feeling like nothing but an object?) and so the porn thing feels particularly damaging to her, like maybe when they are intimate she starts seeing his enthusiasm as porny or something? Wild conjecture, obviously. But before we collectively condemn the woman, it would be good for the Guys to explore the issue with a therapist.
205: I don"t think that was the argument though. It's possible to see infidelity as worse but porn as still bad.
DTMFA.
This was very nearly the content of comment 2 but one, it seemed trite and two, I couldn't figure out who was the A.
I think Heebie's original advice is excellent, and also that Apostropher says some very, very wise things in 22 -- pretty much what I like to think I would say if I were at my most thoughtful and articulate. Anyhow, I endorse Apo's comments wholeheartedly.
I have to say I find the turn to questions of moral and aesthetic philosophy or whatever by Urple et al. in the middle of this conversation a little distasteful, dickish, and besides the point. Maybe that's just me; I'm not trying to police the conversation.
To Smearcase, of course we're not getting all of the story or an evenhanded account. But from what we do know -- (a) and express or implied request to hang out in misery until a dissertation is completed, even though divorce will soon follow; (b) the sin of viewing porn in 1998 is the unforgivable act that has somehow (perhaps with other things, perhaps not) poisoned the relationship -- I'm pretty comfortable with AWB's point that there's something like emotional abuse going on.
205: He wrote that there needn't be a "morally significant difference," not that either "might not be morally great."
206, 208: Which is probably part of why I am being evangelical about marriage counseling -- that was the first place I ever had those conversations.
214: I meant that it's perfectly possible for someone to have no problem if their partner enjoys having sex with someone else, or if their partner enjoys watching someone else have sex. It's also perfectly possible for someone to have a real problem with their partner having sex with someone else, but not have a problem if their partner enjoys watching someone else have sex. It's also possible for someone to have a problem with their partner either having sex with someone else or watching someone else have sex. And it seems silly to me to treat the difference in these last two positions as a mere "aesthetic preference", but to treat the difference in the first two as some sort of more significant "moral" issue.
154: Oh, I wasn't suggesting that Mrs. Guy is religious, but the rhetoric of "porn is rape" is one of the many things the fundamentalists and the radical feminists happily get in bed together for.
There are "many" things like that?
The last sentence of 218 didn't make any sense, because I rewrote the rest of the comment but forgot to rewrite the last sentence. But I think it was clear enough what I meant. If it wasn't, let me know and I'll try again.
I recently had drinks with the brother of my ex-GF, and he was telling me about how he was dating this new woman who was so great, but there was just this one little thing she was doing on their first few dates (humiliating him, forwarding emails to him from her friends in which they assessed him to be unattractive and probably gay, trying to sneak up on him in public places with her daughter, whom he was not ready to meet after two dates, etc.) that he wished were different even though he was pretty sure she was The One. I was sitting there aghast, thinking, oh, this is how people get involved in situations like this.
he wished were different even though he was pretty sure she was The One
Fresh out of a failed relationship, was he?
I would really like to figure out how to be the emotional abuser in this kind of a situation. It sounds great! Hey you asshole, you saw a picture of a penis online in 1998! Now, you horrible person who has betrayed me, give me money, work three jobs and support me even though I'm sure to leave you soon! You just love me and need me that much!
223: He is a psychotherapist with little self-awareness about his intense cra-dar (to borrow a term from Smearcase). If someone exhibits really obvious symptoms of BPD and is not his patient, he cannot help but fall in love.
224: well, TG might be single at some point.
Also, analogies are banned.
What if years ago it was agreed to ban analogies but people keep coming up with them? Who would stay in a situation like that?
Could someone point me again to the evidence of Mrs. Guy's emotional abuse, anywhere in Mr. Guy's own words?
228: oh, you wouldn't believe what you can find on the internet these days.
228: Telling him she plans to leave him as soon as/if she finishes dissertating probably qualifies.
228: Telling him she plans to leave him as soon as/if she finishes dissertating probably qualifies.
228: It's just a theory, but if someone feels "stomach-knotting guilt" about having "done [his wife] dirt" about having clicked on something on the internet 10 years ago, and it wasn't child/snuff porn, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there's something pretty damaging going on.
228 is sort of a repeat of 182. But the leap from 'she strongly dislikes porn' to 'she's crazy and emotionally abusive' seems to be happening awfully quickly, or at best with intermediate steps that are based on very incomplete information and very shaky inferences.
so what do you do if you know/have intense but (for her) guilt-filled biweekly hookups with/are maybe falling in love with someone who's in an abusive relationship? it just came out that her boyfriend hits her, made her stop pursuing main hobbies to spend more time with him, has somehow divined that there's something going on between us and yells at her every time she gets a text from me, etc. she'd always been vague on why she wasn't leaving him for me given how absurdly compatible we are. it is now maybe slightly more clear. my first reaction would be to kick the shit out of this Ralph Lauren-ass motherfucker. but I'm not sure what that would accomplish. is there something I can do to make her leave faster, or do I have to let her do that on her own time?
Having both 231 and 232 together in a single paragraph without a whole lot of other information is what's raising a red flag for me.
so what do you do if you know/have intense but (for her) guilt-filled biweekly hookups with/are maybe falling in love with someone who's in an abusive relationship? it just came out that her boyfriend hits her, made her stop pursuing main hobbies to spend more time with him, has somehow divined that there's something going on between us and yells at her every time she gets a text from me, etc. she'd always been vague on why she wasn't leaving him for me given how absurdly compatible we are. it is now maybe slightly more clear. my first reaction would be to kick the shit out of this Ralph Lauren-ass motherfucker. but I'm not sure what that would accomplish. is there something I can do to make her leave faster, or do I have to let her do that on her own time?
so what do you do if you know/have intense but (for her) guilt-filled biweekly hookups with/are maybe falling in love with someone who's in an abusive relationship? it just came out that her boyfriend hits her, made her stop pursuing main hobbies to spend more time with him, has somehow divined that there's something going on between us and yells at her every time she gets a text from me, etc. she'd always been vague on why she wasn't leaving him for me given how absurdly compatible we are. it is now maybe slightly more clear. my first reaction would be to kick the shit out of this Ralph Lauren-ass motherfucker. but I'm not sure what that would accomplish. is there something I can do to make her leave faster, or do I have to let her do that on her own time?
so what do you do if you know/have intense but (for her) guilt-filled biweekly hookups with/are maybe falling in love with someone who's in an abusive relationship? it just came out that her boyfriend hits her, made her stop pursuing main hobbies to spend more time with him, has somehow divined that there's something going on between us and yells at her every time she gets a text from me, etc. she'd always been vague on why she wasn't leaving him for me given how absurdly compatible we are. it is now maybe slightly more clear. my first reaction would be to kick the shit out of this Ralph Lauren-ass motherfucker. but I'm not sure what that would accomplish. is there something I can do to make her leave faster, or do I have to let her do that on her own time?
so what do you do if you know/have intense but (for her) guilt-filled biweekly hookups with/are maybe falling in love with someone who's in an abusive relationship? it just came out that her boyfriend hits her, made her stop pursuing main hobbies to spend more time with him, has somehow divined that there's something going on between us and yells at her every time she gets a text from me, etc. she'd always been vague on why she wasn't leaving him for me given how absurdly compatible we are. it is now maybe slightly more clear. my first reaction would be to kick the shit out of this Ralph Lauren-ass motherfucker. but I'm not sure what that would accomplish. is there something I can do to make her leave faster, or do I have to let her do that on her own time?
the leap from 'she strongly dislikes porn' to 'she's crazy
The intermediate step there is "never wants to date again [because] porn is now ubiquitous".
240: The quoted sentence seems clear enough -- from her *and* from inside his head.
if someone feels "stomach-knotting guilt" about having "done [his wife] dirt" about having clicked on something on the internet 10 years ago
Re-read his comment, because that doesn't seem right to me. I think he said he feels stomach-knotting guilt about looking at porn now, which is part of why he doesn't. Not that he still feels horribly guilty about having done it 10 years ago. His 'done my wife dirt" phrase is weird, but fits in with all the other flowery turns of phrase he seems to like to use.
If his wife hates for him to look at porn, and has made that clear to him, and he's presumably agreed not to, then he should feel guilty for looking at it. That's not amotional abuse on her part.
Honestly, it doesn't have that much to do with porn, although if we're being honest I really do think that any reasonable person would say that having that particular kind of extreme reaction to porn alone is ridiculous or evidence of deeper issues, and I don't have much sympathy with the notion that some people have that kind of reaction to porn, which may be true but it's also true that some people are fucked up.
But if he'd fucked a male donkey in 1998 and she'd held it over his head for 13 years as the "done dirt" that was unforgivable (but not unforgivable enough for her to get out of the relationship! at least until she's done with the dissertation!) I think that would also qualify as a kind of emotional abuse.
234: That only works in movies. Run.
234, 236-239: Oh man, you really should remove yourself from that situation until she's out of it. I know that's not the advice you want, but I can't see that story ending pleasantly.
This guy needs to follow the principle "solve a small problem by making it bigger." He should sleep with somebody else and confront his wife with the evidence and then say "see, what I did ten years ago wasn't such a big deal, was it?" Passive aggression heals all wounds.
250: "sleep with somebody else" should be "go star in his own gonzo porn video"
244: what the hell does the last half add? If he heard it from her, what does the inside of his head have to do with anything? To me, the statement read more like he half heard it from her and half inside his head, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that's more like 10%/90%.
240: yes, in fact TG's phrase was "heard tell from her" [that she would leave him] which does not necessarily mean "she told me". could mean anything. flowery language considered harmful, i think.
252: Sounds to me more like "she has said and I believe her", but who knows?
Or "like a winner", if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
251: That would be better. What the internet needs is an advice column which provides the really obnoxious answers that most letters deserve.
252: Honestly? I read it as, "She told me, but I'm trying to convince myself it's all in my head." But, as Apo said, who knows?
Apostropher gets it right again in 249. Honestly it may be that the best favor you can do her is by making clear that you can't be with her in that kind of a situation, but are there for her when she gets out of it. And by encouraging her to get herself a therapist.
And by encouraging her to get herself a therapist.
And a Kevlar vest. Maybe one for you as well.
255 is also possible. But what did he hear? Somehow I'm doubting she said 'I won't stick with me once I finish my dissertation." It wouldn't surprise me if the part she "said" was just that she's been feeling unhappy in the relationship, and the part he heard inside his head was that she's leaving when she finishes school. But, as you said, who knows?
I'm kind of wondering about "only realized the depth of said love after I'd done her dirt" - 10 years of realizing? Or 10 years of trying make things right? Either way, uh, comment 2, again.
Also the aside about "even though she'll run out of funding come June," combined with the later "she won't stick with me once/if she finishes" makes me wonder how much TG actually wants her to finish. I don't doubt that he wants to help her finish, if she is going to finish.
And something about the use of the "dirt" phrase not just once, but three times, bothers me. It sounds like a pre-made phrase, carefully placed for rhetorical purposes in a context where the particularity of the situation calls for clearer language. But maybe that's just an aesthetic preference and I lack charity.
240: yes, in fact TG's phrase was "heard tell from her" [that she would leave him] which does not necessarily mean "she told me". could mean anything. flowery language considered harmful, i think.
I would say that "heard tell from her" is a phrase only used to describe hearsay or offhand rumors, so it's logically impossible to have heard tell from her about what she herself thinks.
This:
He is a psychotherapist with little self-awareness about his intense cra-dar (to borrow a term from Smearcase). If someone exhibits really obvious symptoms of BPD and is not his patient, he cannot help but fall in love.
is, no joke, a big reason I decided not to pursue a career in mental health services way back when. Some people should not be around crazy. I am one of them.
249 and 259: are you talking about physical danger, or emotional danger? physical danger I'm not worried about, as I'm bigger than the boyfriend. maybe that's naive but. the only relevant metric to me is what gets her out of the situation the fastest.
265: What about physical danger for her? Aren't you concerned that if he gets hard evidence of your relationship he might hurt her even worse than usual? You can't save her while raising the stakes of her abuse.
I'm not accusing you of actually wanting to expose her to greater suffering, or blaming you for whatever her psycho BF does, but if I were you I'd be worried about making her situation even worse out of some misguided desire to bring it to a crisis.
212: I couldn't figure out who was the A.
The "A" is always already.
265 -- I was talking about emotional danger, mostly, though you're not bigger than a gun. But that's a horribly messy situation to be in the middle of, and I think you would both help to end the abusive situation more quickly and help your own (and her) sanity by extracating yourself from it and encouraging her to do the same. Making clear that you're there for her once she's worked herself to the other side of the nightmare. I know that will be painful and probably isn't what you or her want to hear.
An abusive boyfriend is too often one drunken rage away from homicide.
though you're not bigger than a gun.
For most people, and most guns, he probably is. Not that that's going to help him much.
270: Truer words were never spoken. Happens all the time. People are crazy, people.
270 is not helpful advice. My first recommendation would be to contact a local domestic violence center and ask what their best advice is.
And not to kid around heartlessly, this situation is dangerous for her and for you. Like everyone else said, you need to tell her that you'll support her in getting away from him, but it's probably a bad idea to keep on sneaking around with her behind his back.
Or what apo said is probably a better idea. I don't actually know what your most productive course of action is, but a domestic violence center should.
Yeah, I'm not so hung up on the porn/no-porn aspect of the post. I know some people (who are, indeed, bourgeois feminists) who have, what seems to me to be, an irrational hatred of pornography, while being perfectly pleasant and well-ideologized otherwise. I don't know that I would fall in love with one of them, but I could see why people would. It's the whole "she's finishing her dissertation and the expectation in the relationship [whether explicitly stated or not] is that I will support her until that time, at which point, all other things being equal, our 15 year partnership will end" that seems completely off the deep end. I know people who've been in similar situations, and as practically everyone has said, it never ends well. Urple, I think the issue is not so much "is this situation emotionally abusive?" as "what possible emotional good could ever come out of such a fucked-up situation for either party?"
from what she says (she's reticent about it and I think I'm the first person she's told), the abuse seems to be more on the "he's slapped me a few times" rather than the "regular beatings, potentially homicidal maniac" end of the spectrum. the guy comes off perfectly normal in person - in fact I actually kinda liked him (before I found this shit out, obvs.).
By the way, and I know this is probably something you already really know, but trying to beat up the abusive boyfriend yourself is just about the worst possible thing you could do, IMO.
she's never for example had noticable bruises.
277: Bear in mind, especially if you are the first person she's told, that she may still be minimizing.
182
I don't read "[stomach-knotting guilt that she has explicitly said is good]" as a statement that she's been holding a single porn incident over his head for 10 years... It sounds more to me like a simple statement by her that his feeling guilty about watching porn is a positive sign--a good moral trait. Which is exactly what you'd expect from someone who thinks of porn as immoral.
I would disagree. To me that looks like, maybe not frequent abuse, but the kind of thing that has been reinforced over the past 13 years. Maybe she keeps on reminding him of whatever it was. Maybe there was the 1998 incident and they had an argument about it and he kept looking at porn after that for a while but he eventually quit on his own out of guilt, which isn't abusive but isn't healthy either if he couldn't stick to their agreement. Maybe there was some kind of thing in 1998 but she just found out about it recently for some reason so it's actually a recent, sensitive issue. Or maybe he quit in 1998 and never went back to it but kind of resents her for it - but that's also not abusive but not healthy. In any case, though, it looks to me like an ongoing issue, and/or much more recent, than you seem to think.
233
228 is sort of a repeat of 182. But the leap from 'she strongly dislikes porn' to 'she's crazy and emotionally abusive' seems to be happening awfully quickly, or at best with intermediate steps that are based on very incomplete information and very shaky inferences.
Several bits from 230 to 242 on seem relevant.
As for incomplete information, no, we don't know for sure that she's abusive. Few of us have psychiatric training and those that do can't diagnose him through comments, we're only hearing his side of the story, and we're only hearing it in vague terms. But the story as we're told seems to be that she's still actively blaming him for something 13 years ago that is relatively minor*, and she's planning on leaving him ASAP but isn't cutting him loose yet. Either the story is missing big, important details - which, again, is totally possible, but he's commented more than once and has had plenty of chances to elaborate - or she's treating him like shit.
After the "she's abusive" hypothesis, the most likely one seems to me that she's more or less normal but he's deeply depressed. Definitely possible, it just doesn't seem like the more probable situation.
* Yes, I know our mileage may vary on exactly how bad porn is and that's beside the point, but, again, he described it as R-rated stuff on the Internet. That's a Playboy, or maybe at worst a Penthouse, on the computer. Many perfectly healthy couples have recovered from much worse than that. If there aren't big, important facts we're missing, then I can't imagine a non-abusive person holding a grudge over that for this long.
278: Yes, could we get gswift in here to give us some concrete examples of why that is a bad idea?
Since this is the horrible crisis thread, can I relate my own tale of woe? My kid was just kicked out of preschool. For what strike me as reasons so trivial and innocent as to make the punishment almost criminally insane. I am so goddamn worked up about this!! Fortunately it seems that there's another school that may work out.
in fact I actually kinda liked him
But you're fucking his girlfriend? As someone who has had sex with a lot of people who are in primary relationships with other people, I'll say this one really doesn't sound like a good idea to me. You know she has a boyfriend. You know the boyfriend thinks the relationship is supposed to be monogamous. You know the boyfriend has a temper. You know she's lying about it because her goal is to remain in this relationship. It wasn't a single drunken act of passion, but has happened frequently enough to be described according to a schedule. Fucking her didn't magically make her want to leave him, so that alone is probably not an effective strategy. You can't get her out of this while being involved with her.
Said reasons being...?
It really is pretty shitty to fuck with a preschooler's stability and consistency of care without pretty strong reasons.
283: Oh no! Can you share more so that I can either worry about whether Mara would do such a thing or reassure myself that her school is more easy-going and she'll definitely be safe there? There's no way we could find something more convenient than hers.
For what strike me as reasons so trivial and innocent as to make the punishment almost criminally insane.
I told you not to leave your gun just anywhere.
So, I just want to throw out there that the woman in the situation described in 234-239, omit 235, could be lying to dz.
283: reasons so trivial and innocent
Internet porn?
...especially since it sounds like dz has checked her for bruises...
289 seems highly possible to me, in either direction.
And dz could in turn be lying to us. Oh, the tangled web.
OP and 276:
A nerdy roommate of mine once described this as "programmed relationship death". And it never worked out right. It's just a way of being lazy/non-confrontational that causes more harm than good.
Here were the offenses. Bear in mind that my kid is 3 years old (and just fairly recently turned 3). I swear I am not leaving anything out:
1) Not getting into line in the proper order when her name was called for lunch, and then having a tantrum. Apparently, this happened twice.
2) During an enrichment class, the other kids were told to lie down on the floor. She said she didn't want to, and had a tantrum.
3) During the tantrum described in (2), she made a motion towards biting and hitting one of the teachers, but did not actually bite or hit or seriously attempt to bite or hit the teacher (i.e., she made a biting and hitting gesture out of range of the teacher).
4) In September and October, she'd had some difficulty transitioning into the school and had also had some tantrums. These seemed to go away completely last fall.
5) There was one incident, and the teachers can't tell how this started, where she got into a fight with a smaller girl (my kid is big for her age). The teachers found the smaller girl on top of my kid, hitting.
As a result of incidents 1-5, we were told -- without any prior notice that this would happen -- that we needed to find another school. Oh, and this was all done through a one-off conversation with my ex on 2 hours notice yesterday, not a sit-down meeting with both parents.
Am I wrong that this is completely fucking insane? This is a school that has a bunch of super rich kids, and that I think has no other divorced parents. It seems likely to me that I'm a victim of either wealth discrimination (though I'm a fucking corporate lawyer, goddamnit) or anti-divorce discrimination. Obviously, if the school is going to act like this I'm just as glad for her to go someplace else, but I am so mad. She had a bunch of friendships there, etc.
I mean, he couldn't figure out why she didn't want to leave her seemingly nice boyfriend for him because she was so obviously racked with guilt and they so obviously were meant together and she told him something that neatly answered all of those questions while simultaneously being something he can't address without escalating in horrible, day- week- or life-ruining ways, and that he is bound by basic ethics not to share. Lotta things could be going on, there.
But the story as we're told seems to be that she's still actively blaming him for something 13 years ago
But my point is that Mr. Guy hasn't told this part of the story at all... people are inferring it. Look at your own 281.1. There is one "maybe" of this possibility, and several other maybes that have nothing to do with this.
Well, some people bruise more readily than others, and not all physical abuse leaves bruises.
You have to slap somebody pretty damn hard to make them bruise.
Oh, and by the way, the first time we were told about incidents (2),(3) and (5) was yesterday, during the "we're kicking your kid out" conversation.
Are you considering the profession-appropriate solution?
283/296: That does seem excessively harsh and summary. I know these things are taken more seriously than when we were children, but it still seems like pretty normal toddler/pre-school misbehavior to me, not indicative of anything other than the fact that 3 year-olds are not known for their great impulse control.
Conclusion: Sue the bastards!
I just got a "behavior report" today that says my preschooler kicked another kid in the head at school yesterday. Absolutely no other details at all. I have no idea what happened, or whether to be concerned, or upset, or not, or what. I also don't know if there are any sort of consequences to him with the school, or if this is just an fyi, or what. Weird.
296: That's totally fucking ridiculous, as I see it. None of those or anything like them would be grounds for termination from Mara's program. All I really know that gets you kicked out is not paying your bill or not showing up often enough. Ugh.
That is bizarre on multiple levels, Halford.
301: That's ridiculous. They're running a preschool, and they can't deal with tantrums? In any case, 2 to 296.
305: And did you ever end up moving your son to a new school?
that I think has no other divorced parents.
I know this is technically possible, but it just sounds jaw-droppingly unlikely. It's not like divorce is notably difficult in California or anything, right?
At least when one of my daughters' classmates got kicked out of first grade last year, he was chasing after kids on the playground with a knife.
Perhaps the parents of the other toddler involved in incident 5 are also litigators, but with a more apposite specialty. Or perhaps the parents of the other toddler spent a boatload on the private Richard Simmons exercise class at last year's charity auction, and you do not fuck with people who spend a lot at the auction?
I don't know that you want your kid to stay there, but I'd be annoyed enough to schedule a meeting with the most senior person I could find at the preschool, asking for policies that explain their decision, contemporaneous records of the behavior, policies relating to communication with parents about behavior issues, and so on, and take a lot of notes during the meeting. Just to screw with them.
309: no. The parents who were super upset and complaining to the school (and thereby causing the school to complain to us) decided to pull their kid out of the preschool over the whole thing, since they didn't think the school was responding to the situation aggressively enough (i.e., throwing out out kid).
299, 300: I was trying to make a humorous allusion 292 to a prior comment thread. It was stupid anyway.
As for horrible crises, I just had a fight with Mr. Wonderful about, of all things, parenting philosophy. Now I am sad.
315.1: huh, in context 300 is funnier than I meant it to be. Also, Kobe!
To 310, I'm pretty sure that there are no other divorced couples in the school (there may be formerly divorced folks on a second marriage, of course, but no one else with a two-household, joint custody situation). There have been some weird comments from the teachers about "home issues" that set off my alarm bells in the past, or that might just be paranoia on my part. Who knows, but the school's behavior just seems so mysterious.
BTW, she's generally totally sweet and well behaved at home and has always seemed to me to be well on the "easy" side of dealing with three year olds. I know I'm biased, but still.
315.2: For some reason I was thinking he didn't have kids. Does he?
Di, aren't you something like a month or two into this relationship? That seems mighty early to already have had fights over religion and parenting.
314: Well, glad it worked out for you! The bully/mean girl in Mara's class is no longer there, either because her mom graduated or stopped paying, I assume. I'm glad that there's no one saying, "Are you a boy or a girl?" and whatnot. Plus, now it's a class of eight.
315: Is he a parent? A lot of people don't have parenting philosophies, plus theory and practice differ a lot there. Has he gotten to seen how well Rory's turned out? Surely he'll see the light!
296: So that's at least four tantrums and a fight since the start of this school year? It does sound like some kind of a problem with her (although what do I know about kids, etc.), and expulsion as a first step does sound ridiculous. 301 sounds like the detail that was the school's biggest mistake/sin/whatever.
Where's the "anti-divorce discrimination" part come from, though? Your kid is more badly behaved than other kids, but the school should make allowances and they aren't? (Sorry if that sounds snotty, maybe I should rephrase that example, but I genuinely don't understand.) Other kids do these kinds of things, but they get ignored and your kid gets judged for it because she comes from a broken home?
He doesn't have kids, no. Just opinions. The religion thing wasn't a fight. It was a freak out/panic thing. But, yes, too serious, too fast, I know.
You have to slap somebody pretty damn hard to make them bruise.
Obviously, I know "broken home" is not the preferred term. Carry on.
He doesn't have kids, no. Just opinions
I hope this really just means he has opinions, and doesn't mean he has criticisms of your parenting.
321: Cyrus, like Mr. Wonderful, does not have kids...
Di, have you had a chance to watch porn together?
I've heard of pretty serious discrimination against kids of divorces in schools, just because when they have drawing time or conversations about family and the one kid of divorce starts talking about going to Mama's house this weekend or whatever it's so profoundly disturbing to the other children.
I love that we had the things-going-well-in-relationships thread and now we're having the things-going-terribly-in-relationships thread. Balance! Balance in all things!
To 321, the anti-divorce discrimination is the explanation for what I think is the bizarrely harsh remedy and potential singling out of my kid. I'm not pleading for special treatment, you asshole. And I'm pretty sure that other 3 year olds have tantrums.
although what do I know about kids, etc.
Not very much, it doesn't sound like. Three year olds throw tantrums all the damn time.
And depends on what's a tantrum, of course. Assuming ordinary tantrums, four since the beginning of the school year is nothing. (And for a three-year old, a 'fight' is nothing. Newt's best friend, I first became aware of the day Newt came home from preschool with a serious teeth-shaped bruise on his stomach where Ben had bitten him.)
325: Just opinions, though opinions at odds with mine in certain important respects. But Thorn is probably right that he'll see the light when he sees the awesome results I've obtained with my haphazard approach. And I probably shouldn't rehash the whole thing here in the event it remains too serious.
327: No. Because, in fact, I am morally opposed!
in context 300 is funnier than I meant it to be
Zack Snyder had this same problem.
Kids getting treated unfairly by adults at school is really angering. Talking to someone senior definitely sounds worthwhile, is asking for a different class still at the same school possible? The teacher may be unilaterally deciding.
good luck.
333.1: If it's any comfort, most people without kids have ridiculous opinions about raising kids that mostly have to do with either repeating or avoiding whatever was done to them.
And I probably shouldn't rehash the whole thing here in the event it remains too serious.
Alternatively, you should read 104 and take it to heart. (Substituting "The Mineshaft" for "couples' therapy", of course.)
336: I see no reason to restrict that to "people without kids".
depends on what's a tantrum
This is the only thing that gives me even potential pause. But she hasn't had anytantrum around me for at least 6 months, and the ones before then were noisy but over in 10 minutes kind of things. Apparently, the school lunch line one was provoked because she tried to be the first one to go in line, they told her she had to watch everyone else go into there lunch before she could have lunch, and then kept crying until the lunch period was over, which also kinda makes me hate the school.
335: Kids getting treated tweeted unfairly by adults at school is really angering.
Kids today have it much worse than when we were growing up.
338: Nor to "about raising kids..."
227 made me laugh. (As did 300, though I couldn't figure out how to joke about it in good taste).
339: Is this the Lowood Institution by any chance?
296, if accurate, is entirely crazy. As someone said above, if a preschool can't handle kids having tantrums, it should be shuttered. No, it should be burned and the earth where once it stood should be salted.
Regardless, I'm terribly sorry, Halford, as it sounds like this means a lot of hassle for you and potentially some heartache for your daughter. As I think about it, that's the really outrageous part: a little girl who had a difficult transition will now have to negotiate another transition. As your attorney, I advise you to bring a torch and salt to your meeting with the head of school.
339: Wow, that's awful and totally irresponsible on their part. I'm very glad that I did ask for special accommodations for Mara that take into account that her history might not be the same as that of the other kids in the class. In one specific, I said that they didn't have our permission to use food as a reward or deprivation as a punishment. I wouldn't be willing to put her specifically in any school that did that, but I don't think it's good for any kids.
It does sound like some kind of a problem with her
Your professional diagnosis has been noted. Seriously, really? Because she had a few tantrums, at least two of which were in response to transitioning into a new classroom? I mean, the child in question is three! Three is the new two! Meaning, it's terrible!
I dunno-- preschool classes should have a timeout corner as a standard feature. Lots of parents I know have had odd frictions with preschool management, for whatever it's worth, policy is probably a booklet no-one reads. I'd ask the boss about switching teachers if my kid liked the school, I think.
Possibly I'd make the point wearing tight leggings and a codpiece to subtly suggest that they're insulting a likely repeat customer.
There needs to be another adjective to use for three-year-olds. The Threatening Threes? The Turbulent Threes? The Turbid Threes?
they told her she had to watch everyone else go into there lunch before she could have lunch
This can't be serious, can it? If it is, you need to get her out of that school right now. Honestly, the transition to a new school will be tough, sure, but it will be worth it.
Gah, now I'm seeing red. Torches and salt!
Is this an oversubscribed school with a long waiting list to get in? I wonder if someone's trying to free up a space for a friend's kid.
351 gets it exactly right. I want to punch someone.
349: Fair enough. Obviously, as other commenters and myself already made clear, I don't know anything about kids. For the record, I did say from the start that I think the school's response seems "ridiculous", but my first comment on this topic was so bad that I'll stay away from this issue unless I think of something brilliant enough to balance that out.
hey told her she had to watch everyone else go into there lunch before she could have lunch
If this just means that as a consequence for pushing to the front of the lunch line, she had to go to the back of the line, so the wait period was just the length of time it took the whole class to walk into lunch, it doesn't sound that awful to me. But there's no reason for the school to get bent out of shape over her being weepy about it.
353: Paranoid Familiar with how crazy it can get in the big city, of course.
Not actually first hand -- my kids went to a low pressure preschool, without serious waiting list issues. But one hears stories.
Sue. Everyone. The school, all the teachers, all the other parents, everyone. That's ridiculous.
I do hope that we hear a little bit more from That Guy before the thread moves on completely. I am curious if he will provide any more information.
That said, I agree with everybody who thinks that the school's behavior was absurd.
336: That is comforting, sort of. And I know his parents well enough to know that's largely where it's coming from. I think I am mostly hypersensitive since his attitude sounded a little too familiar... And parenting/my relationship with Rory, of course, is territory I'm pretty fiercely protective of. I don't know.
If the school is licensed by the city sue the city too.
And parenting/my relationship with Rory, of course, is territory I'm pretty fiercely protective of.
As well you should be. If there's one thing people getting involved with single parents need to be clear on, it's the fact that they are not actually in the same position of authority wrt the child as the single parent is.
363: HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST PRESCHOOL FOR YOUR CHILD
The Ultimate Guide to Finding, Getting Into, and Preparing for Nursery School
Your child was not accepted to any preschools-now what?
Your worst fear comes true. You applied to a bunch of preschools and your child isn't accepted to any of them. There's not much I can say to make you feel better because frankly, it sucks. BUT if this happens to you, try to remember it's not the end of the world--you do have options!
And in several of those options you and your child are allowed to live out your lives!
And in several of those options you and your child are allowed to live out your lives!
You're so provincial, Stormcrow.
367: And, to be fair, he does understand that. I just hadn't really thought through how important it would be to me that he genuinely support my parenting rather than just go along with it. Which, again, he very well may when the situation actually presents itself. The degeneration of the discussion into defensive sarcasm, however, was not fun.
To 352, it is indeed an oversubscribed school with a long waiting list. And parents have complained that it is currently too crowded -- apparently, there are more kids there than in the past. It could totally be a free-up-a-space move.
The incident described in 339 wasn't just going to the back of the line. The kids are apparently called up individually, go and get their shoes, and then go out to lunch. She got up to get her shoes before being called individually, and then had a tantrum, so they brought her to another corner of the room and wanted her to sit and finish crying while staring at all the other kids getting their shoes, grabbing their lunchboxes, and going to sit down for lunch. That just seemed bad and overly harsh to me when I first heard about it, but now it is seeming affirmatively abusive for a three year old.
And parents have complained that it is currently too crowded
It's definitely too crowded if a fight progresses to the point of having one kid atop another with fists flying before the teachers get around to seeing what's going on. FFS.
Sorry, just got back, thanks for the advice, now I'm gonna go read it and respond.
I just hadn't really thought through how important it would be to me that he genuinely support my parenting rather than just go along with it.
I'm no expert in relationships, but it seems to me that it might be useful for you to say this to him in those words. If he understands it's something that's an important emotional trigger for you and not an abstract theoretical conversation, that gives him the chance to make more loving/affirming choices in the future. That sounds cheesy, but I don't have a better way to put it right now.
374: Believe me, I know. But if "The teachers found the smaller girl on top of my kid, hitting", they're not keeping on top of things enough, because you have to expect that kind of thing with 3-year-olds.
I would say that "heard tell from her" is a phrase only used to describe hearsay or offhand rumors
In fact, the phrase lacks clarity.
"Heard tell" describes hearsay. "From her" means, well, from her. All of That Guy's communications are frustratingly muddled. ("Processed" was LB's description in 118.)
That Guy may be an insufficiently skilled communicator to understand the actual problem - his level of understanding may be accurately reflected in his words.
Regardless, That Guy needs to work a whole lot harder at communicating with his wife. (Therapy is probably the right idea.)
378: Yeah, I know almost nothing about therapy, but therapy seems to make a lot of sense for someone who can't seem to actually talk about what's going on. Just being able to accurately describe the situation and call it by name sounds like it would be a huge improvement.
@75: OK, so you still love her, but she's saying she's fallen out of love with you and wants out of the relationship as soon as she's economically independent, and the surface reason is that she doesn't trust you because of a softcore porn habit you used to have that ended 10 years ago, but you're hoping the real reason is just dissertation-related stress and depression?
Yes, this exactly. If I hang around, be really supportive, when that stress goes, I'll still be here. There's a real question as to whether she'll even finish, though, because she's out of funding and we're not wealthy.
I think 59's question about the "first deep relationship" seems relevant.
I'm not seeing that, but yes, it's certainly true of me.
@81: I can't fathom enjoying a happy future with someone who can't get over the porn thing as you've described it after ten years.
There are other trust issues, completely unrelated to sex, involved, but detailing them might out me. So, let me just say, I've done other things, completely unrelated to fidelity, that speak to the trust issue.
@85: Even more uncomfortable given that being being that bothered by porn is unusual for a grad student, and explicitly looking for someone who shared your values in this regard would probably lead you more toward devout religious communities than other academic types.
She grew up in a strict religious community and has always had body issues -- finding out about the porn exacerbated them.
@102: That is, it sounds like you think that when she's done, so is your marriage -- is that turning into any kind of conflict about her finishing?
No, I absolutely want her to finish it -- so much so I've done a lot of the secondary reading, which is WAY out of my period, just so I can assist. I also want her to finish it for her, as she needs something tangible to take from the terrible experience of grad school.
@107: The thing that finally got me out of a long-term abusive relationship was realizing that I was getting something pretty powerful out of feeling like I was taking care of someone who couldn't really function on his own
I wish I felt powerful, but all I feel is physically and emotionally drained all the time.
@108: But, what about this relationship are you interested in?
The her she was, and the we we were before the dissertation. The trust has never come back completely, but before it was much better.
@117: Maybe this has created cognitive dissonance. I think that might be what's behind the abstract language you've been using.
That's just how I write sometimes.
@140: But I'm curious about the person who, in this story as we have it, appears to be 1) a joyless sadist and 2) worth any amount of groveling.
Yes, I told the story in a partial way, but not inaccurate. I want advice from smart people, so providing inaccurate information would be beside the point.
@148: I'd hate to see what her punishment is for, like, kissing someone else.
I've gotten in trouble for much, much less.
@163: Economic duress has kept a lot of people in a lot of unhappy relationships for a long time, and it sounds like Mrs. Guy might be feeling some of that (although hard to say, on the details we have).
She's absolutely feeling that. I'm the only one being paid to work -- she writes her dissertation for free -- and she doesn't want to do something like move back in with her parents. The other thing is, difficult as it is to believe with all this, is that we actually are great friends. You can't be a couple of shut-ins if you don't like the company you keep. I'm just trying to find a way to make her love it again.
No, I absolutely want her to finish it -- so much so I've done a lot of the secondary reading, which is WAY out of my period, just so I can assist.
What kind of assistance is this going to be?
dz: if the woman you're sleeping with isn't lying, you're not qualified to make any decisions with regard to "how to get her out of this." Aside from the rather obvious point that she's not going anywhere if she doesn't want to (and so far, as Sifu's pointed out, her behavior as described is not encouraging), the suggestions you've already made indicate that a) you don't have the requisite training to assist someone who actual wants to leave a genuinely abusive situation, and b) all of your imagined crisis-resolutions seem to involve you in an obviously heroic way. Getting involved in a situation that's potentially dangerous for her when you have your own agenda for the role you want to play is, aside from being a really bad idea, really, really irresponsible.
The above sounds really judgy. I mean...it kinda is, in the sense that I think acting on all of those things would be really wrong (as is, as AWB pointed out, continuing to sleep w her even though it might cause an escalation in danger). But I get feeling that way. I would too. I have. I think the impulse is normal, but it's also kinda immature. And acting on it is hopefully way, way beneath you.
Seriously, though: get the fuck out of that situation. Offer to put her in contact with the people you talk to at the domestic violence hotline, or something. But GTFO.
Thanks for responding, That Guy.
381 is a lot to process, but it feels like a more concrete description of the situation than what I had gotten previously.
I'm just trying to find a way to make her love it again.
Again, I'm going to devolve into cheesy sentimentality, but I don't know if this is something you can control. The book Jimmy Pongo linked far, far above might be pertinent, though. I'm going to check it out myself, since I was the one stinking up the happy relationship comments with my complaints.
What kind of school is it that takes 3 year olds? Or is this just a terminological thing, and it's a nursery?
Terminological, I guess. We say "nursery school" for pre-Kindergarten.
Thanks everyone for the support. I am really sad and angry about this.
386, 387: In the US, we generally call childcare for that age "day care" if it covers all the hours that a working person would be likely to need child-care during, and "nursery school" if it's a shorter period that's sort of a socialization/enrichment kind of thing. I'm not dead sure which Halford's is, though.
Further to my 382: That is to say, what kind of assistance would you be giving that requires your knowledge of her period? Isn't general reading for argument enough, with maybe some proofreading and formatting help at the end? She's gotta write the damn thing herself.
And given that you're talking about the stuff being out of your period (and not field), does that mean you're in the same field? If so, encroaching on her particular territory there, especially from a position of relative authority (you've got a PhD and she doesn't), seems potentially dangerous.
The her she was, and the we we were before
That's got to be the number one reason people persist in bad relationships. Good relationships are wonderful, and most bad but long term ones were good once, and there are generally still moments and aspects of that past that remain once things have turned bad. However, while nothing is impossible, the odds are against a really screwed up relationship getting back to that point. On the other hand, staying in the bad situation can be deeply damaging to both sides.
You can't be a couple of shut-ins if you don't like the company you keep. I'm just trying to find a way to make her love it again.
Time to remind her (and yourself) that you are Elastigirl? Then you have to go be Elastigirl. If you're already being a superhero around the house, then you should go become interesting again in other contexts. So you have other stuff to talk about again. It feels like a dicey strategy, because I'm sure you want to hang tight and make sure she isn't slipping away. But she fell for you once while you weren't clinging to her. It could happen again. And, this approach has the benefit of buffering you in case you become single again.
Halford, I gotta say that I enthusiastically endorse LB's suggestions to fuck with them. God do they deserve it.
Hi, That Guy. Glad you got back to us. It still does sound like there's depression involved, and it's a shitty enough situation that you should get help with it. I really hope that's an option.
@182: What was her reaction, exactly? Making clear that she didn't like it, when she found out about it? Making clear that she thinks it's the sort of thing he should feel guilty for doing?
Freaked the fuck out, got on a plane from where she was to where I was at the time; went from having some body issues to having extreme ones based on comparisons that weren't even valid (assuming I had a "thing" for the type of woman who happened to be in that one video); etc.
@192: If That Guy is trying to make it sound like this is a relationship worth saving, he should probably try to make his wife sound like slightly less of a deranged asshole.
I really wasn't going for that, because I don't think she is. Or, if she is, she's my kind of deranged asshole and I still want to be with her.
@201: I'm also really not clear on whether That Guy was hoping we'd have helpful responses on how to save a marriage or that we'd say tell him to bail.
I didn't know either. I've thought myself into many corners on this one, and thought some perspective from others would be helpful.
@253: in fact TG's phrase was "heard tell from her" [that she would leave him] which does not necessarily mean "she told me".
Yes, I was using "heard tell" in the "roundabout" sense, not necessarily a flowery one.
@261: But what did he hear? Somehow I'm doubting she said 'I won't stick with me once I finish my dissertation."
There's this other country she wants to do post-graduate work in, but she needs to find some sort of way to support herself, etc. Of course, her dreams about that other country are driven, largely, because it's an escape from the misery of writing the dissertation. So, she finishes that, misery goes, the dreaming returns to flights of fancy instead of escapes from life.
@281: After the "she's abusive" hypothesis, the most likely one seems to me that she's more or less normal but he's deeply depressed.
I wouldn't say that's wrong.
@380: Just being able to accurately describe the situation and call it by name sounds like it would be a huge improvement.
It's a giant, confusing situation -- marriages this old always are -- and I was trying to find the best way to sum it up. If anything, it's not "processed," but the opposite, and trying to tell the story in a brief and coherent fashion is difficult.
@382: What kind of assistance is this going to be?
What it's been: talking her through rough patches, letting her bounce ideas off of me, looking over what she's written, etc. It's just that her period is so far afield of mine that I can't just do that professorial thing where someone throws unfamiliar ideas your way and you can say something intelligent about them.
And given that you're talking about the stuff being out of your period (and not field), does that mean you're in the same field? If so, encroaching on her particular territory there, especially from a position of relative authority (you've got a PhD and she doesn't), seems potentially dangerous.
It's not like that: our discipline holds such multitudes that I would, without some hefty background research, been utterly fucking useless to her.
@391: Then you have to go be Elastigirl. If you're already being a superhero around the house, then you should go become interesting again in other contexts.
I'm trying, but being interesting to someone in the middle of a dissertation is a difficult thing to be. The whole world is seen through the dissertation -- and I remember that all too well -- so unless those things are dissertation-related, they're not likely to make me more interesting. Becoming more helpful to her, however, has given us a lot to talk about.
From what you said in 381, I think we probably got overfocused on the porn. Not that it doesn't sound like a thing, but it doesn't sound like the whole thing, which is what made her sound a bit peculiar.
There's this other country she wants to do post-graduate work in, but she needs to find some sort of way to support herself, etc. Of course, her dreams about that other country are driven, largely, because it's an escape from the misery of writing the dissertation. So, she finishes that, misery goes, the dreaming returns to flights of fancy instead of escapes from life.
This doesn't sound at all like "I'm leaving you when I finish my dissertation" to me. Are you worried that your marriage is over because she's really raised that as a possibility, or is that something you're afraid of because she's unhappy and you think she may be thinking it?
Sure, she's not going to notice anything much until her dissertation is done. But you're not going to become Elastigirl overnight either. No matter what, you're prepping for the day her dissertation is done. One day she's going to blink, look up and stagger out into the sunlight. She might walk away or her eyes might focus on you for the first time in ages. Surely you want to be all glow-y in tights and a cape and the wind blowing through your hair when that happens.
what kind of assistance would you be giving that requires your knowledge of her period?
Fertilization.
Freaked the fuck out, got on a plane from where she was to where I was at the time; went from having some body issues to having extreme ones based on comparisons that weren't even valid (assuming I had a "thing" for the type of woman who happened to be in that one video); etc.
Therapy, therapy, therapy! I can absolutely see where she's coming from, but that's also the sort of issue that would have taken some working through even without the porn angle.
It's just that her period is so far afield of mine that I can't just do that professorial thing where someone throws unfamiliar ideas your way and you can say something intelligent about them.
This is exactly the dynamic I am worried about.
The other thing is, difficult as it is to believe with all this, is that we actually are great friends.
Not uncommon in dead marriages, certainly true at the end of mine. A healthy sex life would be much greater cause for hope.
Apo's 22 is exactly right.
1) If you set out your problem in a way that makes it look all incredibly obviously not your fault, while giving amazingly few relevant details and expressing everything in really indirect and metaphorical language, you will certainly get the advice you want, but only by pure chance will you get any advice of any practical usefulness whatever.
2) Go down the nursery school and have a tantrum of your own. Bridges are now totally burned and now all you can do is establish that you're not a punk. Sometimes a little bit of revenge is the best therapy.
pick whichever reply you feel suits your case best.
It appears that I am going to have to threaten somebody (relevant to dz's case). It's the husband of a good friend, who has begun to smoke and drink a little too much, and who is allowing his temper to get away with him, too often, in an unacceptable way and in front of the kids. He's not actually a bad bloke, but he needs to give up the weed for a while and this isn't going to happen without a fairly dramatic confrontation.
On past experience of similar situations, this is going to be a total drag for me, with a whole lot of inconvenience and not a little risk, plus it will take all my reserves of personal charm and half my deposits in the local favour bank to get it done and make sure John Law keeps his nose out. But, duty calls. Grrr and shit.
Turbulent Threes s/b Truculent Toddlerhood
So, she finishes that, misery goes, the dreaming returns to flights of fancy instead of escapes from life.
The words are English, but I'm just not comprehending. The context doesn't help me. I'd really be interested to know the subject matter of your dissertation/two books - who writes like this? - but I imagine that's more information than you're comfortable sharing.
re: 406
My experience of similar situations is that it hasn't gone well as serious threats don't really seem to work unless the desired outcome is just to get someone to fuck off and not come back. Best of luck, though.
403: Yeah, mine too. That somehow managed to make it both more and less painful at the same time.
re: 406
Also, why would the law get involved anyway? Or maybe I'm thinking of a less grass-happy place/culture.
409: I have a modus operandi now, having practiced on the wife's father a few times. "Threatened" is melodramatic; I just need to convince the guy that if he doesn't shape up he's getting thrown out of his house, which means being able to demonstrate the capability to make it happen. But nonetheless, I heartily recommend that anyone in a similar situation with loads of other good ideas pursues them instead.
Blume is entirely right.
You're her husband. You need to actively not try to be her advisor. That's not helping her and it won't help the intersection between the dissertation and your marriage.
@397: Are you worried that your marriage is over because she's really raised that as a possibility, or is that something you're afraid of because she's unhappy and you think she may be thinking it?
The former? Never in so many words, but in the words she has said, my fear is justified. If that makes sense. It's difficult to say: her insistence on staying and wanting to stay seem at odds with her dreaming of another country.
@402: This is exactly the dynamic I am worried about.
That's why I didn't go that direction: I asked her what I needed to read to get up to speed, and she gave me a list of books. If anything, it's like I'm doing an independent study with her.
@405: If you set out your problem in a way that makes it look all incredibly obviously not your fault
I don't think I did that, nor did I mean to do that, but I'm sure you know better.
406: Is that really likely to have the outcome you want? I guess if you know the guy well...
I'm starting to feel concern-troll-y about this particular issue (I think this is the correct usage?), which I don't love, but I've just never, ever seen this kind of intervention work to the benefit of the woman supposedly being defended. Like, ever. And usually the guys involved very quickly stop thinking about her welfare and it becomes a giant pissing contest. On the Veldt.
Sorry, I've just literally never seen this end any other way. Maybe you've had different experiences.
@408: The words are English, but I'm just not comprehending. The context doesn't help me. I'd really be interested to know the subject matter of your dissertation/two books - who writes like this? - but I imagine that's more information than you're comfortable sharing.
Someone deliberately trying not to sound like himself, is who.
@415: You need to actively not try to be her advisor. That's not helping her and it won't help the intersection between the dissertation and your marriage.
As above, the situation's reversed: her sub-discipline is so distant from mine that she needs to lead the conversation. I'm not doing the professorial thing because I can't, not about her topic.
I don't think I did that, nor did I mean to do that, but I'm sure you know better.
As a representative member of the community you're trying to communicate with, I actually do know better if the subject is whether you succeeded or not.
Every single thing you've said in responses has been basically of the form "nope! I wasn't doing anything wrong there either!". In which case, the only response you can possibly get is "you're not doing anything wrong! there's nothing you can possibly do differently!". Which, you know, like, fine, but in that case why ask for advice?
Re: 413
Ah, right, yeah. Well hopefully he'll see reason.
her insistence on staying and wanting to stay seem at odds with her dreaming of another country
Why? Because when she talks about living in said country, your being there never comes up or because she knows that you don't want to live there or because she talks about living there instead of living with you? These seem like three very different kinds of grounds on which to base your fears.
@419: Every single thing you've said in responses has been basically of the form "nope! I wasn't doing anything wrong there either!".
At the moment, I don't think either of us are doing anything wrong, but clearly -- to my eyes, at least, given that my actions were responsible for this situation coming into being in the first place -- I'm not doing something right. I haven't explored all the possibilities. Am I doing something wrong by not doing something right instead? I'll cop to that -- it's why I wrote the email in the first place.
Put another way: you know when you can't find your keys, have searched everywhere, but the problem is that after all that searching you're not really seeing what you're looking at so much as remember having looked there already? And then you ask someone else and they point to the kitchen counter? This is me asking for another set of eyes to tell me whether my keys are on the kitchen counter.
417: In general I'd agree - the only way to a favourable outcome involves basically dedicating all your spare time plus a little bit more to the project, and certainly the word "threaten" was flip and silly of me. But as I say, I've got a reasonably good track record, earned in situations I didn't have the option of walking away from. It's basically not unlike childcare; you have to patiently explain, over and over again, that behaviour has consequences, and that the consequences of behaviour X is outcome Y (where outcome Y is usually "you're going to end up getting divorced and you will not keep the house and you will not see the kids, plus also you are wrong and you will in fact care about that"). The difference being that when a five-year-old throws a tantrum about something, they're really small because they're five, whereas when a grown man does the same thing, you need to be a bit careful and more than a bit prepared.
So far as I can see, there isn't a whole big range of options for changing your behavior. You already know some things. You want to stay; you should support her in a time when her attention is intensely focused on her work; you don't have control over her feelings. All those things mean that you aren't making huge short term changes anyway.
So do the things that you can control, which is become your best self and hope that's someone who piques her interest. (It has before.) My advice is the same advice I'd give everyone at every point. Therapy to improve self-awareness. Exercise to make everything feel better. A hobby that happens with other people, so that you're interesting and have a diversified support system.
Since you asked for advice, I'd say to start working on those. Keep being there for her as much as she lets you, and do those. Best case, she'll like your new dazzling self. Worst case, being dazzling will give you a head start if she isn't re-inspired by you.
423 makes sense. There are times when having the other person know that if they kick off there will be consequences that wouldn't be there if they kicked off with their usual audience can be a first step. It's not so much a threat as a deterrent.
423: That...does not sound like fun. Nope. Not at all. Hope it goes better than you anticipate.
Put another way: you know when you can't find your keys, have searched everywhere, but the problem is that after all that searching you're not really seeing what you're looking at so much as remember having looked there already? And then you ask someone else and they point to the kitchen counter? This is me asking for another set of eyes to tell me whether my keys are on the kitchen counter.
To be honest, I think that was 2 et seq. The way you have set this up, that's the only response you could get.
If that was actually the response you wanted and you just needed to hear it from somebody else (IMO, 90% chance this was your true, possibly subconscious, intention), well now you can forget about all those other amateurs because you have heard it from the oracle that was me.
If you thought that when you set it out that way everyone would suddenly see the thing you were doing wrong and you could just change that (IMO, 1% chance this was the true idea, because you elimated the only three remotely possible candidates).
If you're just a romantic type who believes in magic and was hoping that there would be some magic formula that everyone else's fathers told them during The Talk (9% chance, humans are idiots, don't knock it, it's all that keeps the bloody race going), then I am afraid that so far it's looking like there wasn't.
best of luck,
dd
but clearly -- to my eyes, at least, given that my actions were responsible for this situation coming into being in the first place -- I'm not doing something right.
Dude, you don't get that much credit ("I wrecked it ALL BY MYSELF") or that much fault. She's an adult who has a role in all this and not herself a saint or an abuser.
And, like, what situation? That she's fully absorbed in her dissertation and your marriage has stilled? Again, she's a grown-up in all this, and she got herself into a dissertation. Your marriage you guys shaped together.
And, like, what situation?
pay attention! He watched porn on the internet.
(hi! Hi Megan!)
Dude, you don't get that much credit ("I wrecked it ALL BY MYSELF") or that much fault.
Amen to this. Honestly, that you are even writing that the problems in a, what, 13 year marriage are entirely caused by you suggests something off about the entire thought process. She may want out of the marriage for reasons that have almost nothing to do with you! You just don't know.
Are you in individual therapy? B/c I'm thinking that you need someone to talk to. I'd say that's way more important than marriage counseling, fwiw.
And I agree that friendship doesn't mean that the marriage isn't dead. Friendship is not only the last thing to go, but can survive a divorce.
Also, Megan, I am really happy you came back. Unless it's a different Megan, I guess, in which case, welcome!
Oh yeah, my point is that you aren't going to find the right something to do unilaterally. You didn't break it yourself and you can't fix it yourself. She's participated in the breaking (as by, for example, an over-reaction to porn) and she's going to have to participate in the fixing. Sure, she can't just yet, but just like always when we interact with autonomous people, you're at the mercy of her choice when the day comes. It is miserable, but taking all the fault in the relationship won't give you the ability to make it all right anyway.
Hey Miss Mess,
YOU'RE PORN ON THE INTERNET!
your MOM is porn on the internet.
I am reminded of the London Business School case study on British Leyland. After taking the students through detailed analysis of BL's capital budgeting, labour relations, marketing and business processes, the class is led to the important and fundamental point about management science:
"Not all business problems have solutions"
TG, this all sounds very familiar.
I'm recently out of a 14-year relationship wherein I decided that my partner was Right and I was Wrong in all things. I too did something wrong early on, but the emotional punishment I accepted for that was out of proportion to the offense. She was strong-willed, and I was conflict-averse and guilt-ridden, so I basically cringed and yielded to her presumed moral authority every time any problems came up.
Spending years feeling guilty about everything was a huge waste of time. It would have been much better for me if I'd gotten into therapy ten years earlier than I did.
Whether or not your relationship survives, the important thing here is that you need to stop being driven by guilt. Get therapy right now.
Yeah I have a match: porn on the internet and MY BUTT.
Wait, I think I messed that up.
"Not all business problems have solutions"
A friend of mine summarized the consulting-firm interview process as "You've got a business. And it has a problem. Sorry, I can't answer any questions."
(The ex and I had a sit-down this week with the lawyer who's going to be helping us with our divorce filing, then went out for coffee after and had a nice chat. It was actually nice and pleasant, now that we no longer feel responsible for each other's pursuit of happiness, to spend time together.)
Halford, your daughter has always sounded absolutely adorable and totally age-appropriate. I'm sorry you're all having to deal with such a mess.
I'm not sure what to say to That Guy. Therapy, and you definitely have my sympathies.
Megan! I was just about to start running the tap while I brushed my teeth in order to make you appear.
It was actually nice and pleasant, now that we no longer feel responsible for each other's pursuit of happiness, to spend time together
This is my other big relationship advice to people. Don't accept absolute responsibility for your partner's happiness, and don't expect your partner to be responsible for yours. No human being can be every thing to someone else.
It was actually nice and pleasant, now that we no longer feel responsible for each other's pursuit of happiness, to spend time together
This is my other big relationship advice to people. Don't accept absolute responsibility for your partner's happiness, and don't expect your partner to be responsible for yours. No human being can be every thing to someone else.
Really, all sufficient value's been added here comment-wise. But to belabor things:
I really wasn't going for that, because I don't think she is. Or, if she is, she's my kind of deranged asshole and I still want to be with her.
This made me go "Aw", and get a little sad. I wish the two of you luck, and second the advice about therapy and being Elastigirl and all, but ultimately what's going on doesn't seem to be something you can control. It seems to be all about how she's feeling, and her feelings toward the marriage might be changing without you necessarily doing anything that could be considered "wrong".
What others have said about friendships surviving divorce has been absolutely true for me too. And the other side of that coin, that marriage needs to be more than that, sadly true as well.
Having finally caught up on all of these hundreds of comments, I feel compelled to say: 2 gets it exactly right.
Having finally caught up on all of these hundreds of comments, I feel compelled to ask: did the post title put the song "Let's Get Together" from The Parent Trap on repeat in anyone else's head all day long? Or was that just me?
Not just you, Stanley. I was just about to make the very same comment.
That, and, Megan!
(Also, to 455, shut off the computer out there and come to bed, dear.)
Dz, listen to everyone telling you to get out.
The unfortunate truth here is that you at a minimum don't have the full picture. There's a also a strong chance she's outright lying to you. There's many ways for this to go sideways on you, including the following.
You kick boyfriend's ass and by some miracle you don't get hurt and the cops don't get involved and you just feel like a betrayed idiot when she doesn't leave him. This is about as good as you can expect and likely the outcome will be far worse.
You kick boyfriend's ass, end up getting arrested and the girl sides with her boyfriend and you go to jail.
You attempt to kick boyfriend's ass and get a nasty surprise when he ruins your shit and/or kills you. Either way the girl backs his story or says you've been stalking her or some damn thing and he gets away with it.
Here's a fun one. He catches you two in the act or finds much better evidence than a text and rather than cop to the cheating she evades by telling him your forced her and now he's calling in a rape case to the cops. You think there's no way she'll continue in this vein and you will be wrong. Extra special moment when marks left on her by him are attributed to you.
And by the way you unbearable honkies, when you do something shitty to someone you've "done her dirty".
Jesus, being a cop provides a grim view of the human condition. I'm happily married but now think I'd better get out before something goes terribly wrong for me. None of which is to say that gswift's advice is wrong.
unbearable honkies
Says the Utahan.
(Also, to 455, shut off the computer out there and come to bed, dear.)
Let him finish watching porn, at least.
462: fixing erroneous metadata on my mp3s and downloading "Avast" antivirus: double bagging the computer.
fixing erroneous metadata
So that's what the kids are calling it these days.
I feel like this thread is so unanimously negative in its assessment of TG's relationship that I want to offer some optimism.
I have no idea what is actually going on in the relationship but I can say that I know more than one person who's been married for an extended period of time who has said that there were times in their marriage when they were convinced that it wasn't going to work out; that they didn't think that staying in the situation would allow them to be who they wanted to be or have the relationship that they wanted. But, then things got better.
Things don't always get better but it can happen. And, if TG is who I suspect he is, then he's probably still somewhat traumatized from his own dissertation experience and not in a good mental position to be able to envision life improving.
That said I do think that there's a point at which it's fair to say to somebody, "what I did may have been inexcusable, but it has to be forgivable. You don't have to forgive me overnight, but I need you to agree that it is forgivable, in medium term, or I can't stay in this relationship." There's a point at which old wounds have to be allowed to close.
I can say that I know more than one person who's been married for an extended period of time who has said that there were times in their marriage when they were convinced that it wasn't going to work out
I would say that I don't know anyone who's married (and sentient -- I'm thinking of the scene where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are in line at the movies in Annie Hall) that hasn't faced moments of real doubts about their union. That said, I still think Jetpack probably got it right up in 2. Still, as others have said, counseling, both as a couple and individually, probably can't hurt.
465.last is wise.
I do wonder whether TG has spelled his feelings out plainly to Mrs. Guy, saying simply that he's gotten the idea that she'll be leaving him once her dissertation is done, that this upsets him tremendously, that he thinks it's because of the pron-watching (not just that in itself, but the trust and body-image issues following from it), that he'd undo it if he could, but cannot, and in the meantime is madly in love with her, so what should they do??
Perhaps TG has had that conversation, and I missed his mention of it upthread. In any case, this is a problem Mr. and Mrs. Guy have together, and if they're as close as he says they are, they should be able to discuss it. Failing to do so just widens the distance.
This thread is making me glad I never had to write a "real" dissertation.
...probably still somewhat traumatized from his own dissertation experience and not in a good mental position to be able to envision life improving.
Fucking PhDs.
(The degrees, not the people whose lives are screwed with in pursuit of them.)
It puts the lit review in the front or it has to rewrite again!
With the further information, it becomes clearer about why the porn thing is a problem. It's not that what TG did (by watching porn) is unforgivable, but that she feels it revealed some deeply-hidden secret part of him that hates her body, which is 100% about her own hatred of her body looking for reasons to think other people hate her body. It's not a forgivable thing because it's just part of his character and orientation now. He's the kind of guy who likes women who look like that, and, well, isn't that a convenient excuse for not dealing with your own fucking self-image problems when it's so easy to blame them on someone else. I'm still with 2. This is emotional abuse, and whether That Guy is a masochist or not, there's a difference between being a self-aware masochist who figures out ways of getting what you want and enabling someone who treats you like shit as a way to excuse treating herself like shit. That Guy, this woman needs help, and you're making her think she doesn't. It's a coping strategy that is destructive in the long term.
Also, another thing--do either of you have your own friends? Like, do you have people you're close to and confide in and care about whom your partner knows about and respects, and your partner also has her friends that she can confide in whom you know about and respect? Because you two seem hella bubbled.
Late & advice-free. I actually have enormous sympathy for the anti-porn sentiments, and particularly for feeling that it would make dating impossible, although I can't imagine actually condemning or judging a partner for looking at it. (Mrs. Guy's stated feelings are not my own.) I also had a mild overreaction to a porn discovery years ago, and went through the process of sorting out and trying to formulate my feelings. I decided that the primary one was just bitter envy: there was nothing even remotely that widespread and socially sanctioned that I got off on, nothing. Absolutely not porn; mostly not sex toys; I could either have sex with a person, or occasionally masturbate without visual aids, or nothing. So to me, at that point, it seemed like the rules for straight relationships were: women* could have sex whenever their partner was willing to do it, or masturbate in cases of dire need, whereas men were given carte blanche to look at whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, leaving aside strip clubs and (... well, is there anything else like strip clubs?), and that was "normal male sexual behavior", the absence of which would signal pathology or whippedness. But to me it seemed like my partner was given something like a 10:1 orgasm advantage over me by Society, which was shit. I realize now that this sounds like madness, but at the time it was actually funny and somewhat helpful to recognize. It definitely wasn't the case that I thought porn was rape, or implied the dehumanization of women or anything like that. It just seemed *something* like "my partner is having more sex than I am, and I can't ever catch up."
So, um, to Mrs. Guy, from one grad student to another: it surely *is* worth coming to some kind of understanding about your feelings around this issue, whatever they might be. It's quite complicated, there are not a lot of spaces for women to talk about it intelligently, and you have to live in this world and not another, so resist what you need to in a way that doesn't shut other people out. I think I did, in the end, find a way to do this. Even after a hell of a long time like 13 years, I think it's still possible.
* The percentage of women who don't enjoy porn is somewhat higher than 0, as I understand it. But it's probably lower than I believed at the time.
381
No, I absolutely want her to finish it -- so much so I've done a lot of the secondary reading, which is WAY out of my period, just so I can assist. I also want her to finish it for her, as she needs something tangible to take from the terrible experience of grad school.
It sounds like maybe you want her to finish her dissertation a lot more than she wants to finish her dissertation. Have you considered the posssibility that she would like to quit but doesn't want to disappoint you? That could poison your whole relationship.
Moving along I agree with others above that the state of your sex life is relevant data.
Finally I believe therapy is generally a waste of money which is ok if you are rich but you said you weren't.
Moving along I agree with others above that the state of your sex life is relevant data.
James you dog.
well, isn't that a convenient excuse for not dealing with your own fucking self-image problems when it's so easy to blame them on someone else
Sorry, I really think this is too harsh on Mrs. Guy.
Shifting gears, it sounds to me as though TG is at the point at which he's afraid of Mrs. Guy: afraid of hurting her, afraid that he's irretrievably betrayed their partnership, afraid that she's only staying with him during the dissertation-writing, and will fly once it's done, and so on. That's presumably what leads people to say that Mrs. Guy is emotionally abusive, but frankly, TG can become afraid in this way without it being entirely Mrs. Guy's fault. If she was deeply hurt, she was deeply hurt, end of story: they're partners. And if the marriage has been since they were in their early 20s, there's a sense in which they've grown up together.
I feel for TG, anyway. And suggest again that he put it all on the table with Mrs. G if he hasn't already. The fear -- if that's a fair way to put it -- is corrosive.
Seriously, this entire thread is making me feel mighty pleased with myself for dodging the girlfriend bullet
Sorry, I really think this is too harsh on Mrs. Guy.
Really? A 30-something-year-old woman? We're not talking about some 16-year-old who's worried about fitting into the perfect size 2 prom dress here. She's had some time to sort her shit out.
Seriously, this entire thread is making me feel mighty pleased with myself for dodging the girlfriend bullet. You people are the best rebound.
479: Ugh, me too. Relationships are so so shitty.
Sorry about being harsh. I just keep waiting for the day when women who behave like this are not just talked about like "that's just how ladies are! they're super-obsessed with their looks! it's normal to treat everyone around you like shit when you feel fat!" Making mental illness into a gender stereotype is sexist bullshit that normalizes people not getting treatment for serious body-dysmorphia disorders.
480: I'm not sure what to say: I think a lot of women go through their entire lives never managing to sort their body-image shit out. We wouldn't have such a robust cosmetic surgery industry if they had.
484 crossed with 483.
Are you saying that being self-conscious about your body, worrying that your partner might think you're a little too fat or lumpy, and wishes you were a svelte little minx or whatever, is a mental illness?
I have nothing new to add, but the vagueness of TG's description of the situation continues to bother me. It's like what you do when you really have no clue what the other person thinks, so you invent your own narrative ("I love her, madly!"), except it doesn't fit the situation, so it doesn't take off.
FWIW, I know one married couple where the husband is like that, sort of clueless, but decided that "I love you!" is the solution, and is sticking by it. It's not ideal, but it looks like they *are* staying together.
It's like [...] you invent your own narrative, except it doesn't fit the situation, so it doesn't take off.
We'll hit 500 comments easy.
a lot of women go through their entire lives never managing to sort their body-image shit out
I get that for much older or much younger women--the older women because they were raised in the "never leave the house without foundation, a corset, and a wiglet" era, and younger women because young people still watch too much TV and read Cosmo. But academic 30-somethings who still have the lack of self-awareness to torture other people with their body image problems without ever wondering if maybe that's a problem? It doesn't smell like sanity to me.
485: Why would someone choose to date me if they hate my body? Doesn't make sense. They could choose someone else if they like that so much.
(I specify academic in 388 because TG's wife is apparently not a semi-prostitute idiot who worries about her looks because it's all she has to survive on. I can see where, if you have to be attractive because you don't ever want to have a job, you might be obsessed with looking good, because looking good basically is your job. It's just not as many women's jobs as it used to be.)
you invent your own narrative, except it doesn't fit the situation, so it doesn't take off -> 474.
483 made me think of the cartoon Cathy. Then about Oprah being her best self. Then, bc I wanted to be less depressed, I thought about Garfield Minus Garfield.
488: I don't really want to have an argument about this.
493 is sort of belied by previous comments.
Hmm, on the one hand I don't think having some body image issues is all that crazy in this society, and she would have been in her early twenties at the time, in her first real relationship, and from a very sheltered background. On the other her reaction seems a bit extreme. And you would think that thirteen years later she would both be able to have put it behind her and realized that someone looking at porn a few times is not unusual nor is it evidence that they're an evil person. Even if it were something like a serious affair, if it happened that long ago and not been repeated, she should have gotten over it.
1. "Wiglet" is so, so wonderful.
2. To be fair, appearance is important in many of the newer professions, as well. Almost all of them, in fact. "Hermit" is the only exception I can think of.
3. Competent adults are responsible for not taking their craziness out on others, period. Don't care how it manifests. You are responsible for how you treat people. AWB is right that it's insulting that women are frequently not held to this standard in this particular area.
4. I don't know why I'm numbering things.
"Hermit" is the only exception I can think of.
That's a profession? Where do I apply?
"Frequent use of the garments may make your body look the way you want it to look."
499: "The garments"? Is this about Mormon underwear?
Trappist monastery. I think you also make jam.
499 Gotta love the marketing come on '9 out of 10 women are not happy with the way they look'. Trans: if you're not young and have a perfect body, but you don't have body image issues then something is wrong with you.
BAND MAKE JAM.
"Hermit" is the only exception I can think of.
Braille teacher?
I see no evidence that Mrs. Guy is crazy (well, maybe a little crazy), instead it seems mostly that Mr. Guy sees his relationship about as clearly as I saw my relationships when I was 14. I understand that he doesn't want to out himself but a 10+-year-relationship that boils down to "(1) we used to be happy, (2) she found out that I watched porn sometime during the Clinton administration, and (3) she's unhappily writing a dissertation" -- that's such a thin narrative, and it distressingly seems to reflect a child's understanding of human happiness and potential.
Says the Utahan.
Touche, but I'm pretty sure Davis (the city) is not much browner than Salt Lake.
Davis - 70% white
SLC - 79% white
Sorry, you have outhonkied Honkeytown.
508: Maybe you're whiter where it counts.
Also:
Yolo County - 80% white
Salt Lake County - 90% white
Ignoring Stanley's racism, let's do it another way:
Yolo County - White persons not Hispanic, 53%
Salt Lake County - White persons not Hispanic, 75%
I believe this is where I note that I'm down with the gente.
This all hinges on whether "Hispanic" counts as "brown", doesn't it?
512 pwned by 511, although the result isn't what I was expecting.
It's cheating to count the Asians. Everyone knows the Asians at the UC's aren't real minorities. They're like the west coast version of Jews, but with chopsticks.
I was gonna say I was shocked that Yolo County was 80% white.
I'm also a little surprised that SLC is still as white as it is.
I'm "Hispanic" for some of the looser definitions of "Hispanic". It's not a very useful category word.
Your racist assumptions sicken me, essear. I'll have you know that in Davis we don't see color.
517 I'll have you know that in Davis we don't see color.
I was up there on Monday. It's impressive how the world changes to black-and-white as soon as you cross the city limits.
They're like the west coast version of Jews, but with chopsticks.
And where do Jews go out for dinner on Christmas? You may be on to something.
I was up there on Monday.
And now I'm hurt. You didn't even give me a chance to call you a racist to your face.
521: I may be in Davis in August. You can call me names, if you want.
I would have called for a meetup, but I was only there for part of a day to give a seminar and spend a few hours chatting with a collaborator. Next time I'm there I'll try to stay longer.
August is not the recommended time of year to visit Davis, I'm afraid. But if you make it out this way, do let me know.
a collaborator
Good to know.
525: You betcha. I'll also be in Connecticut in June for a wedding, but I don't think we have any CT commenters.
It's not that what TG did (by watching porn) is unforgivable, but that she feels it revealed some deeply-hidden secret part of him... It's not a forgivable thing because it's just part of his character and orientation now.
This is really it, and clarifies the whole thread, I think. It moves Mrs. Guy's feelings from being not just unjustifiedly strong but bizarrely so (i.e. psychologically incomprehensible), into the realms of psychological possibility. It isn't abstract morality, whether religious or feminist, that's the issue, but what she thinks the porn reveals about his attitude to her.
And it doesn't even have to be about body image, exactly. Even if at some level she's okay with her body, she might be thinking that the porn means that for him she's only a substitute sexually, that the real sexual deal is for him on the screen and has nothing to do with her, rendering their shared sexual/romantic life meaningless.* I'm not saying she would necessarily be right to see things that way, but that I can see how someone could. (And when you add the feeling of intellectual inadequacy that an unwritten dissertation might cause, you can see how someone might react badly.) Whereas presumably That Guy thinks it means something far less weighty, or used to.
Though I'm probably more anti-porn than most on this thread, I still think Mrs. Guy's on balance the unreasonable one. But it makes me a little more sympathetic to what I imagine are her feelings if I ask myself whether, say, a skinny black guy would be entirely pleased if he thought that his girlfriend could only really enjoy herself on her own with Italian gladiator porn or whatever.
*I think this is related to what urple was getting at upthread.
519: It's impressive pleasant how the world changes to black-and-white as soon as you cross the city limits.
Why would someone choose to date me if they hate my body? Doesn't make sense.
Dear *God* I wish I could take this attitude towards, well, oh so many things.
(My answer to the question in the first sentence is usually "because continuing to date me/hang out with me/pretend to tolerate my presence is the path of least resistance and people are conflict-averse".)
485: Why would someone choose to date me if they hate my body? Doesn't make sense. They could choose someone else if they like that so much.
Maybe they're beggars.
That's a profession? Where do I apply?
Lu Xun: since a genuine hermit is someone who disappears from the view of historians, the hundreds about whom we know so much must have been rather less than sincere; being a hermit is a way of making a living like any other, and hence requires the hermit to hang up a sign advertising for himself.
I think I'm missing something here.
Von Wafer never lets the SF Bay Areans know when he's in the SF Bay Area.
It's not impossible that essear missed the Von Wafer pseud swap.
Hell, *I* missed the swap. But 466 was kind of a giveaway.
I know who Von Wafer is. (But how did he change pseuds without incurring the wrath of LB? Can I do that?) But 535 clears up my confusion.
This is presumably the appropriate thread in which to note that masturbating to Maria Schneider is now both immoral and aesthetically frowned upon?
Maybe they're beggars.
Well, I wouldn't want to date someone I thought would be dating me only because they weren't capable of dating anyone else. That's just not nice.
That's a profession? Where do I apply?
From the The Oxford Companion to the Garden:
For the true hermitage effect it was necessary to have a resident hermit. Barbara Jones's Follies & Grottoes (1974 edn.) explains how difficult it was to recruit them. The hermit at Painshill in the 18th century was allowed to walk the grounds and was provided with a hassock, hourglass, and Bible. He found the solitude insupportable and after three weeks was sacked after he made a visit to a nearby pub. It seems that the tradition of hermits still retains a spark of life. In the London Review of Books (22 August 2002) an advertiser sought a 'resident hermit' for Great Haywood Cliffs, formerly part of the Shugborough estate in Staffordshire. A 'wilderness and stipend' would be provided for a suitable candidate.
Why would someone choose to date me if they hate my body? Doesn't make sense
Nothing makes sense, in the magical mysterious country called "Other People's Relationship Problems Heard About At Second Hand". It's a strange, wild place with exotic customs, and where you can believe absolutely anything about the inhabitants and morally judge them accordingly. A bit like Wisconsin, really.
541: as referred to in Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia":
"If I am promised a fountain I expect it to come with water. You are providing a hermitage, and I expect you to provide a hermit."
"Perhaps we could advertise for one?"
"But surely a hermit who takes a newspaper is not a hermit in whom one can have complete confidence."
If we're relating possible travels: I might be in the Bay Area or Sacramento for much of April, but that's up in the air. One possibility has already fallen through.
I also might be in DC for a lot of the summer. Which reminds me that I need to run my list of potential chapters of my potentially revived dissertation past my advisor soon.
Which reminds me, since related issues have come up, even though I've decided I would like to finish that degree now, I have never for a second regretted my decision a few years ago to leave when my funding ran out - even through the unemployment/volunteer/low-pay work, the many job rejections, the hermit-like living, and so on. Sure, having some tangible thing to take away would have been nice. But on the other hand, when you stare at a grant application and find yourself unable to ask people to pay you to keep up a routine you've come to loathe, maybe it's time to move on.
Trappist monastery. I think you also make jam beer. Much better.
I don't think we have any CT commenters.
Well, there's dsquared...
Having got that out of the way -
TG, dz: Out. Now. Sorry.
Halford: Show the bastards fucking tantrums. You've nothing to lose. It sounds like the staff at that place can't be trusted to fetch the milk, let alone care for small children, and the sooner its reputation takes a hit, the better for everybody.
Nye: Best of luck, mate.
@Megan
You are, as always, awesome.
@465: There's a point at which old wounds have to be allowed to close.
First, thanks. Second, would that it were so, but it isn't. The problem with living in a pornified world is that people with aversions to porn are constantly reminded of its existence and attendant traumas, which are, in this case, very much related to me.
@467: Perhaps TG has had that conversation, and I missed his mention of it upthread.
He has, but may not have mentioned it. The conversation, though, just brings generalized sadness: she wishes she could forgive me but can't, etc.
@472: He's the kind of guy who likes women who look like that, and, well, isn't that a convenient excuse for not dealing with your own fucking self-image problems when it's so easy to blame them on someone else.
Except I'm not, she knows I'm not, and yet she's still insecure. I think therapy for her is an excellent idea, and maybe now, teetering where we are, is the only time I can recommend that without seeming hostile. That said ...
That Guy, this woman needs help, and you're making her think she doesn't.
Do you know how stubborn academics are? Of course you do. Recommendations of the sort you're recommending are delicate matters to people who, in all other respects, are in control of everything.
Also, another thing--do either of you have your own friends?
I'm guessing you remember the thing I alluded to up thread, but if not, no, we don't. I mean, I have one person, but he lives a long way away and I can't afford to call regularly. Again, bubbles, shut-ins, that's where you end up.
@475: But to me it seemed like my partner was given something like a 10:1 orgasm advantage over me by Society, which was shit.
This I've told her a hundred million times: life is better with more orgasms. I've bought her toys, told her to enjoy herself when I'm not around, and just to generally have more orgasms. I've made a little progress, I think, but not much.
@476: Have you considered the posssibility that she would like to quit but doesn't want to disappoint you?
I have, but quickly dismissed it. She's already dropped out of grad school once, and she's determined not to do so again. She wants this degree, and I want what she wants.
@478: Shifting gears, it sounds to me as though TG is at the point at which he's afraid of Mrs. Guy: afraid of hurting her, afraid that he's irretrievably betrayed their partnership, afraid that she's only staying with him during the dissertation-writing, and will fly once it's done, and so on.
Yes, this exactly, and also the it-not-being-her-fault thing.
@483: I just keep waiting for the day when women who behave like this are not just talked about like "that's just how ladies are! they're super-obsessed with their looks! it's normal to treat everyone around you like shit when you feel fat!"
I hope that's not how I'm coming across here. I have no issues with her body, and don't think that's how ladies are. I think that's how she is, but that's because of a combination of where she was raised and what I did to her. It was a noxious combination.
@489: Why would someone choose to date me if they hate my body? Doesn't make sense.
Marriage isn't dating, though, especially if you're raised in a strict religious environment. She doesn't think I chose to continue dating her, but that I'm still married to her. She's thrown off her up-bringing, but some of the tenterhooks remain, by which I mean she stayed with me because we were married, but that was a long time ago. If I'd done that now, she'd just bolt.
@506: I see no evidence that Mrs. Guy is crazy (well, maybe a little crazy), instead it seems mostly that Mr. Guy sees his relationship about as clearly as I saw my relationships when I was 14.
Believe you me, I'm more self-aware than I was when I was 14.
@528:
You're not wrong.
... and what I did to her
Seriously, dude, wtf?
I mean, it's harsh and shit to say this, but talking about some porn watching over a decade ago as if you murdered her family is fucking mental.
I neither feel nor think I'm mental, but honestly it's not about me: it's about her reaction to that particular issue. I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like d^2 up thread -- whose advice I appreciate, much as I hate to hear it -- but this is her albatross, and if I'm to stick around, which I want to do, I've no choice but to help her toss it off.
That actually didn't sound like him because I revised, but pretend I said something cutting and cruel and true and we'll be golden.
Having finally caught up on all of these hundreds of comments, I feel compelled to ask: did the post title put the song "Let's Get Together" from The Parent Trap on repeat in anyone else's head all day long?
No, it was this.
Your choice of language, the continual reference to your own 'wrong-doing' doesn't sound like it's about her reaction to it. I mean everyone's partner has stuff they don't like them doing, and most people make good faith efforts not to, on pain of being an arsehole, but most people don't talk about those things using strongly moral language, and continually adopting a stance of self-flagellating penitence over them if it's really the case that it's all about their partner's reaction.
So fine, I get that it's an issue she has, and I'm not belittling it. I have an ex who has/had a similar attitude for perfectly explicable reasons.* That still doesn't mean that talking about it as if you've done something truly heinous that you objectively still have to pay back for over a decade later isn't completely fucked up.
* childhood sexual abuse that featured porn
Your choice of language, the continual reference to your own 'wrong-doing' doesn't sound like it's about her reaction to it.
I overdid it with the language, I get that, but only because I didn't want to downplay the severity of her offense. It really is a trust issue, and over the years she started to trust me again, and then she got to year four of the dissertation and became incapable of trusting anything.
Gah. I'm not trying to lionize myself or, to make clear, demonize her, as dissertations are deadly things -- I just thought that some one of you brilliant folk had gone through this before and would have some advice. (That sounded sarcastic, but it really isn't, I do think the world of the lot of you.)
(And by "her offense," I meant "her being offended.")
Gah 2.0: I'm really not trying be belligerent, y'all have advised me well in the past and I'm just looking for more of the same. I should shut up now, yes.
... as dissertations are deadly things
And this, too. I was a minor prick during the worst days of mine, but my wife was still not afraid of saying, "Look, you are being a fucking prick, and the fact that you are working hard and are stressed doesn't get you a free pass, arsehole." Thesis as universal exculpation is bullshit, too.
Anyway, I'm sympathetic, and trying not to be too harsh, but fucksake.
TG, did you know back when you were looking at the porn how it would affect her? Because then "what I did to her" makes sense. Otherwise, it's more "how she was affected" by what you did. But either way, I gather your point is to recognize her feelings as valid. Even if they're valid only in the sense that it's a PTSD type reaction.
But on the other hand, when you stare at a grant application and find yourself unable to ask people to pay you to keep up a routine you've come to loathe, maybe it's time to move on.
Boy, does this hit close to home.
And also, you really can't have a worthwhile relationship dominated by fear/guilt/shame. It's just not possible. Get out, get out, get out.
There's also this, from 381:
There are other trust issues, completely unrelated to sex, involved, but detailing them might out me. So, let me just say, I've done other things, completely unrelated to fidelity, that speak to the trust issue.
which puts the porn thing into perspective a bit as an issue, but not the whole issue. If there were other, I hate to use the word offenses but you know what I mean, that TG doesn't want to detail but that he's thinking about under the general rubric of 'bad stuff I've done that has made her not trust me', and so he's not just talking about the Clinton-administration porn viewing, then maybe his rhetoric isn't so inflated.
There are other trust issues, completely unrelated to sex, involved, but detailing them might out me. So, let me just say, I've done other things, completely unrelated to fidelity, that speak to the trust issue.
Bernie Madoff? I didn't know your wife was doing a PhD.
557: Thesis as universal exculpation is bullshit, too.
First, I don't think you're being too harsh; second, it's not a universal exculpation, but she supported me through mine, so it's only fair that I support her through hers, no?
558: TG, did you know back when you were looking at the porn how it would affect her?
No, I didn't. I assumed she knew guys looked at porn, but it never came up because we were too busy doing other things. Not to say too much, but we were a whirlwind: she had a job as a stewardess, I got into a program in Indiana that promised me debt, debt, and more debt, and then we held off a year. I ended up in a place with no debt and she ended up in the only program in the country that did what she wanted to do. All of which is only to say, we knew we wanted to be with each other before we really knew each other, and that was one of the things she didn't know about me.
If there were other, I hate to use the word offenses but you know what I mean, that TG doesn't want to detail but that he's thinking about under the general rubric of 'bad stuff I've done that has made her not trust me', and so he's not just talking about the Clinton-administration porn viewing, then maybe his rhetoric isn't so inflated.
I'm pretty sure my cover's blown, but just in case it isn't, yes, this, certainly. I hid something terrible from her that wasn't offensive to her, but was still terrible, and said hiding continues to undermine trust.
I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but the main thing *both* of you need to do is get over the proposition that you did something to her by looking at porn. Because that's frankly unhinged.
(And Von Wafer had escaped my wrath because I missed the transition, but now that I've figured it out I'm irate. Eh, I'll get over it.)
Gah, "frankly" was supposed to be "practically". My editing skills need coffee.
I'm of two minds on this. The more likely explanation is that there's basically nothing wrong with your marriage, except that she's handing the pressure badly. A strong desire to finish is completely compatible with a strong desire to not finish, and the internal conflict could leak out into your relationship. It's not clear from what you've said that your fear she's going to leave is well-founded or not. (The best I can figure out is that you heard something from a third party? If not, and you're just surmising based on her behavior, then I'm not sure how real the possibility is.)
But if your description is accurate, then honestly she sounds mentally ill. If I caught my wife fucking the entire front seven of the New York Jets ten years ago, and our marriage survived it, I still wouldn't be bringing it up (maybe during the NFL postseason). Maybe you've rewarded her for bringing it up in the past by acting incredibly guilty, so if she wants to lash out it's a convenient subject, but if she's sincerely still traumatized by it then she has suffered from serious mental trauma, and you are enabling her by acting so contrite. Either way, you have to tell her that the statute of limitations have run out, that you've done your penance, and that you're done feeling guilty about it. You're not responsible for our pornified world, and you are not going to let her bring it up to punish you. You sound like you're missing the necessary self-respect to stop someone from pushing you around.
Also, "did her dirt" is clearly a paraphrase of a lyric from Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls".
I have no idea who That Guy is.
re: 566
I still don't know who Von Wafer is/was.
re: 563
I'm not really speaking about what you see as your obligation vis a vis support; just that the general crapiness of thesis-writing doesn't get people a pass on the misery they cause others. I mean, I had a somewhat harsh* time during the final days of my own, and was a miserable whiny shite at times, but my wife still had a reasonable expectation that I'd behave like a decent human being, and while you cut people a bit of slack it only goes so far and on for so long.
* no financial support so I had a full time job, plus some part-time teaching, plus trying to write so I was doing, in stints, something approximating old-school junior doctor's hours.
All you need to know about Von Wafer is that he hates the Jews. His kind always does.
I know who Von Wafer is, but I'm unclear as to why he adopted this pseud, except that it's awesome.
I thought I knew who That Guy was, but if I was right the Other Thing is also pretty much covered by the statute of limitations. So I was probably wrong.
The more likely explanation is that there's basically nothing wrong with your marriage, except that she's handing the pressure badly.
I don't know that this is all the way to 'more likely', and I wouldn't exactly call it 'basically nothing wrong', but it does seem fairly likely to me that she's not currently planning to leave you, and that you're looking at a a situation where (1) she's depressed and unhappy over her thesis; (2) that's making her pick at old trust-related scars with you (disproportionately in the case of the porn thing, we can't evaluate how reasonable she's being with the other stuff); and (3) you're freaking all the way out about it, and we can't really tell if you're freaking out because she's genuinely treating you very badly right now, or if not-all-that unreasonable behavior from her has sent you into a tailspin because you've got your own issues going on.
There's no solution but talking about about it with her, and hopefully with other real-world people as well.
all right, just skimmed the comments; my quick .02
Robert Halford: If those are all the relevant facts, I agree that it sounds ridiculous. I wonder whether the parents of the child that was attacked pushed for this particular action. But, if this school is what it sounds like, then they market themselves based on the environment and peer-group they create - though frankly it doesn't sound like a very understanding or helpful place. The parents sell to get admitted, the school sells to get the tuition, and potential problems are left for a later date.
Would further communication and discussion with the school possibly be helpful? Nothing to lose.
That Guy: There is no series of actions that will necessarily lead to a desired outcome. Talk to her, be sure you fully understand her reasons - and that all reasons are out on the table, show that you understand those reasons, and... what to do after that depends on a knowledge of your wife that none of us has. It sounds like a horribly difficult situation, but one which will resolve, one way or the other, and which will not thwart happiness in your life. Good luck.
That Guy, your clarifications make you sound like the most devoted enabler in the world. You've cut all ties to the rest of the world in order to make this make sense, and it sounds like you've romanticized her "problem" to the point that you can't even hear it anymore as if it refers to a human being. This person is not OK; how she treats you is not OK, and treating you this way does NOT MAKE HER BETTER. Just because you feel like shit all the time does not make her suffer less. You are not helping her.
"Basically nothing wrong" in that once the source of stress goes away the problem will go away. Being under continuous stress is unnatural, and it's not surprising that people act out. It's not admirable, but unless you're one of the characters on Hurt Locker it's also not a permanent state of affairs.
573 is apt, humane, and better informed than 2.
I knew you couldn't keep your nerve, Sifu. You made it 575 comments, but I knew you'd crack eventually. You and Kobe'll be singing a duet of "All You Need Is Love" by comment 1000.
But if your description is accurate, then honestly she sounds mentally ill
Disagree. Her actions basically boil down to "not really being sure that her husband is really right for her". All one can really do here is be the proverbial country vet and say "either this relationship will get better, or it will die". Advice is kind of beside the point here as the options are
a) do something that will change her mind
b) live with it and see if it gets better
c) leave.
If you don't want to do c) then it's a) or b) and, unfortunately, if someone had a plan for a) they've been jolly dilatory in coming up with it. The trouble is that strangers o' the internet aren't going to be able to provide any useful advice at all here, the only person who could even in principle do that would be a close friend who knew you both well (and even then the betting would be poor; close friends can be unbelievable idiots sometimes). Initially I had chalked up my instinct that this dog wasn't gonna hunt to the language and presentation in the initial question but I don't think that's right any more. It's just something that is bound to be loaded up with much too much detail and sensitivity-to-initial-conditions to have the kind of solution that can be assessed from a simple description. Sorry. Best of british luck.
And she's writing a fucking PhD dissertation, not working as a drug mule or a coal miner. I get that it's stressful, and maybe my lack of infinite generosity is related to the fact that I'm doing that too, and being on the job market is very stressful. But I live in a world full of people, not some cocoon where someone lies to me all the time to make me feel less insane.
And I hate to break this to you, but if your wife is treating you like this and acting like this, you are not the only person she is shitty to. I'll guarantee she is shitty to everyone.
547
I have, but quickly dismissed it. She's already dropped out of grad school once, and she's determined not to do so again. She wants this degree, and I want what she wants.
I can believe she wants the degree (like I want a billion dollars) but that doesn't really mean anything. You say she's on year 4 of her dissertation which means she should have been finished a year and a half ago. How much of this dissertation has she actually written? How would you react if she quit?
And I think a woman's extreme aversion to porn is more likely a reflection of a distaste for sex in general than a belief that she is unattractive.
And with respect to 550, aren't you in enough trouble without gaining a reputation for sexual molestation of seabirds?
And I hate to break this to you, but if your wife is treating you like this and acting like this, you are not the only person she is shitty to. I'll guarantee she is shitty to everyone.
Welcome to the Land! (cf #542)
And I think a woman's extreme aversion to porn is more likely a reflection of a distaste for sex in general than a belief that she is unattractive.
Welcome to the Land! Passport queue is over there.
(And Von Wafer had escaped my wrath because I missed the transition, but now that I've figured it out I'm irate. Eh, I'll get over it.)
So much for the Rule of Law!
579: But if that's it, then the porn issue is just a stick to beat him with, rather than a real issue. If it's a real issue, then it's a sign of psychological trauma. I'm sure if I were pissed at my wife, I'd bring up the New York Jets thing, but ten years after the fact I would have either let it go or left her long ago.
For whatever it's worth, I think I have been reading a lot of the comments as unduly harsh because 'mentally ill' sounds disparaging to my ear, and it shouldn't. But the urging to get out, get out, get out really does seem over the top in the context of relationship troubles that seem to stem from psychological wounds that we have no reason to believe can't be reasonably addressed if the G's get some counseling. I agree with Apo that it's well past time to get over conceptualizing it as what TG did to the Mrs. and with AWB that this framing is enabling both parties to avoid dealing with the real issue. But if they are both willing to try to deal with that, I think it's premature to pronouce the marriage dead.
If it's a real issue, then it's a sign of psychological trauma.
Welcome to the Land! Pick up your qualified psychiatric diagnosis practitioner certificate over by the duty free store! (I wish I could link to a Youtube clip of Eric Idle saying "Mind you, that's just a pat diagnosis made without first obtaining your full medical history" at this point)
Also, Megan's advice in 425 is the most important thing here. Living in a bubble of two like that is just ... bad.
Conditionals make it all okay. Starting a sentence with "if" suspends all rules of logic and morality.
In any relationship of any length, two people get drawn into each others' mental/moral/aesthetic universes. Mrs. TG's universe seems like an unpleasant place to be - indeed, an untenable place for Mr. TG. Hence Sifu's 2.
But there is an alternative to leaving. You can always continue to internalize her point-of-view and live a life of guilt and shame, constantly worried about the prospect of her departure with the complete understanding that once she does leave, it will have been your fault.
I know a guy who did something like this, and honestly, I really admired him for it. (They had kids. He was remarkably selfless.) And in the end, it worked out well for him because she died of cancer. So there is hope.
578: why do... birds! sud-den-ly appear... when two! shut! ins! treat each... other weeeeeeiird
589: that's a pretty tough statement to support if you're currently molesting a seabird.
If I laughed at 590 it would be because cancer is always funny.
I've bought her toys, told her to enjoy herself when I'm not around, and just to generally have more orgasms. I've made a little progress, I think, but not much.
IME, masturbation-as-homework is not helpful for people who don't have their own interest in doing it and generally breeds more guilt and resentment.
And in the end, it worked out well for him because she died of cancer.
Oh fuck off!
547
... I've bought her toys ...
If you are trying to convince her you are not a "porny" guy I wouldn't have thought buying her sex toys was the way to go. Perhaps getting her slightly drunk would be more effective.
595 not for the off-colour joke, but for the suggestion that this is the only hope for the future for TG.
595: Sorry. Walt took that in the spirit in which it was intended, but I can see how someone wouldn't.
Anyway: True story.
If you are trying to convince her you are not a "porny" guy I wouldn't have thought buying her sex toys was the way to go
normally I would say "that's a good point James", but you have to remember that plan B was tossing off an albatross.
598: It reminds me of this, except with a wife instead of parents. It also reminds me of my brother, who couldn't imagine being honest about his life and desires until my parents were dead, so he broke all ties with our family and then decided to get married at 19 to someone who is insane, and for whom he has to pour ashes on his head every day because she thinks maybe he might have looked at another girl when they were in college or something. (She has the bonus insanity of never wanting him to speak to us again, because we might burst the bubble. He has no friends, no family that he's allowed to talk to. As a 33-year-old father, my brother has to call his own mother from a cell phone while on road trips because his wife isn't allowed to know he occasionally speaks to her.)
Poor little wife! She had a self-esteem bruise! Probably the correct solution is to tell her it's a self-esteem spinal fracture and she must never, ever, ever get treatment for it.
Christ, you people are so literal. "Tossing off an albatross" is a euphemism for "hiring a male escort who specializes in threesomes with married couples". Everyone knows that, except for all of you honkies.
575: That Guy, your clarifications make you sound like the most devoted enabler in the world.
If I'm not it's punching bag, who is? Anyhow, I'm not kidding when I say I appreciate all the advice. I don't know what to make of it, as is probably obvious by the fact that I'm still awake, but I'm processing it.
575: That Guy, your clarifications make you sound like the most devoted enabler in the world.
If I'm not its punching bag, who is? Anyhow, I'm not kidding when I say I appreciate all the advice. I don't know what to make of it, as is probably obvious by the fact that I'm still awake, but I'm processing it.
(I edittedd that before I hitted post, dammn itt.)
Di, I mean mental illness as in mental illness, as in go to a doctor immediately. But there is a certain point when people have been ill, mentally or physically, for a really long time, to the point that it devours everyone around them trying to figure out what the ill person needs, and so they do a lot more damage by exacerbating the problem and trying to make the ill person feel not-insane, that, yeah, I get pretty frustrated and dismissive. You don't have the right to ruin other people's lives just because you're mortally terrified of talking honestly about your feelings or discovering what exists outside your own head.
The biggest problem for That Guy if the relationship ends is not just that he's been made to feel he's unfit for human company of any kind, but that he's been trying so hard to live in her brain with her and make her feel like nothing's wrong that he doesn't have his own feelings or thoughts or perceptions anymore.
Hey, I need friends too. Which is why I'm here every single day. Well, that and the fact that I learn so much from you guys.
603: Are you fucking kidding me? You're not a hero for being a punching bag. The thing to do is to stop lying to your wife about what reality is. The thing to do is to get her real help, not a fake construction-paper world for her to live in and pretend that everyone else is insane because at least you agree with her.
608: Are you fucking kidding me? You're not a hero for being a punching bag.
No, I'm a punching bag for being a punching bag. Figured that out long ago. But I don't think I'm being patronizing to my wife, who knows perfectly well what awaits her when she files and, and rightly so, isn't looking forward to it. I'm not ... I don't know what I am and not and should just shut the fuck up and listen, as that's why I wrote in the first place.
488, 493, 586, et al.: I think people are putting too much weight on the literal meaning of things like "mentally ill" and "abuse". (Or maybe other people aren't putting enough weight on it and are being too cavalier about throwing the term around, but in this situation I'm more inclined to defend loose language, and not just because I'm one of the ones who has been using it.) Insanity is a serious thing, and it gets treated as shameful although it shouldn't, but so is and do general social maladjustment.
No, Mrs. That Guy is probably not literally mentally ill. She probably doesn't have schizophrenia, aphasia, bipolar disorder, or any of a hundred other conditions that would require medical intervention to avoid danger to herself or others. She's probably not abusive in the strict sense either. She might not be violent, deliberately manipulative, or any of a hundred other things that are really, seriously, abusive. She just seems to not deal with other people or her own feelings well at all. I'm sure there's an understandable reason for this, but that doesn't excuse it. Maybe therapy or a wake-up call or something could get her to be more considerate and more open about her feelings, maybe not. If not, maybe she's worth staying with despite all that, maybe not. But don't assume that just because a therapist doesn't prescribe strong medication, or you can't definitively check off any boxes on a domestic abuse checklist, that this is a normal and healthy relationship.
Or, to put it even more simply, she might not be "crazy" or even "abusive", but that's not the point. She's almost definitely an asshole. And, you know, relationships are a two-way street, so 608 too.
610.2: "She's probably not abusive" s/b "she might not be abusive". On balance, I think she probably is, but the main thing I was trying to say with that long-winded comment was that I think the argument over her exact problem is beside the point.
For some reason this thread is reminding me of Videogum's regular "That's Your Girlfriend/Boyfriend" feature.
611
... She's almost definitely an asshole ...
Not convinced at all. Everything we know about her is via her husband and spouses in troubled marriages are unreliable narrators.
This does seem like a case where therapy could theoretically help, in that both partners seem to lack self-awareness (her more than him, but both). If they do the work to bring their actual issues to the surface they could benefit by working on them directly rather than displacing things on to ridiculous grievances and various combinations of guilt and resentment. But their coping mechanisms so far don't make it look hopeful, and a decades worth of damage is a lot to deal with.
They also badly need to get out more and let some air into this relationship, per 473 it seems like a very confining bubble.
I am in complete agreement with 613, and also with 506, which I think in this case is amplifying 613.
And I have no idea who That Guy or Von Wafer is.
Bottom line, TG: you may well truly be depressed, and probably should seek professional evaluation and if necessary treatment for that.
You probably ought to ask your wife if she loves you and wants to be with you even absent her current financial dependence. If she doesn't know or can't figure that out, you ought to encourage her to seek outside advice from some kind of therapist or something.
Lastly, the problematic aspects of your relationship may also require couples therapy or something.
614.last: Hence the need for the male escort.
And, PGD!
615: They're both you. We are all one.
Oh, and huh, I didn't think I'd actually posted 446. I typed it abut then realized I didn't really agree with it, and I thought I'd deleted it.
normally I would say "that's a good point James", but you have to remember that plan B was tossing off an albatross.
Pleasing an albatross in captivity is notoriously difficult:
Munch was by far the meanest bird they had ever come across. We attributed his particularly nasty behavior to the almost two months of being force-fed by humans. In short, we created a monster.
Or, to put it even more simply, she might not be "crazy" or even "abusive", but that's not the point. She's almost definitely an asshole
Welcome to the Land!
620: and you know that "force-fed" is a euphemism.
Just to be practical, and since everyone here save Shearer agrees that therapy is important, I want to emphasize thatvi think individual therapy for TG is way, way more important than couples therapy, and should be done as a first step. Couples therapy is largely about learning ways to do better and more honest communication; it is not the place for figuring out underlying problems in your own life and it most definitely is not a place that will help you, TG, sort through your own issues about how you're being treated.
In general, I'm on team AWB here, unless TG is completely bullshitting us/himself about what's going on.
Oh WOW. The link in 601 looks just like a Scammer alien.
Welcome to the Land, Rob!
I am not on team AWB, because I think I have just worked out who TG is, and if I'm right, then yes, nearly all of the confusion here is being caused by his attempts to conceal his identity, and short of some sort of "I'm Spartacus!" type scene, the problem of getting any useful advice without giving that identity away seems to me to be unsurmountable.
610: There's the rub. My knee-jerk reaction to the term "mental illness" is to think of it the way you describe -- such severe psychological problems that a person is danger to self or others, unable to function, needs hard core drugs. But that's really wrong. There is a whole range of mental illness -- just like there is a whole range of physical illness. Depression is mental illness. Adjustment disorder is mental illness. PTSD is mental illness. And so on. Some of these things can lie in remission for ages and then be triggered by stressful circumstances (like writing a dissertation).
And I also think it's possible that she is getting unfairly blamed for how TG has internalized the problem. All we know is that she has some pretty serious issues surrounding her body and sexuality, that she found out TG used to enjoy porn, that she has had trouble getting over that despite a professed desire to do so, and that TG feels responsible. We don't know that she's communicated her feelings in an "abusive" way. Maybe she has, but I'd need a lot more evidence than we have here to leap to that conclusion. Maybe, given the stress of dissertating combined with her psychological issues, TG's efforts at creating or preserving physical intimacy are overwhelming her and sending her into a panic spiral. Maybe she's tried to talk honestly about her feelings, but TG keeps responding with, "I'm sorry, it's all my fault, I'll fix it!" and she hasn't been able to get past "I feel really uncomfortable" in her effort to discuss it. Maybe this is "easier" or less frightening for TG than admitting it's an issue he really doesn't have any control over and can't fix.
They definitely need help, and may or may not make it, but it doesn't help to make anyone the bad guy in this situation. It's just two people with a lot of pain.
I now have to sign out of this thread because the urge to start giving clues about how to work out TG's secret identity is becoming dangerously tempting.
There is a whole range of mental illness -- just like there is a whole range of physical illness. Depression is mental illness. Adjustment disorder is mental illness. PTSD is mental illness. And so on.
I think at some point there's a stage where we need to get a bit Thomas Szasz on this and start wondering how useful the epithet 'illness' is here.
629: Very true. "Psychological injury" seems more accurate in this case.
Yeah, perhaps TG and his wife are just mental.
re: 631
Very different terms, as you fine well know. Unless you think the colloquial term 'mental' means something like, 'subject to a DSM-IV/ICD-10 compliant diagnosis'?
Also, couple's counseling can be a great gateway into individual counseling. And, IME, individual counseling is an integral part of couples therapy.
It's wheels within wheels with me, man. Either that or I was making a stupid joke like a ten-year-old.
[Pinching bridge of nose with thumb and forefinger as I write this. Somehow.]
Ok. In light of 626, and the Land, as it were, I think all that can really be said is: GET SOME FUCKING HELP, TG. From the information that is available to me, I would count myself on team AWB, not only because I think her characterization of the described behavior and dynamic is accurate, but because this whole thing does seem really fucked up and AWB addressed it with the appropriate severity. I mean, at face value, without any further knowledge of the actors, TG's reactions seem so uncomprehending that he needs a Faye Dunaway "my father my lover" extended slap. (Obviously I don't mean this literally. Please let's not start on this.)
But apparently there is some very important info that TG cannot reveal because he wants to retain his anonymity. That is a crappy place to be in, TG. Seriously, I sympathize. So I get that all the specifics are probably worthless. But it does seem like everyone agrees that MANY THINGS ARE WRONG.
I may have missed it, but: CAN you go to therapy? You, personally. That is the place to start. It's all you can really do. And eventually she'll need to in some capacity too.
If you can't get actual help, for whatever reason, I'd say 2 applies. Otherwise you are ok with being miserable. Which, come to think of it, you do seem ok with that. But you shouldn't be. And if you are, at least take responsibility for the choice.
re: 634
And me doing the 'stupidly take literally' thing, naturally.
Apparently this is a tough thread for comedy.
But it does seem like everyone agrees that MANY THINGS ARE WRONG.
That's pretty much the definition of human society.
638 also to 637 and illustrating 637.
637: But it had E Messily's "Your MOM is porn on the internet", which is like the best your mama joke ever.
I enjoyed the scammer alien picture, personally.
I vote for getting out of the house and doing stuff with other people. If only as a temporary, interim measure that gets you talking to other human beings and meeting people who aren't wrapped up in the specific issues you two have. Clubs! Volunteer work! Extra committee assignments! Dogwalking! A part-time job in a social environment! *Anything* that gets you moving around in a freer world.
It sounds like you desperately need perspective, and that's almost impossible to do when your only human interactions are with each other.
I'm almost positive that I know who TG is, too, and I'm aware of the "trust" issues that he feels complicates this scenario so much, and all it does is intensify the urgency of getting proper advisement from a professional outside the relationship. If TG is who I think he is, and even if he's not, I'm not surprised that developing a habit of secrecy about minor things that he knows will provoke an overblown and unhelpful reaction from Mrs. TG has become naturalized. When you get punished for having any kind of feeling, or relationship, or even circumstance of your own, how long can you deal with that? The whole "I've gotten in trouble for much, much less [than kissing someone else]" from 381 is really upsetting to me because, dude, I've been there, and I'm still working off the fear I have in relationships that everyone I date will think I deserve to be eternally shamed into the ground for thoughtcrimes or smiling at a waiter or having friends.
I'm still working off the fear I have in relationships that everyone I date will think I deserve to be eternally shamed into the ground for thoughtcrimes or smiling at a waiter or having friends feelings of my own.
Profession advice is really the key, TG. You need to talk to someone to whom you can disclose the full story, in confidence.
Professional advice. Although, in this job market, it never hurts to have a good career counselor on speed-dial.
With my crazy ex, anyway, it seemed that about 1/3 times that I hung out with a friend, I'd see him the next time and he'd have been fuming for hours and days imagining all the stuff we must have been talking about and doing. Eventually, I just got to the point that I started to realize that someone who thinks so little of me (a) really really hates me and (b) would prefer it if I really were going out and filming gangbang porn starring all his enemies. I've never cheated on anyone I was in a monogamous relationship with, but I realized I had to get out of that relationship not when he started threatening to murder me, but when I came to the conclusion that I wanted to go enact his worst fantasies just so he'd feel less crazy and I'd deserve some of the punishment I was getting.
I know I may be alone here, but I think the whole idea of "punishing" your partner, who is an adult and not a fucking puppy, is horrifying.
(A side note to future ATMer's and dead presidents. As you can see from this thread, if you're someone who comments, or ever has commented, a lot, and you really want to remain anonymous, it's awfully hard. If getting busted by other commenters here would be a significantly bad thing for you, be aware that just changing your handle won't do it.)
I totally hear you. The hardest part of being in an actual relationship with someone I really like and who really likes me is becoming aware of some of the hypervigilant emotional triggers I've got going on. Thankfully he understands this (in part because he has similar triggers), but I'm getting kind of tired of myself and my stupid anxieties.
going out and filming gangbang porn starring all his enemies
I'd imagine he'd have been more upset at the prospect of you starring in it than you filming it. But maybe he had unusual hangups.
How the fuck did you people figure out who TG is? Do you keep an Access database of everybody's personal details? Are you former private eyes?
It's all in the Standpipe Bridgeplate spreadsheet. What, you don't have access to it?
Conversation about figuring it out is uncool, given that TG wants to be anonymous. But if you've read all the comments ever, as well as those on other blogs in our general neighborhood, and have a pretty good memory, it's hard to read five lines in a row by someone and not know who they are. (Although I wasn't doing all that well on anonymous day, way back when. But that wasn't people talking about their personal problems.)
You just have to have a photographic memory for everything that's ever been written anywhere on the internet
I'd suggest TG read AWBs comments very carefully - I think she has a number of insightful things to say. That said, DTMFA probably isn't the right thing to do. Give her some slack but insist that there are limits to how guilty you should feel about the ramifications of being a sexual person, which is what it comes down to in the end - nobody is only attracted to one person ever, and even people in couples routinely feel twinges of attraction to people other than their partners.
As for this @485: Why would someone choose to date me if they hate my body? Which is part of the core problem - restate it in less extreme terms as "why would someone want to be with someone they don't find very sexually attractive?" and the answer is "because there are other areas of connection that are important." I've been with women I who weren't all that sexually attractive to me in a purely physical sense because we connected intellectually and emotionally, shared a sense of humor, trusted each other, and so forth. Also it's possible to be very sexy without having The Bod, not to mention that it's also possible to be crazy fun in bed without The Bod. My experience suggests there's a mild negative correlation between having The Bod and being crazy fun in bed, FWIW.
Crap, now I can't remember--I had thought that the canonical fake-spreadsheet was SB's, but searching the archives, I can't find references to it; only this, by H-L.
who weren't all that sexually attractive to me
This I find bizarre, though I've heard people say it often, especially in the case that they are dating someone who has a "perfect body" but whom they find cold-fish or sexually dull. It would never occur to me to be involved with someone I did not find sexually attractive, no matter what their body looked like. (I have had casual sex with people I thought were pretty but not very sexy, but I wouldn't date them.) One can always, for example, be friends with people. I have deeply resented people who dated me but later admitted they found me sexually unattractive or didn't think much of me in other ways, in the "It turns out I'm dating you because I can't imagine anyone else challenging me for your affection" way. It's mean.
Anonymous day sounds...chaotic. And possibly like the basis for a law and order episode.
659: anonymous day was surprisingly fraught. It lead pretty directly to endless-navel-gazing week.
I was just a lurker then, but it was more like "extreme passive aggression day."
It lead pretty directly to endless-navel-gazing week.
Which we continue to celebrate here from time to time...
I don't have a great memory, but I have no idea who That Guy is.
And I have no fricking clue who TG is. But even if the the non-cheating horrible act he committed was something really awful -- going off his meds and on a killing spree in 2002, or whatever -- if he's going to stay in the relationship he needs to learn to live with less guilt and his wife needs to work out some mode of accomodation and forgiveness. Or both of them just need to get out of the relationship.
I sure hope everyone has seen this. Seal meets girl. Seal falls in love with girl. The end. Adorable!
AWB, I'd agree that your formulation is saner and healthier, but there are a lot of people who collapse the attractive v. conforms to idealized consensus beauty standards distinction, both in how they view others and in how they assume that others view/relate to them. My wife is very pretty, in the opinion of others as well as myself, but the most she will occasionally admit is that she "looks alright sometimes." In part because of issues with weight and body image, in accounting for my own attraction to her, she goes between thinking that I'm sweetly deluded about her attractiveness, to beilieving that I have somehow convinced myself that I'm attracted to her because I love her, to general incredulity that I could be attracted to her in the first place.
Yes, we both have therapists, but it's a long road.
662: It would help if everybody would post pictures of their navels to the Flickr pool.
I actually think I have a great memory. Just not in comparison to the bar set here.
669: Seriously. Josh's comment helped me figure out Von Wafer, but TG is a complete mystery to me.
669: I have been astonished at times to find people here who remember shit about me, or that I've written, that I've completely forgotten. Of course, I guess my memory is also kind of crap.
I can't figure out who Von Wafer is.
I'll give you a hint: he doesn't work as a fistorian at a tooniversity in Mavis.
667: Maybe it's a kind of self-image that can only be gotten through unchecked, unrepentant promiscuity. But one does start to realize certain things about sexual attractiveness that way.
Lesson #1: Pretty does not mean sexy or fun to have sex with.
Lesson #2: Pretty can mean sexy and fun to have sex with, but so can less-pretty or even not-pretty.
Lesson #3: Your idea of whether you look good or not has basically nothing to do with what other people see.
Lesson #4: If you're trying to hide something about your body, you're only hiding it from yourself. Everyone else can see you.
Lesson #5: Being super-self-conscious about your body might get you a long-term relationship, but it won't get you laid.
Lesson #6: People tend only to have long-term relationships with people they think are good-looking enough to represent their idea of their own status, but they may be drawn to having sex with all kinds of people.
Lesson #7: You can't change someone else's sense of sexual morality without doing some severe damage. Respect their boundaries.
Lesson #8: Just because you no longer want unhealthy sexual relationships doesn't mean you'll start craving healthy sexual relationships. But fully indulging in acting out fantasies can satisfy that need so you can move on.
Lesson #9: There is no universally-accepted method of next-morning behavior, and everything you do is awkward and wrong. Just do what you want to do and can live with afterward.
Lesson #10: Have as much sex as you can with as many people as you can when you're young, because when you get older you get less optimistic and you lose the precious musk of curious youth.
I think both 674 and 22 are good enough advice lists to be permanently stored somewhere. Maybe we could have a "Best Tips from the Mineshaft" sidebar.
Seal meets girl. Seal falls in love with girl. The end.
This is about Heidi Klum?
he doesn't work as a fistorian at a tooniversity in Mavis.
Wait, who's Mavis?
678: I think a fair amount of self-loathing seems to be romantically attractive. We want to help people, and loving them romantically feels like one way to help them. People who aren't self-loathing don't express the same kind of need for love; they don't trigger the feelings that lead to romantic love. ("I just feel like you don't need me..." etc.)
The corollary to #4 would be, if you are convinced you have some ginormous, glaring physical flaw, chances are good that you are the only one who's noticed it, and chances are even better that nobody thinks it's nearly as big a deal as you do.
678: AWB didn't say a good long term relationship.
Lesson 10 sounds like a recipe for unhappiness.
the feelings that lead to romantic love
I'm going to have to disagree that self-loathing and general neediness are feelings that lead to love. No question they are the basis for many a long-tern relationship, but actual love requires some healthy self-respect and independence.
The corollary to #4 would be, if you are convinced you have some ginormous, glaring physical flaw, chances are good that you are the only one who's noticed it, and chances are even better that nobody thinks it's nearly as big a deal as you do.
Um, not really.
I am not exempt from #5, of course. For years I kept romantically obsessing about a good friend who inexplicably thinks he's unattractive (though the universal consensus is that he's ridiculously smoking hot), despite the fact that I know, and have always known, that I would hate dating him so much because he's really incompatibly dickish in some ways--he's jealous, self-absorbed, offensive, paranoid, etc. I finally figured out that I kept mistaking my desire to "help" him for a desire to date him, even though I knew there's nothing I could do to help him. For his part, he's been telling me for years that he loves me, and is even in love with me, but dating me is too unappealing because I'd never need him emotionally. He wouldn't need to soothe my issues or make me feel safe. We could fuck, but never maintain a relationship. And I'm not particularly interested in fucking him.
658: Bad choice of words on my part. Should have been "physically attractive." Sexy is much more than physical appearance, so someone who pretty much fails at meeting the socially accepted standards of beauty can still be very sexually attractive if he or she has other qualities that are sexy. It's easier for men (being funny gets you laid more reliably than six-pack abs, f'rex), but there's still plenty of non-physical elements to sexiness for women.
The porn problem is a purely physical one, at least assuming TG was just looking at naked ladies or people fucking as opposed to something about women who were flaming hotties and had finished their dissertations and scored a tenure track position at Princeton while baking a delicious pie for orphans in Bengal.
And having written that I'm now developing insecurities about dating women who read period romances. Dammit. I'll never measure up to sexy pirates.
674. AWB is wasted in the academy. We need to get her her own TV show.
686.I'm going to have to disagree that self-loathing and general neediness are feelings that lead to love.
But they are good at leading to feeling needed. For a while. /cynic
women who were flaming hotties and had finished their dissertations and scored a tenure track position at Princeton while baking a delicious pie for orphans in Bengal.
You rang?
AWB has a great prose style, especially when she's critical of something. It's too bad magazines are tanking, though maybe light writing doesn't interest her.
AWB, have you considered setting up a blog of entertaining (i.e., angry and insightful) writing and registering on feedburner to pick up ad revenue? Probably wouldn't pay enough to change your budget, but it would pay something.
Industry use of air brushing and oil paints create an unobtainable standard of sexy pirateness, under which the rest of us are forced to languish.
Aw shucks. I'm not sure it's good for my character to produce too much hatery, though I do love writing it!
AWB is wasted in the academy. We need to get her her own TV show.
Oh hells yes. This would be awesome. (AWBsome?)
the precious musk of curious youth
I just felt this deserved to be highlighted, because it's awesome. And true!
"That's a dealbreaker, ladies."
Lesson #8: Just because you no longer want unhealthy sexual relationships doesn't mean you'll start craving healthy sexual relationships.
... also wonderfully phrased, and true. However,
But fully indulging in acting out fantasies can satisfy that need so you can move on.
is by no means a sure thing.
Wait, do you not want to be Liz Lemon?
Didn't we discuss some romance novel here that was about a time-traveling Viking? Ah yes, here it is, Viking Unchained. Fortunately, since I am totally a viking badass who travels through the centuries, I don't have any issues caused by this book, but other men may suffer.
"Searching for his little boy, 11th century Viking Thorfinn lands in modern times, where he stumbles upon a dead wringer for his cheating ex-wife. Single mom Lydia Denton mourns the loss of her SEAL husband. Then she meets a man who resembles him. Despite Thorfinn's strange accusations, Lydia finds it impossible to ignore the chemistry between them. And as she gets to know this handsome Viking, she can't help but wonder whether two souls, separated by time, have found their way back together."
is by no means a sure thing.
Agreed. I've gotten quite a few things out of my system through overindulgence, but that was alongside a lot of processing and intimacy.
702... and other things that I acted out turned out to be fun and still part of the repertoire, but they're not in the fantastical atmosphere of anxiety anymore.
Is it cloying for me to write here that I want to take back any disagreement I ever had with AWB about anything? Yes, probably. But I can't help thinking that John Updike probably does really suck after all.
704: Yay! But you would be right because Updike totally sucks.
dsquared is clearly right about everything in this thread.
Christ, I read a different romance novel about a time-traveling Viking. Has this become a genre? Please say it ain't so.
Despite my generally abased standards, the one I read was horrible beyond all imagining (although the addition of a Navy SEAL fetish per 701 might possibly make things worse).
After this thread I'm not prepared to disagree. I liked Rabbit Run when I was 19, but I also liked Oasis when I was 19.
710: I think this could also be said about On The Road. Full disclosure: I can never get all the way through it. I get annoyed at my own eye rolling.
707: I think the author wrote a whole bunch of them. I bought a selection as a Christmas present for Dr. Oops a couple of years back, on the theory that if you can't think of a good present, get an awful one.
712: I heard some hilarious (local?) radio bit the other day that made the point that On the Road is a book one reads at 16 and then remembers quite fondly, but without any specifics about the actual story.
I think that's true of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, too. If you're 19, you're all whoa this is so insightful. If you're not 19, you'll roll your eyes out of your head. I assigned it once for a final exam exercise and was shocked, re-reading it, how little I liked it, so I came in and apologized. My students had no idea what I was talking about--best book ever!!!
Hmm. I've had similar experiences with a number of books, which, now that I'm thinking about it, makes me wonder about the reviewers. Presumably they're not all 19, right? What's up with that?
712: But he wrote it all on a single roll of paper! (never read it myself).
Sometimes I think every book I ever liked before age 21 or so sucked.
I tried reading Kerouac as a teenager but, like donaquixote could never finish them, as he was such an unsympathetic character. Who wants to read the quasi-autobiographical ramblings of a self-important tosser? Or at least that was my impression then, perhaps I'd think differently now.
perhaps I'd think differently now.
Yes, you'd hurl them across the room, shouting "what fucking wanker cut down perfectly good trees to print this godawful shite!"
I LOVE ON THE ROAD!!!!!! It's the best.
720: They don't give the name of the lumberjack, but that information can be found on the title page and the back of the title page (which probably as a name and I've forgotten).
I'm still not happy with the sense of consensus in this thread. I feel like it's quite possible that "That Guy" is exaggerating the situation (unintentionally or intentionally in his desire to abstract out one element of the relationship dynamic) in ways that make it difficult to know exactly what's going on.
But the line that made me think that it may be true that the relationship should end is:
Marriage isn't dating, though, especially if you're raised in a strict religious environment. She doesn't think I chose to continue dating her, but that I'm still married to her. She's thrown off her up-bringing, but some of the tenterhooks remain, by which I mean she stayed with me because we were married, but that was a long time ago. If I'd done that now, she'd just bolt.
I do think that marriage isn't dating -- in all sorts of ways, but I think it's an important piece of data, relating to the discussion of forgiveness, that he believes that if the events in question happened now that she wouldn't try to forgive him.
The other thing I wanted to go back to is this from the original question:
if there's a way that doesn't involve helping-her-with-her-dissertation or doing-everything-in-the-kitchen or killing-yourself-with-three-jobs-so-she-can-see-archives-in-Italy, I'd love to hear it.
In my opinion, it isn't a bad thing to realize/decide (if it's correct), "I'm doing as much as I can to put emotional energy into this relationship. It's possible that I could be doing different things, but it isn't possible for me to do more and stay sane." I don't mean this as an invitation to misery poker ("See how much I do") but I would say for any project in one's life (school, job, relationship) if you get to a point where you're not sure that you're going to succeed you don't help by setting impossible standards for yourself. You have to be able to sit down and honestly believe, "I can do this much, no more, and if I still fail then so be it. I can't succeed at everything but I will consider it an honorable failure."
I realize that isn't what he was asking about, and I don't have any advice for magical solutions, but it is true that one's capabilities are not unlimited.
719: Reading The Dharma Bums in college made me really unfairly biased against Buddhists for a very long time. "So Buddhists are bath-averse narcissists who mooch off of working people and somehow scam blowjobs from chicks on drugs? Awesome."
720: This happened when I bought, then tried to read, Indecision. I also screamed some things about Brooklyn.
716: I think what's up is there are surprisingly few good books printed in a given year -- and afforded the attention necessary for James Woods or whoever to give it a go. So if the prose is semi-decent and there's a story, it's going to be lauded. Also, 19 year-olds don't mind so much when things are dated -- the ideas/themes are new to them, and they probably don't realize why they were rejected/got boring. Also, we're smarter than everybody.
Also, we're smarter than everybody.
I totally forgot about this.
I took this Beatnik class in college, and the professor was totally insufferable. But I loved when he would go off on these angry tangents about how he didn't understand why Kerouac got so much tail when he was broke and aimless. (Yes, how confusing that girls would go for a handsome drifter with an air of mystery who's as free as a bird and ponders life's big questions.) Also the professor was way too in love with Bob Dylan, who's not even a beatnik, which I think is when I started to cultivate mean theories about the type of person who thinks Dylan is a genius.
Who wants to read the quasi-autobiographical ramblings of a self-important tosser?
I probably do. I mean, what else is there in fiction?
I guess I should try and reread Rabbit Redux and see what I think. I remember really liking it at age 20, which is a little odd since IIRC it's mostly about the despair of aging and how a lonely middle aged man brings a young hippie into his house for sex.
Anybody want to suggest some good books that aren't (a) science fiction [sorry, just can't do it] or (b) David Foster Wallace?
Who wants to read the quasi-autobiographical ramblings of a self-important tosser?
This would be a really good title.
Who wants to read the quasi-autobiographical ramblings of a self-important tosser?
Or a gameshow.
mean theories about the type of person who thinks Dylan is a genius
Ogged's not coming back, heebie.
a lonely middle aged man
One thing that will depress you even more about reading it is that Rabbit's on the young side of middle-aged still. Mid-late thirties, maybe?
Anybody want to suggest some good books
I think I make the same suggestion every time somebody asks, but if you haven't read The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies, they're fantastic.
730: I wanted so much to like Broom of the System, but I really didn't.
Cornish books are so small you need three of them to get full.
Anybody want to suggest some good books that aren't (a) science fiction [sorry, just can't do it] or (b) David Foster Wallace?
Independent People is amazing.
Stoner (John Williams) is good too.
I can also recommend What Ever Happened to Modernism? and How the Body Shapes the Mind.
737: As is the Deptford Trilogy, and while the Salterton Trilogy probably isn't really quite as good, I liked it a lot too. Funny, I didn't enjoy either of his standalone novels (Murther and the Walking Thpirits and The Cunning Man) at all.
Random selections from my bookshelf that I've actually read and remember liking (which, as we've all just discussed, is pretty meaningless):
It Happened in Boston?
Bad Behavior
Catch-22
The Quiet American
At Swim-Two-Birds
Oh God I've run out. Of what's visible, anyway.
If you're willing to leave the century, it's worth giving Trollope a shot, because if you like him, there's a hell of a lot of it.
You've all read all of those, haven't you.
It's Murther and Walking Spirits, but LB probably knew that.
I like Robertson Davies a lot. Somewhere I read that his reputation has fallen off a cliff, which seems sad.
I think I'll get Independent People, but this description from Wikipedia is not exactly selling the book:
The novel is considered among the foremost examples of social realism in Icelandic fiction in the 1930s.
745: Last three, all of which were good, not the first two.
744: s/b willing to leave the last century.
Trust me, Rob. That doesn't do it even the slightest bit of justice.
Also, don't read Leithauser's introduction.
Graham Greene is a mixed bag. Most of it is excellent, some less so, but I can't remember which are the duds. 'Travels with my Aunt' is wonderful, but it's an 'entertainment', cos I'm lowbrow.
Anthony Powell? Especially the middle six of Music of Time, covering the 30s and WWII.
I hope It Happened in Boston? is about Game 6 of the 1985 NBA Finals, but it probably isn't.
I love Trollope, and still have a lot to go! That's also a great idea.
You've all read all of those, haven't you.
Don't be like that. Confidence!
I've been enjoying steaming through Gary Shteyngart's books, while simultaneously figuring he must annoy the Mineshaft somehow.
The Sot-Weed Factor is loads of fun. I liked Jean-Phillippe Toussaint's Television.
753: Close! With more arsenic. (Cyanide? I don't remember. Poison.)
Man. I barely remember what books I read in HS, much less whether I liked them, and still less what any of them were about. I do specifically remember that: (1) the novel _The Natural_ apparently ends differently than the movie; (2) vast portions of the middle of _All Quiet on the Western Front_ are unnecessary for the final exam, and it's possible to read enough of the ending during the 40-minute final to successfully wing the essay; (3) _East of Eden_ involved extensive discussions with a rabbi, which I found liberating and hopeful.
Deptford Trilogy [...] the Salterton
I very much liked both of those as well, but I have a special affection for the Cornish Trilogy because it was the first Davies I ever read. Also, Anthony Burgess' four Enderby novels were fun reads.
John LeCarre's older stuff is good -- I don't think he's been worth much since the end of the Cold War, but things written before that were excellent. Also, for mystery novels, Michael Innes.
Anthony Powell? Especially the middle six of Music of Time, covering the 30s and WWII.
I agree with this recommendation, though I'd say #10 is also great, with #11 not far behind. But then again, I would, wouldn't I?
Speaking of which, I think it's time to change pseudonyms. This one isn't very healthy.
Am I allowed to recommend some Terry Pratchett as bed time reading? Even Death is friendly in a Terry Pratchett book.
Is it ok to start in the middle with Anthony Powell?
I feel like you'd miss out. OTOH, I found the first one rather boring. I think. It was awhile ago.
763: the request said "no science fiction", so I assumed no fantasy either. Start recommending books from those categories and this thread could go another 100 comments. Pratchett does seem like a good place to start, though.
TC Boyle's Road to Wellville is nice-- not too light, not too heavy. Gaddis for something more serious and American, 2666 for something more serious and Mexico-Chilean, Sebald's Austerlitz from Europe.
I'm with NickS in thinking that the marriage isn't necessarily over (especially since she hasn't said those words, and he's talking from fear. Otoh, I've seen plenty of examples of people creating the situation they most fear by self-sabotage.). My reason for optimism is that the couple is in an objectively hard and unusual stage (finishing a dissertation). There are a few of those (one person in a household involuntarily unemployed) that create terrible strains that completely evaporate when the circumstance changes. They're real problems, but they're real problems for an unusual time in people's lives, and most of the time, they won't recur. So I don't think how the couple is now is necessarily diagnostic.
Besides that, he wants advice on making it better, not to be told that they have deep psychological problems. Can't guarantee results, but tell her that you adore her and want it to work. Be helpful to her during this last stretch and wait for her to be ready to re-engage one way or the other. Prepare for that day by working on yourself (therapy, exercise, hobby with people). Good luck.
Oh, and I have no idea who you are. Von Wafer is a great psued, although Otto might feel a trifle ripped off.
Otto might feel a trifle ripped off
Not as much as this guy.
Not as much as this guy.
Dude, it's an homage.
Time to take the plunge and start the Quincunx, Halford, if you haven't already. Especially if you like Trollope.
Oh, I know. I just suspected Megan was unfamiliar.
Non-fiction books that read like a breeze:
Under a Flaming Sky. Dan Brown.
The Big Short. Michael Lewis
The Rebbe's Army: Inside the world of Chabad-Lubovitch. Intriguing enough that I've got Kosher Nation in my book pile. Sue Fishkoff.
Books of essays by either E.B. White or George Orwell
The Unthinkable: who survives when disaster strikes and why. Amanda Ripley
Rapture ready! : adventures in the parallel universe of Christian pop culture Daniel Radosh.
Rebuilding the Indian : a memoir by Fred Haefele
How to tell when you're tired : a brief examination of work Reg Theriault.
Common ground : a turbulent decade in the lives of three American families J. Anthony Lukas.
Motoring with Mohammed : journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea Eric Hansen.
Confessions of a prairie bitch : how I survived Nellie Oleson and learned to love being hated Alison Arngrim.
Running the books : the adventures of an accidental prison librarian Avi Steinberg.
All of those were good, or I wouldn't mention them.
Megan, I'm so glad you're back.
Good eye, Apostropher. I was unfamiliar and appreciate the reference.
By the way, Megan, did you ever watch any of the documentaries that I recommended to you so many moons ago?
TC Boyle's Road to Wellville is nice-- not too light, not too heavy. Gaddis for something more serious and American, 2666 for something more serious and Mexico-Chilean, Sebald's Austerlitz from Europe.
Okay, I think "more serious" significantly understates the seriousness of the last three of these.
Thanks Heebie and everyone who greeted me.
No, Nick. I'm sure I would have liked them, but I am so out of the TV habit that there's never a time that watching anything (except the BBC's P&P) occurs to me. I just don't think of it.
Oh, I know. I just suspected Megan was unfamiliar.
I knew you knew. I just wanted to say "homage".
Well, if you're ever looking for TV to watch, I encourage you to dig up the list.
In particular I can't imagine that you wouldn't enjoy Planet B-Boy.
779: Yes, but did you say it HOMM-idge or oh-MAHJ?
re: 761
I don't know, I've quite liked his last few. Although I've not read Our Kind of Traitor yet.
Alan Furst is always good for 'spy' fiction, although, as I said last time a book thread came up, his more recent ones are a tad formulaic although perfectly entertaining. But Night Soldiers, Dark Star [especially this], The Polish Officer and others are all good.
Blindness, if you want to hate humanity forever and Saramago's style doesn't give you an eye twitch, although I suspect you've probably all read it. (Nobel prize!)
Megan, you don't know me, but that is one awesome book list. Thanks for that.
Fon non-fiction, I loved Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx but, it's also not the the most cheery book ever.
peep, depressing poverty stuff belongs in the other thread!
For non-fiction I recommend The Last Shot (Darcy Frey) to everybody, even people who don't like sports.
Oh, wait, Halford knew Coming of the Book; Auerbach's Mimesis is serious, but very well written. Josephus and Juvenal are both really readable. I have been meaning to try Horace, is there a recommended translation of the Sermones?
One other good nonfiction book: Okrent's Last Call about prohibition in the US written by a journalist rather than historian, so more readable and broad rather han deep, an advantage for this subject.
I've just been reading some Ryszard Kapuscinski and I would strongly recommend Travels With Herodotus. The Soccer War was very good, but not quite as good, and I've heard very good things about The Emperor and Shadow Of The Sun.
Very readable.
For non SFF genre I'm currently enjoying Jean Claude Izzo's Marseilles trilogy that starts with Total Kheops, translated as Total Chaos. It's very well written noir. Two good historically minded novels are Stefan Chwin's Hanneman translated as Death in Danzig and Christa Wolf's Kindheitsmuster translated alternatively as Patterns of Childhood and A Model Childhood. Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man is a rollicking satire very different from his other works and enormously fun.
For the fans of the epic late nineteenth century realist novel, Boleslaw Prus' The Doll is quite good. In a different style but similar period Maupassant's Bel Ami is a lot of fun. And going back in time, if you like that sort of stuff and haven't read Balzac, you really should since he's awesome.
Great suggestions, y'all. I've read A Dance to the Music of Time and love it in the way that only a guy who really does have assholes from boarding school constantly recurring in his life in increasingly powerful positions can. I have to say I found the last two books in the series pretty awful, and the last one, set in the 1960s, basically unreadable.
I should totally get the Quincunx.
I'm with Halford; Powell is very good but then starts to go rapidly downhill in the last three. I gave up towards the end of book eleven.
Like, there is a guy in my life whose personality and life trajectory is so insanely like Kenneth Widmerpool's that it makes me want to scream. (I assume every upper middle class British person would say the same thing, but still).
Except, being America, he's a right wing Republican lawyer.
How much did the entire world detest Woody Allen's terrific Stardust Memories? So much that Google can't seem to produce a reliable quote for the line regarding "homage." But it goes something like this.
Q: Was that scene in your movie an homage to Vincent Price in House of Wax?
A: No, we stole that outright.
Darnit, Nick. I've _The Soccer Wars_ on request from the library, but the book is lost, so it might be a while. I've requested his other stuff since you've said it is good. Also just requested _The Last Shot_. I promise I'll get to those faster than documentaries.
Megan, you don't know me
I do too know you. When last we talked, I was telling you to slut it up.
795: I give that advice all the time, but then they go slut it up with somebody else. That wasn't what I meant, you slut!
795: Ah! Doh! You jogged my memory. Well, instead of taking your advice (although I did have one disastrous attempt, where half way through this perfectly nice looking woman talking to me I realized: nope, I most definitely am crazy right now and fled? awkward), I fell for it when the ex instead came back and made a bunch of romantic declarations. But that was so long ago! Long enough that now I'm single again. I, too, am glad you're back. I imagine the advice still applies. I'll work on it.
796 sounds like what would happen if apo pissed off Apollo. You haven't refused to sleep with any gods lately, have you?
You haven't refused to sleep with
I stopped reading there. No, I haven't.
799: You stopped reading after "You haven't refused to sleep with..." and are confident the answer is "no, I haven't"?
What if the sentence ended with "...your head in a toilet"? That would be gross.
Wait, is it the refusing with your head in the toilet or the sleeping with your head in the toilet? My answer might be different.
Kapuscinski is a great read, but caveats apply (also).
There are ways to work around that.
Kapuscinski is a great read, but caveats apply.
I'm not surprised, honestly. But reading that doesn't make me hesitate at all in recommending his books.
dostoyevsky really is all that. also tolstoy, though prefer the former. the gulag archipelago is a slog but way worth it. just happening to think of russian authors.
Is it ok to start in the middle with Anthony Powell?
2 to 10 are really where it's at. The first one is a banal British boarding school story, but it does some useful scene setting, so it's worth reading if you promise not to give up on the basis of it.
Some of his earlier stuff is good too. Like the young Evelyn Waugh, but not as nasty.
I'll second all the other recommendations of therapy for TG and his wife, but unlike Halford, I think that couples' therapy is likely the best place to start if you want to work on the marriage itself. That's assuming that your wife is willing to go with you, TG - if not, then working on your own issues in therapy will likely help you, and might help the marriage.
My own experience with doing both joint and individual therapy for several years is that the individual therapy has been very helpful to me in clarifying my feelings about a key issue that our couples' counselor wasn't handling very well, and giving me a safe place to vent about my frustrations without triggering my wife's fears of abandonment. But even though my individual therapist has been great in suggesting ideas and resources for addressing that issue (and a bunch of related stuff), it's been really hard to put a lot of that into practice, both because the therapist has only part of the picture, and because my wife is really resistant to any suggestion that comes from my therapist (and is pretty good at guessing that various ideas come from the therapist, even if I don't tell her explicitly). So I'm kind of acutely aware of how hard it is to work what is really a couples' issue from just one side.
752: Graham Greene is a mixed bag.
Agree but you can do much worse than just plunging in. The only one that I recall *really* putting me off was The Heart of the Matter. One of the things I like about Greene is that my three favorite books of his are so different: The Quiet American (really USA, some punter spelled it all out for us ahead of time in a novel?), Travels with my Aunt and The Comedians (bitterly dark comedy ... tails off towards the end though).
Graham Greene is a mixed bag.
True--a skin sack full of guts and blood and whatnot.
811: Whereas Nelson:
Lisa: How do you feel? What's inside you right now?
Nelson: Guts... and black stuff... and about fifty Slim Jims.
||
I know I shouldn't, but I just love this.
|>
813: If loving that is wrong, I don't wanna be right.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Stormcrow for recommending The Half-Made World. It was excellent. (But not for you Halford.)
Why wouldn't Halford enjoy it? It's brilliant!
I'd like to take this opportunity to strenuously object to Von Wafer's pseud change. (If you insist on it, can it at least be lowercase to aid my failing memory?) Also, since it seems to have been done for reasons of whimsy rather than anonymity, why are we keeping it a seekrit?
817 sounds rather hostile; I only meant it to be cranky.
817 sounds rather hostile; I only meant it to be cranky.
I recently had cause to lament that a speaker to whom I posed a question misinterpreted me as being rude to the subject of the talk. I had meant to be rude to the speaker.
Okay, I don't want to be the language police, but I think it would be so much nicer if you all could say that Mrs. Guy has some kind of mental-illness rather than that she's mentally ill. The latter makes her sound like a leper.
The Sot-Weed Factor is loads of fun.
I couldn't finish that; within a hundred pages I'd started to read Barth's voice as wolfson's and could not stop, prompting the urge to reach through the pages and wring his bitchy little neck.
The latter makes her sound like a leper somebody with Hansen's disease.
Fixed that for you.
I've always been baffled by the sentiment expressed in 820. "Short person" vs "person who's short" just don't sound at all different to my ear. Am I an outlier here? How likely is it that someone would be offended by the use of normal English word order? Basically this strikes me as super super silly, but I may just be wrong about that and if I'm wrong I'd like to know that sooner rather than later.
Yeah but yours both have "person" in them. The idea is to use language that emphasizes the humanity of whoever you're talking about.
(I know some people get fussy about the word order as well, with the idea that whatever word you say first is more prominent. I care less about that particular thing than other people do)
For reference, the non-silly language rules concerning mental illness would be avoiding loaded "crazy" terms, and using similar language to ordinary illnesses, except that for some odd reason you can't say sick and instead say ill. So since "it sounds like she's sick" is the normal non-insulting phrase, the normal thing to say would be "she sounds mentally I'll.". Similarly "she sounds like she has some sort of respiratory virus" goes to "sounds like she has some sort of anxiety issues.". Etc.
Basically my inclination is to listen to people when they make points about word choices and roll my eyes over word order.
Also, short people who are short don't have a history of being institutionalized, denied education and marriage, etc. based on their shortness, so the amount of sensitivity needed around the language is likely to be different.
Oh except "persons" vs "people" which is an eye-roller despite being a word choice.
(there was supposed to be some striking out in there)
So, for instance, if you talk about a "baller", it's really difficult to see the person inside the basketball good. Instead, say "a person who balls".
829.1: But that doesn't distinguish "X is mentally ill" and "X has a mental illness".
I thought the argument one hears is that "X is mentally ill" is characterizing the illness as part of X's identity, due to the word "is", and thus suggesting that it is their defining feature.
I think this argument is totally spurious, of course, since I can say things like "I am sick" or "I am hungry" without implying that these are defining features of my identity. But it's the argument I've heard. Maybe there's a better one.
834 would have been funnier before 831. Not that it would have been funny, necessarily, but it would have been funnier.
Having a virus and having a mental illness have vastly different repercussions as far as what happens to you if you admit to someone else that you have it. In a perfect world where there was no discrimination against anyone with any disability, sure, it would make sense to talk about it using the exact same language as if you had a cold. Sadly, we don't live in that world, and there is stigma attached to mental illness that does not attach to a respiratory virus.
831: certainly I understand the reasons for sensitivity, my question was just whether this is a difference many people are likely to notice/actually care about.
828: The mental health field is the only place I've heard this, but I assume the issue arises in other areas. Given the history of lifetime hospital stays with little treatment, the point was to make it clear you are talking about a person with a disease and that this person may not always have this disease and has other traits besides this condition.
In other words, while "short person" vs "person who's short" don't seem that different, "schizophrenic" and "person with schizophrenia" come from two different world views and that Nurse Ratchet is far more likely to work for a place where the first view holds.
Like most good impulses, there are people who take things too far. There are those who protest the casual use of "you're nuts," but the underlying impulse comes from a real need.
839 to 838. I'm a person with astigmatism.
Well, I think that people who have mental illnesses are likely to notice more subtle differences in language used to describe them than people who don't, and that generally it's nice to call people what they ask you to call them.
re: has vs is, this is related to whether it seems like you're defining an entire person based on a mental illness (he is mentally ill) or describing one characteristic of the person (he has a mental illness). I can see where the argument is coming from, but personally would much rather be called "deaf" than "a person with a hearing impairment" so various Ms may V.
My grandmother has big lectures about the problematic language in things like "a blind alley" or "a blind spot" and I can't remember the other examples, but it's long and ponderous and if you interrupt, she'll start over.
835 basically nails it. But logic doesn't always explain language use. My reaction would change if for example there was some psychology research saying that using "is" in sentences like that made the listener think worse of the person being mentioned than did "has.". Or if there was solid evidence that word order changed peoples feelings about the person being mentioned. There is a factual issue here and it's possible that I'm just wrong about it.
I can see where the argument is coming from
Then can you explain it? As I said, I don't see how this language use is any different from "he is ill" or "he is sleepy" or "he is tall", none of which seem to me to "define an entire person" based on the feature mentioned.
Nobody uses your being sleepy or ill or tall to try to lock you up, or lobotomize you, or refuse to give you a job. You really don't see a difference?
OT: I can't find the old letters I sent him to check that it is the same guy, but I'm pretty sure that the guy who just plead guilty to a massive real estate fraud* is the guy that dodged me for months over $500. This was back in 2005 or so and I always felt vaguely guilty like maybe he had real money trouble and I was being heartless. Apparently, he was just too busy starting to use fraud to become a millionaire.
*Screwing banks and poor people simultaneously by selling crappy foreclosed houses with phantom down payments.
841: right it's nice to call people what they want to be called, but that's not the issue here, the issue here is when they then want to start changing the rest of the language. Word order isn't something simple like word choice.
839: you also hear the same word order and is vs has issues brought up with disabilities. Signs on transit say "persons with disabilities" not "disabled people" (or worse yet "the disabled", though that one I've internalized more mostly due to "the Jews" or "the blacks" being things only racists say).
I don't see a difference, at the level of the way words are normally used in English, between saying "He is mentally ill" and "He has a mental illness". But 843 is right that the key question is whether people perceive these as saying different things. I don't, but maybe enough people do to justify choosing the latter. It might be true in practice that the sort of people who view a mental illness as a defining feature of a person are more likely to choose the former, in which case the argument you give in 841 might have some strength. But there's a missing step here.
(Note that I do see a difference in the case of "he's a schizophrenic"....)
The mental health field is the only place I've heard this, but I assume the issue arises in other areas.
No, you're not supposed to say "the blacks" or "the gays" for the same reason. The grammar situation is different because it's okay to say black people or gay people, but the underlying offense is the same.
I guess a similar case is "colored people" versus "people of color", but this one has a lot of historical baggage attached that I don't see applying straightforwardly to "mentally ill people" versus "people with a mental illness".
846: but that argument applies just as well to "has a mental illness" vis-a-vis "has a hunger.". You still need a substantive difference for the "mental illness is a big deal" argument to take it the rest of the way.
850: okay, fine, he's a person with gay.
No, you're not supposed to say "the blacks" or "the gays" for the same reason.
True. But, I'd picked-up on that while I was still a kid so I never got comments on a paper about it.
Also amusing is that Grandma has a big lecture about how much fighting she did on behalf of gay people - around the getting gay unclassified as a mental illness era - and during the entire lecture she says "the gays".
Right 853 I think of as a weird special case that has a peculiar historical background. Basically all terms for black people eventually become offensive, and then a new term comes into use. Hence you can't say "colored person" but there's no non-historical reason whatsoever for this. (Along these lines, I think "Negro" is poised for take-off as an ethnic description of descendants of American slaves as a distinct group from all black people.)
lot of historical baggage attached that I don't see applying
You still need a substantive difference for the "mental illness is a big deal"
Oh my god, I am going to have a tantrum. Maybe I'll be back in a while after I do some deep breathing exercises.
Also funny is that Grandma is tormented that a cousin hasn't sat down and had a heart-to-heart with her about how gay he is. , She interprets this to mean that he's closeted to her, and so she can't tell her friends that she has a gay grandson, even though the rest of her friends get to talk about how gay their grandchildren are.
And of course there are plenty of qualities that people do use to try and lock you up that get referred to in such a way: "he's an alcoholic." "he's a thief." "she's a pro-democracy activist". The issue of where and when a stigma attaches to a term -- where it becomes an unearned epithet, I guess -- and when it stops being useful as a descriptor seems like the kind of thing that would have to be agreed to on a case-by-case basis. I mean, I'm not going to go around saying "please refer to me as as person who cycles rather than 'a cyclist'" even though that's certainly an epithet with a lot of (really mild compared to most of these other categories) baggage (runs lights! Blocks traffic! Self-righteous!) among some people. So then the question becomes one of whether "mentally ill" per se, absent any particular specific diagnosis, and used by non-medical professionals in a casual way, clears that test. I personally think "meh", but then I use all kinds of fucked up language and also am a person who bicycles.
Oh my god, I am going to have a tantrum.
Seriously? We're not, in any way, downplaying the way our society views mental illness. We're talking about a very specific question of word order that doesn't appear to be intrinsically correlated with that problem.
I mean, I'm not going to go around saying "please refer to me as as person who cycles rather than 'a cyclist'" 'an impediment to traffic.'"
I'm reasonably sure I pwned you in the comment you quoted, Moby.
Well, you implied that there isn't historical baggage around mental illness. Which is kind of only true because of the degree to which the stigma is still being perpetuated.
866: I don't think he did. He implied that there wasn't a straightforward link between the way historical baggage that attaches to the term "colored people" and the way historical baggage that attaches to the term "mentally ill". He was questioning the analogy, not the existence of a stigma.
Well, you implied that there isn't historical baggage around mental illness.
I did not. I implied that there isn't historical baggage attached to the particular choice between saying "mentally ill people" and "people with a mental illness" analogous to that between "colored people" and "people of color".
"the way [noun] that attaches": good one, person with a dumb ass.
Let's debate cochlear implants!
I mean the logic of "earlier in the sentence makes a bigger deal" would suggest that you should always strive to put "mental illness" as the last two words in a sentence. So "she started suffering from a mental illness around two years ago" really then should be "around two years ago, she started suffering from a mental illness."
I don't want Cecily to be a person with tantrums.
Oh, so that's what "tantric person" means....
Signs on transit say "persons with disabilities" not "disabled people" (or worse yet "the disabled", though that one I've internalized more mostly due to "the Jews" or "the blacks" being things only racists say).
There is a school of thought that "disabled people" is preferable to "people with disabilities" because it conveys that it is the human environment which is disabling the people concerned. I can't get worked up about it either way personally, though I won't be doing with "the disabled" for the reasons Commenter gives; it's dehumanising.
877: now I feel on quite solid ground saying that a simple experiment would reveal that "disabled people" in no way conveys that meaning.
Whereas for "is mentally ill" vs "has a mental illness" I'd bet there's no difference, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the experiment proved me wrong. After all making people was their hands makes them more conservative, the mind works in mysterious ways. (I'd also not be terribly surprised if the experiment went the other way and "has" is actually worse.)
My tantrumy feelings are rooted in (1) the fact that a bunch of people who are not part of a stigmatized group are getting all irritated and bossy about what people who are members of that group should want to be called, (2) the recurrent analogies to having a cold or being hungry, and (3) all the pseudo-objective "but it doesn't make SENSE" argument which seems to me to be both the main argument, and patently silly. No, it doesn't make perfect logical sense. Very little in the way of language usage does.
I don't actually care about the difference between "people with x" and "xed people" very much, but some people do, and since the people who care usually are the people with x, the maximally sensitive and humanizing thing to do is to trust that those people have a good sense of how important word order and word choice is, and call them what they want to be called.
Cat with seriousness has seriousness.
878. I'm inclined to agree. But as I said, in my own case I can't get worked up between those two expressions. British public service standard is "people with disabilities" (often abbreviated, including by public servants with disabilities, to "PWDs" in private discussion), and I suspect the "disabled people" lobby of simply trying to be more radical than thou. I can think of better ditches to die in.
I have to admit to getting, well, not tantrumy, but, say, irked, when people pull the epistemic privilege move and claim, "You are not of group x, so you can't have a completely non-offensive discussion about matters pertaining to such," even if I do in fact happily buy into the idea that folks should be called what they want to be called.
Anyway, it's obvious that the best solution is to add another to-be verb to English, like all the fancy Romance languages have. Then we can just use the temporary-state be instead of the permanent-state be and everyone will be happy.
885: which does seem to be the case with mental illness, where my impression is that the verb most commonly used is "to suffer from."
But "(given) how important word order is" is exactly the point here. Is there or isn't there any evidence that choosing different word choices (say "adjective noun" vs "noun of adjective") has the kind of affect being discussed here (either consciously or unconsciously through some sort of priming)?
879: (1) the fact that a bunch of people who are not part of a stigmatized group are getting all irritated and bossy about what people who are members of that group should want to be called,
A pretty large percentage of the populace, at any given time, has some sort of mental illness. Is it clear that people with mental illnesses have a uniform opinion on their preferences for language use, and that this opinion falls in favor of "people with a mental illness" rather than "mentally ill people"? (I would guess a lot of the people in this country with mental illnesses would describe their condition as "I am depressed"....)
(2) the recurrent analogies to having a cold or being hungry, and
No one ever made such an analogy, at least unless you're seriously blurring the use/mention distinction. The analogy made was between the phrases "having a mental illness" and "having an illness", not between the actual conditions. And the reason these were brought up is because you were, in 841, arguing that there was a logical distinction in the meaning of 'have' versus 'is', the latter "defining an entire person based on a mental illness (he is mentally ill)". These analogies were injected into the discussion only to illustrate that this argument is spurious.
(3) all the pseudo-objective "but it doesn't make SENSE" argument which seems to me to be both the main argument, and patently silly. No, it doesn't make perfect logical sense. Very little in the way of language usage does.
Fine. Then don't, as you did in 841, argue that it does.
The sort of argument that would have answered Commenter's original questions would be anything that illustrates that, in some average sense, people who have mental illnesses don't like being referred to as "mentally ill people". Or that people who say "mentally ill people" tend to do so with some sort of malice that's lacking in people who say "people who have a mental illness".
I realize I should probably stop arguing, and that the appropriate response when someone is offended is generally to stop trying to be rational, but I don't like the way you seem to be making implicit accusations of bias at people who have only been discussing, in good faith, the appropriate way to use language in this situation.
888.1 sorta pwns this, but, even aside from the concerns expressed in 883, we don't actually know which (if any) of us here fit into the group under discussion, do we? I mean, the percentage of unfogged commenters who have 1. been under psychiatric care and 2. been diagnosed with a named mental illness is probably non-minimal.
Anyway in real life I'd have dropped this immediately (and rolled my eyes on the inside at the person making this point). but I thought on unfogged I could learn whether I was right or wrong in this reaction.
My instinct is that it sounds basically caring and thoughtful in a clinical and/or professional context, but in the rather more casual and freewheeling environment of a comment thread we probably don't need to be getting the language police involved. But, again, I'm a person who bicycles, so who cares about my instinct.
879
I don't actually care about the difference between "people with x" and "xed people" very much, but some people do, and since the people who care usually are the people with x, the maximally sensitive and humanizing thing to do is to trust that those people have a good sense of how important word order and word choice is, and call them what they want to be called.
Suppose the people who care are only a strident minority of the people with x. Who seem most interested in how much they can jerk other people around. Why should they get to decide for the whole group?
how much they can jerk other people around
Good point, James. I'd forgotten that this was the secret goal. Never mind!
I don't think Mrs. Guy has a mental illness at all, or is mentally ill, however you say it. She just seems to be highly neurotic. Most people are neurotic to some degree or other. I don't think the disease metaphor works particularly well for most behavioral-mental type issues, although there are lots of reasons people want to use it and such issues are often more harmful and intractable than disorders with a clear biomedical cause.
On the book front, just read AJ Liebling's "Between Meals". It's a great memoir of pre-war life in Paris that is short and goes down beautifully, like sharing a train compartment with a great raconteur. Ostensible focus on food and drink, but goes far beyond that.
I'm a person who bicycles, so who cares about my instinct.
I do. I'm a pedestrian. Also, I'm a pedestrian with physical disabilities, so I can't get out of your way in a hurry if your instinct isn't to slow down.
I have to admit there's nothing that makes me feel like an asshole quite like suddenly being on the same side of an argument as Shearer.
Also "jerking around" s/b "feeling empowered"
896: this has happened to me before, too. It was disconcerting.
894.1 is sort of confused, in that "neurosis" is a deprecated psychiatric diagnosis, and further that very, very few psychiatric disorders have a "clear biomedical cause", or at least not a known one. I mean, if you want to say that schizophrenia and autism are also not usefully described via the disease model, well, you wouldn't be alone, but that carries all sorts of implications for how you talk about things that I'm not sure you've thought through.
895: see, but I'm a pedestrian, too. Look, now we're on the same side! Except I've never had to leap out of the way of a person-who-bicycles. Now, drivers, don't talk to me about drivers. Those people should be locked up.
On the other hand, 894.2 gets it exactly right.
I should say, despite where I come down on the linguistic question, I don't think that the use of the phrase "mental illness" in this thread has been unproblematic. I just don't think the problematic issue has been word order.
I tend to think that BG raised the question in an odd way, introducing a "have" vs. "is" distinction, which led to:
862: We're talking about a very specific question of word order
There's a conversation to be had about word order and have vs. is, obviously, but I'd thought that the original shift in language use that the mental health field encourages follows from similar shifts in other areas, namely: the difference between "s/he's a, or an, X" and "s/he is, or has, X." (Sifu touches on this in 861, and probably others have too, but I've skimmed a bit.)
Compare:
A. He's an epileptic.
B. He has a seizure disorder.
A. She's a black.
B. She is black.
The (A) version is dispreferred. The (B) version is indifferent between has vs. is.
For the record, I don't think my wife's any more mentally ill than her dissertation made her. They do that to people, by definition.
Thinking back over this I have two conflicting inclinations. One is that people in historically marginalized groups have a certain license to demand things for no good reason and I should just STFU and do what they say. If the statement is just "there's no reason for this convention, but it's there" I'm kinda ok with that.
On the other hand when factual claims start being made like that "is" actually means "is the main important thing about" that's where I actually get annoyed. That's a factual claim which to my mind is false.
In other words it's not the "language police" part that bothers me it's the "makes her sound like a leper" being tied to this language issue that bugs me.
896
I have to admit there's nothing that makes me feel like an asshole quite like suddenly being on the same side of an argument as Shearer.
My position on this was a surprise to you? Perhaps before posting 828 you should have asked yourself what would Shearer think about this and then all would have become clear.
Oh FFS. Ms. Messily is completely right with this:
all the pseudo-objective "but it doesn't make SENSE" argument which seems to me to be both the main argument, and patently silly. No, it doesn't make perfect logical sense. Very little in the way of language usage does.
What's at issue here is pragmatics, so convention and inference are everything, and these will be extremely audience, speaker, manner, and context dependent. Whether or not you yourself feel X to imply Y is rather irrelevant, since what matters is group B (unless you're part of B; kudos to James for reminding us of this in the most annoying way possible). An appellation can come to be offensive for completely illogical reasons, but only a complete ass keeps using it.
I think E.Messily captures much of the essence of what is eluding our "my biggest problem is that I'm too logical" folks in 884 with Then we can just use the temporary-state be instead of the permanent-state be and everyone will be happy. Absent those constructs in English, people make assumptions about the permanence (or definitional status) or temporariness of the "is" condition--and those are very different for "mentally ill" and "sick" (or many others).
898: the status of the term "neurosis" among psychologists has more to do with the politics of the DSM than anything else, which politics has its problems too. In any case, although I like the psychoanalytic concept of neurosis in many ways more than the taxonomic DSM approach, you could substitute a term related to some minor variant of "personality disorder" for neurosis in 894.
There's no way of talking about mental disorders that makes things simple, because the "proper functioning" of the brain is so complex and so relative to its environment. But illness strikes me as one of the worst. And yes it can have negative effects even on how one thinks about the most serious disorders, those that may have elements which come closest to the standard physical definition of illness or injury.
There are other of metaphors or ways of thinking about mental disorder that don't lose the physicality of the brain. E.g. lack of health or fitness rather than illness. Someone who is out of shape will be ill-suited for a strenuous sport and may hurt themselves physically if they get involved in such a sport. But I don't think lacking the self-discipline to eat right or work out regularly is best thought of an illness, even though it makes your body function less than optimally and risks more severe harm.
905: Well of course, but "what would Shearer think" isn't part of my normal thought process. Also agreeing with you doesn't make me feel as the same way that being on the same side of an actual argument does.
902: Neither here nor there, but Mara's at an age where she could probably agree that she is black (though I think she'd say brown) but if you said she was a little girl, she'd say, "I'm not a little girl; I'm [a] Mara!" That's what I keep thinking of as people suggest alternatives to "is."
904: I think people often claim that there is some logical/factual justification for the conventions, but I'm agnostic as to whether they are right and I don't think it really matters as far as usage goes.
Or agnostic except in a sort of general sense that matches 858, where as constructions turn into derogatory terms they are dispreferred and new items with less baggage replace them. But that's not related to anything specific about any individual label.
907: as you correctly point out the issue isn't at all with the words "is" or "has" but instead with the words "mental illness."
Maybe this will help all you people who're getting your gender-neutral underclothes in an uncomfortable twist about the claim about "X-person is more essentialist than person-with-X": interpret it as a possibly-false linguistic claim believed by influential members of the community in question, hence an explanation of why the term was taken to be offensive, and no more really needs to be said. At this point, the convention exists independently of its origin. Don't be a dick about interrogating how it came to be. Again, think negro-black-afro/ican-american.
While it's always polite to call people what they'd like to be called, I would say that this is only sometimes the point. People make arguments for changing the language by which different groups are referred to or discussed as a proxy for the work of changing culture. People don't just want deference, they want to change the way people think. This can be internally focused as well as externally focused ("Black" and "Afro-American" were promoted as much with the aim of cultivating a more nationalist culture within Black America as with changing the way the White America thought about Black people).
Culture is a big cumbersome thing and working on it indirectly through language and symbols can be more effective than trying to directly change beliefs. That said, language strategies can also be condescending, misguided and even silly (anyone remember the "differently abled" push?). Sometimes I'll embrace a language change on behalf of myself or another group, and sometimes I'll hang back and wait to see what consensus emerges. I think that while folks who are not part of a particular stigmatized group should keep in mind the very different stake they have in strategies for liberation/cultural change, it's still possible to discuss those issues intelligently, and I'd rather have them/me engaged rather than just reflexively deferrential, because then they're more likely to be willing to invest some of their own energy or give up some of their own privilege in order to do so.
I suppose I agree with Jimmy Pongo and most definitely with all of those who say that the whole "mental illness" thing has been almost 100% unhelpful in this thread. Since categorizing something so is mostly a shorthand for various practical or normative consequences thought to flow from it (X ought to get therapy / be institutionalized / take Y medication / be held less responsible for their behavior / be held *more* responsible for not following advice A, B, C / &c. ad nauseum), and these consequences are extremely controversial, we should just talk about the consequences rather than fight over the label as a proxy for doing so. Especially because fighting over the label is likely to involve a great deal of misunderstanding, since each person has different conceptual entailments in mind.
913: There's still the question of whether it is taken to be offensive in general or only among a certain academic crowd. For example if I called a random black person colored it's quite likely they'd be offended. Is the same true about "is" vs "has"? There are some infuential black leaders who would take the claim that cleopatra was Greek to be offensive, or that civilization began in Asia was offensive. But we don't actually care because those people are wrong and the opinion isn't widespread.
To follow up on 912 there are plenty of circumstances where "has" is something permanent rather than temporary "has a white mother" or "has a scar on his face." The permanence or lack thereof is in the thing itself not "has" vs "is." it's not like has has temporary vs permanent forms.
I'm reminded of a discussion at Feministe a while back on the casual use of "crazy", as in "What a crazy idea!"
The overwhelming majority of commenters who self-identified as having, now or in the past, experienced mental illness (e.g. required medication and/or institutionalization) agreed that a crusade against such casual uses was way overdoing it.
Nevertheless there are still a vocal few dedicated crusaders over there.
This isn't directly on point, but it is a reminder that not every one who takes offense at something on behalf of group X is a spokesperson for all the members of group X.
Also, what Jimmy Pongo said.
I take issue on the word "outlandish" as someone who lives somewhere outlandish.
915 gets it right.
Since categorizing something so [as mentally ill] is mostly a shorthand for various practical or normative consequences thought to flow from it
Add to the list of practical consequences you list the normative judgment that, in Mrs. Guy's case, her rejection of porn and the pornification of our society is somehow demented.
She's not mentally ill in that regard unless you count as mentally ill the having of a perspective that diverges from that which is becoming the norm. (The co-dependence in the Guys' marriage is different matter.)
That Guy: giving actual advice is tough, but if it's chiefly a matter of the stress of her dissertation and her felt need to fly once she's done, it may help your relationship to try to discuss 'flying' together. Can you talk with her about a vacation, possibly lengthy, that the two of you might have once she's finished? I get that she may desperately feel the need to get out get out get out, put the grad school experience, which includes you, behind her: maybe plotting a course for the two of you to do that together would help. If you've lost track (or she's lost track) of why you loved one another to begin with, trying to remember that, sans impediments, is one avenue of thought.
For the record, I don't think my wife's any more mentally ill than her dissertation made her. They do that to people, by definition.
Doesn't matter what the cause is. (And hasn't the ubiquitous-porn, body-image stuff been going on for 13 years? Has she been writing a dissertation for 13 years? Seems unlikely.) While it's true that writing a dissertation and going back to therapy for sudden, very severe symptoms of my own mental illness, I do still think that getting care is important. Just because a life event triggers or intensifies symptoms does not mean a person should not get care.
writing a dissertation and going back to therapy for sudden, very severe symptoms of my own mental illness were concurrent for me
her rejection of porn
Fine, she doesn't have to watch it. And people who think gay sex sends you to hell don't have to have gay sex. She can dislike it all she wants, and if she doesn't want anyone in her house indulging in their own desires, those people chose to live with her with those limits on their behavior. But there is a fucking statute of limitations on making people feel like shit.
parsimon's 902 is good, I think, and is what I was trying to get at with 849.last.
Also, I think 907 is really missing the point with "my biggest problem is that I'm too logical". The issue as much whether there really is a community of people who feels insulted by "is" versus "have", as whether there is logic to their feeling that way. If the stigmatized group feels less stigmatized by the "have" language, we should all adopt the "have" language. It's not clear to me that this is true (rather than, say, that the language choice is imposed from the outside by mental health professionals for faux-logical reasons like those in 841, just because they aren't thinking clearly about how we tend to use words in English).
915 troubles me because while I agree that, sure, not everyone should have to act "the same," I am also deeply opposed to the kind of culture that treats mental illness as moral failure rather than something that can be dealt with, understood, talked about, etc. In my own family we have a long history of non-diagnosis that is instead treated like moral or personality flaws. Uncle P (at 52) really ought to make more of an effort to leave his room, get a job, wear clothes other than sweatpants, speak without repeating movie dialogue, respond when people talk to him, etc. Aunt M (50) should get rid of some of those 45 cats she owns and get out of bed before 3pm. Because they don't have friends or conversations with people outside the family, they're stuck in these eternal discussions about how they "really oughta get their act together" instead of getting any kind of meaningful, respectful treatment. Yes, mental illness makes it very tempting to bubble yourself in. But it doesn't mean there aren't healthy ways of learning to cope more efficiently with symptoms.
Anyway, this horse is dead has a deadness, so I'll stop beating it now.
Messily's 879 gets it 100% right. But I am also a person who hates these various attempts to come up with patently silly logic rules for language use, as if language worked that way.
They do that to people, by definition.
Huh. I wonder what that thing was that I wrote a few years ago then.
Yeah, thank god no one ever told me grad school was supposed to be a cult of flagellants, and they somehow let me get a degree without checking me for the requisite scars.
I hated the last year of grad school a whole lot.
I like how when you open the thread, it briefly flashes on "What Heebs said" in the very first comment. That's right, what I said!
923.first several: I call analogy ban, to tell you the truth. We don't particularly know whether Mrs. Guy believes that a pornified society is sending us all to hell, as though it's proscribed by God. There's certainly room to feel that it objectifies women and problematizes, even warps, gender relations, in a way that should be resisted.
But there is a fucking statute of limitations on making people feel like shit.
Agreed. The Guys need to work this out, and Mrs. Guy is, according to Mr. Guy, under too much stress right now to do so.
Oh dear. I didn't mean to kill the thread.
915 troubles me because while I agree that, sure, not everyone should have to act "the same," I am also deeply opposed to the kind of culture that treats mental illness as moral failure rather than something that can be dealt with, understood, talked about, etc.
I guess I'm just not sure how using the label "mental illness" is particularly helpful in getting help, understanding, and so forth for problems of the sort you're talking about. In the examples you give, for example, I agree that the things you list ought to happen. And perhaps the label "mental illness" might help, insofar as it brings in the authority of Science and Medicine into things, so that they'd be more likely to submit to an outsider's interventions. But maybe it wouldn't help: introducing the label into a discussion, whatever else it accomplishes, almost always results in an extra stage of argument over whether or not the person P "really" has a mental illness, with all the barriers to productive discussion I mentioned earlier.
What's important with your family members is that they're suffering as a result of cognitive and/or behavioral patterns they're currently repeating over and over, and that (hopefully) they'd be better able to overcome these patterns if they got outside help.
It's true that stigma attaches to the term, and this is unfortunate and ought to be fought against, but I just don't think it's helpful to this to insist that every conversation about a condition that might fall under that label acknowledge this, or that establishing this is a necessary first step.
I'm surprised it hasn't come up, but at least for some non-normative traits of mind, some people prefer the adjective, and consider it less stigmatizing to have that aspect of their identity recognized instead of treating it like it's a temporary condition. There are definitely plenty of autistic people who prefer just that nomenclature to "person with autism." I think something similar is true for "I'm bipolar." Of course, autism and bipolar disorder are two non-normative organizations of mind that are more likely to inspire some sense of identification, because they're more likely to give people who have them something they value, than some others; it's probably unlikely you'd hear someone say I am post-traumatic-stress disordered. Of course, that's awkward.
But I'm not sure the value of portraying an aspect of identity can't reach into things you don't value at all, but do want to accept. Consider: "My name is X, and I'm an alcoholic." One of the things that rings hollow about "I'm mentally ill" is that it's so broad that it can't capture any sense of identity. On the other hand, "I'm bulimic" really does speak to an element of a person's experience. (I am occasionally bulimic, at an NOS kind of level, and I am just fine with "I'm bulimic" or "she's bulimic" except to the extent that it misrepresents the frequency.)
@920: giving actual advice is tough, but if it's chiefly a matter of the stress of her dissertation and her felt need to fly once she's done, it may help your relationship to try to discuss 'flying' together.
That's the plan. I'm plenary speaker at a conference in Manchester in July, and she's coming with me and hopefully we'll be vacationing ... though as you can tell, my fear is that I'll be making the return flight alone.
@923: But there is a fucking statute of limitations on making people feel like shit.
Unfortunately, there's not a similar statute on body image issues. That said, the advice to convince her into therapy has stuck, and I'm going to try, but y'all know how that goes: it's a tough slog to convince someone smarter than you that they need to see someone.
@933: We don't particularly know whether Mrs. Guy believes that a pornified society is sending us all to hell, as though it's proscribed by God.
Her objection isn't religious, she was just raised that way. She's an atheist now, but the body image issues remain.
Also, I just want to thank everyone for the majority of this thread: I needed an intelligent perspective, and you lot have provided a number of them, and I feel better about making whatever choice I'm going to make, whenever it is I make it. All of which is only to say: yes, I used you, but only because you're awesome.
I'm also not very sure how successful a campaign to destigmatize "mental illness," is going to be. The medical model might be marginally less stigmatizing than representing everything as a moral failing, but that doesn't mean it's the best way to represent it. I wish I could find it now, but I'm sure I've read an experimental paper where participants, when presented with a more versus less biologically rooted description of an, um, person with psychosis, in the more biologically rooted case found the person more dangerous, less comprehensible, less likely to change. It's really, really hard to find a language to talk about, well, failures of adaptation, because it's really hard to think about them. But I'm less inclined to try to get the stigma off terms associated with the disease model, and try to find a way to talk about compassionately understanding people and encouraging intervention when it's needed and helpful, with language that doesn't do so much to make failures to adapt exclusively about individual moral responsibility, but also doesn't efface individual, community, and social power. (Which I think the medical model does.)
As one of the people who used the term "mentally ill", I regret the choice of words. But it has nothing to do with porn. If you commit an offense against someone, then it is obsessive behavior to continue to bring it up for the next ten years.
I do prefer to be called "person who motherfucks" over the more reductionistic "motherfucker".
937: She's an atheist now, but the body image issues remain.
That's shocking! Why, she must be deranged mentally ill completely incomprehensible!
Kidding. Best of luck, TG. I don't know -- try to hang on? I feel that people have been a bit glib here about the prospect of letting go of a 10+ year marriage. It's not something you just ditch. In Manchester in July, perhaps she just needs some time off, you might fly back alone, and she'll be back.
Except I've never had to leap out of the way of a person-who-bicycles.
I just had to do that today.
I was walking on a trail. I was in the middle to avoid puddles, I hear a bicyclist behind me, start to get out of their way and then realize that the jerk had decided to pass on my right and moving too fast to turn, so I got a bit of scare and had to jump back to where I started.
I feel that people have been a bit glib here about the prospect of letting go of a 10+ year marriage. It's not something you just ditch.
Sunk costs. A marriage that is still going badly after 10 years is exactly the sort of thing people should "just ditch". They're not 21. They gave it a go and it's not working.
Speaking of mental illness, god do I wish ADHD would fade away like chronic fatigue did. Without fail every shitty kid's parent leads off with "well, he's ADHD...".
I do prefer to be called "person who motherfucks" over the more reductionistic "motherfucker".
Stewart Lee is worth listening to on the subject.
909
Well of course, but "what would Shearer think" isn't part of my normal thought process ...
Understandable but in this case it is sort of relevant. The whole point of inventing a new term for a group is to provide a way of signaling that you are relatively sympathetic to that group and its agenda. Hence once everybody has been browbeaten into using the new term it loses its utility and (as you note in 858) a new new term has to be invented (sort of like fashion). So the issue in 828 is how badly you want to signal your sympathy with group x and thereby distinguish yourself from people like me. The offense if any comes from the signal not from some silly quibble about language.
(I know some people get fussy about the word order as well, with the idea that whatever word you say first is more prominent. I care less about that particular thing than other people do)
I agree that this gets to be a bit much. The human-experience language movement people can be a bit much.
Halford-- Jonathan Franzen's Freedom is pretty good. For non-fiction, I'm interested in reading Eric Hobsbawm's book on how marxism can change the world.
the idea that whatever word you say first is more prominent
I don't think this is even true, unless you deliberately distort the natural word order to draw attention to it.
835: A lot of it comes from the world of major mental illnes, when people talk about "the mentally ill."
Saying "I'm sick" is not quite the same as "I'm mentally ill." "I'm mentally ill is more like "I'm a depressive" or, to put it in the context of other people labeling and defining a group they don't belong to. "She's [a schizophrenic." That's more like saying "He's an invalid," rather than "he's sick."
832: People in agemcies sometimes say "person served," because people sometimes consider "client" a derogatory term. I can't stand it.
950: I jumped off that ride around the time people in social service agencies were trying out "consumer." Capitalism makes it all better!
Some of those circumlocutions are completely obnoxious. My mother, whose a social worker and was previously a psychiatric nurse, has to regularly revise her terminology and the general trend seems to be away from perfectly useful ordinary English words into tortured quasi-corporate shite. This is a different issue from the general (and laudable) idea that people should be called by terms they find non-derogatory since, as far as I can tell, in many cases these changes are not driven by the perceptions of users of the various services involved but come from increasingly bizarre second-guessing by higher management.
950. What's that about? Do they think the word client is a term of art that was invented for their own benefit? I could just about swallow 'customer' if the agency people don't understand what 'client' means, but this is crazy talk.
952. The only Scottish social worker I knew generally used the term 'zibzob'. But possibly not in her written reports.
I think the real problem with "client" is that the actual client isn't the "consumer" because they aren't usually paying the bill. The client is Medicare or something.
To ve clear, the human experience people are not clinicians, but activists patients. They don't even like to use, "someone who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia" or "has experienced hallucinations" (which is dreadful, and I have no idea why that is supposed to be better than "hallucinated.")
The funny thing is that people who research schizophrenia are starting to think that there's no such thing--the different types are so heterogeneous. And there are plenty of people with bipolar disorder and have hallucinated. "Some researchers like to talk about "psychotic spectrum disorders."
955. Shall we have a pedantic argument about word meanings until we hit 1000?
I think the actual client is the client/consumer in the accepted senses of both words (which mean different things to people outside agencies). Medicare or whoever, is the customer, who is buying in the service on behalf of the client, for whose benefit the transaction takes place, or consumer (yuck) who uses the service purchased.
957: Well, when I was last involved with this, the people who actually provided services all used "client" or "patient". The people who paid for mental health services in bulk all used "consumer." They said this was because someone blew sensitivity up their bureaucrats, but I always figured it was at least partially to make it clear that kinds of things a clinicians owes a client just aren't going to apply in the case of the giant state agency.
On my computer drive at work, there's a folder for "consumer records."
I think the objection to consumer has to do with the non-relationship orientation, like it's simply a transaction at Wal-Mart. The more radical object, because they see it as describing people as users of services rather than as people who have something to contribute.
I don't care for the terms consumer, personally. I think the objection to the word client stems from the fact that it's used to describe welfare recipients and is mostly a feature of the public system. Social workers providing therapy do frequently refer to the people they work with as clients, but psychiatrists in private practice refer to their "patients." Client is a word used in the low-rent world of state mental hospitals. I think that this is silly, and there will just wind up being a new new word as others have said.
956.1. This was a disability activist to my way of thinking, although admittedly not in mental health.
956.2. Seems almost to be saying that there's an argument over terminology because nobody knows what the terms are really referring to.
like it's simply a transaction at Wal-Mart.
If only they could figure out how to put RFID tags in the cognative behavioral therapy.
"Wait, you didn't pay for that lower level of anxiety yet."
On my computer drive at work, there's a folder for "consumer records."
Porn at home problem solved!
I think the objection to the word client stems from the fact that it's used to describe welfare recipients and is mostly a feature of the public system.
The problem with this is that whatever word or phrase you decide to prefer will then also be used to describe welfare recipients and mostly be a feature of the public system. So you're in a viscious circle unless you prioritise undemonising welfare recipients and the public system.
It doesn't actually address the underlying problem, which is prevailing attitudes towards public welfare.
So you're in a viscious circle unless you prioritise undemonising welfare recipients and the public system.
You can't bill for an exorcism. At least not in the U.S.
You can't bill for an exorcism.
Can't you? Where in canon law does it say that the diocese shall do exorcisms for free, absorbing all the costs, risks, etc. If I were a Catholic Bishop, I reckon I could put together a pretty good itemised account, per devil cast out. (Discounts may apply in the case of Gadarene swine type mass possessions.)
966: I meant that the mental health agencies can't submit the bill to Medicaid or the insurance companies. I don't think the Church sends bills for exorcisms now, but if they had to perform one for everybody in the welfare system, they'd pretty much have to at least get paid for travel.
Superb Owl related bishop fact: Pittsburgh's bishop was Green Bay's bishop until a couple of years ago.
But my point was that the disfavoured terms are disfavoured because they're associated in the public mind with the welfare system, so unless you change the public mind about its hostile and contemptuous attitude to the welfare system, any alternative terms will become equally disfavoured in short order and for the same reasons.
Right, but getting the public to change its mind about something is close to impossible in the short term and very difficult in the long term. The public is mostly assholes, drunks forced to be sober by social convention and the need to earn a living, and guys with mullets.
You can't bill for an exorcism.
My aunt's bagpipe band was hired to play "Amazing Grace" in a haunted hotel near Portland, to exorcise it. Dunno if it worked but they definitely got paid.
970. Agreed. but then we're condemned to changing the trendy terminology for all sorts and kinds of people and activities every six months for ever. There has to be an alternative, even if it's simply agreeing that we don't give a shit about the public in this instance.
968. He's clearly a plant. How long had they been planning this?
It's a great memoir of pre-war life in Paris that is short and goes down beautifully, like
I have to admit that I was expecting a rather more salacious simile here than
sharing a train compartment with a great raconteur.
My aunt's bagpipe band was hired to play "Amazing Grace" in a haunted hotel near Portland, to exorcise it.
That definitely comes into the category of cures that are worse than the disease.
972: How about we just give in and use "buttheads" or something?
973: He's actually from Pittsburgh originally.
That definitely comes into the category of cures that are worse than the disease.
Not that I have any piper tunes on my iPod, but I kind of like bagpipe music.
re: 956
The funny thing is that people who research schizophrenia are starting to think that there's no such thing--the different types are so heterogeneous. And there are plenty of people with bipolar disorder and have hallucinated. "Some researchers like to talk about "psychotic spectrum disorders."
BG, have you read Richard Bentall's Madness Explained? It's pretty good on these questions. Essentially he disagrees with root division in psychiatric nosology between psychotic and affective disorders, and has a lot of trenchant things to say about the scientific credentials of 'schizophrenia' as a diangosis.
Arggh, although I do rather like diangosis as a typo.
Ostensible focus on food and drink, but goes far beyond that.
Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London might be a good companion piece and covers the same locale for [art of the same time period.
Lots of people have many things to say about what is wrong with the schizophrenia. Pointing out errors, won't change anything until somebody can find a better diagnosis. You need something more specific than "crazy" and less detailed than a 12 page write-up to put on a form when somebody can't function because they are hearing voices and all.
re: 980
That's pretty much what Bentall is interested in, actually. He's very interested in symptoms, and symptom clusters and all of the things that would feed into a perfected diagnostic classification system. He also argues that the current system is utterly fucked right at the root at the classification scheme and just tweaking the way we groups things together at the leaf and branch level -- to extent the tortuous metaphor -- isn't the way to go. I think he'd argue that the correct clinical approach is to treat symptoms as they occur in the individual you are treating, rather than to try and shoe-horn them into a classification. You can do that without a 12 page write-up. And, to be frank, having diagnosis and treatment driven by the imperatives of form filling is a bit fucked up, anyway.
976: oh, so do I, but "Amazing Grace"? Ugh. Can't stand the tune. The pipes are a weapon of war, damn it, not a wheezing benevolent harmonium in a Methodist chapel! They could at least have played "Johnnie Cope".
981: I'm sure that is what Bentall is interested in because that is what everybody else is interested in. Given how different classes of medications work for different symptoms, I doubt that the psychosis/affective divide is wrong in general, though I haven't read Bentall. Also, treating symptons as they occur in an individual is what does happen now. It isn't a good state of practice. A meaningful diagnosis would give you information about likely cause and course of disease. And treating symptoms without understanding etiology is difficult at best.
Huh. This is reminding me of Cosma Shalizi and others talking about economics, here.
re: 983
Given how different classes of medications work for different symptoms
Actually, a substantial part of his argument questions actually this claim. There's screeds of stuff precisely about how this claim is -- according to his meta-analyses of the research, anyway -- in fact false. There's also screeds of stuff on the dubiousness of cross-cultural studies of certain diagnoses, and a lot of stuff on the relative unreliability of many diagnoses. While the book is definitely a polemic, it's one founded on a lot of straightforward empirical analysis rather than any general argument against psychiatric diagnosis.
meaningful diagnosis would give you information about likely cause and course of disease. And treating symptoms without understanding etiology is difficult at best.
Yes, but psychiatric medicine is nowhere near that, is it? I think everyone agrees that would be ideal, and I'm pretty sure even Bentall sees the symptom driven approach as just a stop-gap in the absence of a genuinely predictive model that gets diagnosis and prognosis right.
Finding natural clusters of symptoms is incredibly useful to the process of investigating the etiology of disease. The idea that you should consider symptoms independently and solely unless you already have a common cause in hand seems misguided, but that's probably an overstatement of his case that I just made up.
Also, I feel like meta-analyses are damn tricky to do convincingly, especially when you're talking about meta-analyses of heterogenous and possibly misguided research (I was reading a paper on choice overload recently that ran into exactly this problem). Of course, I haven't read the book (which sounds very interesting), so I really can't speak to his analysis one way or the other. Didn't stop me, though.
985: I took this link as being as much as I was willing to read on this today. While he is certainly right that medications have been over-hyped, much of what he says is wrong. The old antipsychotic meds may have worked nearly as well at fixing psychosis, but the new ones have a very different side effect profile. They atypicals do make huge profits for drug companies, but that isn't from treating standard psychotic illnesses but rather because they are now safe enough to give to people suffering from dementia-induced psychosis. They are better medications for most people because getting all the symptoms of Parkinson's disease at 30 is enough to make most people quit taking them.
The first commenters, correctly, jump down his throat for ignoring the actual evidence in support of genetic causes for schizophrenia. He mentions nothing of the new work with various scanning technologies showing differences in brain function.
Some of it was frankly deliberately obtuse. In the U.S. at least, clinical work has been divided into the social worky stuff and the medication management stuff. The psychiatrist isn't asking about life experiences because the psychiatrist's job is basically medication management and other clinicians are supposed to attend to the rest of it. This is obviously a less than ideal situation but it has nothing to do with psychiatrists not understanding that patient history might be important.
That is as much as I am willing to look into this right now. But, while there are many problems with psychiatric research, I've seen this kind of sage-on-the-mountain-top stuff many times. It is itself a symptom of a poorly developed research field, but it isn't a cure.
Cosma's post is excellent, and pretty much pwns me.
Well, right. He's talking about the same sort of issues, where it's practically necessary to take some kind of action on the basis of a set of symptoms, and you have an unsatisfying theory. And one of the questions is whether you have an unsatisfying theory that needs to be adjusted and improved, or whether you have a completely useless and misguided theory that needs to be junked so that the preconceptions that it's based on don't block the development of a fundamentally different and better theory.
re: 986
What did I write that made you think he's interested in single symptoms? It's not what I wrote, anyway, I hope!
re: 987
He does actually cover the supposed genetic bases of schizophrenia quite a bit in Madness Explained, although that book dates from 2003 and may now be out of date on the topic. Since Bentall is a clinical psychologist working in the UK, it shouldn't be surprising that his take on clinical work might be different from how a US psychiatrist would see it.
I wouldn't want to back everything he says; I'm sure I'm not even qualified to assess some of it, since I am* a philosopher interested in these issues, rather than a researcher in the field.** But Madness Explained is actually quite good on quite a few of the issues that he apparently 'ignores'. Doctoring the Mind less so, I think. Which is a much more populist volume, and much more geared at medical practice than the theoretical problems (or lack thereof) with diagnostic classifications, which is the core topic of the earlier (and much larger) volume.
* am/was, whatever ...
* I mean, I'm reasonably well informed about the field (for a 'layperson'), I can read the stats, I can understand the research papers when I read them, I'm not claiming to be an ignoramus, but like anyone who isn't immersed in a field, I've no idea of how partial a view I'm being given of the research literature.
Sure, but the Bentall thing has the strong subtext of being episode #345 in the struggle between psychiatrist as psychotherapist and psychiatrist as medical doctor.
oh, so do I, but "Amazing Grace"? Ugh. Can't stand the tune. The pipes are a weapon of war, damn it, not a wheezing benevolent harmonium in a Methodist chapel!
Not benevolent, perhaps, but you can't say that bagpipes are "not a wheezing harmonium".
re: 991
There probably is a bit of that, yeah, although I don't think he's wrong that a lot of the 'medical' claims in this picture are (at times) proffered with a great deal more certainty than the empirical evidence supports.
The pipes are a weapon of war, damn it, not a wheezing benevolent harmonium in a Methodist chapel! They could at least have played "Johnnie Cope".
The point was to make the ghost go away. On that basis the exercise seems to have been extremely well thought out. I'd have gone away.
From my reading of the link at 987, I especially noted this sentence:
This last "discovery" is consistent with other evidence that life experiences shape even the most severe forms of mental illness.
That sentence isn't carefully worded enough that it can't be disproven but he continues on in such a way that shows he thinks that life experiences are more important that biomedical explanations for mental illness. That these are two very different questions is something that he skips over.
From the same article:
However, one study calculated that the population attributable risk of schizophrenia associated with an inner city childhood is 15 percent -- there would be 15 percent fewer cases if we all grew up in the countryside -- whereas the population attributable risk of having a parent with the diagnosis is only 7 percent.
It doesn't take much of a close reading to see what he is doing here. First, he is talking about population attributable risk instead of looking at the risk factors on an individual level. Schizophrenia is found in less than 1% of the population where as a majority of the population is urban. While "inner city childhood" can be variously defined, we are talking a huge chunk of the population. I'm having trouble saying this without math, but what is mean is that his sentence is true only because there are so many more people raised in an inner city than have a parent with schizophrenia. Having a parent with schizophrenia is a massively better predictor of having schizophrenia than being raised in an inner city. Also, he conflated growing up in an inner city with "life experiences." There is very strong support for the idea that schizophrenia is often the result of an infectious agent. Urban backgrounds are thought to lead to more schizophrenia for the same reason they lead to more cholera before somebody figured out the whole "clean water" thing.
I realize I've only read one newspaper piece, but it has not inclined me to take a generous view of the doctor.
994: Yes, that is another issue. But, in my experience the biomedical guys who do newspaper pontification are more careful.
I'm just going to say that, much as I enjoy his humor, I'm really enjoying this informed commenter turn by MH.
I kind of like bagpipe music.
James Leigh Hunt's idea of martyrdom was to be "tied to a post within a hundred yards of a stout-lunged piper".
