married folk give my friend your advice

wat do u mean u offered to vouch for him? don't step to the wife, dude.

i don't know, i mean u sound like u did good. this doesn't sound irreperable. (spl)

oh no noooooo, I wouldn't step to the wife, I like his wife.

It's hard to explain without going into too much detail. although what he did, he admits was his fault and seemed embarassed (so I know he had to have done something unusually boneheaded but not irreparable).

i do think tho that very dramatic fights can be indicative of true love, however corny that is ::shrugs::

she probably wants him to show that he really wants her to come back, although it's hard to say without knowing mroe

this is the kind of thing the internet doesn't really know shit about, but counter-perspective: my mom left my dad having packed nothing and went to stay with a friend down the street. it was final.

basically I think it's impossible for you to know the answer to this.

Oh lord, in a situation like this, I (perhaps wrongly) just assume those in such a situation asking for advice just want some reassurance that they aren't totally fucked up and worthless.

Like the best advice I could give would be: "Let me go buy you a fucking beer."

yeah, that's the only thing to do.

Some hot wings may also help in so indelicate a situation.

Each fight you have with yr sig-o/spouse/whatever permanently lodges a tiny spike of hate in yr hearts. Even if you forgive, you never can forget, and all the non-forgettings accumulate. A better advice would not be merely to patch things up, but also to realize that there's a decidedly finite number of times this can happen.

Good heavens, I've been married for 12 years and I've forgotten a lot of fights. I do remember a few of them, but minor fights are an inevitable part of a long-term relationship. Major fights probably are, too, but they do happen less often.

There is probably a finite number of times you can leave the other person before the relationship is destroyed; I won't argue against that.

It sounds like there was some kind of precipitating event that caused this guy's wife to leave. If that is the root of the problem, he should work that out. But it's not really your place to do anything but listen to the guy if he wants to talk. And definitely the suggestion about taking him out for a drink is good.

I guess what I'm trying to emphasize isn't that fighting leads to immediate relationship destruction, but just that fighting doesn't strengthen a bond, against what young Ramzi seems to believe. It only weakens it.

all i saw was this:

So, like, did I just kill my friend's marriage?

http://www.sorozatok-foruma.hu/kepek2/kepek25/stepup2.jpg

the story was way less scandalous than i expected

He should be like "Yahhh trick yahhh!!!!!"

lol i don't know, lib, i don't think it's either way, completely.

i watched an episode of Maude that brought me to tears, because it drove home the point that love isn't necessarily going to be easy. that if you're really devoted, the fights are more or less just an excuse for passion.

but yea, gray area. i mean, this is a BIG fight, it seems. and big fights more than anything just make me sad. cuz if you can't be at peace with that one person, where can you find peace.

xpost I get what you are saying, libcrypt, but at the same time I think fights are an inevitable part of living with another person, or even being romantically involved with them for more than a brief period of time. Some people who are happily married fight a lot; some people who break up might not have fought all that often. It just sounded like you were saying that once you hit a certain number of fights, your relationship is DOOMED, and it is much more individual than that.

I don't know that fights could actually strengthen a relationship, but sometimes not having them and therefore not addressing some problem, but letting it fester, can lead to relationship destruction.

It just sounded like you were saying that once you hit a certain number of fights, your relationship is DOOMED

Well, yes, I was saying that. And I do believe it, but it's harder to argue that than the notion that fighting doesn't strengthen a relationship. My wife and I never fight, and it's not because we don't disagree. We simply don't escalate disagreements into fights, quite intentionally. I mean, I've personally seen so many relationships where the couples just bicker and snipe all the time and it's obviously a case of not having given a shit about how low things could sink between two people. I'd rather not end up in that space.

I don't think I could really prove that what I believe applies to anyone else, but y'gotta have some kinda guiding precepts in life, and mine include the belief that fighting permanently injures a relationship.

invite him to figure it out and talk out the source of the animosity. if they are married, then it's likely worth saving. that may sound glib, but, truly, i would try to communicate and work shit out if i were in your friend's shoes. i dunno what you can do as his friend, other than remind him of the good stuff in the relationship and try to afford him some sort of reasonable perspective.

I think the occasional fight is perfectly healthy. The "nuclear option" threat of leaving is totally unhealthy and should really only be an absolute last resort. That said, in this case it sounds like the wife is not really threatening to leave. But it's really hard to tell without knowing the situation better.

libcrypt is dropping truth bombs on yall

hey guess what no matter how many times you make up after shitty explosive fights they dont actually make your relationship stronger

Haha hey guess what some people would benefit from learning to draw the line/walk out the door, so pretty much horseshoe OTM!

The fights themselves don't, but they're good for each side to reveal to the other what really matters to them. If...IF...everybody's paying attention, they can be helpful. Whatever this guy did that was wrong, is it a huge sudden surprise to him that he is wrong? If so, he better figure his shit out quick. Ditto for the wife, in any areas of this where she might be in the wrong.

xpost

Just be there for your friend. Buy him a beer, offer to go out with him to a movie or a show...but don't try to be his counselor and don't develop into Dr. Phil.

He and his wife had a fight. In times past when this has happened to me, I haven't really had too many people around for me to rely on. You'll do good by simply being there for him.

Each fight you have with yr sig-o/spouse/whatever permanently lodges a tiny spike of hate in yr hearts. Even if you forgive, you never can forget, and all the non-forgettings accumulate.

I was going to just give this a "boy howdy," but it depends on a few things about how you fight and especially how you resolve fights, doesn't it? I mean, it's true if you make up and smooth things over for ... utilitarian reasons -- if fighting exposes some gulf where you never really understand each other, and fundamentally think the other person is being psycho and unfair and scary, and bringing things back to peace involves just ... ignoring that and hoping it won't happen again. But it is also possible to have and resolve fights where you've both entered into them equally and maintain some basic understanding of the person -- where you're not just papering over some moment where your differences were fundamentally "we live in different universes" irreconcilable.

Moral of which would be, I guess: it's more important to resolve the basics of the thing (or realize you can't resolve them) than to just make up and be nice.

Oh yeah, I'm definitely not defending fight-to-win mudslinging between couples. I just think once in a while you have to lay everything out on the table at the risk of "escalating."

Because every frustration and slight you keep inside rather than bringing up also leaves a tiny spike of hate in your heart

^^^ This, exactly.

Next time I'm in a rerationship I'm going to work on the "out in the open" part, because I am a CLASSIC case of "MINIMIZE CONFLICT MINIMIZE ANGER ABORT ABORT" and then I roll over and play dead. I know! It's shocking! And also unhelpful.

I mean, there can be fights where your image of the other person and why you like them stays stable, and you just happen to really vehemently disagree about something, with equal ardor on both ends. The "spike of hate" comes when someone cannot help feeling like the other person was just flat-out wrong and a horrible person about it, and will never truly admit to that or apologize for it. (And so one person's narrative of the thing continues as "that time you were awful and wrong," and one person's narrative continues as "that time you fundamentally didn't understand me," and that is eventually untenable without brain-wiping technology.)

My husband's entire family does that, Laurel; they get mad and nothing ever gets addressed, so there's always this simmering tension below visits and holidays. I'm so not like that - I just like to solve a problem before it gets to be huge (because when the problems have become huge, that is when the big fights have happened, with the lingering negative after effects).

I think a big part of how you fight is how you were raised, though; I know my husband used to be a lot more like his parents - and now that "I'm pissed, but we're not going to address it" thing strikes him as passive-agressive.

Anyway, I do think a big part of whether fights leave a "spike of hate" forever is how you fight.

nabisco is getting at something else with that time you were awful and wrong. If you are name-calling or treating the other person with contempt, then yeah, that is going to destroy your relationship.

The key (for me...I won't presume to speak for anyone else even though I am totally OTM) is to keep the "let's get this out in the open" moments free of snark and histrionics.

Especially snark.

Anyway, I do think a big part of whether fights leave a "spike of hate" forever is how you fight.

Yeah this is true. The most important thing for my wife was to realize that *tactical* fighting (with winning rather than resolution as the goal) did more harm than good, whereas for me it was realizing that sometimes honesty was more important than calm.

yeah i realize that the reason why i think the spike of hate stuff is true is because ive never really been with someone i didnt think was fundamentally wrong in most fights

and vice versa

married ppl - do you just learn to ignore that or are there actually non-crazy relationships?

Yeah, I worry about that too, Ethan. In my case, part of not being left feeling fundamentally misunderstood so often would be insisting on someone else's efforts to understand being compulsory to the relationship. Ie if I don't make them make the effort, they're not gonna, and if they are not gonna, then I am going to be busy next time they call.

its just always so hard to figure out of the problem is me or the girl

sometimes i wish there was a relationship judge who could tell you who's being crazy and who's being reasonable, but that probably says somethign about how unhealthy my attitude toward arguments in a relationship are

married ppl - do you just learn to ignore that or are there actually non-crazy relationships?

There certainly are non-crazy relationships. Any potential for crazy is minimized by regular, consistent efforts to be good to each other.

like i could take all my fights to an umpire, and he could say, "well, she was being crazy, but it was also out of line for you to bring up that other thing, so you both owe each other an apology"

xps to myself

Sheesh. Arguments would be a step in the right direction for me. In progress.

Ha, Max, the appeal to a relationship judge is not weird or unhealthy, I don't think: it's precisely why people in fights look imploringly upward at God, or glance around an empty room like "are you people SEEING this?"

Sara, I don't think having "that time you were awful and wrong" as part of an internal unspoken narrative of what happened is the same thing as name-calling or contempt! At least not in a world where it is possible for people to behave in ways that are awful and wrong. I mean, on a spectrum from healthy disagreement to spousal abuse, there is inevitably going to be a point where someone thinks it's just flat-out near-morally wrong for the other person to be mad about something, or to not get why you're mad about something.

married ppl - do you just learn to ignore that or are there actually non-crazy relationships?

Which answer would make you feel better?

Thing is, nobody's a mind-reader, so the only motivations we can really examine are our own, and anybody who's not willing to do that possibly doesn't belong in a relationship. I'm not talking about constant emo navelgazing, but there's got to be a degree of introspection and self-awareness for a non-crazy relationship to happen.

I think I'm not helping this thread. I should go to work.

xpost: Dr. Phil/Maury/Springer/Etc

Sorry if I mistook your point, nabisco; there certainly are times when people ARE being awful and wrong (when you get to abuse the lines are drawn clearly, but hopefully that is not the situation with anyone here). I guess I meant that you wouldn't tell the person that they were being "awful" because it's not productive and could lead to name-calling/contempt.

But believe me, I have totally broken my own rules on that, and within the last month, so what do I know about anything?

Also, if possible, I think it's important to not bring up past grievance while having an argument. But that gets back to the idea that you can have small fights that don't leave spikes of hate - and which you do entirely forget about.

this thread is retardo montalban

Really? I thought this was one of the best threads ever. Most of the relationship advice being offered smacks of some serious wisdom, imo.

you would think that.

Yes, I would, wouldn't I. uh, wtf?

As with most good threads, this one was derailed early and often.

I haven't been able to read a LOT of it due to my busy schedule but I think there was a lot of good advice given.

retardo montalban

Defend the Indefensible: People who think that just referencing Mr T or David Hasslehoff makes them some kind of comic genius

Whatever the advice, I hope they patch things up. :-)

Man I got a text at 7 am this morning so since he had told me he wouldn't contact me unless something bad happened, I was worried a bit, and it turns out to be another one of my best friends telling me he just saw this girl that I was supposed to go out with and blew me off back in 2006.

I was annoyed but relieved!

well he emailed me and things aren't so hot....I won't say what, but I'm not taking any of it as one way or another because at this stage, she's still furious.

If you were a real friend you'd tell the rest of the internet all the details so we could give better advice.

rock hardy 4 REAL

ok, I'll bite, since things got a lot worse.

So...they had been arguing due to bad circumstances. For whatever reason, she logged into his myspace account (for some reason she decided to be privy to his passwords but won't share hers) and found an exchange with another girl online in which some inappropriate comments were made.

He told me what they were...I definitely agree he messed up, but so does he, and he was not cheating. The girl in question he has never met...we all used to talk in Internet Relay Chat back in like 2003, and hell I even co-wrote a song about the same girl as a joke. He's never even been in the same state as her at the same time. He made the comments because he's prone to bad judgement, always has been since I've known him...he regrets what he did and didn't mean anything by it, it was the internet and he made a silly decision.

(Won't even get into how invading your hubby's privacy is a 'bad decision', but well he shared his pw so....)

Supposedly things looked better today and then he just texts me saying he thinks its over, that she opened another bank account and her mother is helping her find paperwork for a divorce.

I understand her right to be angry, but this is flat out RIDICULOUS. She hasn't really given him any chance to atone or explain himself, and I won't even get started with the mother. That the mother would encourage this silliness, that at the first sign of trouble, you bail, is just irresponsible. They haven't even been married all that long and have had very few fights. The first incident, and you run?

I'm hoping they're both using it as a flight mechanism but I'm starting to doubt it more and more. My friend of all people does not cheat, and in fact he's been cheated ON before and knew it while it was happening (not with this girl but other girlfriends in the past).

I know he won't take this well if it happens. I'm just hoping the crack his mother-in-law is smoking wears off soon.

(sorry, I'm a bit mad at the moment and that's hurting my ability to be rational)

(and for the record, I'm not suggesting that there aren't some items that should be a one and done. for instance, domestic abuse, actual sexual infidelity, or etc....but what happened here shouldn't be a dealbreaker).

he's better off without an email snooper, that's creepy

yea but this just makes me sad. I mean, they really looked like they had a great thing going, I didn't see this coming.

He's going to be devastated if this really happens. Plus I think he's going to be afraid to ever commit to a serious relationship again given the whole 'you screwed up, its over'.

However, if the mother overreacts just as much as his wife, maybe they'll both realize how silly they are being.

2 lessons learned: 1. Don't netsex with an account yr spouse has access to, and 2. Don't marry a snooper. Valuable lessons both, I figure. Now it's time for him to find someone new.

He didn't really netsex, per se.

Apparently she has refused to iron it out with counseling, other than the mandated counseling that you have to go through in Florida before a divorce.

I hate to say it but it sounds like there's something else at play here....and I shudder to think what.

per se

it wasn't cybersex, he was trying to cheer this person up (again that we never met in real life) as she was depressed, and in the process made a comment he shouldn't have made...

When brought forth the idea of counseling to save the relationship, her response was "I don't want to...". she's not willing to listen.

a comment he shouldn't have made

since you're obviously here to be a shithead, kindly fuck off.

unless you are truly that idiotic to think that it warrants a divorce, despite the fact that she did much worse 2 years ago....

All I'm saying is that you are probably casting a kindly gloss on remarks that reasonable people might find to constitute cheating.

She probably just wants out and has been looking for any excuse to do so. He provided one, and she found it. Cruel and stupid behavior, but if she's opposed to counseling as an attempt to work it out, that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

that's what i think too, she wanted to leave him and now she feels she righteously can.

yay!

:(

This has been insane.

So, she actually wants to go through with it, taking a myspace message meant to cheer a friend (re: online only) up as 'cheating'...and now thinks that in her mind, because it's "his fault", she now has to pay none of the mortgage (which is in her name) or any of her car insurance, and won't discuss finances.

I can't believe how this has played out.

tell your friend to get a divorce lawyer and that hes better off without this bucket of crazy

because it's "his fault", she now has to pay none of the mortgage (which is in her name) or any of her car insurance, and won't discuss finances.

I would suggest that if she's going to go through with divorcing this guy, lawyers will straighten her out. I'm watching my friends go through a divorce, and I really think that doing it through lawyers is the only way to do it. They aren't emotionally involved.

Also, what max said.

I think he's given up trying to save it. He, as I suggested, is keeping a record of every statement/event that occurs as it will be useful later. I knew he would though.

Just a case of a girl getting married thinking it would be all unicorns and butterflies and not realizing that occasionally there are manticores.

sara,

Yes, I definitely agree with you. in florida, marriage counseling is required as well (to make sure they won't just get back together), so I think using lawyers will really be the only way to go.

The sad thing is that my friend's life will be turned upside down for ungodly amounts of time now because of this, when just not too long ago he was really happy.

keeping a record is a good idea but seriously the earlier he hires a lawyer the better off he will be in the end

and buy him 30 rack and take him fishing or bowling or whatever

I'm fairly sure he will...for a while he was trying to still save the marriage so at that point that wasn't where his mind was at, but now that it is, I'm sure he will.

actually chatting w/ him right now so guess I'll ask, lol

yea myself and another close high school friend of his have been keeping him company.....trying to get him to come w/ me to a super bowl party tomorrow to get him out of the warzone.

"bucket of crazy" is a good term. If he has any possessions he cares deeply about, he needs to hide them whenever he leaves the house, or take them with him and stash them at a friend's place. He'll come home and find them in little bits.

because it's "his fault", she now has to pay none of the mortgage (which is in her name) or any of her car insurance, and won't discuss finances.

Florida isn't a community property state, so if his name isn't on the mortgage, he's not liable for any of the debt.

actually they're both on it I believe.

Wow: I can't imagine what kind of flirty MySpace message would be grounds for immediate no-talk divorce, unless it's "I would much rather be married to you than my wife, who is awful and who I'm planning to poison next week" or is being sent to a 14-year-old or something. But you say she was snooping because of "bad circumstances" to begin with, so yeah, kinda sounds like she was already looking for a reason.

I always had the common assumption that people who get married are on some infinitely more solid footing than people who are just dating, and it's been weird over the past 5 years to notice how much that isn't the case: having committed to it that way doesn't seem to make the usual problems all that much less likely to kill it! I mean, it's an artificial step, and then you're still the same people with the same issues you had a year ago.

ding ding ding ding

that's true, but there's significance in the artificial step. obviously it doesn't keep people from splitting up, and obviously some people commit to less than fully from the start. there are plenty of bad reasons people get married. but i still personally find it a valuable thing. even if the sense of solidity and dependability it provides is basically an illusion, in the good cases it's a mutually-agreed-to illusion. getting divorced definitely showed me the limits of that, but i was still happy to get married again.

Well, here's an update:

horseshoe, unfortunately, was OTM. my friend got divorced. his bitch wife made him feel guilty as hell for what he allegedly did for a while, and then it came out that she cheated on him before that incident happened....and said it was his fault she cheated on him.

I'm just glad he can finally move on and pick up the pieces now that it is official, though I know it's one of the toughest things he's ever had to go through.

My advice at this point: change the locks before she cleans the house out of all the furniture. And I mean all the furniture. Also, if she has any kind of charge card in your name, watch out! It'll be maxed out in hours.

fella wanted a coffee and a stroll with me this mornin so grand few sips in he says the missus was bein a right cunt all weekend so sunday afternoon i sat her down and made us a cuppa tae and i says to her

i think we need to be kinder to one another

and she laughed and then got mad and told me to harden the fuck up for gods sake now what dyou think of that man

i said it sounds like ye'll be alright he says oh i dont doubt it but still

and then you both looked down for a moment to see what might be there in your hands to be looked at, such as a cup with coffee, which there was.

no- jesus no

we were strolling up talbot st, we were on full fuckin alert lookin about us man

so that's how it was with you

This Pinter play is a little weird.

btw my friend in this thread got remarried