# Fiction



## Locard (May 26, 2011)

I don't mean to be a buzzkill but I sure have been reading a lot of fiction on here lately.


----------



## morituri (Apr 1, 2011)

Perhaps, but just because it is out of the normal infidelity story plot line doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Truth many times is stranger than fiction.


----------



## morituri (Apr 1, 2011)

Why do you think the question "WTF?" is so popular?


----------



## TBT (Dec 20, 2011)

Locard said:


> I don't mean to be a buzzkill but I sure have been reading a lot of fiction on here lately.


Perhaps you have.It would be nice to think it was all fiction.Unfortunately that's not the way of the world.


----------



## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

"....Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves...."

The Duchess.
Alice in Wonderland.


----------



## akashNil (May 20, 2012)

Locard said:


> I don't mean to be a buzzkill but I sure have been reading a lot of fiction on here lately.


Even I feel it sometimes. But no, it is not for most of the posts. Many people come here when they have nowhere else to go, and get good advice. I believe many BS's do not even post their full story for various reasons. So yes, truth is far worse than fiction - at least on this forum.


----------



## AngryandUsed (Jun 23, 2011)

But, I think, true threads get answered, while some fictions also get seriously answered.
Purpose of TAM is to help true threads, I suppose.
How do you distinguish fictions from true threads?


----------



## tacoma (May 1, 2011)

AngryandUsed said:


> But, I think, true threads get answered, while some fictions also get seriously answered.
> Purpose of TAM is to help true threads, I suppose.
> How do you distinguish fictions from true threads?


You don't.

You offer the same advice as any thread until an OP is objectively exposed as fiction.


----------



## morituri (Apr 1, 2011)

tacoma said:


> You don't.
> 
> You offer the same advice as any thread until an OP is objectively exposed as fiction.


:iagree:

If a forum member believes that a story is bogus, then he/she has the option of simply refraining from posting.


----------



## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

After what I went thru 2-1/2 years ago.....nothing surprises me when it comes to what our spouses are capable of.


----------



## Count of Monte Cristo (Mar 21, 2012)

the guy said:


> After what I went thru 2-1/2 years ago.....nothing surprises me when it comes to what our spouses are capable of.


:iagree::iagree::iagree:

I was going along living a fairly mundane life when my world was turned upside down by my wife's affair. I knew that infidelity existed but, like starving children in third world countries, it did not affect my day to day existence. A year ago, I knew nothing about the fog, trickle truth, no contact letters, alpha male, etc. Without having gone through my ex-wife's betrayal, I would have thought that most of these stories on CWI were made up. Now, nothing surprises me.


----------



## costa200 (Jun 27, 2012)

I personally haven't read anything here i had not come to expect from real life stuff. i've seen happen or was told about by very trustworthy people or some stories that are even worse than the average stuff we are getting here.


----------



## akashNil (May 20, 2012)

morituri said:


> :iagree:
> 
> If a forum member believes that a story is bogus, then he/she has the option of simply refraining from posting.


Maybe yes, but still something just doesn't sound right. Even a small doubt about authenticity can probably hurt the image of TAM.


----------



## morituri (Apr 1, 2011)

akashNil said:


> Maybe yes, but still something just doesn't sound right. Even a small doubt about authenticity can probably hurt the image of TAM.


I seriously doubt it. Besides, TAM's forums are policed by moderators whose job is to protect the site and its forums from outside threats.


----------



## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

my own story, I have to admit, when I wrote it down, looked rather odd, to put it mildly. Or so it seemed to me.

The bits I left out, however, well. they'd have made it look like a work of total fiction!

Sadly, it all did happen to me.


----------



## Locard (May 26, 2011)

Guys the threads follow a fairly obviouis pattern. I do statement analysis at work and they are fairly easy to spot. I'm not saying I can point them out 100%, but to me they have a lot in common including the poster handles. After you have done this stuff for awhile they flash like a neon sign. Thats all I got, I hate to see people waste their time when there are people here who really do need help.


----------



## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

Locard said:


> Guys the threads follow a fairly obviouis pattern. I do statement analysis at work and they are fairly easy to spot. I'm not saying I can point them out 100%, but to me they have a lot in common including the poster handles. After you have done this stuff for awhile they flash like a neon sign. Thats all I got, I hate to see people waste their time when there are people here who really do need help.


But for someone to write a fictional story like that, there must be some deep, inner psychological damage in their psyche that they may not be aware of on a concious level.


----------



## Machiavelli (Feb 25, 2012)

MattMatt said:


> But for someone to write a fictional story like that, there must be some deep, inner psychological damage in their psyche that they may not be aware of on a concious level.


Novelists do it all the time. It's just that some of them write their novels on this board.


----------



## Lone Star (Feb 2, 2012)

While some posts may seem like fiction and some may actually be fiction, the life I have been living for the past 10 months seem like fiction sometime to me because I would never have thought my H would have done the things he has done. And as someone posted earlier in thread, some of us haven't really posted our entire story. That is true for me. Maybe if I had found TAM in the very beginning of this ordeal I might have posted the entire story, but I didn't find TAM until months after the ordeal began. I post bits and pieces of my story, mainly the things that are really upsetting me. 
I've read things in this forum that seem like made up stories, but then again, after the past 10 months of my life who I am to say something that seems like fiction is fiction? I've learned over the past 10 months that people can decieve others in the most fictious ways.


----------



## Cosmos (May 4, 2012)

Locard said:


> I don't mean to be a buzzkill but I sure have been reading a lot of fiction on here lately.


Possibly, but if that is the case the fiction writers have even bigger problems than marriage / relationship ones...


----------



## badbane (Jun 9, 2012)

I think it really doesn't matter obviously if someone came on here and told a fictional story it doesn't matter. Obviously some people would like the support an attention of the people on here. Regardless of fiction or no. Maybe it is a friend of the person that is going through an A and they want to see what's going on. 
It isn't our place to judge. TAM is for all intents and purposed anonymous. It provides sage neutral ground for people. 
Is it worth doing something because a few trolls get on here..... no.


----------



## Harken Banks (Jun 12, 2012)

In my modest view, fiction is a problem because it wastes the time and energy of well-intended members of the community and, if not recognized as fiction, would seem to tend to distort the forum’s collective perception of reality and thus to undermine the ability to recognize, predict, and meaningfully comment on the circumstances of people who are truly hurting and come here in need of or at least to solicit insight and advice.

I would guess a lot of people come here for a reality check. And before posting, if they ever do, they’ll first read a lot of threads to help them find context for their own experience. That’s what I did. But I would never have posted if I first read stories that looked transparently bogus. I read a lot of mind blowingly outrageous stuff here before posting (ShamWow’s story comes to mind), but in each case the narrator and narrative were credible. So the risk would seem to be that if we get a lot of Penthouse letters, people won’t take the site seriously, and that could be it’s undoing.


----------



## aeg512 (Mar 22, 2011)

The main problem when fiction is allowed to just keep running is that the forum looses credibility. I come to the forums to gain insight to assist with communication in marriage, no affairs, so I may have more of an open mind. The problem is that I did do claims work for over 30 years and credibility is the biggie when collecting information from others. There is one forum where there is not much interest and the main reason is it was taken over by posters that allways give the same advice, just like you have a few on here. One thing learned was that people are different and there are very few things that take place that are the same. It is best to approach with a roadmap, but you need to be ready to change directions, that seems to happen very few times here.


----------



## Paladin (Oct 15, 2011)

I agree it might waste time, but I doubt the few "fictional" type posts will have much of an impact on the reputation of the site as a whole. AngryandUsed made a very good point early in this thread, since there is no way to 100% know for sure if something is fiction, we must apply the charitable interpretation and treat it as truth, until it is 100% clear that the poster is only out to get attention or waste time/troll. 

There is also the fact that even in a fictional thread, if good advice is given, there is a chance some lurker will stumble on that advice and be helped in some way.


----------



## Count of Monte Cristo (Mar 21, 2012)

aeg512 said:


> The main problem when fiction is allowed to just keep running is that the forum looses credibility. I come to the forums to gain insight to assist with communication in marriage, no affairs, so I may have more of an open mind. The problem is that I did do claims work for over 30 years and credibility is the biggie when collecting information from others. There is one forum where there is not much interest and the main reason is it was taken over by posters that allways give the same advice, just like you have a few on here. One thing learned was that people are different and there are very few things that take place that are the same. It is best to approach with a roadmap, but you need to be ready to change directions, that seems to happen very few times here.


You make some valid points. One size does not necessarily fit all. You're fortunate that you haven't experienced the heart-wrenching grief of infidelity. Trust me and others that have, there's no pain quite like it. 

Your not having experienced such a tragic event does not really give you an open mind. It's kinda like sex -- you have to experience it to really be able to understand it.

In addition, while human beings are different from each other, we invariably follow certain scripts in different situations. An otherwise law-abiding individual will most certainly break the law and steal food if it means keeping his family from starving. This is a given. Similarly, cheaters (and betrayed spouses) also follow their own scripts. 

You're correct to say that we're all different -- however, we're very similar in how we behave under certain conditions.


----------

