# are we honest?



## mariem1967 (Dec 1, 2010)

I am seeing new posts everyday and most of them are very similar. I see victims posting and asking for advice or help. It is always black and white. You were being abused, treated bad, It is all his (hers) fault. I was perfect but she (he) left me and kids without any explanation. 
Are we honest when posting here? Are we realistic when describing our problems? Shouldn't we say all the truth and even to share faults on our part. I think that if we are more honest that we would find much better advices and that our problems would be much easier to resolve. 
What do you think? :scratchhead:


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## bellringer (Aug 20, 2010)

I always knew what my part in the marriage trouble, I put my son first, my stbx and I never wanted children, we discussed this before getting married, then 3 yrs into our marriage he decided he wanted a child, so we talked it over and decided to have one, my stbx is ver selfcentered and got bored with being a father, I can count on one hand how many times he played outside with him, he will agree to that to. when we went to parties, fishing, amusement parks, overnite amusement, my stbx never came with us, The only time he would actually pay attn to my son was when someone was watching, I always told people to watch him and tell me if i am crazy, but everyone seen it. he was taking my son to his new job last week and told me to dress him all cute, its like hes a trophy child and thats all, I admit I did do everything with my son and didnt care because If I didnt who would. It was worth this divorce because I didnt miss a thing my son did.


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## rome2012 (Sep 10, 2010)

mariem1967 said:


> I am seeing new posts everyday and most of them are very similar. I see victims posting and asking for advice or help. It is always black and white. You were being abused, treated bad, It is all his (hers) fault. I was perfect but she (he) left me and kids without any explanation.
> Are we honest when posting here? Are we realistic when describing our problems? Shouldn't we say all the truth and even to share faults on our part. I think that if we are more honest that we would find much better advices and that our problems would be much easier to resolve.
> What do you think? :scratchhead:


I can say I've always been honest on TAM :iagree: !!!!!!

I've admitted that the reason why my husband wants a divorce is because of my mistakes I've made in our marriage and my life.....because of that he's checked out and this resulted in him finding a skank online (I hope she's online and faaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away from his real world !!!!)......

I can't see why I should lie about it.....since I'm hear to find advice and how good can advice be if I didn't tell the truth....


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## sbbs (Sep 21, 2009)

I get the impression that people are more honest here than they usually are in real life.

I see a lot of people admitting things that they did wrong, confessing guilt for cheating, lying, fraud, and theft. I also see a lot of people's insights into how they helped cause the emotional breakdown of their marriages.

In my case, I really think there were two major things I screwed up:

1) I was far too accommodating. My husband saw how much I wanted to make him happy, even to the point of trading away a lot of things that were essential to my feeling like a worthwhile human being. I let him walk all over me. He was a bully, and I let him bully me. 

2) I didn't admit to myself what he was until I couldn't avoid it any longer. By the time we got married, he'd already shown me how he'd browbeat me when we disagreed. He'd already shown me how he'd leave me behind if I didn't walk fast enough for him. He'd already shown me how little he respected interests or opinions I had that he didn't share. I kept brushing off these put-downs as annoying little quirks I could live with, rather than acknowledging them as small things that added up to a pattern of contempt and dismissal. That was willful blindness on my part.

Other than that--for the life of me, I don't see what else I did wrong. I really don't. So, yes, my posts about my husband talk about how horrible he was to me. I know it takes two to form a dysfunctional relationship, but that doesn't mean that the roles each person played were equally destructive.

In my case, I think I was as much to blame for breaking down my marriage as someone who blithely wanders around city streets is for being mugged. Yes, that person's cluelessness set them up to be robbed, but whoever jumped them and took their wallet is the one who really did the mugging.


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## Mom6547 (Jul 13, 2010)

I think people are honest but incomplete as they only represent one point of view. There was a couple who were both posting with regard to their issues. If you had looked at one side of the story, one could easily conclude that he was a cheating SOB. Or one could easily conclude that she was withholding sex for no good reason. But when they posted together, a whole different story came out.

I think people are HONEST but just don't have the understanding of the other point of view. If they DID have the understanding of the other point of view, nine times out of ten they would not need to be here!


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## sbbs (Sep 21, 2009)

:iagree:

Memory isn't perfect for anyone, and the stories people tell about themselves tend to shield their egos from attack or admission of failure.

When people are successful at something, they tend to credit things they did for the success. When they fail at things, they tend to blame circumstances outside themselves for that failure. 

But, when people think of the reasons for other people's behavior, they give too much weight to what other people are like and too little weight to the circumstances they're in.

All of this stuff leads people to have versions of the truth that often contradict each other. Two people can be very, very honest, and yet have very, very different stories of the exact same relationship.


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## sisters359 (Apr 9, 2009)

I just think some people don't see their own part in a marital problem very easily. But I'm actually suprised by how many DO and readily admit it here. Yes, we do have the "I am such a victim!" types but they are either willing to learn OR the type who are really incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions, insist upon defending themselves, and will continue to blame everyone but themselves for their lives miseries--but those types are very rare here, I think, b/c we won't let them get away with that and we won't validate the story they tell, so they get mad and leave the site. A professional victim doesn't last long here!


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## Threetimesalady (Dec 22, 2010)

mariem1967 said:


> I am seeing new posts everyday and most of them are very similar. I see victims posting and asking for advice or help. It is always black and white. You were being abused, treated bad, It is all his (hers) fault. I was perfect but she (he) left me and kids without any explanation.
> Are we honest when posting here? Are we realistic when describing our problems? Shouldn't we say all the truth and even to share faults on our part. I think that if we are more honest that we would find much better advices and that our problems would be much easier to resolve.
> What do you think? :scratchhead:


I think you are a very wise woman...I have found that speaking the truth can get me in trouble, but has also hit many nails on the head...Downing your partner is easy to do...Admitting your fault can be a tragedy....Take care...


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## oceanbreeze (Oct 8, 2007)

my divorce is nearly over, but i am aware of the good and false parts of my husband and i. 

my false parts are that i am never quite stable with a job, but i did not feel that was a huge thing considering my husband made 5000 gross income for 2 people living in san francisco, ca. i did speak my mind a lot when i saw things that were not right and pointed them out. i lost my identity allowing my husband to shape the person he wanted me so that he could be happy and treat me better; to the point of having no self-esteem and self-assurance. 

my husband took our marriage into his own hands. gambling thousands of dollars in which his family covered. they own property all over sf, so it was nothing to them. i recently discovered in april, 2010 that my husband was sleeping with prostitutes the WHOLE time during and prior our marriage of 10 years total together. he gave hints of sleeping with men, but i was never completely sure. either way, my fear was of dying from viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS and having any other incurable VD. in january i have to check myself out again. then once more in june to make sure. it's just a terrible situation. 

the positive of it all is that i learned many life lessons. listen to my instincts. if there is a sign, get out NOW. meet the whole family and know what you're getting into. meet all of his friends. dont speak your mind up so easily before you miss out on the whole picture (but i pretty much hit the mark each time in which the whole time my husband was against me and told everyone what i said, thought, and felt.) and foundation. build a long term friendship first rather than dating only because that was one aspect i did not know about my husband and always wondered what kind of friend he was to his friends. it was not until i really watched him quietly that i began to see how easily everyone was dismissible to him, including his brother, family, and me.


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