# Does This Site Help You And Your Relationship...



## cuchulain36 (Jul 8, 2014)

Or raise your anxiety levels and make things worse between you and your partner? I find on days where I'm feeling bad or anxious reading other people being absolutely miserable makes things much worse for me. I start dwelling on the negative, particularly when I read stories of people with fresh wounds from catching their wife cheating and how devastated they are.

You begin to feel like everyone is miserable and in a terrible marriage and eventually all women lose heart, cheat, and leave their husbands for greener pastures. They say misery loves company, but for me I tend to spiral a bit after spending too much time here reading these posts.


----------



## Laurel (Oct 14, 2013)

This site helped me immensely and was a lifeline after discovering my H's infidelity. Now that we have worked through that, I don't come here much anymore. I just check in every once in awhile to see if there is anything I can contribute to (since I would like to help others the way I was helped). I certainly couldn't come here on a daily or even weekly basis. It does get depressing and triggering (and annoying to have to constantly defend myself against people who don't believe in reconciliation after infidelity). That's why I have so much respect for the regular posters that have been around for years, who stick around tirelessly to help others in need. 

But I think that is the nature of these types of sites. Most people come here in a time of crisis and then move on once the crisis has passed.


----------



## richardsharpe (Jul 8, 2014)

Good evening chculain36
I find the variety of opinions provide by sites like this to be helpful - I get to see different points of view on an issue. 

That said, I remain aware that these are just the opinions of random people - some very wise, some foolish, and some trolls. So I listen to what makes sense, but am comfortable discarding any advice that I don't agree with.


----------



## JWTBL (May 28, 2014)

I mostly find this site an outlet for my anxieties, and mostly helpful. It is quite addicting, but it makes me feel like someone out there cares and is listening, because you can only unload your crap on friends and family for so long, before they start rolling their eyes and avoiding you. And it's cheaper than counseling!


----------



## JWTBL (May 28, 2014)

And it also feels good to get "likes"!


----------



## I'llUseMyEars (Jul 27, 2014)

I find this forum very interesting. My lovely bride has been around a while, and I recently checked jt out as well. If nothing else, it gives us excellent conversation! And, if any of my ramblings can help another, well thats a bonus.


----------



## Susieatwork (Oct 25, 2013)

There are useful tidbits, but there are also very extreme opinions, and different value systems from your own so you have to sift through the advice to find what works for you. There are nuggets of wisdom. 
It's difficult when you share a small slice of a story for people to understand the complexity of an entire relationship, so you have to be careful. 
This site has made me depressed and paranoid, but it's also made me positive and optimistic. Try and read the successful relationship threads every now and again. They are worthwhile.


----------



## bestyet2be (Jul 28, 2013)

cuchulain36 said:


> Or raise your anxiety levels and make things worse between you and your partner?


Both. Kind of like having children was both hard on our marriage, because of the stresses and sacrifices, and strengthened our marriage, because of the shared objectives and rewards.

If I read something here that leaves me feeling agitated, I try to really focus on *why* I started to come unhinged. Sometimes I simply feel angry because someone just wasn't being very nice, but other times I can get a little insight into some issue deep in my baggage.


----------



## jasmine9 (Jul 18, 2014)

Honestly, it makes my anxiety worse. I believe it is because you have strangers making quick assumptions based on a few sentences. I had to stop coming to these boards for a bit and actually deleted tapatalk from my phone. Sometimes I think it is unhealthy as you start reading too much into things. Kind of like when you have a sore throat, start googling symptoms and next thing you know you have cancer and have one day left to live.


----------



## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

I think it has raised my expectations of my husband. Before, I mostly accepted what he was willing to give, even if I was not always happy about it. Through TAM, I began to expect more.

But dh is only going to go so far with that, and demanding more is like banging my head against a brick wall.

So I think in many ways we are back to where we were before I came here. I basically just accept what he is willing to give.


----------



## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

It helped me communicate better with my wife. Previously, I had only shared information with my wife. Now, I share how something makes me feel and I show interest in how something makes her feel.

I never realized just how important communicating feelings were before TAM. It has done wonders.

I also do marriage counseling from time to time and kept running into female infidelity. When I tried to find research on the subject, I found precious little, especially in a church setting. So after years of scraping together what info I could, I ran across this gem of a site, TAM. 

It was what was needed to give me some real examples and the process they used to D or R.

It does get me down sometimes but it has also helped me deal with some personal demons.

There are a lot of good folks here that are fun to interact with as well. There are very positive threads here as well as negative.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## devotion (Oct 8, 2012)

Its funny to read this post. 

I like this site. But for a while I also subscribed to reddit's relationship forum. And that one I had to unsubscribe. Because seeing that site and the issues there really freaked me out. Some of the stuff hit too close to home (like it could happen to me). I still know it could happen to me, but I can't sit there all the time seeing other people who's GF turned back to her ex (I know I'm a jealous type, so I have to banish these thoughts to begin with) or other things. 

I don't seem to have as much of an issue on this site, though. 
Overall here I seem to instead feel like "hey, I'm so lucky that I'm not dealing with this stuff". 

Don't really understand the distinction myself but thats how I feel.


----------



## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

devotion said:


> Overall here I seem to instead feel like "hey, I'm so lucky that I'm not dealing with this stuff".


I know the feeling. Before I came across marriage forums, I did not realize all the problems people were having in marriage. 

I had only heard of sexlessness. Did not really know anything about it, was shocked it affected people under retirement age.

And one woman posted about how her husband gave her the silent treatment for six weeks. I am still shocked by that. 

And the biggie: Dh and I were shocked, truly shocked, to hear that some men leave the room when their wives start yelling at them. We both were like, "That is so wrong." Just when a woman needs her man the most, he leaves her alone. 

We did not get that some men feel powerless in their marriages. That has been a big eye-opener for us. Dh does not feel powerless at all. I did not even realize a man _could_ feel that way.


----------



## Cleigh (Dec 5, 2013)

This site has helped me in a lot of ways that's for sure though I don't think I have ever started a thread. It's a lot different then asking advise on Australian sites I find. Completely different ideals I have found. Yet, it has made me seen the light haha


----------



## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

I was already very recently divorced when I came here, so I didn't get to apply anything. If I could have found all this information 20 years ago and would have applied a lot of it, it probably would have helped in years to come.

The things I have read here, however, have made me realize that relationships are much more complicated and more of a game than I ever though, which makes me even more happy to remain single.

I was naive enough to think that two people would just click, and if they had good sense, they would be fine in a marriage. I had no idea it was so complicated.

I was naive enough to think every human being enjoyed sex. I had no idea that for some people, planets had to be aligned and just the right amount of humidity in the air before it could happen.


----------



## Trickster (Nov 19, 2011)

This forum has helped to create a rollercoaster of emotions in my marriage. On many levels, TAM has amplified all my issues, forced communication , and forced the truth to come out. I didn't like the answers I received from my wife. 

I also began to realize my part in my dysfunctional marriage. I realize that I can never unsay or undo anything. Resentments never go away. I realized that in retaliation of my hurt feelings, I say many hurtful things in return. I realize that I may say hurtful things to Tammers as well...Sorry guys.

TAM won't save my marriage. Thats up tomy wife and I. TAM just hears my version of the truth. 

TAM is helping me fix me.


----------



## SunnyWife (Aug 6, 2014)

I am in a very strong and stable relationship and the only reason I am on here is due to wanting to understand what goes on in broken relationships. Due to the nature of my job I am constantly dealing with the public and often find that people confide various details of their lives with me. Mostly they just need a listening ear which I provide but I would hate to say something that would cause more pain simply because I don't understand what they are going through. This site is truly amazing but I can see how it could bring a person down as well if you were to focus on the negative. 

Honestly this site has some very informed and articulate members that are helping others and that is truly wonderful.


----------



## cuchulain36 (Jul 8, 2014)

Yeah nothing against the people, I've found the level of discourse very mature and very little nastiness. The issue I have is I feel the genuine pain of all the people newly cheated on and it brings my pain back. It tends to make me focus on bad things and obsess about decisions I made and think it's happening again or will happen again soon.


----------

