And my perspective about the tone on the forum now is based off of my experience with the forum when I first arrived here. It has nothing to do with my Recon. I don't understand that correlation at all. The Vets when I first got here had a very nurturing tone, that were still 2x4s. AS, 25, Sandi all had a way of giving great advice without advocating for making lasting decisions.
I discovered this digging and digging through old threads. And like a year ago when I started brining up how negative the tone is getting, how 2x4s are seeming like bricks dropped from a 15 story building, how there's far too much commenting about how a person, particularly LBH's, will be deemed as weak or beta if they are just patient or take their time making a big decision, how all WS/WAS are being framed as abusers/sociopaths/narcissists/horrible irredeemable people and that all LBS are saints that should just leave I was met with "well I don't think that's true."
I started lurking in early Dec 2019 and joined after that. I was literally one of the people who was told repeatedly to just kick my husband out even though I had stated repeatedly this isn't me being a doormat this is me keeping my step-daughter out of the fray and off the street. This is me taking my time to decide what I really want. That I couldn't legally. That push back was good for me. Getting me agitated brings up recessed thoughts and gut feelings. I function best fueled by anger. But I watched a lot of newbies get torn to pieces trying to just right the ship and maintain some balance in the sh!tstorm of their life with the exact same kind of pushing.
Originally Posted by joejoe1
25 called me out for being a bad husband, and how my wife affair wasn't the only problem we had in our Marriage. She kept me grounded in the reality of where I stood in the devastation of my failed marriage. That took me out the mode of just blaming my wife and looking at myself for the man I was, the husband I was, and the father, friend, son, and brother I was. When I looked back, I wasn't a very good husband, father, friend, brother or son. I treated my wife like crap, before she decided to quit our Marriage. Before 25 start giving me advice, I put all the blame on my Wife and her affair. But that was not reality. My wife was fast steam ahead with her AP, telling me she loved him. I could of just went and got a lawyer and started D. Which I asked a few times here, and I went and talked to a few lawyers. But with the advice from AS (who was Divorced), 25 (who was Divorced), Chuck, Sandi and many others they kept me patient and focused on myself.
This is my other qualm about the negative tone. I watched a lot of LBH's really crappy behavior go completely unchecked and then they'd be poured on with adulation when they would say or do not great things as long is it meant they stood their ground or took one more step closer to D. I can say that CW and SteveLW are excluded from that. They very often took LBHs to task when they behaved immaturely, passive aggressively or were manipulative. I would completely ignore LBH posts for huge chunks of time because the advice around these guys who very seriously need to get their control issues and aggressive, manipulative behaviors under control was frankly scary to me. My personal opinions on the gender politics around here are what they are. I get not everyone sees the world as I do, but if you prescribe to those notions that women and men attract mates in a gender specific way then you have to accept the converse of the same information. Which is men and women cheat for very different reasons. That theory says women cheat mostly because they are desperate for an emotional connection or to feel desired. Typically because they've been emotionally bankrupted by their husbands. Totally ignoring the fact that that man has responsibility in his MR falling apart just fuels a narrative that the WW or WAW and women are the problem. Not two people failed, maybe one more than the other, but they both failed in their MR and they both have work to do. I've gotten attacked for these opinions. Which is what ever I'm a big girl. But as a woman in the world who almost had to start dating again and having friends out in the world dating in their mid-late 30s putting more men in this world with a chip on their shoulder and zero accountability helps no one. Not the LBH. Not his immediate relations. And not the world at large. That is the opposite of healing, healthy and helpful.
Originally Posted by joejoe1
So, the notion that we should being staying around to fix the tone if we don't like it, I have contributed a lot, and I would love to contribute more, but this board/forum is about healthy healing and community IMO, and I just think it has went away from that.
This is exactly the fight I have with myself regularly. Do I stay to offer perspective with contrary opinions that align with my world view to support adjusting the tone and subject myself to personal attacks? In doing so I'm wasting time I could've spent on myself, my family or other posters because now I have to stand up for my self and defend my opinion. Or do I say thank you for what this place has done for me and walk away so I can feel happy, healthy and healed? No time lost. But no help offered.
