Ok, So I've decided to speak my final peace and be done even thinking about this shit considering I'm pretty sure you have a new man anyways. It'll be long, so.. Read it or not. I've gotta do it. Lots you've heard over and over. Some maybe not. But, here goes..
L,
I TRULY, ONLY, ever wanted what is absolute best for you. I've only ever wanted you to be happy. And i hate that it couldn't be "us" that did that for you. That being said. I still don't even truly know what to believe. I don't know what was real, What wasn't. Given everything that happened and the way it happened and noticing more things as i go back and watch our vod. It truly seems to me like you weren't even that into me the whole time. Unless it had to do with anything sexual. And I'm beginning to believe even that may have been an act. I don't think we were real to you. I think that you came here just to distract me from the truth. And I'm sorry that didn't work out for you.
I do, however. HIGHLY regret talking to you the way i did. Even given what you did and what you were doing. I should've just walked away instead of letting my temper get the best of me and Yelling and name calling like i did. I'm far too old for that shit and I was acting like a child. I do acknowledge the fact that some of the things I've said out of pure anger and pain could have very well hurt your feelings. And this is my final, yet, VERY sincere apology for acting in such ways. I regret it every day. Not a day goes by that i don't. I was just hurt. VERY hurt. I think a lot more hurt than you'll ever realize, or even care to. I just wanted you to do right by me so bad. I knew what was happening. I knew the mistakes we were both making before, during, and the aftermath that was to come. And i was so MAD at you for not listening to me knowing how i felt about you and knowing how honest i really have been with you. I was telling you the whole time that you were showing loyalty to someone else over me. And that's not what you're supposed to do in a relationship. It's supposed to be you and your person against the world. And i felt like it was you and them, against me. While i DO regret how I've acted. I do not regret the intent and my reasoning behind acting such ways. Because just like i told you. It was indeed, The only way i knew how to fight for us and try to talk some since into you from so far away. I was trying to get you to treat me right and give me the same respect I'd given you. To this day, I have nothing hidden from you. I always to the truth, No matter how hard, or afraid for any reason i may have been. Even if i lied at first. I myself always came to you with the 100% truly and i gave you proof in ways leaving you no room to doubt as reassurance i was doing just that.
I'll say it again, stop listening to you friend. If he was any friend at all. As SOON as you told him you were in love with somebody he would stop communicating everyday all day. Because in the real world.. Communicating like you two do will always put some sort of doubt into your partners mind rather it be subconsciously or well conscious and expressed clearly. In a relationship. It is NOT ok to send the types of pictures you sent to him given your past be "dating" or "fuck buddies" whatever you were. And him clearly stating to you that he will ALWAYS "have the hots for you" (that's hitting on you, in case you didn't know). And it is NOT ok to talk about playing with yourself nor your sex life with your partner to somebody whose been such in your life of the opposite sex. Therapists being the exception. Idc what anyone says about how much they trust their partner, Things like this will cause issues. Pretty sure it's a universal boundary unless you're in an open relationship. Which we'd clearly stated was not our case. So, you knew better. And so did he. So if he was truly your friend, He would've well understood if you politely told him you'd crossed boundaries that were not ok and wished not to continue talking like you did. A every now and then "check in" or "catch up" is fine. And i told you that as well. But you'd proven you could not be trusted conversing with this person as you were. I feel like i asked nothing outrageous or unfair given the circumstances of this situation. Specially considering the photos sent, passing up plenty of appropriate photos that would've gotten the same point across.
Now, he used an analogy with me once. " If the police came knocking at your door asking to come inside and look around, just to clear you as a suspect. And you had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to hide and you were COMPLETELY INNOCENT. and they didn't have a warrant, just wanted to clear your name. would you let them in?" I said "Yes, why wouldn't I? I'm innocent and have nothing to hide. I let them in and they see that.. my name is cleared and they see I'm innocent. Therefore, leaving me alone"
He called me crazy as fuck and said he absolutely would not. He's rebellious for no reason. He's the type that ends up getting shot during a traffic stop just for being an idiot and making himself look like hes up to no good even if hes not up to shit.
Now, I understand we as humans deserve our privacy. 100% agree with that. But, You also have to understand that.. like I've said, It's situational. If I'm COMPLETELY INNOCENT and have nothing to hide.. I don't and will never mind giving up a tad bit of privacy for a brief moment to prove so. SPECIALLY when it's for somebody i love and to prove to them that even though I've agreed and they have every right to think something. I'm innocent and they have nothing to worry about. I'd show them anything they wanted to see, given i was innocent... that is. Even if I'd had enough and was leaving anyways.. I'd do it just for them. Because i loved them and wanted them to know even though we're done. I was good to them and they will never have to question it. Not to mention... It would just make them look dumb for blaming me and i could show them anything proving they were wrong lol
He knew what he was telling you made you look guilty, Everyone knew and even you said not showing it made you look guilty. So there's only ONE reason i STILL have NOT seen it. And....well... LMAO
Anyways...
Regardless if anything was EVER real on your part. Which it doesn't seem like it was. Considering everything. Specially how you knew my current life outside of us and how it was going. And you knew my past and how EVERYONE has hurt me. You continued to do so, Having the power to AT LEAST give me a little peace of mind. Or AT LEAST a little clarity. You were leaving anyways. It wouldn't have hurt you. But, You still seen how you were making me feel, and the things you were making me question. And CHOSE to do NOTHING. I wouldn't do what you did to me to you, EVER. Because i loved you. Hell I wouldn't do a STRANGER the way you did me. Just to be honest. But i get it, honestly. You COULDN'T tell the truth or show it. Because you were scared I'd tell his wife. And some of my other "friends" knew too and were keeping it from me. And your bad advice friend, wouldn't let you. Even though you say he had no influence. I know he told you he wouldn't be your friend anymore if you showed me. Once again showing loyalty to another person over me.. Telling me i was the love of your life.
I loved you. With all of me. I would never tell you something i think about do you any harm. I'll ALWAYS have your best interest at heart. ALWAYS. Even given everything that's happened and you making me out to be the bad guy. Read back through it all bbygirl. Even when i was asking you to prove things. I was telling you then i wanted you to prove what i was seeing wasn't true and i WANTED us to work. I was just seeing too much.
But, I guess me still proving up until now you could TRUST ME. And that I LOVE YOU. And that I'm loyal to YOU. Isn't and never will be good enough for you to tell everyone else to fuck off. Look at what actually happened and how long i was still there. And Bring your ass HOME.
last time I'll ever say this. I didn't care what the truth was. I never did. You're the only person I've ever considered an open relationship, JUST to keep you. So i didn't really care that you may or may not have fucked him... or him... or anyone else for that matter. I've been shitty in my day. Beyond shitty. I'm not here to judge you. What i DID, CARE about. Was you hiding things from me. Was you lying to me. Was you telling me you loved me and being loyal to somebody who not only did you say you didn't give a fuck about.. But threw you STRAIGHT under the bus and gave you up to try and save himself. ALL you had to do... was show me ONCE AND FOR ALL. after EVERYTHING... That you were down to ride for ME. THE TRUTH... And i would've worked with you through anything. I loved you like that.
But, too late now i guess. I tried my absolute hardest. Came here talking shit out of anger bc I'm STILL mad at you for messing up and running instead of fixing it. For breaking us both apart. i wasn't innocent.. But my GOD L. That shit was overkill. I've never been so dirty :(
Learn from this. So that with this guy.. You don't make the same mistakes. And you can be happy. Take my advice.. I PROMISE it'll last A LOT longer than we did. And you deserve to be happy. And that little one of yours deserves a father figure to love her like she was his. Don't settle for less.
I love ya, dork.
This is mys LAST, LAST letter to you.
BC i think it was all fake anyways. No way all the shit I've seen and how you were towards the end, was it not. NOT POSSIBLE. Because like i said. I actually loved you. And there's no amount of money nor evil that could make me do you how you did me in the end. period.
Take it easy,

My mother was severely mentally ill from America, and had suffered horrendous sexual, physical, and mental abuse at the hands of strangers and her family.
My father was much older and a very powerful and successful lawyer from Egypt.
He can't explain what he saw in her, as she was clearly mentally ill from childhood. I'm sure my mother's father had no qualms selling her, or her future children, given the horror stories I've heard of him and his own online blatant obsession with infants and children per his FB account. He was such a monster that my maternal grandmother tried to kill him once.
My mother's breast milk was bad, and I was starved and abused from literal birth, subject to her hatred of my cries for food and affection.
My father left the house 3 hours early each day because she was too much. He eventually divorced by the time I was 3.
From 3-5, my mother lived with a pedophile who dressed me as a girl and raped me. He would antagonize me and say "if you want to cry like a bitch girl, then you'll be one" - I've remembered this repeated line since I was a child.
I was a horrible child given the abuse I suffered. In my whole life, 9 different people have sexually assaulted me. My family never got me any help for my clear trauma as a child.
By 12, my dad had remarried and dropped me off with a bunch of random Muslim strangers. He went from a drunkard to sober and traveling internationally for work all the time, rubbing shoulders with some of the most powerful people in the world. He was home 1 month total out of the year, while I was abandoned with a bunch of strangers called step family. They didn't care for their traumatized and broken addition.
Instead, they let me rot in front of TV. Then a computer with porn. By 12 I had a full blown cyber sex and porn addiction. I had literally zero attention or care or affection at home. There was never any family time, family dinner, vacations, talks about each others day, nothing.
By 14, I was so lonely and desperate, I'd decided pretending to be a girl online for sexual gratification would be a good idea, since being a teenage boy was getting me no luck most times. I got a lot of attention using fake pictures. I didn't even discover what a sissy was until about 15 years later.
My family knew what I was doing. NetNanny and such were installed, but no talks were ever given. It was easy to uninstall and my parents never pushed back.
By 16, I'd looked up porn and chatted as a girl on every computer I touched, and my maternal grandmother called me out in front of a bunch of family members. They knew everything. But they did nothing to help me from there, and continued to very happily leave me alone and let me rot with my terrible addiction and habits.
Using random pictures became difficult, and by 20 I started using my 19 year old step-sisters pictures. Again, family is monitoring networks and well aware of what I'm doing, but that reality hadn't fully set in for me because they weren't helping me or reacting to anything, they acted like nothing was wrong. I figured it didn't matter, much like the rest of the craziness and abuse they never helped me with and gaslit me as my fault.
I had two very long relationships with women, both of whom were very happy to isolate and only have sex with me. No social dates, no friends around, all in a pretend bubble. My sissy stuff was a secret to them in my head but I don't believe to them given how careless I was, along with their actions. I married the 2nd one and she went on to lie to me for 8 years saying she was okay with it, only to later be mad at me for being "inconsistent" and wanting to drop the sissy stuff because I felt she actually didn't like it and it stemmed from my abuse, and was interfering with our relationship. She never suggested stopping and once we divorced, she finally admitted how much she hated it and me for having that desire.
My addiction went on for over 20 years. Multiple people in my family knew, along with two very strange and long relationships. I was never pushed to work or get a job - I was bankrolled and allowed to fester with my addiction. Like they wanted it to get worse. Any attempt I ever made to get independent financially or socially was treated as a joke by my family. They've never tried to form a relationship with me or help me at all, but knowingly let me rot as a child and into adulthood, and never tried to "be there" for me in any capacity. Total isolation, no love or relationships.
I was not born this way. I have no attraction to men. I have no desire to be a girl. This was done to me and no help was given to me to figure it out.
I'm extremely angry, and I hurt for so many others who I know who are like me and had this forced on them, or at the very least knowingly allowed to happen by cowardly "family" driven by inaction and pettiness.
I firmly believe there is a cult of human trafficking out there that is doing this on purpose, and that it is operated by the highest levels of society and even extends into our schools.
I'm writing this with no expectation other than to ignite a fire to fight in those who are like me. There is going to be hell to pay for what was done to us. If you feel like I do, reach out and let's help one another get past this and bring this whole thing down.

Stand Name: 「Watching The Detectives.」 Namesake: Watching The Detectives by (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snPDoXl9ZPs**)** Stand User: Monfrey Salou. Size/Height of Stand: 3m long (6m long once extended), 1m tall. Stand Cry: None. Stand Type: Artificial-Non Humanoid, Long-Ranged, Reconnaissance Stand. Stand Role: Offense, Support.
Info and Statistics:
Appearance:
WTD (Watching The Detectives) takes appearance of a huge, old (like 1800s type of old) camera that reaches up to 3m long, and 1m tall. WTD's camera body is extended, giving it another 3m, the back side of WTD has a wooden structure that connects to the stand, which leans at a 45 degree incline angle. The sides of WTD has handlebars that help WTD to turn around, and a lever that rotates that help to zoom in. Beside WTD is a printer that will print out pictures, and a seat.
Abilities/Techniques:

• Sealed-in: Once Monfrey has taken a photo, anything that fits in the photo, will be inside the photo, while the objects that were originally at that place will be gone, currently inside the photo, this also works against life-forms like humans and animals too.
• Transfer: Monfrey can pick out any object or life-form in the photo, and put them in another photo.

Weaknesses:

1. WTD's Sealed-in only works if the object is small enough to fit in the photo. (not literally being small enough to fit in)
2. WTD's huge size also makes it easily to spot.
3. WTD is a weak stand, in terms of Durability wise. (ofc)
4. The objects or humans can take action (like attack Monfrey) before the picture gets printed.

Stand Stats:

• Power: E
• Speed: E
• Range: A
• Durability: D
• Precision: (Based on Monfrey's angle of taking pictures.)
• Potential: D

Description of User and Backstory:
Age: 54.
Appearance/Personality:
Monfrey has a cold and calculated personality, but sometimes his cool, cold and calculated personality slips off if he's in danger. Standing at 6'2, mostly white hair, and some parts grey/gray, with hazel eyes. he wears a Tuxedo suit, with a tie in it, and a Cartwheel hat.
Backstory:
Born at Gatzabora, he dreams about being a photographer when he grew up, so he went to universities and colleges about photography, however his photographic skills were so 'bad', that they made a special ban card, just for him. Because of that, he learned photography at his home, but he became a pretty famous photographer in his area, soon the news got sent to the government, and they went to his house, gave him a shit tons of money and a sponsorship, refuses to elaborate and leaves. In his 40s however, during a photo competition, his work, 'A man's Greed', the police found that he used some fake paper (it was unintentional), and he fucking ran away from the police. Currently 54, he lives at a small cabin near a cliff, but then he saw a giant ass Ironclad (which was Behemoth), activated WTD and tried to kill them (he also received the bounty), but after losing, he got beat up, and got sent to a local hospital, before finally getting arrested. We still don't know how he got WTD though....
Status: First Minor Villain that appeared in the story.

Very long story short - my wife had an older best friend (in real life) who very early in their friendship “introduced” her to a group of “friends” via email. These friends all knew each other and would communicate with my wife via email, fake text numbers, fake photos, etc. many years later I found out (the friends were later “killed” in a car wreck a few years into the friendship with my wife, she never brought them up to me) and my wife and I concluded they were all fake and created by her best friend as a manipulative tactic for many sick and twisted things that I won’t get into. One of those things however was that my wife was living with her best friend and went through serious real emotional turmoil when the “friends” died in a car wreck. What kind of person can live with themselves putting their best friend through that and watches them suffer? Anyways - I have tried reverse image searching many of the photos but have had no luck. I’m wondering is there any good websites to do so? Or can anyone help identify where the cat fisher got her photos from? The timing is roughly 2015-2017.
And no I will not post the catfisher’s identity or pictures.. I don’t want to retaliate I want to learn more about her methods and if the people she imitated were old friends of hers or what.
https://imgur.com/a/VJ6Re7G

TW: childhood neglect and verbal abuse - me remembering so many things after last night's session. I just need to tell someone! I repressed this childhood since I moved out of my parents. It's like I died that day and moved on like a robot.
It is as though the illusion I've kept up for the past 24 years of me being always 'happy' and living a happy childhood just shattered entirely.
I have this diary I wrote in a lot in 2014, which is from exactly 10 years ago when I was 14. I cherished it a lot and sometimes would look into it to remember the old days. However, just last week I looked into it again after several months of being more focussed on my mental health (and especially on my childhood & parents.). This time, I saw something entirely different in this cute colorful happy diary.
All I see now, is how I was suffering. Suffering alone and always walking on eggshells. Nothing was ever good enough. Almost every page I refer to 'future me', the one who will understand me. I didn't get that from my parents. Old me, who will listen to how I am feeling and give me the comfort and soothing I so desperately needed.
I write about how I was completely exhausted from highschool, and then constantly bash myself with extremly self critical words. I have pictures of me in there with apologies for being ugly, and stories of 'how I didn't work hard enough'. Several pages describe forms of catastrophizing over the smallest mundane things.
In some pages, I casually mention a family member I dearly loved dying but then downplay it with something else. It's ups and downs by the sentence "It was my birthday yesterday, I had a great time! I am exhausted and drained and school is horrible. I did get a nice gift. I hope grandma stays alive" etc.
All this time I was happily keeping up this story of how happy I was. How I had such loving parents who where always there for me. They would shower me with gifts they could barely afford.
In my house, there were no rules. There was no bedtime. There was no structure - no breakfast together or chores I had to do. Everyone was jealous of me, because I was so free, but child and teenage me were constantly longing for someone to care.
I would be gone from home as much as I could. The atmosphere was so hectic. One day you'd come home to a happy loving mom who has all the patience and curiousity to hear about my day and my struggles. The other I would walk in and get scolded about how I was nothing. One day she was willing to help me with my feelings and emotions, but in other days she'd scold me for having them! I should be strong because according to mom, she's cyinic, and the world is 'angry and cruel. The world is unfair.' Now get up and don't wallow in your sadness and self-pity.
It's like they would give a gift sometimes, just to then call me ungrateful every day after. According to them I was unthankful, selfish, and my mom said I'd act as if the world revolved only around me. If I'd say "huh, I never said that?! I would never say such a thing?" she said "that is just what you think you are doing. But in reality, you're ruining it for everyone".
Eitherway, after going through the entire diary without skipping a page, I remembered I once made a video of my mom attacking me. I looked it up, and for the first time in 8 years I had the mental energy to watch it. My jaw dropped to the floor. I never even saw someone act so horrible before but it's me going through it....
t's like my world shattered. My mom was treating me absollutely horribly in this video. I don't even remember! You can see her face, and she is so scary! Here eyes look like pure hurt, as if she was throwing her own traumatic upbringing onto me and blaming me for it. She looks at me as if she's completely disgusted by me! The entire rant of hers is a complete mind trip where she downplays everything I say and spins it around as if I was just a burden who tried to make life for my parents worse.
I would never help with chores. Because, if I asked if she needed help, she didn't. I didn't have to do anything in the house but also did not know how to do anything. Then on other days she'd get angry I wasn't doing enough in the house and mention how our life should be about "giving and taking" and I should participate in that.
Now having read all of this, and watching some more video's of these attacks, I remember many things. How my parents would lock me up in the dark cold hallway because I had a "tantrum". They say it 'wasn't that long' but overstimulated and panicked todler me would bawl her eyes out. I felt so abandoned. In my life, alltogether, my strongest feeling is guilt. I feel guilty for everything. I feel shame. I feel ugly when I cry.
I only managed to teach myself how to release emotions in january this year. I never knew. I couldn't cry since years. When I finally managed this year, I'd notice I'd feel so ugly. My cries sound like my mom crying. She'd cry in our house regularly at some point. Really messy, really loud.
Because of constantly being told I wasn't doing enough, or that I didn't care, I wanted to please. I would muster up the courage and shun myself for how difficult and bad it felt to do so. I would ask her "mom, are you okay? Do you need a hug?"
She'd turn around on her desk chair and YELL. Loud. Screaming at me to get out of her face. Just get out of our life. This happened several times. I'd just walk away from the house. I felt so alone and unwanted. I never could do it right. My dad would just avoid my gaze.
Some days I would be begging my mom for a hug. Just for some attention. But she was so overstimulated that she couldn't even give me a touch. I would feel so lost and alone and just go outside and distract myself with imaginary games. I remember because of this, the moments where I would overheat my parents show off to parents of friends of mine how "I was such an easy kid" and how I could entertain myself and be happy for hours. The other parents would be jealous. I wouldn't know why this would make me cry
My life first going to school was just sheer terror. I felt so abandoned. Every time mom dropped me off I'd kling around her leg crying and screaming. Then afterwards, I wouldn't want to go home either. I remember how later in my childhood I still felt guilty for this behavior, because mom must have been so ashamed. I'd hang around teachers and daycare adults all the time. I wanted to hug everyone, because that was what I so desperately wanted.
My dad could never give hugs. Sometimes he'd allow it, but it would feel so distant. If my mom was starting to freak out about me, he'd sometimes intervere and call me to 'it's done now!' and 'go to bed'! No matter the time. I'd lay in my bed, just trying to curl up and feel somewhat comfortable.
In primary school, I would constantly visit friends. It continued in highschool too. I had two music classes and sports, so for four days a week I was settled after school - not having to go home immediately. Home didn't feel safe. It wasn't a constant. Some days there would be dinner at a nicely put dinner table and we'd eat together, some days I'd just eat some bread myself.
Some days mom would just be lying in bed. I found a video, that's why I remember. She would'nt get out until the beginning of the evening. This was in the time she would normally make me some lunch, or ya-know, take care of me. Suddenly I'd have to do everything alone.
I was constantly entertaining myself with imaginary friends at home. I'd play outside until I was 17 or so, alone. My cat was pure innocence and love but when I told my parents he was 'coughing' they didn't want to believe me. They only took him to the vet when it was too late and never apologized or were able to own up for this.
When I was 14 I wrote in my diary I was looking forwards to visit grandma. She's my mom's mom, and I would sometimes spend up to a week there just to be able to relax and be loved unconditionally. My mom would terroize me with her stress and anger and accusations to a point I couldn't focus on school. I wrote how she'd come into my room calling me names and how I couldn't read my homework papers through the tears.
My dad was never really there. He'd choose himself to be out of the house in the morning before mom and I'd be out and then when he was back he wouldn't make it further into the house than his TV chair. My parents would watch TV for hours when I was a kid. If I asked "what are you watching" they'd both go "Shhhh!". If I'd push it futher, the'd send me upstairs.
I feel like I spend so much time just hiding from my parents. Wheter it was upstairs in my bedroom all day, and night, or if it was outside. I now also remember just biking for hours crying hoping someone would stop and console me. I'd make the wrong friends and smoke weed at 16 just to stop the thoughts.
I would visit friends just because their house was calm and safe. I'd get a nice dinner there, and it would be a whole new experience. My parents would always be easily agitated. I am hyper senstive, hyper aware. I get uncomfortable just seeing them being uncomfortable. I remember I could already feel the energy from streets away. Sometimes I knew it would be wrong and I'd just bike somewhere else and go home later.
In one diary entry, I describe how my parents told me to write a letter to my dad's mom for her birthday. I finish the letter, and only then I allowed myself to take a shower and take care of myself. I would rot in bed, and rot in my dirty hair for days, just like mom. On other days she'd be so happy, she'd be re-decorating the entire house, invite me to go rollerskating.
But I also remember how many times my parents threatened to throw me out of the car. I remember how my 'reaction' to whatever they 'gave me' would never suffice. Then I would be the bad guy, for not being thankful.
My parents, they did everything for me. They paid for everythingg. Ya-da Ya-da, but I never had a proper hug from my dad. I don't know why he's even with my mom. I think he's a fun dude, but he's in mental pain. My mom told me way too young how her trauma's affected her. My dad's childhood would always be an excuse that I had to empathize with when I asked mom as a kid "if dad really loved me".
Other memories involve me running upstairs and then one parent following me. I don't remember getting hurt physically, but I remember all my life the pain I can see in their eyes.
If I look at pictures from my teenage years now, I can finally see the depression in my eyes. It took me up until this year to finally understand that having a clean kitchen and bathroom is something you do because you think you are worthy of a clean space. I had to get out of a depressionhole again over the years many times. I now realize the constant self critisism should have been self love. So that I would feel worthy of taking a shower and brushing my teeth.
I now see how what I saw as 'good experiences' are mostly just my parents taking me somewhere to do some activity and it just fits the perfect family picture. I was their only child but we'd celebrate christmas with many, many presents for me. But once my grandparents didn't live anymore, the birthday parties and tradition celebrations weren't hosted anymore by my parents. I wonder for who they truly did it. I was a golden child, but later in life I was just a burden.
I moved out the first chance I got. They didn't stop me. I was barely 17. I got into partying and drug abuse. I would sleep for weeks in bed. Barely ate. Then I would drag myself out of it again and have missed my mom's birthday. I was the one ruining the relationship to them.
I realized last year my parents had not called me for over 7 months. That was the first time I cried since the last time I did as teen. It's always coming from me.
My depression, my axieties and the treatment my parents gave me were never seen. It was never validated until I could finally read my diary with new eyes and watch those videos. I never got professional help but I will look for this now. I am really longing for someone to tell me what I was going through wasn't normal.
I did not remember this until yesterday, BUT, I am so used to being called weak, sensitive, a cry-baby, a bitch, for telling my mom how her verbal abuse made me feel. I feel so weird, how I repressed all of this for so long and the past years I tried so hard to still visit them and give them hugs and they felt good and now it all just feels fake and weird again.
Well yeah, so this is about everything that's been on my mind today. I feel totally weird. It's a tuesday and I couldnd't even work today. I am lost.

I’ll just preface this by saying we are actively trying to reconcile at the moment but it has been rocky to say the least. I (36f) and my husband (38m) have been together 20 years together, married 16, high school sweethearts, two teenagers and last year he had an affair with a woman at work over the course of ~6months. Couldn’t quite let her go after I found out in December and had me in an awful limbo about whether he wanted to stay together.
He kept talking about wanting to legally separate rather than divorce ‘out of the kindness of his heart’… so i could stay on his really good insurance… I said no fucking way we’re getting divorced if you want to stay with her and leave me.
After two months of him stringing me along about it and but not cutting her off and committing to our marriage I had to do something. I was sick with depression, I lost 40lbs in 2 months and I was not well. I did the horrific pick me things just trying to get him to see what he’s losing and just choose me, Choose us. Toward the end of January this year he still continued to say he thinks he just need to separate. To “work on ourselves” even though he was actually in contact with his AP. I signed a lease on an apartment and moved out.
He cried that next day, he said this wasn’t what he wanted.. I said are you fucking joking.. maybe he didn’t think I’d actually do it, and that I’d stay in our guest room while he dates another woman for a while… either way I moved out that weekend and tried to get the ball rolling for separation and ultimately Divorce. Told him I was going light contact and to only talk to me about kids from here on out. By Monday he was out of his mind, now suddenly he wants to give it his best try to make our marriage work, and he’s willing to cut off his AP and work on us..after I signed a year lease… so I said okay we can get to date and reconnect and rebuild.
Fast forward to mid April. Things had been going pretty well. A couple tough emotional days here and there on my end. We talked about them and kept going along. We had an amazing date night and I stayed over in our home. The next morning while he was sleeping a nagging feeling told me to go through his phone. I’m sure you know where this is heading.
Found evidence he’s still having his affair. This time around he was instantly begging me to stay. He knew at this point how fucking done I was. I had been frequently checking the phone records to make sure they weren’t still in contact but She had made a fake instagram profile under the name frank and they had been solely communicating there.
Skipping past a lot of details to save time the next day I reached out to his AP, she actually responded. It surprised me because I tried to back In December and instead of responding she made her account private and changed her profile picture to the most menacing evil smile. She said she was so sorry and didn’t know we were working on things. That he did cut her off in February like he said but It started back up in early march and he had been going to her apartment 2-3 time a week…
So, things are really rough now to say the least. I know I’ll be judged here for this but this time was different after finding out. This time he sent her a message cutting her off right in front of me, turned on his location, begged me to do marriage counseling, swore he would fix this and fix him. That he didn’t want to lose me and just didn’t know how to stop.
Crocodile tears I know but it was definitely different than the first time around.
Anyway. I have enough screenshots to write a book of all this and in between. Last week things were not great between us and no he suddenly doesn’t want to do marriage counseling I still he gets individual help and was being generally shitty to me for someone who has betrayed me So much. I probably shouldn’t have said anything and just done it but I told him I was going to seek a divorce lawyer for a consultation in case we couldn’t make this work.
He freaked out and when things get close to this step he always does. Since this all started, He keeps trying to say he wants me to go to one together and not separate. He never says he doesn’t want to divorce because he loves me it’s always well what do you want out of the divorce. That it will get nasty if we do separate layers and he doesn’t want it to get nasty. I’m not sure why he thinks it will get nasty. I made it clear to him I don’t want the house, he lives next to his parents…. No way.
Saturday we made up from this argument and aren’t really talking divorce currently but I stoped over to see my son later that day, yes I know this is insane, but he wasn’t home so i check his browser history on his pc.
Of course divorce lawyers searched but so was “[state] law wife moved of house does she have rights to it”
Like I don’t want the house I don’t want a his truck but does he seriously think I’m going to walk from 20 years, my entire adult life, of building with someone I love and was loyal to with nothing??? I spent my time raising our family and supporting him while he built his career and his first thought is can she take the house?? It makes me feel like he doesn’t want us to work hes just terrified of the financial repercussions of divorce.

Hey! I want to start by clarifying that I’m all about treating sexual preferences delicately. They’re very personal, and I’m not in the business of making anyone embarrassed for opening up to me about what they enjoy.
It’s the first time I’ve dated a guy with a foot fetish, so I’m not sure how his behavior compares to others with this interest, but he’s very vocal/open about it. He asks for pictures of my feet several times a day. We never flirt sexually without him brining it up. He wants me to get pedicures, wear moisturizing socks, and put foot cream on every night. He’s even mentioned that if I hadn’t appeared to be opened-minded towards it when he told me about it, he wouldn’t have wanted to date… so it’s VERY important to him.
His fantasy is getting my feet suuuuper soft so that they will be sensitive to touch and he can tickle my feet and make me burst out laughing hysterically.
I’m trying to get into this for him. I’ve played around with some photos and am trying to find interest in it, but it seems like there’s a lot of pressure on me to perform. My feet are not naturally ticklish. And to burst out fake laughing is going to feel extremely weird and awkward to me. I have never been the kind of person who wants to laugh when getting turned on.
I guess it bothers me that this is such a big part of his arousal because it isn’t something I enjoy also.. I don’t feel like it’s something we’re sharing the enjoyment from; I feel like it’s something I’m doing for him.
Thoughts are welcome ..

I discovered my boyfriend of 5 years was pleasuring himself to pictures of women he knows/knew. Am I crazy feeling bad about this? It was happening in our first year of relationship but I feel like he cheated… I discovered it because I went through his gallery and there were tons of pics of ex colleagues or ex classmates. I asked him if that was his porn material and I should have not.. I feel obsessed about it, like he was fantasying about having their bodies instead of mine in their hands. It feels very bad…

So I was listening to a podcast by comedian Andrew Heaton (X), and he had a very interesting episode examining people's nostalgia for the American 1950's complete with humorous skits. For illustration's sake he assumed 50's America was another country called "Fiftiesland" and compared it's stats like GDP or live expectancy to Modern America. He conclude that a lot of the nostalgia came from how many astonishing improvements happened between 1900-1950 vs 1950-2024, even though Modern America is superior in almost every metric.
At the end he had a long monologue where he was trying to explain to his fictional Grandma Edna Bickle, born in 1889 and elderly by the 50's, what it'd be like in the future compared to how she grew up. Imagine trying to explain Netflix to someone who grew up with a radio.
It really demonstrates, in a lighthearted way, just how far we've come in ~125 years.
So imagine how astonishing the world will be in another 100, 300, or 500 years...
Anyway, it's a bit of a read, but I thought some of you all might enjoy it and Mr Heaten was nice enough to send me the transcript. Enjoy!

My great grandmother, Edna, was born in 1889. My Dad and I were recently reminiscing about her, and he said, “Gramma Bickle, tough old bird, tough old bird. Went blind at ninety-two, quit driving at ninety-four, died at ninety-six. Almost lived in three different centuries.” I have some immediate questions about that chronology, and the realization that Gramma Bickle apparently drove her car blind for two full years before handing her keys in, but I digress.
In 1954 my great gramma Bickle was sixty-five years old. Think about how the country changed from her childhood to her golden years. From when she was born, to a little younger than my parents are today, she saw an entire country go from horse and buggies and pretty much nobody owning a car, to almost everybody has a car. Only six percent of the homes in America had electricity when she was a teenager. By the mid nineteen fifties, the whole country is throbbing with electricity.
In her lifetime, the country went from basically no light bulbs, radios, telephones, refrigerators, or washing machines, to a country where all of that stuff is ubiquitous.
In the year 1900, only ten percent of American households had a stove in them. By 1960,--when my great grandmother is the same age as my parents are now—95% of households do. When she was born, anti-biotics didn’t exist, and polio could cripple your baby. By the time she’s my age, penicillen—a miracle drug!—has been invented. By the time she’s my parents’ age, penicillen is widely available and some genius has recently invented a polio vaccine.
So, if we’re looking at Fiftiesland as a country around today, here’s what’s going on. All of the old people in this country, in their lifetime, went from a horse-and-buggy 19th century third world economy with polio and no electricity—something that, if it existed today, we would be sending anthropoligsts to—to a more modern second world economy perhaps akin to contemporary Guatemala. Which is no small jump.
And the people my age who live in Fiftiesland are still celebrating kicking the crap out of the Nazis, inventing the atom bomb, and enjoying an economy which is comparatively booming—because all of the neighboring economies are rubble.
If Gramma Bickle, at forty years old, my age now, could somehow visit me in contemporary America—she would think I made a pact with Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness. Or maybe, maybe her progeny somehow goes on to conquer Oklahoma as warlords, and all her great grandchildren become opulant Oriental sultans.
I have an icebox in my kitchen that’s powered by lightning that lives in my wall. I have another smaller box that makes my food hot by shooting it with invisible particles like the ray gun from War of the Worlds.
Not only do I let my dog sleep in a tiny bed inside my house, like a toddler, we just finished up a round of antiobitics from when he cut his foot. My great-grandfather—this is true—lived with tuburculosis for years before it finally killed him. Anyway, see that dog I make wear a necktie for my amuesment? Yeah, my dog takes miracle drugs unavailable to John D. Rockefeller. Last year Wallace got elbow cancer but the doctor fixed that, no problem, took a couple of months. Wallace literally has better medical treatment available to him a mile from my house than any human being alive in 1950.
Gramma, you wanna watch Netflix, Paramount Plus, HBO, Peacock, or Amazon Prime? It’s television. Well, television is sort of like radio, only much better, and with images, and I can watch it whenever I want, and there are thousands of options. Like, imagine Broadway, only, like, a few thousand of them, and they’re all inside of that rectangle.
Huh, yeah, I’m not explaining that very well. Right. Okay, so you know how in your time you know multiple people who were literally slaves at some point in their life? Like, you personally know some older people who were, at one point, legally a form of property?
So basically, I have this glass rectangle on my wall that a million of the world’s greatest comedians and dramatists live inside of as my slaves, and they put on plays for me when I’m tired after work. Except I don’t have to feed them or pay them because I use my friend Nick’s HBO account. They just eat the lightning that lives in my wall.
What? Oh yes, I get very tired from work, Gramma. Really get [sigh] worn out, you know? Well, you know how your dad was a wheatfarmer, who spent hours and hours plowing through dust and boneshards in Indian Territory, where he might literally be shot by a Commanche, and the threat of looming starvation for the entire family was never more than one drout away?
Right, so I… I talk for a living. Yeah, that’s right. No, a bunch of strangers just sort of send me money every month cause they enjoy hearing me talk. It’s actually very challenging. Because! Gramma, I do a lot research, you see. Like for this episode, I had to read a lot, and I had to do a lot of math. No, I did not personally do the math.
I have another magical rectangle that has several thosuand math slaves trapped inside that do the actual math for me. When I was a kid I had to perssonally punch the equations in myself, and the rectantle would crunch the numbers. Those were hard times. Now I have a smarter glass rectangle that I can just talk to. I just type in, “Hey, average these ten numbers, okay” and there’s, I dunno, like translater slaves that talk to the math slaves, and they all figure out whatever I’m trying to say, increasingly in lower case and with minimal punctuation, and then give me the answer.
But I have to do the research. Like, I have to read a lot. No, I don’t go to a library. I have another rectangle that has all of the world’s libraries inside of it, and also a lot of pornography, so I just stay at home and look at that particular rectangle, alteranting between research and pornography depending on my mood.
It sure is tough, Gramma. I don’t have any coworkers to keep me company. I’m all by myself here in my well-lit, smokeless, air conditionined home. That’s right, air conditioning! Not just in my house, either—in my camper—which is a tiny extra house I tow behind my armored, self-propelling buggy, which I feed fermented dinosaur juice they pump out of the ground. Oh yeah. It has a rectangle in it that plays music. I’d say I have roughly… three to eight million musician slaves who live in the rectangle in my car, so I don’t get bored when driving to the movies, which is a very large rectangle I go to when I’m tired of watching rectangles on my couch.
What? Good question. It’s called a “camper” because I go camping in it. It’s sort of my hobby. You see, Gramma, my life is so stupidly cushy and comfortable that I amuse myself by going out into the woods to forego wall lightning, air conditioning, and even pornography sometimes, when I can’t get a signal, and instead I sit in a hammock and shit in holes I dig for fun. We call that “roughing it.” For sport, I spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars doing what your entire family did their entire lives until they finally got indoor plumbing, except of course my camper has a propane stove built in, whereas your pioneer family had to dig a hole in the side of a hill and cower in it from the weather like cavemen while burning cow dung for warmth. I dunno where propane comes from. Probably dinosaur farts or something.
Anyway, I prefer to travel around in my camper rather than fly—that’s right, fly—yeah, like a spitfire pilot—which I do multiple times a year using frequent flier points. Which are sort of free, imaginary coupons that banks give me to thank me for using their credit cards, which are also rectangles, but these particular rectangles are small and flat and full of slave bankers that live in my pocket, next to my nine-billion dollar super computer I mostly use as a map, so I don’t have to go through the hassle of folding and unfolding maps, and also to send funny pictures to people in Scotland, in between watching porn in the woods.
I digress. Let’s all take a deep breath. Somebody from my great grandmother’s generation, who lived long enough to be an adult in Fiftiesland, would rightly think: We live in a golden age! We live in the future!
Back in contemporary America, my parents are in their early seventies. My parents today are about how old Gramma Bickle was at the end of the 1950s. And the jump isn’t bad, but it’s not nearly as mind-blowing. The developments they’ve seen since childhood are very impressive in terms of computers and telecommunications and medicine, but otherwise, the world they live in is a more efficient, clever version of the world they grew up in. Cars are safer and more comfortable and fuel efficient, but they’re still basically cars. LED lights are cheaper than incandescent bulbs, but they’re still essentially electric lights. Penicillan is better, but it’s still just clinical mold that strategically murders errant bacteria.
If Fiftiesland were a country, rather than our own history, we would pretty much look at it sort of how we see the poorer parts of Latin America or Eastern Europe: a very nice place with lovely people, wonderful to visit, try the food. Get some funky vintage clothes while you’re there.
But a comparatively poor economy to America or Western Europe. You wouldn’t want to immigrate there for the money. And also, not surprisingly, some views about gender, sex before marriage, having kids really young, having lots of kids, and skepticism about homosexuality that a globetrotter and even quite a few conservatives today might be tempted to call “quaint” or “traditional.”
Basically, if Fiftiesland were a country today, we would view it like Honduras or Moldova, or maybe Czechoslavkia after the wall came down.

So as the title says I'm i. A miserable marriage. The problem is I have zero options so we are stuck. We've been together for 12 years. Married for 8. I dont know how we've made it this far. A lottttt of accepting it because its never going to change . I can't accept it anymore. Weve had the same fight for probably 7 years. . Helping around the house. He thinks because he works 8 hours that's enough and I should be able to handle our 5 children 3 dogs and 2000 sq ft house on my own. I've stayed home with this last babg due to health problems that I'm getting surgery for in 2 days. So up until my 8th month of pregnancy I was working our entire relationship. So this has been an issue since then. But he recently switched careers from construction to hospitality management of a large gas station /convenience store . Hes making great money. His construction job was morning's. This is 4pm-1am. So he gets home at by 130am. And instead of relaxing and trying to go to sleep he says up until 3-4am. Then proceeds to sleep until 1p... wakes up very very slowly. Comes out and sits in the living room . Than goes to the bathroom for a half hour. OK so by then we are already at 2pm. Then comes back out and relaxes more before he goes to work. Then gets a shower and leaves by 330.pm Allllllll the while I'm putting kids on the bus, cleaning, taking kids to appointments, taking care of the animals. Extra. All while he gets his beauty sleep.
I know he has a problem. And has for years. I used to not let it bother me until the past probably 10 months..when we do have set which is very very rare like once every 2 months , he doesn't cut. Hes never ever ever had an issue with that. I mean clearly we have 5 children. Njt I said im not good enough for you. Thats what it is your mind is over stimulated with watching porn that what we do isn't satisfying him mentally and emotionally. Clearly now physically. And it makes me feel like there's something wrong with me. I've tried initiating sex and cjdde time so many times I've given up I used to stay up for him when he'd get home for like an house to spend time together where he's actually awake. Ice asked him so come to bed with .e at like 2-230. He says I'm not tired. I said I know just lay with me until I go to sleep. Or cuddle or talk because I miss that. He said no im not tired. I said you can come back out here afterwards. And he just continues to sit in the chair watching TV and eating.
Hes gained like 30 lbs I've become unattractive to him. Just being honest. But also if he tried to make me happy in any way shape or form maybe I'd feel more fire to keep pursuing him. But I'm not being fulfilled in any way what so ever so I feel like I've given up . Most of the time we are in the car in silence. I've asked him to wake up earlier to have breakfast with me . Either go out or make it at home. He won't get up. I've asked for help with home projects. He won't get up for that. I've asked for help folding laundry since he's sitting anyway..he won't. When I push for help it gets him so frustrated and defensive that he snaps and tells me why should he do anything when I don't. Which is clearly a lie. He said you're home all day so you can do it. I said I do what are you talking about?! Its not spotless but I maintain during the day doing big cleaning projects in every room ill spend 3-6 hours cleaning one room. Than the next day do the others and so on. I do all the grocery shopping and cooking. Which ok again im home so I can do all of that. But seriously I'm overwhelmed. I'm getting major surgery in two days and I finally saud yesterday. You know I'm done being angry when you don't do things to help me with the house and kids or even being present. What's said is im more disappointed than anything and that's really ashamed because I expect better out of you because I know you can do better. I said im sick of being let down. Im sick of being alone. Im sick of cleaning up after everyone Including him because he goes to bed and leaves plates cups wrappers truly everything so I wake up and usually take care of it. So I stopped numerous times. Including lately to see if it bothers him enough to do anything. But it doesnt doesn't. I didnt speak to him for 3 solid days. And it didnt bother him , he didn't even try to reach out to me. I feel like the marriage is unrepairable but with me staying home I've become dependent which I absolutely hate. But I'm stuck. I can't leave because I can't afford an apartment or house. If I stay here and he leaves he wouldn't be able to afford to help with the kids nor would he ever see them. I've even asked him to put them on the bus for me to sleep some and also him spend time with his kids. And I wake up to him yelling at them and I flip out of him because I refuse to allow my 12,7,5 year old girls wake up to being yelled at and sending them off to school after being yelled at all because he has no patience.
I don't know what to do. I'd never cheat on him but I understand why people do. Im so freaking lonely I can't take it. I've had my tunes removed so no more babies. Our final one is an absolute joy always happy just goes with the flow. So it's not the added stress of a baby. Sbe just turned a year old. And since than we've had six 6 times. I have physical needs, emotional and mental needs and none of it is being met. Hes being a bad example to the kids of not only a husband and father but just responsibilities. He screams at them for their shoes being left out in the middle of the floor but he does the exact same thing to where he's telling them to put his away also. Like really?! He won't do counseling. I've tried. I've threatened divorce and I get told I'm being dramatic and am I taking my mental health meds because I'm acting crazy. I'm truly not though. I'm just depleated and defeated. And feeling stuck. I literally get messages from old friends who see pictures of my face and see my post on fb not including him or really any happiness and it actually makes them feel bad for me.. they say I'm too good for this, that i deserve better that they would treat me so good and have actually asked me out on dates just to feel excitement again. And I've been so tempted but I would feel so guilty.
Please someone help me with some advice. I know there's many couples who have gone through this. I need guidance. I have no family support other than oh im sorry you're dealing with this . No where to go with 5 kids.
Tl;dr Husband won't do anything to be helpful at home or with the kids. Says be works his 8 hours and that's enough . Won't do anything but leave me more of a mess to clean causing me more stress. Taking care of the house and kids completely by myself. His mom comes over to help me some times and she's o frustrated seeing him be like this towards me. Shes tried to talk to him with no result. I dont want to give up on my family. I dont know what else to do, serious talks don't work

D-day was exactly a year ago today. I knew it would be hard, but I'd hoped I wouldn't be feeling it to the same level... We have been together 6 years, he used porn from 6 months in, till just after our 5 year anniversary. The night before I found it, he had turned me down for sex and insisted I should stay up and play my video game (hogwarts legacy at the time) to unwind. Not unusual, as I sleep less than he does, but something didn't sit right. The next morning I unlocked his phone to see what time his alarms were going off, so I could plan my morning/day. It was still open on Internet history (video history) and had been recently cleared. If I hadn't then found the accidental screenshot, I probably would still be in the dark today...
He's been clean since D-day (as far as I'm aware) he does have blockers on his phone (and on our home internet), and I get daily reports of his activity, as well as being free to check his phone whenever, but that's not who I want to be. I CAN check, I rarely do. But anytime I have, it's been clean. Nothing suspicious on reports, nothing suspicious on the phone. So why do I still feel so unsafe?!? Part of me wishes I'd catch him again so I can just be done. Done with the anxiety, nausea and doubts. BUT I know that's unfair if he really is doing the work and hasn't looked in a year...
He's more attentive than he used to be, we have a better sex life; but I still get weird after sometimes, feeling like maybe I'm just the fill-in for porn, and that his "want" has nothing to do with me, and it's more "boredom" "stress relief" or something built up from women he's been ogling during the day.
Does this feeling lessen over time? I'm 90% sure it's paranoia rather than intuition, but I'm just such a bad judge of that these days. I believed him for so long that our disconnect was just due to stresses at work, family, friends etc. I was so naive for so long. I thought I was FINALLY in an honest loving relationship, and it's so hard being reminded that it was all as fake and shallow as my previous relationships. At least with them I KNEW it wasn't likely to end in marriage or anything. I feel so stupid every day of my life now. I just wish I'd not been so trusting.
He's listening to PBSE podcast regularly, journalling (though not as often as I'd like), and has been trying to get into therapy for 6 months, but they won't see him due to alcohol use. So he's been referred to sort that BEFORE they will even give him any other therapy. 2 assessments down, and 3 email chases later, we are still waiting for them to get back in touch. Why is it so hard!?!
Sorry for the long rant, I didn't realise I had so much to say. Any and all advice welcome. Neuro-spicy over here, so information may not be in the best order :/

i'm 20F my mom is in her late 40's ,my mom and dad are together.
I first caught her when i was 15 years old, i was young and a teenager back then and that really had a bad effect on me, IT SCREWED ME UP MENTALLY cause i never thought that my mom would do that, she was an angel to me.
i remember reading her texts and seeing that she was texting a family friend, they were talking dirty, calling each other on the phone etc, i remember that she secretly sent him a huge amount of money (my dad's money because he provides), and i remember him sending her a picture of his id card and stuff still don't know why.
i also remember them sexting a lot, her sending him some adult pictures of her (which made me go insane) and him sending her corn videos, that was soo disgusting .
at that age i knew that i was not mature enough to take the right decision, i was confused , and that's why i didn't tell my dad, but i told my brothers and they refused to believe me. one day i faced her about it and i cried begging her to stop texting that man and she told me she will stop.
my relationship with her changed a lot during that time, she started hating me a lot, and becoming more aggressive towards me.
then i took the decision to not give an f anymore, i thought maybe she will get bored at some point or realize that she's doing something wrong as a mom of 5 kids and if my dad founds out then i'll pretend that i knew nothing so i don't loose his trust as well.
5 years passed by and she is still in the same situation as before and even worse, i remember 2 years ago i checked her second phone(that i didn't know she had) and i saw that she had a fake profile on facebook and its full of dudes in her dms and weird ass groups i was like WHAT THE ACTUAL F* i was shocked then i put the phone away cuz i had enough.
Yesterday, a weird number called her and it was another man i pretended that nothing happened and that i didn't see her phone ringing.
it was yesterday when i realized that she's still going through the same pathway.
what should i do? i don't care about her life, if she's happy with those men then be it, i'm actually worried about my dad, he has abnormal anger issues. he will probably murder her if he founds out, and i'm worried about my reputation as a woman of such society, i don't do these stuff and i never had a boyfriend.
my question is :how can i put an end to this ? should i play dumb for the rest of my life til dad founds out and something bigger happens or just move on and move out ?
btw i come from a conservative 3rd world country, the things that my mom is doing are considered as very shameful and dangerous acts, especially as a woman it's risky here and she knows it. Even if my father murders her one day no one can do anything, men murder women here, yesterday our neighbor stabbed his wife to death, and all the blame was put on her, i'm really worried.

I (F19) have been dating my boyfriend (M22) for 8 months now. Two months ago, I discovered my worst nightmare when I decided to go through his phone.
When I went through his phone, I not only found masses of porn but also pictures of his ex (F21) and her being on his ignored friend requests on Snapchat (meaning he’d removed her, but she still had him added). I’d checked this before because we’d previously had issues with his ex, but she wasn’t there, so it was recent. He also had a call to her on Valentine's Day. After some prying and a ton of lying from him, we actually talked about it. He said he only sent food for the cat and that he’d stop the porn. A few days later, I gave him an ultimatum: - Stop communication with her, only send food for the cat. - You don’t need to save pictures of the cat with her in it. - No more porn.
He agreed and promised to follow these conditions.
After this, when I looked at his search history, it had been deleted, so he only had two days of history. I asked about it after a few weeks, and he told me this was because of “my birthday presents being on there” and how “he doesn’t want me to see since I checked before.” Even though none of his lies lined up with when I checked, I ignored it.
Now, I’ve found him searching for porn again. He told me it’s just from an open tab. I don’t believe him, but he insists that he didn’t watch porn and that he’s followed the ultimatum. I still can’t believe him, and I’m not sure if I should stand my ground and leave or stay and work things out. Because of his past of lying, I feel like I’m walking into a trap. But i also feel like we have so much potential because i love him dearly.
I know a lot of people are going to get upset that I’ve checked his phone, but he told me he was fine with it and open to it, and I wouldn’t have a problem if he checked mine.
For additional information:
He and his ex were married, dated for 4 years, got matching tattoos, and had a stillborn.
At the start of our relationship, he led me to believe he was someone who never let exes back no matter what, someone who got rid of them the second they messed up. So, to find out he was still contacting her was shocking. I would’ve understood given their situation with the cat and the stillborn. It’s just the way he’s made himself seem, only to be lying the whole time.
I did not know about them being married or having a stillborn until a few weeks in. At that point, I felt I was too deep into the relationship to throw away what we had. He told me he was “too scared to tell me” and he “wanted to wait until the right time,” which I can understand.
For a few weeks after, he was being funny about giving me his Instagram, so I made a new account and found out he’d blocked me on it. I also found out he was still following his ex and she was following him. This stopped once I confronted him and he followed me instead.
Another few months later, I found provocative pictures of women on his Pinterest saves. He obviously just said that he saved them because they dressed like me, which some did, but out of the 15 pictures, only 4 did. The rest were just women in underwear.

i'm 20F my mom is in her late 40's ,my mom and dad are together.
I first caught her when i was 15 years old, i was young and a teenager back then and that really had a bad effect on me, IT SCREWED ME UP MENTALLY cause i never thought that my mom would do that, she was an angel to me.
i remember reading her texts and seeing that she was texting a family friend, they were talking dirty, calling each other on the phone etc, i remember that she secretly sent him a huge amount of money (my dad's money because he provides), and i remember him sending her a picture of his id card and stuff still don't know why.
i also remember them sexting a lot, her sending him some adult pictures of her (which made me go insane) and him sending her corn videos, that was soo disgusting .
at that age i knew that i was not mature enough to take the right decision, i was confused , and that's why i didn't tell my dad, but i told my brothers and they refused to believe me. one day i faced her about it and i cried begging her to stop texting that man and she told me she will stop.
my relationship with her changed a lot during that time, she started hating me a lot, and becoming more aggressive towards me.
then i took the decision to not give an f anymore, i thought maybe she will get bored at some point or realize that she's doing something wrong as a mom of 5 kids and if my dad founds out then i'll pretend that i knew nothing so i don't loose his trust as well.
5 years passed by and she is still in the same situation as before and even worse, i remember 2 years ago i checked her second phone(that i didn't know she had) and i saw that she had a fake profile on facebook and its full of dudes in her dms and weird ass groups i was like WHAT THE ACTUAL F* i was shocked then i put the phone away cuz i had enough.
Yesterday, a weird number called her and it was another man i pretended that nothing happened and that i didn't see her phone ringing.
it was yesterday when i realized that she's still going through the same pathway.
what should i do? i don't care about her life, if she's happy with those men then be it, i'm actually worried about my dad, he has abnormal anger issues. he will probably murder her if he founds out, and i'm worried about my reputation as a woman of such society, i don't do these stuff and i never had a boyfriend.
my question is :how can i put an end to this ? should i play dumb for the rest of my life til dad founds out and something bigger happens or just move on and move out ?
btw i come from a conservative 3rd world country, the things that my mom is doing are considered as very shameful and dangerous acts, especially as a woman it's risky here and she knows it. Even if my father murders her one day no one can do anything, men murder women here, yesterday our neighbor stabbed his wife to death, and all the blame was put on her, i'm really worried.

My gf (26f) and (27m)had been together for about 3 years. My gf has some insecurities and issues that she projected onto me and she also had a habit of leaving and packing up her things whenever it got a bit tough. (I think this is because of her dad not being around and leaving when she was younger but l asked her to please not do that anymore). I tried my best to be a trusting and loyal boyfriend, I'd never cheat on her but she would go through my phone and treat me like a cheater for any reason. (For example searching up an old female friend on IG, or their being girls on my discovery page). I know one could think I had ill intention but it was not the case. There was definitely a lack of trust but I do not think I gave her a reason to feel like that. She had a very big issue with me watching porn which I know is a topic with different opinions. I would only watch and masturbate when she was not with me. I did try to quit porn but found myself back to it when I was alone.. I do think that maybe a problem for me but I told her I do not compare her to pictures on a screen. We broke up for these kinds of reasons and got back together after about 3 months. I really thought the time away was going to make us closer and relationship better but we ended up fighting alot when we were back together. The first date we had she walked out on me and told me she would just get an Uber home. This is because I was trying to tell her that my friends gf likes her and wants to be her friend and she felt I was defending her over her. She always thinks I treat everyone way better than her especially when we were out with friends. I do not want to have to be purposely mean to people".. her to feel like I treat her well. I decided to end i v again as I'm terrified we will have a lifetime of th problems and I don't want to be divorced after a short marriade. She asked me for another chance and was telling me all the things I wish I heard from her before like what she wants to change to make it work, but I felt I had made my mind. It's been 3 weeks now and I feel so messed up and I can only really focus clearly on the good things we had. I feel like it's going to be near impossible to find a connection with somone like that again. I'm fighting myself not to message her and l'm having some of the worst days of my life. I can't focus on work and I'm not sure what to do. I'm feeling like I could have done more now and what I should have done differently and asking myself if it was my fault she felt this way. I tried my best to make her feel loved and beautiful would always make me feel like she felt so terrible around me

i'm 20F my mom is in her late 40's ,my mom and dad are together.
I first caught her when i was 15 years old, i was young and a teenager back then and that really had a bad effect on me, IT SCREWED ME UP MENTALLY cause i never thought that my mom would do that, she was an angel to me.
i remember reading her texts and seeing that she was texting a family friend, they were talking dirty, calling each other on the phone etc, i remember that she secretly sent him a huge amount of money (my dad's money because he provides), and i remember him sending her a picture of his id card and stuff still don't know why.
i also remember them sexting a lot, her sending him some adult pictures of her (which made me go insane) and him sending her corn videos, that was soo disgusting .
at that age i knew that i was not mature enough to take the right decision, i was confused , and that's why i didn't tell my dad, but i told my brothers and they refused to believe me. one day i faced her about it and i cried begging her to stop texting that man and she told me she will stop.
my relationship with her changed a lot during that time, she started hating me a lot, and becoming more aggressive towards me.
then i took the decision to not give an f anymore, i thought maybe she will get bored at some point or realize that she's doing something wrong as a mom of 5 kids and if my dad founds out then i'll pretend that i knew nothing so i don't loose his trust as well.
5 years passed by and she is still in the same situation as before and even worse, i remember 2 years ago i checked her second phone(that i didn't know she had) and i saw that she had a fake profile on facebook and its full of dudes in her dms and weird ass groups i was like WHAT THE ACTUAL F* i was shocked then i put the phone away cuz i had enough.
Yesterday, a weird number called her and it was another man i pretended that nothing happened and that i didn't see her phone ringing.
it was yesterday when i realized that she's still going through the same pathway.
what should i do? i don't care about her life, if she's happy with those men then be it, i'm actually worried about my dad, he has abnormal anger issues. he will probably murder her if he founds out, and i'm worried about my reputation as a woman of such society, i don't do these stuff and i never had a boyfriend.
my question is :how can i put an end to this ? should i play dumb for the rest of my life til dad founds out and something bigger happens or just move on and move out ?
btw i come from a conservative 3rd world country, the things that my mom is doing are considered as very shameful and dangerous acts, especially as a woman it's risky here and she knows it. Even if my father murders her one day no one can do anything, men murder women here, yesterday our neighbor stabbed his wife to death, and all the blame was put on her, i'm really worried.

Ever since 2020 I have been almost constantly harassed by someone on multiple different social media’s. For the longest while I wasn’t to bothered as it was kind of a fun mystery trying to figure out who it was. As time has gone on though the person doing it has become more deranged and scary.
When they first contacted me they tried to catfish me with fake photos and it took me about 3 months to figure out that they weren’t who they said they claimed. After I blocked them they created a new account and tried again but I pretty quickly realised it was the same person. From then on they have just been harassing me by sending me porn and videos of them doing weird stuff. They have gone through a lot of effort to blur stuff so I couldn’t really tell who it is.
This has been going on for years and honestly I could write for many many paragraphs of weird stuff they have done but it’s all kind of similar weird sexual stalker stuff. All I figured out myself is that this person most likely went to school with me because they obviously knew me semi well and that it was a girl. Yesterday though they sent me a video of her doing sexual stuff but I think what she used to blur herself glitched because all the blur was to the right and didn’t cover her face at all. She sent it and i saw it for a split second before she deleted it and i now know he it is.
It turned out to be a girl that I went to school with as I thought it would be but I’m not sure what to do. I didn’t know her well no one really didn’t because I don’t know if she spoke at home or what but she didn’t speak. She was also really badly bullied and I can remember a few times that she freaked out. She was in a few of my classes and at lunch she used to sit near where I used to sit so I know how she knew a few things that I thought only my friends knew.
Like I said I don’t know what to do if I do anything at all really. What she has done is weird and immoral but I can’t say that it like really annoyed me all that much. It’s been like a weird mystery I’ve been trying to solve and now it’s solved. She blocked me on everything and now that I know who she is I don’t suspect she will do it again at least not to me. I haven’t really told anyone who it was except my friend and I don’t think I should like shame her by telling people.
So what do I do if anything?

How can we stop going around in circles with these corrupted nihilists? (basically an extreme religious-nut but in reverse; no meaning, no value, no good/bad, nothing matters) I've compiled some of my thoughts/comments.

But first If you are not caught up yet:
1 Re: Vegan Gains ...The Militant Vegan Raffaela Interview - (May 12, 2024)
2 Vegan Gains is a sub-Jerkivest [5/11/24]
3 Moral Realism Debate w/ Inmendham - (May 16, 2024)
4 WTF #899: The vegan gains debate ... Value realism - (May 19, 2024)
5 Vegan Gains ...Denialism is the only nihilism [5/19/24]
also saw this Controversial Topics with Vegan Gains (Horse Riding, Bivalves, Depression, and much more!) - (May 11, 2024) ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ (he thinks in terms of some dogmatic religious brain-rot morality source of right/wrong, but a kind of reversed/opposite conclusion of it's absence, nihilism)
the very reason religion was invented in the first place was because humans by nature had a value-engine driving them & NEED for meaning, that's the irony. value gave rise to religion, religion never needed to grant value. The fact people can't grasp this. 🤦 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Now onto the various arguments, sorry how long and out of order it is But the idea is to provoke you coming up with better ideas/arguments, and if you can critic and strenghen my and ultimately inmendham's arguments. The GOAL should be to Create a formal argument AKA a syllogism, modus ponens. Something clear and concise that can't be taken out of context or misinterpreted, as happened with the debate...

On the subject of Efilism, tread lightly, the philosophy and argument extends beyond merely focusing on suffering; it also includes the critical issue of consent violation. Its proponent and creator, Inmendham, argues for value realism, which contrasts starkly with the notion of subjective morality which I find illogical. While objective morality is full of baggage... often linked to outdated religious doctrine so on face value it's not fun or easy subject to broach... many contemporary non-religious ethicists ground it in realism. Personally me, inmendham and others see no use for the term "morality" as it's tainted. value-realism is the subject. Is it a value-laden universe or not?
it is not necessary to call TRUE/REAL right or wrong Objective, because if objective is defined as mind-independent than without minds there's nothing right/wrong to happen to, therefore THE discussion should be just regarding what is TRUE or NOT, subjective doesn't necessarily mean mere contrived opinion or preference but can be logical conclusion, e.g. you can conclude 2 + 2 = 4 as we understand these concepts of numbers to model reality but can you call it objective or mind-independent 2 + 2 = 4, or that math exists? Not really. As you require a modeler to model reality, an observer to make the observation, a mind to come to such accurate conclusions. To me, claiming there is no real right or wrong is akin to asserting that moral standards and ultimately the subject of Ethics is as fictitious as religion or Santa Claus, you just believe it cause you want to or have preference to. Why maintain this pretense if it's all a mere fabrication / contrivance?
Regarding subjective judgments such as determining "What's the tastiest potato chip or the most beautiful painting?", these are not factual assessments about the things themselves, The question itself is misleading, because the thing itself has none of those qualities objectively, Instead, such qualities are OUTPUTs generated by the interaction of our bodies and minds with these INPUT items, the input is quite arbitrary/irrelevant, unlike the highly meaningful & distinct output generated of positive or negative experiences. You might get off more on certain female body part than another, it doesn't matter, the output positives & negatives is more or less same among individuals and that's what's relevant... not what specific fun or hobby gets you or them off or pushes their buttons.
It can be TRUE that a certain food item is the tastiest to that personal individual, or gross to another, and we can talk about intersubjective truths with averages overall. But one's experience of what is tastiest for them doesn't contradict another's, they can both be true for them individually, as you are likely not even sharing the same exact experiences to judge differently. And one's very perception or framing of the experience changes the experience itself, no way around this truth. Some people find bricks tasty or edible, just how their brain is wired.
It's important to recognize that differing opinions of personal taste do not inherently conflict in the way ethical contradictions do. With ethical matters, asserting that two diametrically opposed views are equally valid is problematic, either one is right and the other wrong, or both might be based on flawed reasoning. Pretending 2 opposing ethical views can be both equally right/true/correct is utter contradictory mush, either one of them must be right / wrong, or both are contrived meaningless nothing opinions, just made up. you wouldn't say whether one believes in god or not IS mere personal opinion/preference and such 2 opposing views can be equally right at same time, that's utter contradictory nonsense, by saying 2 opinions that gRAPE is both good & bad at same time are equally right opinons, right loses all meaning and you might as well say neither is right and both are wrong, they each have their own contrived fairytale delusion.
Now with Ethics of right / wrong, it does not depend on one single individual's preference or opinion, but taken as the whole, if you violate one without consent you still have to account for that since you are seemingly putting the weight on the preference otherwise preferences are utterly meaningless and irrelevant.
ALSO, Do you call whatever you prefer what's right, or do you prefer to try to do what is right?
Do you prefer to seek out what is the right most accurate conclusion given all the facts of reality, or contrive right to be what's in your preference/interest or personal gain?
I don't think VG or most these talking heads understand value-realism (problematic events within subjectivity/a non-physical but REAL reality of the mind). Obviously there's no objective divine or otherwise prime-directive moral-rules we must follow. Unfortunately Religion has poisened the conversation so much with archaic ideas and mushy terms like 'Morality'. Understand there is no 'moral truth', let alone an objective one, ofc if you pigeon-hole me or all realists into defending such nonsense it's easy to refute them. What I'm interested in is subject of Ethics, and to start whether or not value/problematic events exist or do not exist.
Here's a silly question by nihilists: "why is suffering bad?"
Response: How do you identify suffering? Based on the fact that it feels bad. (Yes subjectively) Just as we can subjectively understand 2+2 = 4
Or this: "prove suffering bad, objectively"
Also question-begging, obviously it is subjective. If such badness cannot exist mind-independently by definition.
"Prove suffering is bad, objectively"
is begging the question, because...
It strawmans / assumes the badness must be bad mind-independently, it isn't therefore, it isn't bad.
Answer this, evolutionarily do animals PERCEIVE being tortured skinned alive nail in the eye as BAD, or does it impose torture which we RECOGNIZE and define as Bad by definition?
If true PAIN/torture isn't bad then why does it exist evolutionarily? Answer: (problem -> solution) mechanism which functions as ability to learn & improved survival, this mechanism was reinforced over time as it worked.
inmendham & realists like myself argue: it is the case Descriptively, Objectively evolution IMPOSED Prescriptive-value-judgements onto animals which function as a learning/problem solving mechanism. Fact is, the invention of 'PROBLEM' is something I/we/animals had nothing to do with... (no-free-will-choice) but are simply byproduct in observation of this fact.
If real PROBLEM(s) didn't truly exist then Arguably the word and conceptual understanding it points 👉 to wouldn't exist either. As if beings could be truly blind never seeing colors/vision yet pulling the idea out of thin air and conceiving of such a thing, how preposterous, that'd be giving human creativity/imagination way too much credit. The only nihilist argument then is that by evolution we & all feeling organisms are somehow ultimately deluded or have illusion of problem where there is none, which I find deeply implausible. Run the torture study/experiment a million times putting people's arm in the fire "yep still bad". Filtering out people who lack ability to feel pain of course.
As evolutionary biologists even states pain is a message to the animal "don't do that again". Can't get descriptively prescriptive more than that.
Are You Getting It?
The Ought is literally baked in as an IS. The is-ought gap to be bridged is a complete Red-Herring, yes you can't derive an Ought from an IS, because if you oughtn't do something, then it can never be BAD... problematic/BAD/torture can't mean anything if it doesn't scream OUGHT-not.
All you have to agree to is due to evolution it created torture which is decidedly negative/ inherently BAD, by definition. Otherwise it wouldn't feel bad or be torturous at all... THEN ask yourself, how can something be BAD yet it's not BAD to create that BAD?
This is Checkmate. These are irrefutable Facts & Logical deductions.
So much for it all being false-perception, the very fact placebo patients perceive an otherwise harmless laser as BAD/painful makes it so. It's the TRUE reality in their mind and you can't deny that fact. It's also a fact believing a pain isn't really all that bad can make it so, but this doesn't make these value-laden experiences NOT real/true.
As per evolution, your body/brain's mechanisms must generate & impose a prescriptive-value-judgement / problematic event within your mind,
It's nagging, complaining, telling you keeping your hand on the hot stove is a mistake/problematic/bad. (not in itself but as a consequence)
I believe this brain making me write all this... is making an accurate assessment when it observe certain events to be problematic/bad where it's happening which is within subjectivity, where's your evidence my perceptions are fooling me or I'm somehow deluded? I witnessed the crime take place and you were nowhere near the crime scene yet you have the authority to claim otherwise as fact? (You are not simply agnostic to my problem suffering but a De-nihilist)
Once one accepts this evolutionary fact we can move on to more complicated questions regarding ethics, like how do weigh the good & the bad, conflicting preferences, etc. Otherwise, it's all pointless & futile, like arguing bivalves or wild-suffering with a non-vegan. They're just not on that level yet and it's a waste of time.
revised version of my other comment: I believe that many discussions around morality miss a crucial point about value-realism, which acknowledges problematic events within subjectivity, a non-physical but real reality of the mind. It is evident that there are no objective, divine, or prime-directive moral rules we must follow. Unfortunately, religion has muddied the conversation with archaic ideas and terms like 'morality'.
There is no 'moral truth,' especially not an objective one. If critics pigeonhole realists into defending such notions, it becomes easy to refute them. My interest lies in ethics and whether value/problematic events exist.
Consider this question by nihilists: "Why is suffering bad?"
Response: Suffering is identified because it feels bad, subjectively. Just as we subjectively understand 2+2=4, we can recognize suffering through its unpleasant experience.
When asked to "prove suffering is bad, objectively," this is question-begging, as the question assumes that the badness must exist independently of minds, which it does not by definition. This question straw-mans the issue by requiring mind-independent badness, ignoring the subjective nature of suffering. As if the quality of it being BAD must be granted by something outside the experience itself.
Evolutionary Perspective: Animals perceive and react to torture (e.g., being skinned alive) as bad because evolution has imposed mechanisms that signal harm. Pain serves as a problem-solving mechanism, reinforcing behaviors that enhance survival. If pain and suffering weren't inherently problematic, they wouldn’t exist in the form they do.
Realists like myself argue that evolution has objectively imposed prescriptive-value judgments on animals. The concept of 'problem' or 'bad' arises from these evolutionary mechanisms, not from free will. The existence of these concepts indicates the reality of these problematic experiences.
If real problems didn’t exist, neither would the concepts describing them. This is akin to how beings blind from birth wouldn’t conceive of color. Suggesting that evolutionary processes have universally deluded all feeling organisms into perceiving problems where there are none is implausible.
As evolutionary biologists state, pain signals to the animal, "don't do that again," which is descriptively prescriptive. The 'ought' is embedded within the 'is.' Thus, the is-ought gap is a red herring because prescriptive judgments are evolutionarily ingrained.
Again, How do you identify suffering? Based on the fact that it feels bad. (Yes subjectively) Just as we can subjectively understand 2+2 = 4
All you have to agree to is due to evolution it created torture which is decidedly negative/ inherently BAD, by definition. Otherwise it wouldn't feel bad or be torturous at all... THEN ask yourself, how can something be BAD yet it's not BAD to create that BAD?
Conclusion: By acknowledging that evolution created inherently negative experiences like torture, we accept that these experiences are bad by definition. Denying the badness of creating bad experiences is contradictory. Therefore, once recognizing the true reality of subjective experiences, only then we can move on to complex ethical questions about weighing good and bad and addressing conflicting preferences.
playing devil's advocate let's try Steelman their position and then arrive at the logical conclusions of it and then perhaps refute it. If they say: "veganism = right" realize there is no contradiction IF by 'right' they just mean it's literally nothing but their preference...
There's no goal to prefer to know/do what's right, RATHER what's right is whatever matches our personal preferences, so unlike flat earther vs round earth beliefs/CLAIMs which can contradict/conflict with each other since either 1 is right or both are wrong. Individual tastes don't.
Whereas if VG says 9 people gRAPE the 1 kid for fun is WRONG because he's a threshold-deontologist but Also RIGHT to a hedonistic utilitarian, Those views only contradict/conflict if they are making VALUE-claims or recognizing a problematic event take place. However, with VG apparently he would have to say he's not claiming or labelling anything as TRULY problematic at all but merely describing his preferences like flavor of ice cream...
Now, of course, as the realist, I find such a view more deplorable/worse than if they were merely agnostic on right/wrong. Cause it's one thing to say there's a right answer to questions of Ethics but we have no objective scientific basis to determine it yet or lack knowledge VS saying they have knowledge there is absolutely no right or wrong.
Under Anti-realism nihilism, what they mean by wrong/right, is just their preference, if I understand correctly (which I'm quite sure) Anti-realism nihilism reduces the Subject of Ethics down to nothing but you or someone else pontificating/opining (i.e "me no like torture") . It defends some sort of expressivism, emotivism, normative, prescriptive reduction of Ethics. Which I find lubricious and has to be a mistake,
I don't see anyone playing any different game even the nihilists invest their money and plan ahead for self-interest, no one truly signs up for torture for fun like it's no problem, and runs away from pleasure happiness as bad. Further, it stands to reason... since we can recognize objectively evolution created a punishment mechanism to enforce learning and survival, BAD/PROBLEM as a concept is something I/WE/Animals had nothing to do with. We didn't invent it, we recognize it and respond accordingly. Even evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins stated that pain is a message to the organism 'don't do that again!'
We must address further the flawed logic of VG and other nihilists reducing Ethics down to mere arbitrary preferences like potato chip flavor, or how much salt you prefer in the soup. As it is completely disanalogous & dishonest upon reflection. QUOTE: "There's no arguing against Efilism, it's just personal opinion. Like arguing what tastes better... ice-cream or potato chips?"
Say if you believe that the mona-lisa is beautiful, and I personally find it ugly, this conflicts/contradicts nothing because it claims nothing in terms about that object or reality outside of our own minds.
such qualities are OUTPUTs generated by body/mind from these INPUTs, the input is quite arbitrary/irrelevant, unlike the highly meaningful & distinct output generated of positive or negative experiences.
it doesn't matter what specific fun or hobby gets them off or pushes their buttons in order for it MATTER, those differences don't make it any less real OR all mere subjective opinion. the output positives & negatives is more or less same among individuals and that's what's relevant...
It can be TRUE that a certain food item is the tastiest to some personal individual, or gross to another, one's experience of what is tastiest for them doesn't contradict another's, they can both be true for them individually because it is the reality in their mind, Some people find bricks tasty or edible, just how their brain is wired.
while one person may find a certain food delicious, another may find it repulsive, without invalidating each other's experiences because they are true for them individually. both experiences are valid/correct.
However, actions that disregard another's negative experience invalidate their reality. if you find being boiled alive problematic and I do it anyway believing it's ok, I am invalidating your experience as either not real, relevant, doesn't matter, or my preferences are more important (carry more weight) than yours. Or simply believe it's ALL equal or arbitrary and I just prefer to exploit you so I do that.
Positive or negative experiences are largely consistent among people, making them relevant, regardless of the specific stimuli. Individual truths about taste or preference coexist without contradiction, reflecting each person's value-generated reality.
This cannot honestly be applied to one's mere opinion it's fine to boil kids alive, as you are invalidating the fact that it matters to those victims. You saying it doesn't matter or your gain of pleasure outweighs their loss of pain, is a claim about the reality of events going on in their mind, so there is room for conflict/contradiction. They can't both be right/wrong at the exact same time.
A strong non-intuition argument/claim & facts presented render value-nihilism implausible:
It is Descriptively the case, that Evolution IMPOSED Prescriptive-ought statements... of 'PROBLEMATIC sensation/event' on organisms which functioned as a learning mechanism and improved survival.
Therefore, BAD/PROBLEM isn't mere subjective opinion but something I/we/animals had nothing to do with and are mere by-product reacting to an observation.
This is pretty much the only base-axiom needed to ground my own torture as mattering as the original actual value-currency at stake. That paired with the fact I sampled consciousness and know it matters to me whether or not I am tortured, the fact that I personally observe it as problematic makes it the true reality for my own mind...
...AND it's not mere opinion/proclamation / or idea humans creatively invented out of thin air... as if like everyone could be truly blind yet conceptualizing colovision, makes no sense. plus that's giving humanity way too much credit of imagination.
Can't really have thoughts about information that you don't have. The concept of bad/problem arguably wouldn't even exist if it never was so.
Yes, I agree very semantics. I am attempting to shed clarity on this topic. Looking at the word "BAD" purely in a descriptive sense (e.g., that which can be categorically applied to extreme suffering) it loses all meaning if it's not truly consequential (i.e., it matters whether one experiences bad or not). If it doesn't actually matter ("no problemo") then it can't be bad, only an illusion/delusion of it, yet it's an effective one evolution imposed on organisms as a learning/problem-solving mechanism. The value-realists like myself have every reason to believe evolution created the real thing, not some contrived pseudo-problem organisms feel compelled/obligated to solve.
One only requires the axiom of a Descriptive Bad to ground Ethics. Why? Because it can be argued that a descriptive statement of BAD/problem is prescriptive by it's very nature in the meaning the of word/language.(otherwise its psuedo-bad/fake langauge, redefines bad as aversion/mere preference against) Otherwise, it can't mean anything to be bad, torturously obnoxious, unwanted experiential events couldn't mean anything. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins even state pain is a punishment signal/message to the animal: "Don't do that again!" If those aren't prescriptions imposed, then I don't know what is. The animal doesn't simply decide/prefer to avoid the event and finds it bad, it's told/finds it bad and so prefers to avoid the event/problem. If god or there were some logically or physically possible way it were to be invented how else would it exist?, or what you think evolution's reward & punishment mechanism accomplished? If it didn't synthesize problematic sensations to force organisms to solve?
Evolution prescribes Needs/wants, at the same time imposes a PAIN/PROBLEM of starvation/hunger which by it's very nature is a prescription for solution (i.e. sustenance/relief/comfort.)
By the very nature of "PROBLEM" it prescribes -> "SOLUTION" not merely a contrived or trivial-like on paper math problem, but the origin of why the word even exists: the problem of pain, a true whip/punishment mechanism, real currency to play with, real loss. Idk how you can describe something categorically as a PROBLEM in the true sense of the word if it doesn't come with it a necessary prescription for its solution. Because if there is no NEED for a solution, then it turns into no longer a problem again...
I don't see how it could be any other way because if there's no real game to be playing with value baked into it, then money would be worthless/not even exist, animals wouldn't bother evade standing in the fire, etc.
Saying It is Descriptively the case, that Evolution IMPOSED Prescriptive-ought statements... of 'PROBLEMATIC sensation/event' on organisms which functioned as a learning mechanism and improved survival.
Is the same as saying Evolution IMPOSED torture/BAD, as that's what torture/bad is... a prescribed need for solution to a problem which is some form of relief/comfort.
The prescription arises as a result of accepting step 1. (which nihilists reject/deny) problem solution. The latter does not follow/exist without the former. basic 2+2 = 4 logic. There's no point figuring out the answer to the math equation, if we don't agree first and foremost a problem exists. Nor how to solve a disease, if we don't first and foremost recognize a disease exists. And so, Any debate with nihilists on step 2: of determining what is the most likely solution / right answer becomes irrelevent and a waste of time. Arguing about whether x or y IS the right answer to fixing/preventing diabetes is pointless when they don't even agree the really disease exists. They don't believe an actual real BAD / Problem exists.
VG reduces it down to mere preferences, his reasonings that even if universally sentience prefers not suffebe tortured... Well, just because it is the case descriptively we prefer to avoid suffering doesn't mean we ought/should prevent suffering. He hasn't bridged the IS-OUGHT gap. But he got it backwards,
the claim/argument... ISN'T that because descriptively, sentience universally has a preference to avoid suffering, it is therefore bad,
the claim/argument... IS that it's descriptively bad/problematic, therefore universally there's a deductively logically assigned preference to avoid it,
Again you can't classify/label something as a problem if it's inconsequential whether it is solved or not. The word loses all meaning. If something NEEDs solving/fixing it means there's a problem, if there's a problem it means there's something NEED solving/fixing. Evolution manufactures these needy problems in organisms to manipulate and control them.
Merely what our preferences are IS NOT relevant, preference "frustration" arguably IS. (if preferences couldn't be frustrated "i.e., no value" than it wouldn't matter which way things turned out)
You can have a preference for some art style over another, if we were just programmed non-feeling robots that preferred to avoid standing in the fire, but there was no real kernel of value/bad, then it wouldn't matter.
Let's imagine something was Objectively PROBLEMATIC, an IS statement. What would a real problem look like? something in NEED of a solution. Again, why? because If it doesn't matter whether or not it exists or is Solved or not, it could never be a problem in the first place. So either this problem exists or it doesn't. (NOTE: it doesn't need to be an objective problem to be REAL, "i.e mind-independent")
Next, if ASI or sentient beings were to sample this "problem", would it not be the case they would logically deduce it's in need of a solution? And assign their preferences accordingly to solving it? Cause again otherwise then you just see it as "no-problemo" again.
"If Inmendham's argument is that sentient beings create value, and that the universe has no value without the presence of a sentient being generating it, would it not follow that the ought is inherently built into sensation?" yes but the way VG unfairly reframes it is that we subjectively place value on it, THAT it's entirely subjective, like you prefer salty or sweet, or certain ice cream flavor. emphasizing that it's entirely subjective opinion. Take a look at his unfair silly example: "we can't say pineapple on pizza is objectively tasty or not..." this shows a complete ineptitude in grasping the subject and misrepresenting the argument like crazy, no one is arguing whether Mona Lisa is objectively beautiful or some such thing.
What is being argued: the positive or negative mind-dependent event produced in response to the sensual or perceptual stimuli, the input (object) is irrelevant, only the output (experience) matters and what the value-engine (BRAIN) produced. What pushes your buttons so to speak, blue jelly beans or green jelly beans, could differ between 2 individuals but the shared experience is the same more or less. Whether you wired to find pineapple on pizza tasty or gross is irrelevant, some people find bricks edible.
Main issue is they talking past each other: what inmendham is arguing for was either not expressed as best it could be, and/or VG does not quite comprehend what is being argued... inmendham claims/argues evolution created the real bad/PROBLEM and we respond in recognition of this fact/truth with preferences that follow accordingly, Logic cannot be escaped, once you know 2+2 = 4, you can't will or believe it to be 79. If you know the right answer "torture be Bad M'kay?" obviously you won't act or behave otherwise and say you love it. What could it mean to have a preference against experiencing torture... does such a statement even make any sense? All that is required is a real BAD to exist... and then the preference to avoid it logically follows, an inescapable truth. Unless he thinks I also choose or prefer to believe 2+2 = 4 ?
Essentially VG keeps counter-arguing that: "yes we want to avoid torture, but that's just your preference... just cause universally sentience has a preference against torture (a Descriptive / IS statement) doesn't logically follow some Normative/Prescriptive claim/statement. That just because something IS the case it doesn't follow that we OUGHT / should do X, like help others, prevent suffering, etc. That's a non-sequitur he says. Ultimately it's just a preference." sure but...
His argument only applies/counters a strawman position in his head: Because of this I and other realists can account for / side-step it completely, we aren't attempting to derive an OUGHT from an IS. e.g strawman: "we ALL have preference against torture, Therefore it's BAD." Or "we ALL have preference against torture, Therefore we OUGHT prevent it"
The actual argument is that it's Truly Bad/Problematic by the very nature of the word, Therefore first-hand observation follows universally a deductively logically assigned preference to avoid it. Not the other way around.
"If the only thing that can have meaning in the universe is the experience of a sentient being, ought we not maximize its value just by nature of its experience being the only thing that can matter?" yes the ought is a further logical extension of recognizing it to be a problem, which denotes/demands a solution, otherwise if it doesn't matter to solve it or not then you've turned it into a non-problem again. So it can only be categorically one or the other.
Issue of semantics, different terminology and definitions: as long as VG defines objective as "mind-independent" and sets the goal-post to the realist to find a mind-independent "wrong/bad" as if somehow we need some divine-command or absolute rule in the universe that declares it so... then there is no fruit to the discussion. suffering/bad takes place in the mind/experience, so of course it's unfair to ask one to present a mind-independent suffering/bad in the universe, it is begging the question. To be fair inmendham uses the term objective and could have done better job with defining/pushing his terms "e.g. objective as truth/real/fact" and not let VG impose in his own. However, I don't ascribe a requirement to demonstrate an Objective BAD to ground a BAD as real, valid, and true; it can be entirely based on Subjectivist grounds/axiomatic foundations.
Just because the BAD takes place within subjectivity doesn't make it any less real (non-physical/immaterial sure... but not unreal). VG and nihilists can't understand this. 2+2 = 4 is subjective as is all science ultimately as a root axiomatic-fact... as an observation requires an observer. This doesn't mean realism can't be proven/grounded, it can just like we can know 2+2=4 and the moon exists. If anti-realism is gonna deny subjective truths because it's subjective, then one can't know much of anything and reduces to solipsism. I am more certain I exist and the reality of "perceived" BAD I experience is actually a real BAD... THAN that the moon even exists or any other scientific empirical claim.
PROBLEM is something I/we/animals had Nothing to do with, we didn't invent it.
If Anti-realism nihilism was True and Real "PROBLEMS" didn't exist the word wouldn't exist. It is like being born never knowing or seeing or experiencing vision & color, it's impossible to contrive or imagine it. Some knowledge & information is only accessible through experience.
Even Richard Dawkins stated, "pain is a message to the animal Don't do that again!"
If the ought exists within subjectivity, as preferences, why would them being Subjective vs Objective determine whether or not their violation matters? If one experiences disgust looking at something AND another finds beauty... both are true realities for them, they don't conflict or contradict like empirical or fact claims, but instead both are correct and relevant, not one or the other, BECAUSE when someone says the mona Lisa is beautiful they are just saying it arises in them a sense of beauty, the thing/input is irrelevant whereas the output in mind is what is relevant and true for their reality.
Subjective =/= not true, I don't understand the dichotomy between objective vs subjective ethics, as if there isn't facts to glean about subjectivity.
There's also definition or semantic problems:
objective (mind-independent) vs subjective (mind-dependent)
Under such definition does it make sense to say Objectively evolution created feeling experiencing organisms having sense of taste, smell, sound, hunger, pain, to survive. So can we apply word objective to mind-dependent experiences or not?
And of course under such definition there is no objective mind-independent ethics as without minds there is no feeling subject of concern to even talk about in first place. So how silly...
Yet they take objective to mean True & Subjective made up or mere contrived opinion.
For me these are semantic word games that distract, I just care about what's fact/true. What many don't get is Even science, math is subjective invention, byproduct of subjective tool of language, doesn't mean we can't create an accurate model and picture of reality.
I believe the Is-Ought gap is a red-herring, sure it's true you can't contrive an Ought from just what IS, but with evolution the OUGHT statement is built-in, it's descriptively a prescriptive value statement imposed on me, I/we/animals literally have nothing to do with it, I'm just by-product an observer. This is key understanding.
There exists no objective or divine commandment "you OUGHT do X" written into the fabric of reality, and therefore if you don't that's Bad, No. That's nonsense/impossible logically.
Rather an Descriptive IS statement of X is a real bad/PROBLEM, denotes/demands a solution by it's very nature of the word, otherwise if it doesn't need solving then it becomes into a non-problem again, so either x categorically IS a PROBLEM or it's not.
The claim/argument... Is that it's Descriptively BAD/Problematic, therefore universally there's a deductively logically assigned preference to avoid it. Not the other way around. Our personal preference against torture forever doesn't make it therefore bad. The prescription is built in, forced onto us.
It's like "STOP!" & "GO" What do you say to a dog? "BAD dog!" This is saying it should or shouldn't do something. basically = "No!" "Stop!" That's a prescriptive statement/signal/conveyed message.
Or simply, alls required is Descriptively diagnose Torture as Problematic. Which implies Problem Solution Without necessity of solution there is no problem at all, likewise without problem solution means nothing.
​So you essentially boiled my position down to: "Evolution programmed preference to avoid torture." or "we evolved preference to avoid torture" Does that sound incoherent or what... as if I would make such a silly claim. Keep straw-manning.
Do you think animals have PREFERENCE by default to avoid being tortured burned alive and have sex, or logically preferences are born out of observing problematic negative / positive assigned accordingly through punishment & reward mechanisms aka prescriptions, think long and hard about this one...
This is why value or ethical nihilism is incoherent to me. IF torture be bad, how can it be NOT-bad/neutral to create BAD?
It either is truly BAD or it isn't. It's either real or it's an illusion/delusion and false perception.
Their position must reduce to there is no MEANINGFUL difference between Torture & Bliss. And evolution didn't create any problematic sensation or true punishment whatsoever. Instead, were somehow deluded to view being boiling alive as problematic sensation/BAD, and relief as good, we can't tell the difference or label which is which...
Vegan Gains or any anti-realist needs to substantiate these anti-realist nihilist claims & concede if he agrees with the statements below:
"The value-laden problematic BAD experience of being tortured boiled alive in a vat of acid indefinitely... isn't really bad, evolution didn't successfully impose a real negative punishment mechanism on animals, torture isn't something I/we/animals had nothing to do with and are just byproduct observing the imposition, NO! Instead our opinion has everything to do with it... what's problematic torture, one is merely subjectively interpreting/inventing/proclaiming it to be so! Evolution failed!"
"Animals run from fire cause they irrationally unreasonably subjectively interpret it to be bad/problematic sensation or experience, not cause DNA molecule made it so objectively for evolutionary reasons"
"It is all subjective preference like flavor of potato chips, problematic torturous experience isn't bad you just think it's bad or have preference against it."
"You don't logically recognize intrinsic problematic torturous experience then logically assign solution to problem which is preference to avoid that experience, No, you merely have subjective delusional preference against a nail in your eye and there is no logic to it"
"Good is Bad, and Bad is Good depending on opinion, no right or wrong, all subjective tho"
value anti-realism nihilism. INSANE! WORSE than a flat-earth theory!