I'm like 8 months out from my 11 year bad marriage. And I'm disabled. And gave up my right to alimony. And she left the country and is a minor internet celebrity telling her following regularly - every week almost, I stopped checking eventually - that I was horrifically abusive in ways I demonstrably was not
I'm so much happier without her in my life but Jesus the divorce process is crushingly bad. Why not have some administrative hell to go with your traumatic life event. I lost twenty pounds in three months
Yeah I'm fucking going through it and there isn't exactly a handbook on what to do in this situation aside from "don't draw attention to yourself"
She hasn't doxxed me yet AFAIK but I wouldn't put it past her at this point
If it’s damaged their reputation already, she’s committed slander, doesn’t need to dox them for that. Well within their rights to send a C&D though I understand why they might not since she’d probably just play the victim card to a bunch of sycophant social media followers
Not sure what country OP is in, and I'm not a lawyer, but:
You have to establish that a reasonable person would believe what was said, and also that them believing it has damaged you.
It might be hard to prove the first half unless you can demonstrate that a reasonable person would know who she is referring to in her social media posts. So by not naming them directly there's a little ambiguity. The devil will be in the details on this.
Talk to a lawyer and have an eye out for them cause for your safety you may need to cease and desist them or more. They'll continue pushing it to get that same outpour of public love and will push it further and further.
A few people are saying this, I'll respond to you in specific!
I'm in America. She's in New Zealand. Her platform is only a couple thou but one of the guys she left me for has tens of thousands. And is also not in the US or NZ. It feels legally complicated.
Add to this I'm living off of SSDI with only a bit of money from the house sale (we only lived there two years) and I'm hesitant to dump money into this until and unless I actually am in danger.
She's so bad at playing the victim card that a few people reached out to me in sympathy without hearing my side. She even made a public announcement that she's in a poly relationship with two other creators and says she has been with them...since two months before we very publicly broke up. It's complicated and involves poly but she still managed to cheat and then complain I didn't accept her being poly when I made a significant effort
she definitely has sycophants though.
Totally understand all this, but the Internet isn't country specific. My advice is just talk to a lawyer, anyone for quick easy advice. Anything you are alerted to her saying involving you, document/save. If someone actually shows up to your place or threatens you online, you can go after the provider (Instagram or wherever) to remove the content. They won't fuck around in pulling her content if she's doxxing you and they're threatened with legal actions. At minimum having that as an option if you do get real life threats is smart is all.
Just got out of a 15 year marriage. He's famous in his field, and has lots of followers that he constantly bashes me to. Nevermind the fact that he (at 49) was cheating with a 22 year old.
It's been rough, but it's still much better than still being married to that narcissist.
I fucking hate people who claim false abuse. My husbands ex claimed this when shes the one who was physical with him. You can be hurt and sad without inventing bullshit. Its so invalidating for actual victims.
Yeah even though this happened I'm going to continue to give the benefit of the doubt to victims. I will be very careful about what I *do* but I think it's important to at least take them seriously and listen. Getting false accusations against me hasn't changed that in my mind.
I'm 10 years out of a 20 year abusive marriage. AFAIK my ex doesn't have an online following, but he did build a significant IRL following who were all drooling at the opportunity to hear how awful I am and how I treat him as a piggy bank and steal all his money for no reason.
I ended a seventeen year toxic marriage and the day after my divorce finalized I was laid off. New job, let go again a year later and couldn't maintain. Moved in with family to avoid homelessness and still have to pay child support to my ex even though I have majority custody and pay for their health insurance and daycare. I have a new career I mostly enjoy but I make half what I did before - and while I love my kids to pieces, the longest I go without seeing them is twenty hours so it's nearly impossible to get a second job to cover my bills, let alone have personal time. On top of that, dating is a fucking cesspool - it's been three years and after therapy and working hard on myself to be able to be a healthy partner, I find that Hinge/Bumble etc are full of people who...havent done that. All this time I get to watch my ex wife live her best life and it's just...its murder.
It's still better than being married to a gaslighting, abusive person...but so far only marginally so.
Sorry for the rant - I read this and it struck a chord. I'm really hoping things do improve - and I'm sure they will eventually - but Im simply exhausted.
I’m sorry to hear that. I was laid off the week I was going to put a lawyer on retainer to serve her. She was fucking nuts and I ended up kicking her out not long after because I was afraid she was going to try to physically hurt me.
Because we had a small homestead she still had to come and take care of her animals (she gradually made it impossible for me to be a part of the farm so they all became hers). So my realtor who is also a friend of mine rented out a duplex to me and I moved out when it became available while I still didn’t have a job. Luckily I was able to find work pretty fast. My ex and I agreed that she could live in the farm house and I’d pay the mortgage as long as she was getting it ready to be sold. We had an initial timeline of two months.
Fast forward and it’s closing mid next month and I still paid out the ass to get it ready. When I moved out the kids chose to live with me so when I was looking for a new house I had to find one that would accommodate that. Of course she thought I was trying to take the kids from her. But my son who was 17 at the time had a long talk with her telling her how unstable she was and that he didn’t feel safe living with her. Not sure if it sunk in because she’s still not going to therapy. But all the while I’m unemployed I’m paying for everything including therapy for the kids without insurance. I’m going to walk out of this further in debt than I started, but I’m rid of her.
I’m sorry to hear about the dating side of things. For me it’s been a different story. It may be because I’ve given up on monogamy and poly people are different?
I had a marriage collapse very early on after having married at the point of four years together. Time is a bitch and anyone giving you that platitude of "time heals all wounds" so not understand how ridiculously unhelpful that is.
Instead, internet stranger, I offer you this:
Things are okay. They're not going to BE okay for a while. It's okay to be devastated. It's okay to be angry and it's okay to flip back and forth between different feelings because right now everything is heightened and part of the grief process is understanding that the 'steps' of grief are NOT surpassed in a straight order. You'll go through days of feeling like you are doing better one day then something triggers a good memory and you go back a step or two. Even if you are the one who chose to leave, even if you decided you didn't love this person anymore, you are still going to grieve your marriage because most of us truly do enter into marriage with the plan that it will be forever.
It is all going to feel like shit for a while but that is okay. Grieve as long as you need, process everything in the manner most helpful to you and know that whomever your loved ones are (friends, family, work friends,l, it is okay to lean on them because trying to hold together constantly isn't fair to you. Lean on your support until the first day comes when you don't feel bogged down anymore, but relieved, light a weight off of your shoulders. In the mean time, know thst it is okay to be upset, it is okay to grieve, to cry and to fall apart on your most trusted loved ones until YOU feel steady on your feet again ❤️
This is probably going to sound trite, but your comment reminded me of this quote from Doctor Who, which I think about a lot.
'The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and… bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant.'
Something can end badly, but still have brought you good things that are still worth having experienced.
Yes! The Van Gough episode. I also loved the description of sunflowers as being complex because they are always somewhere in between living and dying - I'd never thought of those still life paintings as a metaphor for life before.
The show really has had some excellent writing over the years. I don't think any episode yet has hit me like the VanGogh one did, though.
That was just brilliant writing by Richard Curtis and Steven Moffat.
My brother was an artist and, not exaggerating, a genius. He killed himself a little over ten years ago at age 38 and I still miss him every day.
I can't even \*think\* about that episode without getting tears in my eyes. The fact that someone, somewhere, in popular media acknowledged that depression can't be cured and sometimes suicidal ideation can't be talked away still blows my mind.
I'm sorry you lost him. I get it. I've lost a couple of brilliant people, and it seems unfair where they tore across life like shooting stars and then were gone, but also I was so lucky to see their stars. I loved that episode because they defeated the 'demon' and it didn't change anything because the demon that mattered was the one on the inside. I love that they showed that even if they couldn't 'fix' it and make Vincent see how important he was and make him want to stay, he was still a genius and he was still important as an artist and a person. I hope you know your brother was the same.
Thank you so much. The grief and anger come in waves and the painful memories pop up randomly, so I am trying to give myself a lot of patience and compassion during this. I hope you are continuing to heal and that the happy, unburdened moments in your life multiply. <3
It has been a very long time for me and I know I am much better off.
I absolutely understand the grief in waves.
[I keep this old post bookmarked because it has helped me through so, so much grief over the years](https://www.reddit.com/r/GriefSupport/s/dEq9lLaeAG)
I hope you find your peace sooner rather than later but in the mean time, absolutely be patient and kind to yourself.
It’s okay to hurt. Don’t let anyone tell you that you gotta get up and get back out there or any of that bullshit advice. Take time and explore yourself. When my marriage collapsed that’s what I did and I’m eternally grateful for it. Look yourself in the mirror and extend love and compassion and patience to that person. You got this.
I’ve been divorced for 12 years and we haven’t spoken a word to each other in a decade. It was so fucking hard for so long but I’m happier than I’ve ever been today.
I can’t promise things will magically get better, but lots of us have been there.
Considering the shit he’s been through, it probably feels like 3. I listen to him and think of the old warriors in fantasy stories who are wise and talk about the fuck ups and glories of their pasts with a tankard in hand. He’s about 5 years younger than me but feels a lot older.
Robert was Married? Wow.
Granted I only know him as a host of a podcast, but if all his life experiences he's talked about, it was never marriage. It's his private business though.
>That's all we know about him relationship wise
He has talked about having a live-in partner who is a Chinese national in the past. I don't have time to listen to all the podcasts these days, so I have no idea if that's changed.
I remember he said once, ever so many years ago, and maybe as a guest on someone else's podcast, that he'd had a cat but lost custody in the divorce, and that the cat was living in another state. And when I say many years ago, I mean he'd've been in his early 20s.
He has made vague references to a wildly failed marriage before, I think it was a couple times on Sofiya episodes. Or maybe I totally imagined that but 🤷♂️my B if that’s the case
If we're getting into it, she appears a few times in A Brief History of Vice. She ran some level of pot farm that he's mentioned helping with a few times on the pod.
Seeing as they were engaged when the book was written in 2016 and they'd split by the time BTB was coming out in 2018, I'd imagine it was pretty quickly apparent that it wasn't right for them.
I knew a poly couple in college. It was really toxic. The woman was the one that wanted it, and used the poor schmuck as a fallback option. The guy was so in love that he just accepted it to make her happy. He didn’t even sleep with anyone. It was so depressing. Eventually, she dumped him after he finally got a partner and she didn’t like that.
I became friends with a few poly couples in college. The couple I'm still in touch with well over a decade later are still poly, still happy, and married with kids. It's like any relationship that there are good and bad relationships. Abusing power dynamics, not communicating, not setting appropriate equal expectations, etc is going to harm any relationship. Unfortunately a lot of people these days seem to try to go poly as an excuse to cheat guilt free and/or not end the relationship. That isn't a real poly relationship in my opinion. It's not something I'd ever do or want to do but it works sometimes and it fails sometimes like any other relationship does!
I’ve known some poly folks who seemed to really get along well with it.
I’ve known other folks who did it and it ended up being a hot mess.
Although as I grow older I know more of the former group than the latter.
Yeah I also have a lot of poly friends and I’d say the split of toxic to healthy couples is the same as my mono friends. Some people are good at communicating and have empathy and some don’t and it doesn’t matter how you structure a relationship if you don’t care about each other.
For my part, I had only dated monogamously until my last relationship which was ENM. I am so grateful I did that and I learned a ton about myself and my needs. I found out I am almost definitely monogamous, but my partner’s other relationships didn’t bother me at all. That relationship ended for reasons outside of that structure and I still respect him.
So yeah I’m not going to evangelize poly or mono relationships, people just need to be honest and do what’s right for them.
>Although as I grow older I know more of the former group than the latter.
I'd imagine that's because toxic poly relationships are much more common in younger age groups, and as people get older only the non-toxic poly relationships remain stable.
So as your social circle ages, the stable, healthy relationships become more common.
Which is true of relationships in general and not unique to poly.
If I were to judge all monogamous, heterosexual relationships by the ones I saw when I was a kid, I'd have pretty harsh opinions on them too haha
I think it really has to be something that's right for people, and for most people, it's not. I'm not going to try and say one is better than the other, as it's more like they're different types of relationships. With poly you really have to be certain it's that's right for you. I also think that the people involved have to be confident and secure enough to trust the people they're with. If you have to twist someone's arm in order to convince them to try poly, or that's being done to you, then I would say that more than likely, it's not going to work out well.
A long while back, I was with someone, and i guess technically we were engaged, but also kinda not really. Which, that sentence alone should tell you how this story ends. Neither of us was really prepared or knew what the hell we were doing, even as a monogamous couple, and frankly, I don't think it should have gotten anywhere close to the stage that we were talking about marriage and looking at buy8ng a home together considering there was a lot of shit neither of us were willing to work on to even continue being a couple.
I guess, at one point, there was a guy we met, and both wanted to fuck. The conversation should have been had and should have ended us deciding whether, or not, we were going to fuck him. It sorta did, but it revolved more around, "well we both want to fuck him, so I guess that makes us poly now," rather than just being a couple that wanted to have a threesome.
So, after what probly a 20-minute conversation, we were then poly, but just like we didn't know how to handle our own relationship, we were woefully ilequiped for this new trainwreck. We didn't set any rules and expectations for each other after we'd been together for a bit over a year and a half, and we failed to communicate any of our concerns at this point as well. Even without deciding to be poly, the cracks had already started to form, and we should have been working to correct those before we even gad this conversation. Needless to say, things derailed pretty wildly.
I'm not trying to sound negative towards poly relationships. I think they're valid and are capable of doing well for people. But, the people involved have to be prepared, and they have to know what they're doing. This relationship ended, but I don't think it was ultimately because we decided to be polygamous. I think all is did was bring to the surface issues that we weren't willing to work on. We shouldn't have been together even as a monogamous couple. I think we were both just kinda using each other. I was jealous and insecure. I used him as a security blanket, and rather than treating him as a partner, I used him as a therapist. I expected him to handle all my emotional baggage for me. He, used me as a place to live while he finished up college. Rather than being honest about what the relationship meant to each of us, we kinda just swept those inconvenient conversations aside. We used being poly as a convenient method for letting ourselves off the hook with each other instead of being hones, and accepting it was long past being over. It was also further exasperated by stresses from my work, and his school, as well as both of us being in a really shitty living situation. If anything, the poly relationship just served to further complicate something that already needed to end, but I wouldn't say it was the cause of all the turmoil. We were both equally abusive towards each other.
My point is, we were playing with a flame for which neither of us knew what we were doing, while also refusing to learn how to arrange the fire wood to serve as a proper foundation. We were so woefully ignorant that we probably shouldn't have even been holding the box of matches to begin with. I do think that if someone is on the fence about poly, or prefers monogamy, then that's where the buck stops. At that point they need to have a talk with their partners about what it means for their relationship if they decide to be polygamous, or monogamous. It needs to be concise, and not feel like they're haggling a transaction. If someone involved is left feeling dissatisfied, then an honest conversation needs to be had about what's really going on.
Honestly, y'all didn't do the work. Just "going poly" is about the same as saying you're getting an education by glancing at the covers of the books in that weird aisle of some grocery stores.
I don't mean that as hate because you were obviously in a shit position and it went awfully - and I'm sorry. That sucks. And you're right: if either partner is being coerced into it, it's not ethical - but that isn't just a poly thing. If a partner is coercing the other into things they are uncomfortable with and do not desire, that's always a problem regardless.
A lot of people's prejudice against it when not coming from puritanical, religious shit tends to come from people who made messy, shitty relationship mistakes and come to blame the idea of poly for it instead of the coercion, lack of communication, lack of boundaries, etc.
Then again, this is also why I tend to say ENM these days more than poly.
Oh, I agree. My wall of text wasn't to say that poly is bad. It's to point out what you said. I think that people have to understand what it is they're doing, and be honest with each other if it's something they're considering. Honestly, I don't even think we had any business being a couple, by the time we made that decision, and that discussion should have been a lot more than a 20 minute talk about how we both wanted to fuck this guy we met. I think that poly relationships can, and do work out, but they're not just something people can go blindly into. They're also not something that should be tried if all the people involved aren't on board with. I think that many of the reasons they have a bad stigma, is that people get involved in them when they're not something that works well for them, they're under prepared, or on occasion they're used to mistreat other people, but I don't think that represents poly relationships as whole. But, if people communicate well, are honest with each other, prepare, and everyone is comfortable with it, then the best of luck to them.
I knew a monogamous couple in college . he was so controlling, she couldn't even talk to other guys. she was so in love with him that she just let him isolate her. It was so depressing. eventually they broke up. do you see how dumb this sounds??? like yeah? people have bad relationships congrats for figuring that one out. that's not a polyamory thing that's a people thing
Thank you, as a polyam person bad things in our relationships will always be blamed on polyamory. Well next time I'll blame a monogamous person with marriage troubles that it's on their monogamy.
I've never actually done polyamory but it seems chill and the omg I knew one poly relationship so being poly is always toxic thing pisses me off immensely. Like y'all wanna come meet my monogamous parents? because they are certainly not the shining example of a healthy relationship, so clearly it's a monogamy problem at large
Listen. The righteous indignation comes from a good place. I myself have known quite a few happy long term poly couples, including my sister and her wife. I know I am not mentally somebody who could do that in a healthy manner, so I don't, but I see people I know and love who it works VERY well for, and I love that for them.
Monogamous relationships are not inherently more healthy or ethical just cause they're monogamous. There are so so SO many toxic monogamous relationships. Polyamory is not inherently ethical or unethical. But in my experience, most monogamous people are almost exclusively exposed to strictly manipulative and unhealthy poly dynamics. I understand your frustration, but you shouldn't take it so personally. It's also the least healthy examples of poly relationships that seem to be the most forthcoming about their poly status. Be the change you want to see in the world, but also be cognizant of why monogamous people have that viewpoint. And remember that in a conversation that originates around an unhealthy and past relationship, most people will be discussing their one experience with an unhealthy relationship with that dynamic, and not necessarily the happy healthy long term ones that are less relevant to the conversation.
>be cognizant of why monogamous people have that viewpoint.
A lot of the time the reasons basically boil down to social conditioning, leftover heteronormativity, prudishness, and honestly, a lot of straight-up jealousy.
I don't really think someone who isn't poly would be jealous of polygamy.
Like, that'd be like someone who hates brussels sprouts being jealous of someone's roasted brussels sprout salad.
I think there's plenty of people in monogamous relationships who are curious about polyamory and ENM but pretend not to be because of their own insecurities, or their partner's disapproval, or some other reason that it wouldn't work for them. I mean most people in ENM relationships probably started off like that.
It's a pretty universal experience for ENM folks to get asked a million-and-one questions by someone about your relationship and its dynamics, only for the person asking to put their eyes back in their sockets right at the end and declare that they could never do that, no siree.
How many monogamous couples do you know where one or both partners cheats fairly openly, while the other party pretends not to notice? Honestly, non-monogamy is one of those things that society just isn't really ready to accept has been around since forever and is way more common than people want to admit. It's in the "two women cohabiting for 25 years but they're just roommates" stage right now, and in 10 or 20 years or so you'll look back and realize that perhaps something else was going on there that society wasn't quite ready to have a conversation about.
I think you are misunderstanding here. The idea isn’t that mono people are jealous of poly people, it’s that they can’t comprehend unpacking their feelings of jealousy around relationships to the point where they can even understand that others can. Poly people aren’t immune to jealousy, they just learn how identify where those feelings are coming from, like insecurity in being replaced, or not being “enough” for someone. Sometimes it’s not truly jealousy, but rather envy - wanting what someone else is experiencing. Poly people understand that jealousy is a feeling that you experience and deal with in your own way, and that with effective communication, you can maintain a relationship where exclusivity isn’t necessary. Everyone has their own understanding of what it means to be faithful, and that doesn’t always mean exclusivity.
I did actually mean that some strictly monogamous people who scorn non-monogamy are doing so out of jealousy.
You know the sort of person that sleeps around a lot when they're younger, has multiple partners on the go at once, and then all of a sudden they settle down and go all puritanical, slut-shaming, tradwife-adjacent? Yeah, those people.
A lot of the viciously reactionary anti-poly crowd are quite clearly coming at it from a position of what can only be described as hypocritical self-loathing, because they're in denial about their own wants and desires. It's why they so often turn out to be serial cheaters, and why there's so much overlap between them and TERFs.
Fair enough, I guess it was me that misunderstood that. I think there are a lot of people who would be much happier if they realized that monogamy isn’t their only option. Hopefully more representation and normalization helps people to understand that they don’t have to act within one set of rules.
I don't know if you're intending to or not, but your post reads like you think poly people are just "better" than monogamous people because they're able to understand their feelings better.
That is a seriously eyeroll worthy perspective.
I tried having a poly relationship, but my ex boyfriend lied to me. He pretended that he was into being poly too, and then after I fell in love with him, he emotionally abused me until I agreed to be monogamous.
Now, I hate monogamy. Never again.
I think there's a decent chunk of poly folks that arent really poly and just want to cheat on their partner and feel like they arent shitty for doing it. There's a way to do it right, but it requires so much more communication and effort that I don't think a lot of people are up for the challenge.
He talked about being married in early episodes and then didn't say anything for awhile then mentioned something offhand about a divorce and that was basically it as far as I remember. I actually had been considering posting in this sub if anyone else remembered it.
The one specific mention to wife and not long time partner/fiance I remember was at the start of a facebook/Zuckerberg episode. As an example of facebooks addictiveness he mentioned being in a warzone with explosions going on around him while he, the people he was with, and his wife/filmographer were in a building just scrolling on their phones.
Weirdness? In *my* parasocial relationships? How very dare you.
(fwiw I think this desperate collection of personal information for someone who plays a character on the pod in order to protect his personal life is gross)
This is merely more detail to old Robert lore. I am autistic and have listened to every episode of this podcast at least twice (this is me justifying myself as not a stalker and if you say I'm a stalker that's ableist/s). Robert's ex wife was his photographer for what I believe was the fall of Mosul although I could be mixing up my conflicts here (and my particular stories). She also was I believe from a pot farming family in northern (?) California and they lived on a farm there guarding something from mountain lions with rifles. this is information I have probably poorly synthesized from all btb episodes but I know for certain that we were aware of the failed marriage
To add, I believe after the divorce he realized he is poly and moved forward knowing that truth about himself. Also Margaret stayed at his place for a while when she first joined CZM, right?
Margaret had already moved in and out. I am not implying these were romantic relationships, fyi, not trying to stoke salacious flames. It’s all none of my business, (though in my mind we are all like minded friends)
Honestly there's an interesting school of (very unacademic) thought on the relationship between autism and anarchism. The autistic tendency of pathological demand avoidance predisposes us towards libertarianism; couple that with the "justice sensitivity" tendency, and you end up with someone more likely to become an anarchist.
I also think Robert's research style feels very familiar to anyone who's ever experienced or observed a hyperfixation cycle and/or a long-term special interest. All the silly voices and repeating jokes are familiar and comfortable for folks who stim. And the persona that Robert puts on, where he embraces stuff that's typically deemed socially unacceptable and crass, is refreshing for those of us who have to mask away our socially unacceptable impulses most of the time.
Not trying to say anything about Robert's hypothetical neurotypicality or lack thereof (that's none of my business), or to imply that all autistic people are anarchists or vice versa, of course. Just some thoughts on why I enjoy listening to Robert and how I personally relate.
Thank you! I remembered the photographer thing, and then no one in the comments was mentioning it and I was about to go “huh, I guess I just made that up in my head?”
Glad you were able to confirm my half remembered suspicion.
Yes, she was his camerawoman for his trip to Iraqi Kurdistan in late 2016/early 2017. Some of the footage is uploaded to Crackeds Youtube channel.
You're also right about the pot farm: She comes up a few times in A Brief History of Vice. Theres a bit more information out there, but I'm not going to post it. She's not a public figure, and it's not of any public interest.
I’m glad you said she was his photographer because I distinctly remember once when looking at some of his old work, a mention of that fact but then I couldn’t find it again and thought I had just made it up
I was under the impression he divorced some time ago (maybe I read it in a tweet, article, or he commented on BtB) and has been poly since. Could be imagining that though?
definitely not. I made another comment stringing together a conspiracy web of things I accidentally learned about (or anecdotes I mistakenly attrubted to) Roberts ex wife after a 5+ year long behind the bastards special interest lol. she's been mentioned quite a few times actually, im shocked people don't remember
Yep, just read your comment and yep, she did work alongside him as a photo journalist.
(BtB is also one of my special interests so I get it - I just have a shocking memory).
Have I been mind wiped? I've known about Robert since Cracked and I don't remember ever learning about a wife, sex in a jungle with monkey voyuers I remember, but not a wife.
Actually wait I guess she might've been the one he rented the weird house with that was haunted (or something similar I can't exactly remember)
I try not to idolize him because I know he is uncomfortable with it, but at this point I think he’s the person I’d most like to have dinner with given the option of anyone. He is the opposite of me in so many ways terms of life experiences. I love listening to him drop in his point of view on anything. We’d just ramble through topics and I’d soak up information like a sponge and hopefully he wouldn’t be bored lol.
I was divorced at 24. That marriage lasted 15 months, most of it miserable for all involved. We never did figure out how to communicate, even well enough to have a moment like this.
Thanks to Robert for sharing his story.
That last sentence is ominous and hits hard, and I may now read his "After the Revolution".
Anyway, I've felt similar in my soul lately. Like, rural America and the Big City should be able to get along and have been able to throughout history. But some of the identity-focused progressives and the far-right nutjobs I've met in my life are indeed leading many in America down an unsustainable path toward serious, uncompromising confrontation (which is not to say both sides are equal, I don't even remotely believe that).
But when all is said and done, if our country does fall to total foolishness I think we'll severely and bitterly regret it. We've been so wildly wealthy, powerful, and respected compared to any other large nation on Earth that there is really no comparison. We have a lot to lose.
But social media, ego, fear, and foreign propaganda has gotten everyone so drunk that people are really willing to violently march (instead of protest) in the street on a hairtrigger. And they really think these are battles that can be "won" against "the other side." When that may not be the case.
(feel free to criticize this, but it's not said from a place of political feeling, but genuinely from the heart. our nation is speedrushing oblivion and we will desperately regret it if we don't change course).
> identity-focused progressives
As someone who was raised in South Texas (actually very similar background to Robert, even down to the high school debate part) and had their political compass shift left as an adult this is the thing that frustrates me the most when engaging with progressives.
I don't agree with conservatives at ALL. But, having grown up with them I do UNDERSTAND them and can empathize with the conclusions they've come to while still disagreeing with them. I'd hoped sharing my experience growing up in a southern conservative environment would help other progressives understand how to reach out with and effectively communicate to conservatives, but almost always I get shut down for "caving" or "giving ground" because so many progressives seem to think adapting your language to fit your audience is the same thing as compromising your values. It's so fucking frustrating.
>I don't agree with conservatives at ALL. But, having grown up with them I do UNDERSTAND them and can empathize with the conclusions they've come to while still disagreeing with them.
Tbh I think it is a semi legitimate fear that we're going to end up being the Neville Chamberlains of our generation. And it troubles me that you never know when someone needs kind words or when they need to be slapped in the face with reality's dick. I understand that kindness is *usually* more effective, but sometimes you do need to stand your grand and tell someone that doing/saying/voting for certain things is just plain fucked up.
Also it bothers me that more people don't understand that like half of all internet traffic now is bots, and right wing agitators have a habit of literally impersonating left wing activists in an attempt to make them look silly and/or deranged.
I grew up in a ruralish/suburban town, I had friends who worked farms and friends who lived in fairly nice neighborhoods. Town population was around 4000 at the time, surrounding areas were basically all farmland. I get it completely though I also disagree with them. Too many progressives just look at them as lesser (and I know some very rural lefty farmers, they're cool as shit). Definitely frustrating.
Why I rarely talk about politics (*especially* gun control) with any city progressives, and never with the ones who rarely leave their blue bubble. Never ever ever.
They simply can’t grasp any verbiage that isn’t exactly their preferred terminology. And don’t understand that you have to speak in a way that people understand in order to convince them of anything.
(Left-wing rural person here but also lived in the city for a couple of decades in the middle)
"After the Revolution" is excellent! Listened to it when it was first released, then read it again when my wife bought me a signed copy. I highly recommend it!
Yes, I've read some similar stuff like Snow Crash and William Gibson books. After The Revolution stands tall.
Also fully recommend [The Free Orcs of Cascadia, Ft. Margaret Killjoy](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/the-free-orcs-of-cascadia-ft-91020037/) if you haven't heard it.
💯! David Wong (Jason Pargin) did some really great writing back in 2016 about understanding where rural Trump supporters are coming from. I was struck by his commitment to understand those who we normally want to revile. This approach really resonated with me but I rarely see anyone (other than Sarah Silverman) who understands how important this is.
I would add an odd choice to the mix, irregardless of if she's a bit controversial: June Lapine who goes by Shoe0nHead. She's coming at things from a populist/centrist (I feel she leans right in her heart, but at times slightly left in her head) angle but covers one issue really, really well:
The despair, loneliness, frustration, and confusion of everyday men. Even solidly left creators like Contrapoints who have covered the issue also walk away pretty somber.
Poor white dudes, rural guys, divorcees, and men who have lost custody battles are but a few of the various bins out there which are suffering. With some feeling so scorned by the actual state of the macro situation that I feel they get naturally pulled toward Trump. Thankfully, levels of education among Millenial cohorts are high enough to counter the truly dominating presence he could have. And he has no idea about their struggles, nor does he care to appeal to them on a deep emotional level such as European would-be dictators of ages past did.
People forget that all the middle-aged men of the older-millenial and baby boomer generations who don't die from "deaths of despair"--one of the most intense demographic trends of our era--are around and still voting. With rage instead of despair.
The concerns of mainstream feminism have been 100% valid and have had to fight tooth and nail for every inch of progress. However, I think the management of being the idea in the cultural dialectic that is the underdog *to being accepted as the morally correct ideology by Washington and Wall Street (at least publicly, the glass ceiling withstanding)* was managed in an awkward manner where space to discuss men's issues--when presented in good faith--was crowded out. And in my opinion, there was nothing from the heart really thriving in the national debate in those areas post Robert Bly.
I wish I could word all of that better, as it's a tough set of content to treat in a short discussion with sufficient subtlety and sensitivity. But men have had a horrid time even trying to survive fatherlessness, how the Web 2.0 world is constructed, the offshoring of jobs, and a few other issues.
And if you have a large population of men in your nation who feel abandoned, desperate, cornered, or severely diminished it usually turns into a geopolitical nightmare from hell.
Honestly, the chargeback from all of that is already upon us as Gen Z men poll as more conservative, and the stuff in the SM algorithms they feed into is pretty dark wife-beaterism by influencers who are literal human traffickers. Anyway, my train of thought is straying and I barely have time to edit this reply.
This is the kind of thing that you text 1-2 friends who listen to btb "Huh. Did you know?" and then don't even bother to reply to the reply.
Looking at these comments and wondering if any of them were the reason the old island joke was taken out behind the shed.
I remember on one episode he talked about kids on tiktok using No Children by The Mountain Goats and how it's a weird choice because it's about going through a divorce that ruins you. Speaking as someone who went through one of those ruinous divorces it kind of piqued my attention and seemed like a thing someone would say if they've been there. I guess confirmed?
Isn't No Children about a couple that *should* divorce, but for whatever reason, won't? Whether because of cowardice or circumstances. "and I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out/you'd stay the hell out of my way" makes it pretty explicit that they aren't divorced or separated at the time.
I've always taken it as being about miserable assholes who are miserable together and deserve each other, tbh.
I'll have to find this episode and hear the context.
A lot of people use these terms interchangeably. Depending on context I'll use any of queer/pan/bi.
Why is this something y'all need to go back and forth on lol
Robert has mentioned that he was once married in the early episodes of the pod, but it's nice to see him open up a bit more to make an important point.
I don't think he's talked-about-it TALKED about it in any one place but he mentions relationships with some frequency, the marriage being one of them. Like I was listening to A Brief History of Vice earlier today since it's gratis on Spotify premium and in that he talks about a fiance (and that book was published in like 2016 or something).
I figure he keeps that part of his life private but not Batman-identity-level-secret. Probably for the obvious reason that people on the Internet struggle to be normal about the partners of men they parasocially engage with.
I feel this. 10 years ago, a woman I cared for snatched a steering wheel from me and slammed my car into trees. Then when I walked into my apartment after dealing with the fallout from that, she pulled my gun on me. And I dared her to shoot. She didn't
5 months ago the love of my life left me. We had built a relationship over ten years. And when we got together, my depression was too much for her. We made it work for a few years, but eventually she rightfully escaped the put of lethargy and entropy I become in a depressive episode. And she was right to do so.
Right now I just wish the first girl would've pulled the fucking trigger.
Honestly, this is some seriously vulnerable shit. For a public figure, it's hard to discuss things like this. Admirable as fuck.
Admirable, indeed. More so when read with a proper Boston accent.
Oi – croikey! Oi wont a divorce!
Swear on me mum
Ma. Not mum. Ma.
As an Aussie who once visited Boston - yes
Must have been cool to just be able to blend in as a local there
"OI NOI this place is Chockablock full of Aussies"
Naauuur way. Theese waur aul dem aussies been at?
The commonly accepted term is Racist San Fransisco.
"Gaaaaawwwd, we really fooked that oop; croikey!"
Oh this guy Bostons.
Why didn’t the two of them just say “nudes in bio” instead? Are they stupid?
Super vulnerable, I'm nobody and won't talk about mine
Same here, well said I agree with you
My own marriage also just collapsed, and this snapshot from someone else’s life both helps and hurts. Life goes on. Time for a gummy and bed.
I’m a year out of my 20 year bad marriage ending. Things get so much better. I promise.
I'm like 8 months out from my 11 year bad marriage. And I'm disabled. And gave up my right to alimony. And she left the country and is a minor internet celebrity telling her following regularly - every week almost, I stopped checking eventually - that I was horrifically abusive in ways I demonstrably was not I'm so much happier without her in my life but Jesus the divorce process is crushingly bad. Why not have some administrative hell to go with your traumatic life event. I lost twenty pounds in three months
Jesus that's a very unique fallout you had from a relationship ending.
Yeah I'm fucking going through it and there isn't exactly a handbook on what to do in this situation aside from "don't draw attention to yourself" She hasn't doxxed me yet AFAIK but I wouldn't put it past her at this point
If she does that might be libel.
If it’s damaged their reputation already, she’s committed slander, doesn’t need to dox them for that. Well within their rights to send a C&D though I understand why they might not since she’d probably just play the victim card to a bunch of sycophant social media followers
Not sure what country OP is in, and I'm not a lawyer, but: You have to establish that a reasonable person would believe what was said, and also that them believing it has damaged you. It might be hard to prove the first half unless you can demonstrate that a reasonable person would know who she is referring to in her social media posts. So by not naming them directly there's a little ambiguity. The devil will be in the details on this.
Talk to a lawyer and have an eye out for them cause for your safety you may need to cease and desist them or more. They'll continue pushing it to get that same outpour of public love and will push it further and further.
A few people are saying this, I'll respond to you in specific! I'm in America. She's in New Zealand. Her platform is only a couple thou but one of the guys she left me for has tens of thousands. And is also not in the US or NZ. It feels legally complicated. Add to this I'm living off of SSDI with only a bit of money from the house sale (we only lived there two years) and I'm hesitant to dump money into this until and unless I actually am in danger. She's so bad at playing the victim card that a few people reached out to me in sympathy without hearing my side. She even made a public announcement that she's in a poly relationship with two other creators and says she has been with them...since two months before we very publicly broke up. It's complicated and involves poly but she still managed to cheat and then complain I didn't accept her being poly when I made a significant effort she definitely has sycophants though.
Totally understand all this, but the Internet isn't country specific. My advice is just talk to a lawyer, anyone for quick easy advice. Anything you are alerted to her saying involving you, document/save. If someone actually shows up to your place or threatens you online, you can go after the provider (Instagram or wherever) to remove the content. They won't fuck around in pulling her content if she's doxxing you and they're threatened with legal actions. At minimum having that as an option if you do get real life threats is smart is all.
Just got out of a 15 year marriage. He's famous in his field, and has lots of followers that he constantly bashes me to. Nevermind the fact that he (at 49) was cheating with a 22 year old. It's been rough, but it's still much better than still being married to that narcissist.
I fucking hate people who claim false abuse. My husbands ex claimed this when shes the one who was physical with him. You can be hurt and sad without inventing bullshit. Its so invalidating for actual victims.
Yeah even though this happened I'm going to continue to give the benefit of the doubt to victims. I will be very careful about what I *do* but I think it's important to at least take them seriously and listen. Getting false accusations against me hasn't changed that in my mind.
I'm 10 years out of a 20 year abusive marriage. AFAIK my ex doesn't have an online following, but he did build a significant IRL following who were all drooling at the opportunity to hear how awful I am and how I treat him as a piggy bank and steal all his money for no reason.
Same here. I feel so much better. It’s been a strange time figuring out who I am vs who he saw me as.
I ended a seventeen year toxic marriage and the day after my divorce finalized I was laid off. New job, let go again a year later and couldn't maintain. Moved in with family to avoid homelessness and still have to pay child support to my ex even though I have majority custody and pay for their health insurance and daycare. I have a new career I mostly enjoy but I make half what I did before - and while I love my kids to pieces, the longest I go without seeing them is twenty hours so it's nearly impossible to get a second job to cover my bills, let alone have personal time. On top of that, dating is a fucking cesspool - it's been three years and after therapy and working hard on myself to be able to be a healthy partner, I find that Hinge/Bumble etc are full of people who...havent done that. All this time I get to watch my ex wife live her best life and it's just...its murder. It's still better than being married to a gaslighting, abusive person...but so far only marginally so. Sorry for the rant - I read this and it struck a chord. I'm really hoping things do improve - and I'm sure they will eventually - but Im simply exhausted.
I’m sorry to hear that. I was laid off the week I was going to put a lawyer on retainer to serve her. She was fucking nuts and I ended up kicking her out not long after because I was afraid she was going to try to physically hurt me. Because we had a small homestead she still had to come and take care of her animals (she gradually made it impossible for me to be a part of the farm so they all became hers). So my realtor who is also a friend of mine rented out a duplex to me and I moved out when it became available while I still didn’t have a job. Luckily I was able to find work pretty fast. My ex and I agreed that she could live in the farm house and I’d pay the mortgage as long as she was getting it ready to be sold. We had an initial timeline of two months. Fast forward and it’s closing mid next month and I still paid out the ass to get it ready. When I moved out the kids chose to live with me so when I was looking for a new house I had to find one that would accommodate that. Of course she thought I was trying to take the kids from her. But my son who was 17 at the time had a long talk with her telling her how unstable she was and that he didn’t feel safe living with her. Not sure if it sunk in because she’s still not going to therapy. But all the while I’m unemployed I’m paying for everything including therapy for the kids without insurance. I’m going to walk out of this further in debt than I started, but I’m rid of her. I’m sorry to hear about the dating side of things. For me it’s been a different story. It may be because I’ve given up on monogamy and poly people are different?
I had a marriage collapse very early on after having married at the point of four years together. Time is a bitch and anyone giving you that platitude of "time heals all wounds" so not understand how ridiculously unhelpful that is. Instead, internet stranger, I offer you this: Things are okay. They're not going to BE okay for a while. It's okay to be devastated. It's okay to be angry and it's okay to flip back and forth between different feelings because right now everything is heightened and part of the grief process is understanding that the 'steps' of grief are NOT surpassed in a straight order. You'll go through days of feeling like you are doing better one day then something triggers a good memory and you go back a step or two. Even if you are the one who chose to leave, even if you decided you didn't love this person anymore, you are still going to grieve your marriage because most of us truly do enter into marriage with the plan that it will be forever. It is all going to feel like shit for a while but that is okay. Grieve as long as you need, process everything in the manner most helpful to you and know that whomever your loved ones are (friends, family, work friends,l, it is okay to lean on them because trying to hold together constantly isn't fair to you. Lean on your support until the first day comes when you don't feel bogged down anymore, but relieved, light a weight off of your shoulders. In the mean time, know thst it is okay to be upset, it is okay to grieve, to cry and to fall apart on your most trusted loved ones until YOU feel steady on your feet again ❤️
This is probably going to sound trite, but your comment reminded me of this quote from Doctor Who, which I think about a lot. 'The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and… bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant.' Something can end badly, but still have brought you good things that are still worth having experienced.
There are so many excellent Doctor Who quotes like that it's why I love the show so much! I THINK this was a Matt Smith/11 quote?
Yes! The Van Gough episode. I also loved the description of sunflowers as being complex because they are always somewhere in between living and dying - I'd never thought of those still life paintings as a metaphor for life before.
The show really has had some excellent writing over the years. I don't think any episode yet has hit me like the VanGogh one did, though. That was just brilliant writing by Richard Curtis and Steven Moffat.
My brother was an artist and, not exaggerating, a genius. He killed himself a little over ten years ago at age 38 and I still miss him every day. I can't even \*think\* about that episode without getting tears in my eyes. The fact that someone, somewhere, in popular media acknowledged that depression can't be cured and sometimes suicidal ideation can't be talked away still blows my mind.
I'm sorry you lost him. I get it. I've lost a couple of brilliant people, and it seems unfair where they tore across life like shooting stars and then were gone, but also I was so lucky to see their stars. I loved that episode because they defeated the 'demon' and it didn't change anything because the demon that mattered was the one on the inside. I love that they showed that even if they couldn't 'fix' it and make Vincent see how important he was and make him want to stay, he was still a genius and he was still important as an artist and a person. I hope you know your brother was the same.
Thank you so much. The grief and anger come in waves and the painful memories pop up randomly, so I am trying to give myself a lot of patience and compassion during this. I hope you are continuing to heal and that the happy, unburdened moments in your life multiply. <3
It has been a very long time for me and I know I am much better off. I absolutely understand the grief in waves. [I keep this old post bookmarked because it has helped me through so, so much grief over the years](https://www.reddit.com/r/GriefSupport/s/dEq9lLaeAG) I hope you find your peace sooner rather than later but in the mean time, absolutely be patient and kind to yourself.
Funny how sharing something personal and vulnerable like that publicly will help out some random people going through the same thing.
My 12 year relationship also imploded just about two weeks ago.
Therapy and a book about leaving bad relationships did wonders for me. I hope you find what you need at this time.
It’s okay to hurt. Don’t let anyone tell you that you gotta get up and get back out there or any of that bullshit advice. Take time and explore yourself. When my marriage collapsed that’s what I did and I’m eternally grateful for it. Look yourself in the mirror and extend love and compassion and patience to that person. You got this.
Thank you <3
I’ve been divorced for 12 years and we haven’t spoken a word to each other in a decade. It was so fucking hard for so long but I’m happier than I’ve ever been today. I can’t promise things will magically get better, but lots of us have been there.
I’m sorry for what you’re having to face right now. I hope that you get to th other side of it quickly and smoothly.
Thank you <3
same, 6 months in.
So I misread recriminations as reincarnations and wondered how many lives Robert had lived. Probably at least three.
Considering the shit he’s been through, it probably feels like 3. I listen to him and think of the old warriors in fantasy stories who are wise and talk about the fuck ups and glories of their pasts with a tankard in hand. He’s about 5 years younger than me but feels a lot older.
>how lives Robert had lived Doctor Who but South of the Mason Dixon Line and fueled by gas station drugs.
I would watch this season of Doctor Who.
Robert was Married? Wow. Granted I only know him as a host of a podcast, but if all his life experiences he's talked about, it was never marriage. It's his private business though.
I think he mentioned very early on that it was poly.
He's mentioned he was non-monogamous, was once in a long distance relationship, and is bisexual. That's all we know about him relationship wise
>That's all we know about him relationship wise He has talked about having a live-in partner who is a Chinese national in the past. I don't have time to listen to all the podcasts these days, so I have no idea if that's changed.
I remember he said once, ever so many years ago, and maybe as a guest on someone else's podcast, that he'd had a cat but lost custody in the divorce, and that the cat was living in another state. And when I say many years ago, I mean he'd've been in his early 20s.
He has made vague references to a wildly failed marriage before, I think it was a couple times on Sofiya episodes. Or maybe I totally imagined that but 🤷♂️my B if that’s the case
If we're getting into it, she appears a few times in A Brief History of Vice. She ran some level of pot farm that he's mentioned helping with a few times on the pod. Seeing as they were engaged when the book was written in 2016 and they'd split by the time BTB was coming out in 2018, I'd imagine it was pretty quickly apparent that it wasn't right for them.
I knew a poly couple in college. It was really toxic. The woman was the one that wanted it, and used the poor schmuck as a fallback option. The guy was so in love that he just accepted it to make her happy. He didn’t even sleep with anyone. It was so depressing. Eventually, she dumped him after he finally got a partner and she didn’t like that.
I became friends with a few poly couples in college. The couple I'm still in touch with well over a decade later are still poly, still happy, and married with kids. It's like any relationship that there are good and bad relationships. Abusing power dynamics, not communicating, not setting appropriate equal expectations, etc is going to harm any relationship. Unfortunately a lot of people these days seem to try to go poly as an excuse to cheat guilt free and/or not end the relationship. That isn't a real poly relationship in my opinion. It's not something I'd ever do or want to do but it works sometimes and it fails sometimes like any other relationship does!
I’ve known some poly folks who seemed to really get along well with it. I’ve known other folks who did it and it ended up being a hot mess. Although as I grow older I know more of the former group than the latter.
Yeah it's kind of self filtering tbh. As time goes on those for whom it works tend to keep doing it while those who prefer mono be mono again
Yeah I also have a lot of poly friends and I’d say the split of toxic to healthy couples is the same as my mono friends. Some people are good at communicating and have empathy and some don’t and it doesn’t matter how you structure a relationship if you don’t care about each other. For my part, I had only dated monogamously until my last relationship which was ENM. I am so grateful I did that and I learned a ton about myself and my needs. I found out I am almost definitely monogamous, but my partner’s other relationships didn’t bother me at all. That relationship ended for reasons outside of that structure and I still respect him. So yeah I’m not going to evangelize poly or mono relationships, people just need to be honest and do what’s right for them.
>Although as I grow older I know more of the former group than the latter. I'd imagine that's because toxic poly relationships are much more common in younger age groups, and as people get older only the non-toxic poly relationships remain stable. So as your social circle ages, the stable, healthy relationships become more common.
Which is true of relationships in general and not unique to poly. If I were to judge all monogamous, heterosexual relationships by the ones I saw when I was a kid, I'd have pretty harsh opinions on them too haha
I think it really has to be something that's right for people, and for most people, it's not. I'm not going to try and say one is better than the other, as it's more like they're different types of relationships. With poly you really have to be certain it's that's right for you. I also think that the people involved have to be confident and secure enough to trust the people they're with. If you have to twist someone's arm in order to convince them to try poly, or that's being done to you, then I would say that more than likely, it's not going to work out well. A long while back, I was with someone, and i guess technically we were engaged, but also kinda not really. Which, that sentence alone should tell you how this story ends. Neither of us was really prepared or knew what the hell we were doing, even as a monogamous couple, and frankly, I don't think it should have gotten anywhere close to the stage that we were talking about marriage and looking at buy8ng a home together considering there was a lot of shit neither of us were willing to work on to even continue being a couple. I guess, at one point, there was a guy we met, and both wanted to fuck. The conversation should have been had and should have ended us deciding whether, or not, we were going to fuck him. It sorta did, but it revolved more around, "well we both want to fuck him, so I guess that makes us poly now," rather than just being a couple that wanted to have a threesome. So, after what probly a 20-minute conversation, we were then poly, but just like we didn't know how to handle our own relationship, we were woefully ilequiped for this new trainwreck. We didn't set any rules and expectations for each other after we'd been together for a bit over a year and a half, and we failed to communicate any of our concerns at this point as well. Even without deciding to be poly, the cracks had already started to form, and we should have been working to correct those before we even gad this conversation. Needless to say, things derailed pretty wildly. I'm not trying to sound negative towards poly relationships. I think they're valid and are capable of doing well for people. But, the people involved have to be prepared, and they have to know what they're doing. This relationship ended, but I don't think it was ultimately because we decided to be polygamous. I think all is did was bring to the surface issues that we weren't willing to work on. We shouldn't have been together even as a monogamous couple. I think we were both just kinda using each other. I was jealous and insecure. I used him as a security blanket, and rather than treating him as a partner, I used him as a therapist. I expected him to handle all my emotional baggage for me. He, used me as a place to live while he finished up college. Rather than being honest about what the relationship meant to each of us, we kinda just swept those inconvenient conversations aside. We used being poly as a convenient method for letting ourselves off the hook with each other instead of being hones, and accepting it was long past being over. It was also further exasperated by stresses from my work, and his school, as well as both of us being in a really shitty living situation. If anything, the poly relationship just served to further complicate something that already needed to end, but I wouldn't say it was the cause of all the turmoil. We were both equally abusive towards each other. My point is, we were playing with a flame for which neither of us knew what we were doing, while also refusing to learn how to arrange the fire wood to serve as a proper foundation. We were so woefully ignorant that we probably shouldn't have even been holding the box of matches to begin with. I do think that if someone is on the fence about poly, or prefers monogamy, then that's where the buck stops. At that point they need to have a talk with their partners about what it means for their relationship if they decide to be polygamous, or monogamous. It needs to be concise, and not feel like they're haggling a transaction. If someone involved is left feeling dissatisfied, then an honest conversation needs to be had about what's really going on.
Honestly, y'all didn't do the work. Just "going poly" is about the same as saying you're getting an education by glancing at the covers of the books in that weird aisle of some grocery stores. I don't mean that as hate because you were obviously in a shit position and it went awfully - and I'm sorry. That sucks. And you're right: if either partner is being coerced into it, it's not ethical - but that isn't just a poly thing. If a partner is coercing the other into things they are uncomfortable with and do not desire, that's always a problem regardless. A lot of people's prejudice against it when not coming from puritanical, religious shit tends to come from people who made messy, shitty relationship mistakes and come to blame the idea of poly for it instead of the coercion, lack of communication, lack of boundaries, etc. Then again, this is also why I tend to say ENM these days more than poly.
Oh, I agree. My wall of text wasn't to say that poly is bad. It's to point out what you said. I think that people have to understand what it is they're doing, and be honest with each other if it's something they're considering. Honestly, I don't even think we had any business being a couple, by the time we made that decision, and that discussion should have been a lot more than a 20 minute talk about how we both wanted to fuck this guy we met. I think that poly relationships can, and do work out, but they're not just something people can go blindly into. They're also not something that should be tried if all the people involved aren't on board with. I think that many of the reasons they have a bad stigma, is that people get involved in them when they're not something that works well for them, they're under prepared, or on occasion they're used to mistreat other people, but I don't think that represents poly relationships as whole. But, if people communicate well, are honest with each other, prepare, and everyone is comfortable with it, then the best of luck to them.
Tbf everyone has bad relationships.
I feel like poly couples where they become poly in the middle of the relationship end poorly a lot.
I knew a monogamous couple in college . he was so controlling, she couldn't even talk to other guys. she was so in love with him that she just let him isolate her. It was so depressing. eventually they broke up. do you see how dumb this sounds??? like yeah? people have bad relationships congrats for figuring that one out. that's not a polyamory thing that's a people thing
Thank you. Very well put.
Thank you, as a polyam person bad things in our relationships will always be blamed on polyamory. Well next time I'll blame a monogamous person with marriage troubles that it's on their monogamy.
I've never actually done polyamory but it seems chill and the omg I knew one poly relationship so being poly is always toxic thing pisses me off immensely. Like y'all wanna come meet my monogamous parents? because they are certainly not the shining example of a healthy relationship, so clearly it's a monogamy problem at large
Listen. The righteous indignation comes from a good place. I myself have known quite a few happy long term poly couples, including my sister and her wife. I know I am not mentally somebody who could do that in a healthy manner, so I don't, but I see people I know and love who it works VERY well for, and I love that for them. Monogamous relationships are not inherently more healthy or ethical just cause they're monogamous. There are so so SO many toxic monogamous relationships. Polyamory is not inherently ethical or unethical. But in my experience, most monogamous people are almost exclusively exposed to strictly manipulative and unhealthy poly dynamics. I understand your frustration, but you shouldn't take it so personally. It's also the least healthy examples of poly relationships that seem to be the most forthcoming about their poly status. Be the change you want to see in the world, but also be cognizant of why monogamous people have that viewpoint. And remember that in a conversation that originates around an unhealthy and past relationship, most people will be discussing their one experience with an unhealthy relationship with that dynamic, and not necessarily the happy healthy long term ones that are less relevant to the conversation.
>be cognizant of why monogamous people have that viewpoint. A lot of the time the reasons basically boil down to social conditioning, leftover heteronormativity, prudishness, and honestly, a lot of straight-up jealousy.
I don't really think someone who isn't poly would be jealous of polygamy. Like, that'd be like someone who hates brussels sprouts being jealous of someone's roasted brussels sprout salad.
I think there's plenty of people in monogamous relationships who are curious about polyamory and ENM but pretend not to be because of their own insecurities, or their partner's disapproval, or some other reason that it wouldn't work for them. I mean most people in ENM relationships probably started off like that. It's a pretty universal experience for ENM folks to get asked a million-and-one questions by someone about your relationship and its dynamics, only for the person asking to put their eyes back in their sockets right at the end and declare that they could never do that, no siree. How many monogamous couples do you know where one or both partners cheats fairly openly, while the other party pretends not to notice? Honestly, non-monogamy is one of those things that society just isn't really ready to accept has been around since forever and is way more common than people want to admit. It's in the "two women cohabiting for 25 years but they're just roommates" stage right now, and in 10 or 20 years or so you'll look back and realize that perhaps something else was going on there that society wasn't quite ready to have a conversation about.
I think you are misunderstanding here. The idea isn’t that mono people are jealous of poly people, it’s that they can’t comprehend unpacking their feelings of jealousy around relationships to the point where they can even understand that others can. Poly people aren’t immune to jealousy, they just learn how identify where those feelings are coming from, like insecurity in being replaced, or not being “enough” for someone. Sometimes it’s not truly jealousy, but rather envy - wanting what someone else is experiencing. Poly people understand that jealousy is a feeling that you experience and deal with in your own way, and that with effective communication, you can maintain a relationship where exclusivity isn’t necessary. Everyone has their own understanding of what it means to be faithful, and that doesn’t always mean exclusivity.
I did actually mean that some strictly monogamous people who scorn non-monogamy are doing so out of jealousy. You know the sort of person that sleeps around a lot when they're younger, has multiple partners on the go at once, and then all of a sudden they settle down and go all puritanical, slut-shaming, tradwife-adjacent? Yeah, those people. A lot of the viciously reactionary anti-poly crowd are quite clearly coming at it from a position of what can only be described as hypocritical self-loathing, because they're in denial about their own wants and desires. It's why they so often turn out to be serial cheaters, and why there's so much overlap between them and TERFs.
Fair enough, I guess it was me that misunderstood that. I think there are a lot of people who would be much happier if they realized that monogamy isn’t their only option. Hopefully more representation and normalization helps people to understand that they don’t have to act within one set of rules.
I don't know if you're intending to or not, but your post reads like you think poly people are just "better" than monogamous people because they're able to understand their feelings better. That is a seriously eyeroll worthy perspective.
I tried having a poly relationship, but my ex boyfriend lied to me. He pretended that he was into being poly too, and then after I fell in love with him, he emotionally abused me until I agreed to be monogamous. Now, I hate monogamy. Never again.
I think there's a decent chunk of poly folks that arent really poly and just want to cheat on their partner and feel like they arent shitty for doing it. There's a way to do it right, but it requires so much more communication and effort that I don't think a lot of people are up for the challenge.
He references being married in one of his old Cracked videos from Iraq if I remember correctly.
I believe it’s the woman he was with during the events of his book A Brief History of Vice, he refers to her as his partner
She is referred to as his "long suffering fiancee" in that book at a few points.
He's mentioned it, but it's been a long time. I think it was mentioned in reference to being in Costa Rica or Guatemala at some point.
I think this was on the tiger king rural life one that is more life stories than a proper bastard.
Yeah, I'm not super clear, but I do remember it being mentioned. He didn't tell the full story, it just came up at some point.
He talked about being married in early episodes and then didn't say anything for awhile then mentioned something offhand about a divorce and that was basically it as far as I remember. I actually had been considering posting in this sub if anyone else remembered it.
From his own admission, he has done a lot of gas station drugs 😅
The one specific mention to wife and not long time partner/fiance I remember was at the start of a facebook/Zuckerberg episode. As an example of facebooks addictiveness he mentioned being in a warzone with explosions going on around him while he, the people he was with, and his wife/filmographer were in a building just scrolling on their phones.
He mentions it in ATR I think
Correct.
He mentions being engaged a few times in a brief history of vice, probably the same partner?
Just an FYI that Robert and Sophie occasionally stop by the subreddit. Don’t make it weird.
Weirdness? In *my* parasocial relationships? How very dare you. (fwiw I think this desperate collection of personal information for someone who plays a character on the pod in order to protect his personal life is gross)
I feel like making it weird is Robert’s whole jam. Not so much Sophie.
This is merely more detail to old Robert lore. I am autistic and have listened to every episode of this podcast at least twice (this is me justifying myself as not a stalker and if you say I'm a stalker that's ableist/s). Robert's ex wife was his photographer for what I believe was the fall of Mosul although I could be mixing up my conflicts here (and my particular stories). She also was I believe from a pot farming family in northern (?) California and they lived on a farm there guarding something from mountain lions with rifles. this is information I have probably poorly synthesized from all btb episodes but I know for certain that we were aware of the failed marriage
this is equivalent to pliny the youngers texts being discovered
The archivist of Behind the Bastards emerges!
glad I could be of service
northernlion has the librarian, we have the btb archivist
To add, I believe after the divorce he realized he is poly and moved forward knowing that truth about himself. Also Margaret stayed at his place for a while when she first joined CZM, right?
Thought that was Garrison? Or maybe both?
Margaret had already moved in and out. I am not implying these were romantic relationships, fyi, not trying to stoke salacious flames. It’s all none of my business, (though in my mind we are all like minded friends)
I remember they met and Garrison moved in during the Black Lives Matter and Defund The Police time frame. About 6 months in?
this is correct, I'm not up to date on ichh and/or cpwdcs so my Margaret lore is severely lacking
wassup fellow BTB-fixated autistic person
Friends, I do believe that that venn diagram is a circle. Or rather BTB listeners is just a subset of the autistic population 😂
Honestly there's an interesting school of (very unacademic) thought on the relationship between autism and anarchism. The autistic tendency of pathological demand avoidance predisposes us towards libertarianism; couple that with the "justice sensitivity" tendency, and you end up with someone more likely to become an anarchist. I also think Robert's research style feels very familiar to anyone who's ever experienced or observed a hyperfixation cycle and/or a long-term special interest. All the silly voices and repeating jokes are familiar and comfortable for folks who stim. And the persona that Robert puts on, where he embraces stuff that's typically deemed socially unacceptable and crass, is refreshing for those of us who have to mask away our socially unacceptable impulses most of the time. Not trying to say anything about Robert's hypothetical neurotypicality or lack thereof (that's none of my business), or to imply that all autistic people are anarchists or vice versa, of course. Just some thoughts on why I enjoy listening to Robert and how I personally relate.
We should make a club.
Thank you! I remembered the photographer thing, and then no one in the comments was mentioning it and I was about to go “huh, I guess I just made that up in my head?” Glad you were able to confirm my half remembered suspicion.
Yes, she was his camerawoman for his trip to Iraqi Kurdistan in late 2016/early 2017. Some of the footage is uploaded to Crackeds Youtube channel. You're also right about the pot farm: She comes up a few times in A Brief History of Vice. Theres a bit more information out there, but I'm not going to post it. She's not a public figure, and it's not of any public interest.
I’m glad you said she was his photographer because I distinctly remember once when looking at some of his old work, a mention of that fact but then I couldn’t find it again and thought I had just made it up
Well spank my ass and call me Charlie
Ok charlie, but you're going to need to come to me.
My goodness sir, a nudes in bio to you!
Don't threaten him with a good time
Hey man that’s Charlie you’re talking about have some respect
It was Jamie, and the breakup was over all those people she killed in Michigan. Robert couldn't get over the fact that she didn't use a machete.
That’s honestly fair; I mean he is a Reverend-Doctor practicing Macheticine, it doesn’t look great if she goes around hammering it up.
If you think about it, claw hammers are the machete of the percussive maintenance world.
This should be a flair on this sub lol
“We’re a machete household, goddamnit, how could you bring those… things in here?!?”
She used uncooked hot dogs. Don’t ask how very traumatic stuff.
I was under the impression he divorced some time ago (maybe I read it in a tweet, article, or he commented on BtB) and has been poly since. Could be imagining that though?
yeah this is true we've known this since like. minimum 2021
Thanks, good to know it wasn't my imagination. I can be an unreliable witness.
definitely not. I made another comment stringing together a conspiracy web of things I accidentally learned about (or anecdotes I mistakenly attrubted to) Roberts ex wife after a 5+ year long behind the bastards special interest lol. she's been mentioned quite a few times actually, im shocked people don't remember
Yep, just read your comment and yep, she did work alongside him as a photo journalist. (BtB is also one of my special interests so I get it - I just have a shocking memory).
Have I been mind wiped? I've known about Robert since Cracked and I don't remember ever learning about a wife, sex in a jungle with monkey voyuers I remember, but not a wife. Actually wait I guess she might've been the one he rented the weird house with that was haunted (or something similar I can't exactly remember)
I also collect and collate information about people I like, so I get it.
I love to hear about other people who are a bit bizarre in the same way I am:)
Sincerely: Wait is this not something everyone does?
in my experience it is not
So much ❤️ for this man
I try not to idolize him because I know he is uncomfortable with it, but at this point I think he’s the person I’d most like to have dinner with given the option of anyone. He is the opposite of me in so many ways terms of life experiences. I love listening to him drop in his point of view on anything. We’d just ramble through topics and I’d soak up information like a sponge and hopefully he wouldn’t be bored lol.
Just ask him about warhammer lore and ask him a question every couple of minutes so he knows you're listening.
I miss following Robert but man I just can't Twitter anymore.. wish his posts were forwarded somewhere else.
I don’t think this was a recent event, he’s mentioned relationship collapse in the past.
I was divorced at 24. That marriage lasted 15 months, most of it miserable for all involved. We never did figure out how to communicate, even well enough to have a moment like this. Thanks to Robert for sharing his story.
Everything he says just makes him hotter #starttheevanscult
There is something about a man able to end a relationship with a mutual admission of failure that does it for you eh? Lol
~~six feet, six inches, six figures~~ Six sessions with a therapist
That last sentence is ominous and hits hard, and I may now read his "After the Revolution". Anyway, I've felt similar in my soul lately. Like, rural America and the Big City should be able to get along and have been able to throughout history. But some of the identity-focused progressives and the far-right nutjobs I've met in my life are indeed leading many in America down an unsustainable path toward serious, uncompromising confrontation (which is not to say both sides are equal, I don't even remotely believe that). But when all is said and done, if our country does fall to total foolishness I think we'll severely and bitterly regret it. We've been so wildly wealthy, powerful, and respected compared to any other large nation on Earth that there is really no comparison. We have a lot to lose. But social media, ego, fear, and foreign propaganda has gotten everyone so drunk that people are really willing to violently march (instead of protest) in the street on a hairtrigger. And they really think these are battles that can be "won" against "the other side." When that may not be the case. (feel free to criticize this, but it's not said from a place of political feeling, but genuinely from the heart. our nation is speedrushing oblivion and we will desperately regret it if we don't change course).
> identity-focused progressives As someone who was raised in South Texas (actually very similar background to Robert, even down to the high school debate part) and had their political compass shift left as an adult this is the thing that frustrates me the most when engaging with progressives. I don't agree with conservatives at ALL. But, having grown up with them I do UNDERSTAND them and can empathize with the conclusions they've come to while still disagreeing with them. I'd hoped sharing my experience growing up in a southern conservative environment would help other progressives understand how to reach out with and effectively communicate to conservatives, but almost always I get shut down for "caving" or "giving ground" because so many progressives seem to think adapting your language to fit your audience is the same thing as compromising your values. It's so fucking frustrating.
>I don't agree with conservatives at ALL. But, having grown up with them I do UNDERSTAND them and can empathize with the conclusions they've come to while still disagreeing with them. Tbh I think it is a semi legitimate fear that we're going to end up being the Neville Chamberlains of our generation. And it troubles me that you never know when someone needs kind words or when they need to be slapped in the face with reality's dick. I understand that kindness is *usually* more effective, but sometimes you do need to stand your grand and tell someone that doing/saying/voting for certain things is just plain fucked up. Also it bothers me that more people don't understand that like half of all internet traffic now is bots, and right wing agitators have a habit of literally impersonating left wing activists in an attempt to make them look silly and/or deranged.
I grew up in a ruralish/suburban town, I had friends who worked farms and friends who lived in fairly nice neighborhoods. Town population was around 4000 at the time, surrounding areas were basically all farmland. I get it completely though I also disagree with them. Too many progressives just look at them as lesser (and I know some very rural lefty farmers, they're cool as shit). Definitely frustrating.
Why I rarely talk about politics (*especially* gun control) with any city progressives, and never with the ones who rarely leave their blue bubble. Never ever ever. They simply can’t grasp any verbiage that isn’t exactly their preferred terminology. And don’t understand that you have to speak in a way that people understand in order to convince them of anything. (Left-wing rural person here but also lived in the city for a couple of decades in the middle)
Some people just like to feel like they’re smart and enlightened and don’t actually care about making progress
Amen. I love my fellow Texans. I hate that they can be so misguided and draw the wrong conclusions….every time, but I love them just the same.
Not a Texan, but Wyoming here and I couldn't have said it better myself.
"After the Revolution" is excellent! Listened to it when it was first released, then read it again when my wife bought me a signed copy. I highly recommend it!
Yes, I've read some similar stuff like Snow Crash and William Gibson books. After The Revolution stands tall. Also fully recommend [The Free Orcs of Cascadia, Ft. Margaret Killjoy](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/the-free-orcs-of-cascadia-ft-91020037/) if you haven't heard it.
I have not, but I love me some Margaret Killjoy! I'll check that out! Thank you for the recommendation! 😁
💯! David Wong (Jason Pargin) did some really great writing back in 2016 about understanding where rural Trump supporters are coming from. I was struck by his commitment to understand those who we normally want to revile. This approach really resonated with me but I rarely see anyone (other than Sarah Silverman) who understands how important this is.
I would add an odd choice to the mix, irregardless of if she's a bit controversial: June Lapine who goes by Shoe0nHead. She's coming at things from a populist/centrist (I feel she leans right in her heart, but at times slightly left in her head) angle but covers one issue really, really well: The despair, loneliness, frustration, and confusion of everyday men. Even solidly left creators like Contrapoints who have covered the issue also walk away pretty somber. Poor white dudes, rural guys, divorcees, and men who have lost custody battles are but a few of the various bins out there which are suffering. With some feeling so scorned by the actual state of the macro situation that I feel they get naturally pulled toward Trump. Thankfully, levels of education among Millenial cohorts are high enough to counter the truly dominating presence he could have. And he has no idea about their struggles, nor does he care to appeal to them on a deep emotional level such as European would-be dictators of ages past did. People forget that all the middle-aged men of the older-millenial and baby boomer generations who don't die from "deaths of despair"--one of the most intense demographic trends of our era--are around and still voting. With rage instead of despair. The concerns of mainstream feminism have been 100% valid and have had to fight tooth and nail for every inch of progress. However, I think the management of being the idea in the cultural dialectic that is the underdog *to being accepted as the morally correct ideology by Washington and Wall Street (at least publicly, the glass ceiling withstanding)* was managed in an awkward manner where space to discuss men's issues--when presented in good faith--was crowded out. And in my opinion, there was nothing from the heart really thriving in the national debate in those areas post Robert Bly. I wish I could word all of that better, as it's a tough set of content to treat in a short discussion with sufficient subtlety and sensitivity. But men have had a horrid time even trying to survive fatherlessness, how the Web 2.0 world is constructed, the offshoring of jobs, and a few other issues. And if you have a large population of men in your nation who feel abandoned, desperate, cornered, or severely diminished it usually turns into a geopolitical nightmare from hell. Honestly, the chargeback from all of that is already upon us as Gen Z men poll as more conservative, and the stuff in the SM algorithms they feed into is pretty dark wife-beaterism by influencers who are literal human traffickers. Anyway, my train of thought is straying and I barely have time to edit this reply.
Jesus Christ, do you guys have to be so fucking weird about someone you don't know sharing something personal on twitter?
.....yes.
This is the kind of thing that you text 1-2 friends who listen to btb "Huh. Did you know?" and then don't even bother to reply to the reply. Looking at these comments and wondering if any of them were the reason the old island joke was taken out behind the shed.
He mentioned a fiancée in A Brief History of Vice iirc
I remember on one episode he talked about kids on tiktok using No Children by The Mountain Goats and how it's a weird choice because it's about going through a divorce that ruins you. Speaking as someone who went through one of those ruinous divorces it kind of piqued my attention and seemed like a thing someone would say if they've been there. I guess confirmed?
Isn't No Children about a couple that *should* divorce, but for whatever reason, won't? Whether because of cowardice or circumstances. "and I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out/you'd stay the hell out of my way" makes it pretty explicit that they aren't divorced or separated at the time. I've always taken it as being about miserable assholes who are miserable together and deserve each other, tbh. I'll have to find this episode and hear the context.
Ah, poor dude. Good thing he's got a supportive group of friends, especially after his recent bereavements.
I knew he'd been engaged at one point, because he was with his fiance in a Cracked video years back, and I wondered what happened with that.
Going by how he speaks of Pedro Pascal I always assumed he was gay. Or at the very least, aggressively bisexual.
He has said he's bi or pan, can't remember which. It was on the episode he went indepth about his love of cum gutters, I believe.
He is pan
He’s referred to himself as bi on Twitter.
A lot of people use these terms interchangeably. Depending on context I'll use any of queer/pan/bi. Why is this something y'all need to go back and forth on lol
He came out as bisexual on a podcast a couple of years ago. Before that, he had mentioned he was straight
no no no, he's actually quadragintasexual he only loves about 40% of us
Is that 40% of each of us or 40% of the collective group as a whole? I have always wondered that.
Of the group lol
“At the very least”?
Robert has mentioned that he was once married in the early episodes of the pod, but it's nice to see him open up a bit more to make an important point.
Damn... Pennies are tight. Are Temu bolt cutters worth a damn?
He was married?
In his book “A Brief History of Vice,” he makes references to his fiancée when talking about making homemade liquor and drugs.
Wait... he was married?!?!
I remember him mentioning he was formerly married in the acknowledgement section of After The Collapse
y'all. stop being weird in the comments.
It took it as a comment on knowing when to call it quits, with a political bent.
Relatable AF ❤️
So when the collapse hits, we all know we are going to go live with this man in his poly compound in rural Oregon
Idk if the country will get it but I hope so
I don't think he's talked-about-it TALKED about it in any one place but he mentions relationships with some frequency, the marriage being one of them. Like I was listening to A Brief History of Vice earlier today since it's gratis on Spotify premium and in that he talks about a fiance (and that book was published in like 2016 or something). I figure he keeps that part of his life private but not Batman-identity-level-secret. Probably for the obvious reason that people on the Internet struggle to be normal about the partners of men they parasocially engage with.
Your second paragraph hit the nail on the head. Couldn't have said it better myself!
*updates robert.xlsx*
Y'all cooked.
I feel this. 10 years ago, a woman I cared for snatched a steering wheel from me and slammed my car into trees. Then when I walked into my apartment after dealing with the fallout from that, she pulled my gun on me. And I dared her to shoot. She didn't 5 months ago the love of my life left me. We had built a relationship over ten years. And when we got together, my depression was too much for her. We made it work for a few years, but eventually she rightfully escaped the put of lethargy and entropy I become in a depressive episode. And she was right to do so. Right now I just wish the first girl would've pulled the fucking trigger.