And getting loads of marital advice on what sounds like a complex situation...

http://community.babycenter.com/post/a30623349/wwyd_small_update

It really surprises me when people on Internet messageboards suggest that someone get a divorce. Granted, it sounds like this woman is in a bad way, but telling someone to end their marriage? It's an awfully personal decision that could have significant repercussions.

The impression I get is that this is NOT the first thread she's posted regarding her husband's behavior toward her.

If there is a history of posts like this, then the pleas for her to get out of there make perfect sense.

I'm not seeing as much of divorce demands as people begging her to get help. At first it was for extra care to help with her Autistic child so she could clear her head and take a bit to breathe and refocus.

Then it seems like it's actually a much deeper issue with her husband that might necessitate going to a safe house to remove herself (and possibly the kids) from a nasty situation. If that's the case - and there's a history of these posts - I can get the calls for divorce.

The sad thing is that if the abuse is true, the abuse can cloud the issue so badly that even though her situation is horrible, she'll stay because it's familiar and the unknown, even if it's tremendously better, is far scarier.

I certainly agree that she needs help of some sort. I think it's reasonable to offer suggestions on where she might find appropriate help in her area. It's also reasonable to offer support.

But there are always at least three sides to every story. The one side that doesn't always get the most attention is the truth. It just surprises me that people would just come out and suggest that a stranger they "know" on the Internet do something like get a divorce. That is a very personal decision.

I agree in general, but it shouldn't surprise you on LDS BBC. If someone asks for perspective with something as minor as catching their husband masturbating, or even telling their husband that THEY like masturbating, the women will tell the poster to divorce her husband. It's so routine around there, you could probably make a drinking game around it.

You're right, of course. I guess that's part of what upsets me about it. My husband's TBM ex wife told her "friends" that he was a violent porn addict who hated women. My husband has a buck knife that is part of his military uniform. When their marriage was on the rocks, his ex wife asked him for the knife because she feared he would use it on her. Wishing very much to reassure the ex, my husband gave her the knife, which she proceeded to show her friends in an attempt to strengthen her allegations of abuse. Of course all the women believed her, spread her lies among other church members, and then most of them proceeded to treat him with utter contempt at a time when he too could have used some support. And, by the way, I've been with him for over nine years and have never once seen any evidence whatsoever that he's a violent porn addict.

All those women really know about this situation is what the poster has told them. She admits to being somewhat unstable herself. She admits to dealing with a stressful situation in that she is taking care of a child with special needs and has no local support system. The women on Babycenter are reacting emotionally rather than logically. There is no one there who knows the woman personally and no one there to help her or accept some responsibility if she were to take their advice and it went badly.

Now, if a person truly is in an abusive situation, I certainly would support them reaching out for help. It sounds like the woman in the post is in some real distress and is dealing with a lot of complex issues. The best thing the Babycenter ladies can do is help her find someone local who can offer her some competent assistance in person. The advice giving and cries for divorce are doing nothing but causing drama. On the other hand, as has already been pointed out to me, that's to be expected...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2011 02:05PM by knotheadusc.

Oh I completely agree with you. There are so many practical tips that woman could have been given. For instance, she can get subsidized child care in PA if she works 10 hours a week (I don't know if it's like this everywhere, when I lived in PA a neighbor of mine had subsidized child care and ended up in a bind when her employer went out of business and she risked losing the subsidy before she found new work, and then wouldn't have it in order to get another job). While their budget is tight, it doesn't sound like they would be desperate for the earnings from a part time job, maybe filing a couple mornings a week. This would give them money to cover the expense of her using the car a few days a week and dropping off and picking up her husband. Or even using cabs. If she worked several hours a day 3 days a week, she could put her kids in daycare for just those days, and then have a few hours to herself after working and before picking them up.

They could sacrifice elsewhere, maybe decrease the food budget by supplementing their grocery shopping with food from something like the Angel Tree program. That might give them enough to cover the cost of gas for her taking the car just one day a week, and getting the kids out of the house, they must be cooped up too. They can do something free, like storytime at the library.

Most county health departments have mental health services on a sliding scale. She could probably get free therapy, or therapy for just a couple dollars that way. And if there is abuse going on, she can probably get free therapy from an abuse victims organization (another thing my old neighbor got in PA). If she can't get out of the house weekly to go due to transportation, maybe savings from the suggestion above could cover a sitter for an hour once a week, and she can have a phone session with a therapist. I know she says she doesn't get phone reception where she is, but it seems like she has a computer, she can get a skype-out line for like $30 a year and call out that way, with a headset and mic (probably less than $15 at target).

There are so many practical options this woman could have been given. But then, we know these women are good for judging, not practical advice.

(disclaimer - I did not get through all 10+ pages of comments, so I don't know if she followed up with more info about her situation, filling in some gaps in her story)

I'm sorry your husband had to go through that. What an absolutely terrible and unfair thing to have to suffer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2011 02:48PM by wittyname.

>>I'm sorry your husband had to go through that. What an absolutely terrible and unfair thing to have to suffer.<<

Thanks for that. I know it was hard for him at the time, but that cruel treatment did help lead him out of the church. And just last night, we were talking about the difference between my husband's two marriages. Last month, we celebrated our ninth anniversary on a luxury cruise ship in the southern Caribbean. By contrast, my husband and his ex spent their ninth anniversary apart. She took their kids to the nearest Mormon temple where she claimed HF told her she should get a divorce. Obviously, HF was answering a lot of prayers that day.

Skype is a great idea for the woman on BBC. I don't think anyone has even mentioned that. Though apparently someone did call her bishop, who then called her at 2:30am! Yikes!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2011 03:07PM by knotheadusc.

I agree the calls for divorce may seem premature - BUT... it happens here on RfM all the time with former members struggling with their devout spouses.

*shrug*

In any case, I hope that the woman is able (and willing) to get the help she needs. There seem to be a lot of different issues going on at the same time.

I hope she gets help, too.

She obviously takes no responsibility for her life

She is cooped up with four kids in a place where the phone does not work.
Of course she should never have had that many kids.

But I don't see grounds or divorce if her husband works two jobs on top of attending grad school.

What she needs is regular help to relieve some of the stress before she snaps.
Oh, and a vasectomy for him.

It seems like at least one poster called her bishop, as she said so in later pages on that thread. If anything, I hope that she gets counseling and other help to deal with her stress. If she won't see anyone outside of the church, hopefully her bishop will give her a referral to a counselor. I think in times like this, the church's advice against vasectomies is a bad one, as her husband really needs that done.

Looks like the mom is better now. She went to the ER for drugs and the church is stepping in and saving the day...

But apparently a bunch of people called the woman's bishop.

Holy crap. That thread just keeps getting weirder. Mom says she's more likely to be physically abusive than the husband and apparently, someone called the cops and CPS on them. And the women are still blaming the woman's husband for everything.

Wow! This is bananas. When I first read the thread, I couldn't help wondering how this would go on a non-LDS forum. I think it would have been different, with the comments pointing the poster in the direction of help, and not deciding for her what she needs, behind her back,

I thought that the call to the bishop (without her permission) was intrusive, but I figured if it helped, it helped. However, after the bishop and RSP were called, that wasn't enough, so someone went behind her back and called the cops and CHP?!?!?! That's out of control. Also, it looks like someone is feeling a little defensive about the call to the cops/CHP. She doesn't come right out and admit it, but if I had to pick a culprit, thesituati0n is looking like a reasonable one to pick: http://community.babycenter.com/post/a30623349/wwyd_small_update?cpg=26&csi=2367213192&pd=1). Her spirits were lifted from the help, but I guess that wasn't a good thing?

All that said, I wonder what the poster was thinking when posting non-anon, and what she thought the outcome would be.

Yeah... they definitely seem to be meddlesome busybodies. Again, I don't get how anyone on that board can know what that poster's situation actually is. From what I read, none of those ladies actually know the woman offline.

Hopefully, this will turn out okay for the OP and her family.

I eventually went back and read the whole thread, and it seems like several people have had communication with her via PM, enough info, at least, that they knew the area in which she lives to locate her bishop. Then they kept sharing info about her back and forth amongst themselves to "figure out who she is" - one person was in her stake or knew someone in her stake, so they were trying to figure out exactly who she was based on her story (how many kids, etc.) and then assumed that the 3 initials at the end of her screen name were the names of her first 3 kids, and using that info (and eventually her first name after she posted it), they found out exactly who she was. Many of the women were like "oh, PM me and give me her details"... That's the sort of nosiness and disregard for other people's boundaries that really annoyed me.

I agree though, I do hope this works out for her and her family, and doesn't worsen the situation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2011 01:53PM by wittyname.

do you believe really make an important life decision based on something they read on an internet message board? I would think the number is small. At least I hope it would be.

Ouch!

Yes, the main catalyst for my deciding to tell my wife I was a non-believer was reading a similar question and the answers given on an internet message board.

Who knows? I'm sure if a person is overwhelmed or lonely enough, there's no telling what they might do. I would hope that most people would be stable enough to have common sense when it comes to these things, but that's certainly not a given. And then there are the attention seeking people who start dramatic threads on message boards just to get people stirred up. We've certainly seen them here on RfM.

I would guess most people would make their own major life decisions, but you just never know. That's why I think people should be a lot more careful with the advice they give. Incidentally, the ladies on BBC apparently took the poster's comments seriously to the point of siccing her bishop, the relief society, the cops, and CPS on her. Maybe the OP wouldn't have decided to make a major life decision based on what the ladies on that message board advised, but the ladies on that board sure were decisive in taking action on OP's behalf offline.

I just think it's odd that a group of people online would even suggest divorce or some other extreme course of action to someone they don't even know. Would you suggest divorce to someone you had just met on the street? Maybe I could see it if the people online had a long term relationship or knew each other offline. I don't think that was the case here.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2011 08:43PM by knotheadusc.

Something about this woman does not ring true to me. If she is honest in her evaluation of her situation then she knows what she is doing and is not totally bonkers!
That part about her "Irish" sounds like malarky to me!
The part about not having a phone that works...well, she must have a computer that works or she could not be on the internet.
If she really feels like she is a danger to her children, then she should contact the authorities--she says she has in past contacted the police. She needs to have her children put in children services. Then she needs to see about getting herself professional help.
I don't understand the deal with her husband...he must have some form of transportation, do they have mail service? She could put a note in the mailbox for the postal carrier to forward onto the authorities.
Is she saying that she is being isolated from everyone by her husband...that she never gets out?
This may or may not be true...but I see that she has not given her name or exact location...too mysterious.
This BabyCenter site is LDS. I don't know that I take what I have read there as trustworthy!
P.S. My first marriage was a abusive relationship, so don't think that I just don't know how awful and paralyzing that can be--maybe because I have been there, that this sounds a little fishy to me.

You may be right. I wouldn't be surprised if it was fishy.

I would agree, it wouldn't be the first example of someone creating a persona in order to troll for attention on forums. However, people there did contact her bishop. I don't know if I am dreaming this or if I read this, but I thought I saw someone take credit for calling her bishop. You would think that the bishop would have called the person back if the woman she reported didn't actually exist.

If she is an attention troll, she's certainly put a lot of energy into the persona. Reading her old posts, her story has unfolded over a while.

You didn't dream it. Someone did admit to calling her bishop. And now she's claiming a CPS worker came by.

I do wonder about the part of the story where the cops came over at 10:00 and demanded that she check herself into a hospital or they would do it for her. Seems to me that if the situation was really that dire, they would not have given her a choice. But then, I am not a law enforcement officer.

Oh, I hear you on that one. That made me wonder for a while. The cops demanded that she check into a hospital, or they would do it for her... and then just left? I agree about her not being given a choice. In that circumstance, they probably would have brought an ambulance if it was that dire. Also, I don't know if I missed something in the thread (it was loooong), but it seems like the only threats she made were about her kids. Just because she is a cutter does not mean she's an immediate threat to herself. Not saying it's a healthy thing, just that it's not the kind of thing cops would come out for. It's like calling the cops on a 80 lb anorexic woman, and having them say: check into treatment or we will do it for you. If crazybabylady (I can't remember her screenname) threatened to kill herself, I would say ok, then I understand someone calling 911. But only on that day. If days go by, calling 911 is sort of like closing the barn door after the cows got out.

What a weird, weird situation. The times quoted are weird too. Did someone call her Bishop at 2:30am, or the bishop just decided to wait till then to call? Did someone wait till 10:00 PM to call the police? Granted the people doing the calling might have been on UT time, and she's on the east coast, but still, waiting till 12:30am or 8:00pm (days after the initial post and follow up) to make calls is strange too.