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Hi guys and girls, Tl;DR I've been in a relationship for the past 2 months. We use RTR to communicate constantly and this makes our conversations very emotionally intense. Some hurts and red flags have come up (I think on both ends) but she brought up some of hers after we had already started dating and having sex, and due to the nature of the hurts and the fact that she didn't tell me upfront (misled me for one of them) it's been very difficult emotionally for me to recover from that hurt. Specifically, the worst red flag/hurt was around the recency of her breakup with her ex. We started talking (we met online on a dating website) in the first week of December and she had told me that she broke up with her ex in November, but that she had essentially started grieving the end of the relationship back in September and it was just a protracted breakup. Even then I thought 2 months was way too short for a 1.5 year relationship, but I was more or less okay with it. 5 weeks into the relationship, around the end of January, it came out that she had broken up with her ex just one week before we started talking, and that she had been having sex with him until the last day of the relationship. Clearly she could not have been getting over him in any sense of the word. After some talking she admitted and took responsibility for the misleading. We're not sure it was a conscious effort at the time. She understands why I'd naturally assume that if someone is "getting over" a relationship they're not actively having sex with the person. There was also no other reason for her to cite September except to make it seem as though the breakup period was longer. Is this a dealbreaker-level red flag? Should I break up? There are tremendously good things about her and this relationship that probably more than balance things out, but sometimes I feel like the red flag is something I should break up over. For more (and a summary of the good and bad) please read more. There are also many confounding variables, like that I find intimacy and relationships difficult and often terrifying, and I could be looking for reasons to break up because of that, also. Or that I recently deFOO'ed. I would greatly appreciate if people read as much of the story as possible. I know it's long but I'm also afraid that people will comment and judge without full information. Introduction I've recently entered into a new relationship (December of 2015) and there are some red flags and issues that have been coming up which I really want some advice or just a third party perspective on. Normally I would go to my friends (who all live abroad), but partly through my fault for neglecting them because of the time I've spent with my girlfriend, it's been very hard to actually get to any Skype calls. Hopefully I'll have one this weekend with one of my friends though. My friends have not been very successful with relationships and so taking relationship advise from them feels a bit like reading a diet book written by a fat man. Primarily though I feel like I've been avoiding them as a way of avoiding important information about this relationship. A part of me fears that they'd tell me I should break up if they knew everything. Having said which, my girlfriend has been supportive of me contacting them, and when I told her just now that I wanted to post on this forum she was encouraging of that, too! She said that either way I need more information and a third perspective and she too was curious what people would say. I think a part of me is also scared of people telling me that the red flags and hurts aren't that big of a deal, because then all of my triggers around intimacy and closeness with another human being would set off. I'm going to try and be balanced and fair to both the good and bad aspects of the relationship. Backstory We met online through a dating site in the first week of December. After about a week of texting we moved to texting on Skype and then maybe within a week after that we had our first Skype video call. It lasted 8 hours. I've never spoken to someone for so long in my life! I easily get bored of people in general and being an introvert I reach social exhaustion levels very quickly, but this was different, I didn't want the conversation to end. Since then we've been communicating a LOT. The logistical complication is that I live in the UK and she lives in the US. We decided the Christmas holidays were a good opportunity for both of us to meet in person, especially as I was getting furloughed and had a few extra holiday days, so we both flew to NY (a "neutral" location). We decided to save on costs by getting a shared AirBnB and also because we didn't want to say goodbye to each other at night. We had decided that sleeping together (I mean literally sleeping, not sex) was a possibility but if either of us didn't feel comfortable there was a couch as an option. We setup some sexual boundaries: we could basically do anything except actual intercourse but we'd only do what both of us felt comfortable with. Bottom line is that by night 3 we had failed, there was way too much sexual tension and we both have pretty high sex drives, so we had sex. From then until the end of the trip we probably had sex averaging 2-3 times a day. I think on some level we both kind of hoped it would happen. We saw each other again last week. My girlfriend came to the UK this time to visit me and we spent 9 whole days together. Right now our tentative plan is for her to move here in March or more likely April as she wants to quit her job and not live with her parents anymore and I'm bound by a contract that doesn't expire until 14 months from now (breaking it costs a ridiculous sum of money...). The Good I'll start with the great things about this relationship and my girlfriend: We constantly communicate with RTR and have done since day one. Actually since before we were committed to each other. This was largely my doing - I introduced the concept and constantly communicated my feelings and asked her about hers, and she reciprocated and loved the idea. She's ordered the book and is reading it. We split all of our costs half-half. When I came to NY and my flight was more expensive than hers, she paid for the AirBnB in its entirety to help balance that cost out. She wears little to no makeup. She also doesn't wear high heels to make her butt stick out. She's a minimalist, constantly downsizes, doesn't buy useless crap, and saves a very large portion of her paycheck every month. She embodies all the virtues I seek in others and strive for in myself: honesty, curiosity, compassion, kindness, integrity, and courage. She's not perfect of course and sometimes falls short, as do I, but she really strives towards them. She doesn't drink alcohol, smoke, or take drugs. A complete teetotaler, just like me. People like that are rare, even within the FDR community. She loves the idea of peaceful parenting! I'm not sure if she knew the terminology but from the beginning she came into the relationship with the idea that she'd never hit her (our) kids. That we should be respectful of their needs, treat them like people with feelings, etc. She's agnostic/atheist after being brought up very religious in Texas. She de-converted 2 years ago. I hadn't felt safe crying with another human being since I was 10. I haven't just felt safe crying with my girlfriend, I've felt safe weeping with her, and she handled it beautifully. This was trust she built up. If you had asked me 3 months ago when I thought I might feel safe crying in front of another person, I would have said 10 years to never. Following my example (and because of some of the revelations/realizations in the next section), she has actually committed to doing therapy. She's done two sessions and has another one booked for next week. She's listened to some podcasts and videos by Stef, read "On Truth", and generally done a lot of wisdom-gaining and self-knowledge since we've been together. We're incredibly open and honest in our communication, with very few exceptions (see below). She's the first and only person I've ever enjoyed having sex with (not that I have much experience - 2 other women). We're constantly curious about each others' feelings and are empathetic towards each other. When we're feeling disconnected or not empathetic we both tell the truth about it, we don't pretend to feel things we're not feeling and we admit/recognize when we're intellectualizing. We look out for each others' needs and highlight when the other person could be self-sacrificing (e.g. me staying up late to talk to her due to time zone differences and therefore losing sleep). She's very intelligent. I feel like she's my equal and this makes our conversations endlessly engaging and interesting. She's painfully aware of the discrimination boys face growing up in terms of emotional acceptance and abuse, and that men face in courts, in the media, etc. Moreover, she first broached this topic, not me. I would feel safe marrying and having children with her and knowing she'd never abuse the system in case of a divorce for money or custody. She's fit and healthy, and does a good amount of exercise. I do a fair bit too, and we have some good exercise plans together! The Bad There have been a number of hurtful things that she's done. The first to come up were mean or cruel "joke"-like comments, except they weren't funny to me and they were hurtful. I'm a sensitive person and do not at all have a thick skin, nor do I want to, least of all in an intimate relationship. These were not intentional or conscious and when I pointed them out to her, sometimes after some convincing, she realized why they were hurtful and has since made a lot of effort (and success) in stopping or at least greatly reducing the frequency of these comments. I think in time they will stop completely. Verbal abuse can be very triggering for me and still now I feel anxious in conversations because I don't know when an attack might be coming. It's completely random and not on purpose from her end. This is the environment she grew up in and I'm challenging it. But it's getting better. One time I was punished for my empathy. When I expressed a great deal of empathy for the pain she felt during a medical procedure in the past, she lashed out and said "Well maybe you shouldn't be in the same room when I give birth to a child then". This was tremendously hurtful because she was both threatening to deprive me of that opportunity and punishing me for empathizing with her. Later on we realized and it was confirmed in therapy that she was basically pushing me away because she felt uncomfortable with how much I cared about her. She has since apologized many times for this, recognized how hurtful it was, brought it up in her first therapy session, etc. Moreover since then (there was another medical procedure recently that I went with her to) she has felt very comfortable with me being there for her and her pain. She has a very dissociated relationship with her pain in general because of her history of child abuse. But she's actually actively working on it now. The recency of her breakup with her ex. It's in the TL;dr above. She's had just one week to process and grieve over her previous breakup and she misled me about how long that was and presented the relationship as basically over 2 months earlier, when really she was still having sex with her ex of 1.5 years until the last day. This feels like a dealbreaker type of red flag. For more information, this is the only ex she's had that she's had a sexual relationship with. The last few times they had sex she actually cried during and suspects her ex never even noticed. They were not emotionally connected at all and yet she was the one who pushed for the sex more than him. Perhaps the worst thing is that she never thought these two details (the recency of the sex and the crying during sex) were red flags and bad experiences worth mentioning. She never hid them directly, I found out just by asking, but she never came forward because she didn't realize how much of a problem that is. A few weeks ago, her ex texted her and asked if she wanted to meet up (as they had vaguely agreed on before their breakup), and her response was hurtful. She told him she had a new boyfriend and didn't want to meet up right now. The "right now" made me feel even more like a rebound or replacement as if she were trying to line him up for a possible future meeting if we broke up. This was especially hurtful because she knew how hurt I was by the recency of the breakup. Because of this text incident, I felt even more used as a rebound and insecure in our relationship and commitment. Afterwards, she blocked all communication with him, but closure is something she should have given all three people involved upfront, and not after a long discussion with me. I suspect this was an attempt to self-sabotage in the relationship. She's withheld information about another ex which she didn't even really see as an ex because they had dated but never committed to each other and so weren't "official". That relationship lasted half a year and had the disturbing element of him encroaching on her sexually, groping, etc. They saw each other maybe a dozen times alone. Unfortunately, after the first time it happened she kept seeing him, and of course it happened another two times before she finally stopped seeing him. The fact that she had completely blanked on the worst of those encounters until she really thought about it is quite disturbing and scary, as there was physical violence involved. This was a few years ago now but she clearly hasn't processed or fully understood and felt what happened. It's on her to-discuss list with her therapist. 2-3 weeks ago I had a couple of panic attacks, for the first time in my life. I think those were shortly after the birthing room comment. I had never had these before in my life, and it was very scary. I can suspect what was going on for me emotionally but this post is already growing very long. I haven't had any since then and things have been better. Also, during these attacks my girlfriend answered a call to be with me in the middle of the night for her (timezone differences) to be there for me and asked me to call her whenever something like this happened again regardless of the time. Still, this is a worrying thing and shows how difficult it's been for me emotionally. I feel a lot of emotional turmoil in this relationship. Anxiety, fear of impending doom, and feeling overwhelmed are some of the "negative" (I know they're not really negative) emotions that come up a lot, both because of the closeness and triggers and because of the hurts. Especially since the birthing comment and then finding out more about her exes, it's been harder for me to enjoy our time together. I get triggered and think about these hurts pretty frequently and it really interferes with my enjoyment of the relationship. I also frequently feel disconnected and like I can't fully be there for or empathize with her. Some of these negatives are red flags from her past, and others are hurtful things she's done. Those that are red flags from her past that she did not share upfront were also hurtful. For instance, had I known that she had had sex so recently with her ex and that she cried during it, I would have never went with shared accommodation on our first trip together. In a sense I did not give informed consent to sex because I did not know all that I should have known. Can these hurts be recovered from (on my end)? Are they objectively that bad? The one I feel the worst about is the recency of her breakup with her ex and that she waited only a week before dating again after the end of a 1.5 year relationship, and the text she sent him. Should I (like my therapist said) try to focus more on how my girlfriend acts in our relationship rather than on her past? Is this going to get better over time? A lot of these hurts are very recent. A part of me feels like her efforts to change are "too little, too late", but is that true? I have a rule against dating people I'm not comfortable spending the rest of my life with as they are now. This rule is there to protect me from treating people as projects or from unrealistically hoping that they will change, because in my experience the vast majority of people have no desire to change and never do. However, my girlfriend is actually changing and growing and working on herself. She's taken on some serious commitments to therapy and self-work, there are clear improvements as the weeks go by in terms of reduced hurtful comments and improved empathy and curiosity, etc. Confounding Variables There is a bunch of stuff in my life both in my past and that's going on now that is complicating things, and I think it's important to do a brief overview: I have an ACE score of 6. I begun my path to self-knowledge just over 2 years ago but it's been rather iffy in some parts where I spent a lot of my time dissociating, especially after the breakup with my ex over 1.5 years ago. I have self-sabotaging parts of me (sorry for using the Internal Family Systems terminology) that are really uncomfortable with me being in a relationship. My original plan was: I'm 25 now. Wait till I'm 26 and have some more money saved up and can afford regular therapy. Do therapy for a couple of years. Hopefully find someone I want to be in a relationship with by the time I'm 30. I never expected things to turn out like this. Now I've accelerated my plans and I'm doing weekly therapy sessions (sometimes twice a week, sometimes I skip a week) and it's terrifying because of all my traumas. I've forsaken all of my coping mechanisms. I used to spend most of my free time watching movies and TV shows, playing video games, and watching porn. I no longer do any of these. I've lost interest completely. The only thing I've done is watch 2 movies and those were with my girlfriend because it was on our to-watch list. I've stopped talking to my parents around the beginning of January. I had been blocking their calls and mostly ignoring them for months before, until I got down to just emails. And then I've stopped replying to those and they haven't tried to contact me again in over a month. Stressful work. Finally, I thought I'd share a text exchange we just had about this forum post: Me: Do you mind me saying when we had sex? I mean when we first had sex? On the forum Me: I feel like it's important Her: No, baby. Tell all the truth that you think is relevant! Her: I’m really eager what people will say! Me: It's going to be a long post :/ Me: I hope someone bothers to read it Her: I’m sure the people who bother to read longer posts will have more valuable advice

Hi guys. I recorded a video that I would like to share with you. Unfortunately, often friendships based on mutual commitment to honesty and openness in the moment result in "falling out." In this video I present two convergent perspectives (attachment theory and Internal Family Systems) on one important factor that may be at play in many such situations. Thank you for watching! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1UtYpccS5s&feature=youtu.be

Is it possible theoretically and/or practically to have a deep sincere meaningful romantic relationship with your partner which is an open relationship at the same time? If yes, what would the outer relationships be like? Can they also follow RTR principles and be honest and meaningful?

I thought I had reached a good point in my life. I thought people were respecting my beliefs, and could see the evidence that I am improving my condition. I got married last year, and our first baby is on the way. But boy, howdy. Do the vultures start showing up as soon as a fresh baby brain is available for abuse. My wife and I are choosing to practice peaceful parenting. She is more or less an anarchist, after being kicked out of my home country two weeks after our wedding, due to a visa technicality. However, her parents are Jewish. My father is a kind of presbytarian. He is married to a muslim. My birth mother was brought up catholic, and has become a kind of mystic humanist. And my brother is a buddhist. And now the baby is on the way, her folks are very keen to instill jewish rituals, etc. I thought my wife dealt with it very bravely. But I told my father about it, and now he has revealed his true opinions. Please, somebody have a look at the following conversation. I am not sure whether I should even bother to reply or not. It's upsetting me now. But I'm so angry at the fact they've been flying under the radar for a couple of years. And now I'm having a baby, religion is suddenly a problem. First email, me to my father : Hows it going dad? The past three months have been very interesting for me. Last night was the first joyful fruit of my labour.When we moved house, I convinced (My wife) to try giving up television. It's been a great success. She's happier, and we have great conversations, more often. Last night her parents mentioned something about giving our daughter some Jewish trinkets. Prayer book to keep under her bed. A Talismen to nail outside the front door. Superstitious stuff.I was within earshot, cooking. (My wife) really amazed me with her response. She courageously told her parents we're against superstition. We are not going to tell our dauhter things are true, if we ourselves don't believe in them. She said, we feel it would violate the trust our daughter would have in us. It could harm our relationship. And we don't want to give her the paranoia associated with original sin, & an invisible man following her day and night. The response from her mother was an outburst of distress. Claiming 'tradition' was important, the Holocaust, etc. The father was saying, 'if you can do something harmless to keep us happy, why won't you just do it!?', etc. Quick as flash, (My wife) said, so what if (My father's wife) wants her to wear a Hijab? Should we follow her tradition, to keep her happy? Is it harmless? And, my personal favourite, 'tradition is not a reason'. The parents flipped out. On the other end of the computer, her brother happened to be walking by, and chimed in with 'oh yeah, did you know there isn't even any archaeological evidence that the Jews were ever in Egypt'. I was incredibly relieved. And proud of my wife last night. Rational and brave woman. She has changed a lot in the last 2 years, just through conversations with me. And so have I. And I got to thinking today, that I owe you one. You taught me conversation from early on. So thanks. It's making life a lot better. And we had a good chat after it about how all the 'people pleasers' in Germany, went along with the holocaust. My father's response: It is really tricky sometimes. When I was younger I used to be brutally direct in my opposition to some of my parent's Christian beliefs but as they got older and less capable of of grasping complexity I resorted to keep it more subdued. It becomes harder because you see how much it hurts them. It's also more complex for me because I do believe in an invisible guy following me around, albeit an invisible guy within me. I also believe in life after death, but not out of superstition but because of the evidence I have gleaned and reasoning. But following a religious tradition has to be a personal choice. If it is imposed from the outside it becomes a tyranny in which structure becomes stricture. You and I know how religions have deviated from their original purpose because they have been co-opted by political entities, but that is esoteric knowledge. It is not for the average intellect. As James Corbett replied to a listener's question who seemed to be offended and outraged at James' suggestion that a particular musical genre had been co-opted to the purpose engineering public behaviour: "I am not suggesting the music isn't good, of course the music has to have intinsic merit, if it didn't it would not be effective as a devise of social control..." The true purpose of religion is to cultivate a rich inward life; anyone who thinks they can bully others into inward growth is a fool. If putting something under your bed achieves it, I want it. I somehow doubt it though. Bottom line , and take my word for this, this is only the beginning of your struggle but this will not be struggle you can walk away from. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Learn to have a chuckle for it will not end. Struggle is good for the soul. And never ever become dogmatic, leave that to them and Richard Dawkins, just remember dogma is to protect ourselves from the unknown. You will find it difficult at times but remember that your struggle is not a random accident, on some unconscious level you sought it, perverse as that might seem to you right now. His follow up email after I ignored that one: The reality is you are going to be away working a lot and after baby is born! (Your wife) is going to be too busy to constantly fight it. They will have little else in their lives to expend their energies on... ( I work offshore 6 months per year. 28 days on, 28 days off. I have to continue with this, whilst I await my US green card, which can take a long time.) I have written the following response, but not sent it yet. Any advice from some smart people on here? Don't accuse me of being dogmatic. To do so is dogmatic, and quite arrogant. I don't accept that.There is no such thing as brutal honesty. There is only honesty. Truth is that which can be verified. And truth can only be defined as that which is true for all people, in all places, for all time.Dogma comes from authority. Dogma is inconsistent. And I have read the bible. It is inconsistent, and violent. It serves Authoritarians. Religion has not deviated from it's purpose. It's purpose is to serve the priest class / witch doctors. The claim that religion is supposed to create moral behaviour in people, but the jury is in. 200 000 years of violence, and life expectancy of 20 years old, has only come to an end since the separation of church and state. They are beheading Christian children in Iraq and Syria now, whilst the Jews and Muslims are murdering each other daily in the middle east. The old testament condones violence. The ten commandment originally said 'thou shall not kill other Jews'. By the rules of the book, murder and the death penalty are OK. And transgressing the ten commandments were punishable by death. The definition of god as all powerful and all knowing is contradictory. Everything in the book is contradictory. It says you shall not kill, but god can kill. And he constantly does. Not to mention 'spare the rod, and spoil the child'. It's all in the handbook. It is entirely designed to make you servile to authority. I'm supposed to avoid hurting people's feelings? OK, Granny, I would never try to upset her. She is closer to death than I. And even you, (His wife), and my mother, and the in-Laws. Believe whatever you want. The point is not to convert other people. The point is to protect the clean and innocent brain of a newborn baby.I'm responsible for her. And the people she comes in contact with, can tell her damaging lies.But you don't get to say that I shouldn't hurt the feelings of others. Then expect me to stand by and let people scare my daughter into believing that she is always being watched and judged? Or that If she pisses off a man she can't see, then after death, she will be punished without end, for all eternity, a fate worse than death? Or that if people use certain words to her, they will cause physical changes in the world? It's entirely based on fear. I consider it an act of aggression towards a child. I've grown up scared, paranoid, and uncertain because of this stuff. And the idea that I should fear or obey authority has literally been the hardest thing to overcome in my career. It has put my life in real physical danger. And I have seen superstitious sailors narrowly avoid death, and sustain real injuries, because they failed to take responsibility for their own lives. I want my daughter to be able to know when she's being lied to. Or when her authority figures are failing her. that means understanding and respecting property rights, and Non-Aggression. For all people, in all places, for all time. Including priests, imams, rabbis, gurus, cops, robbers, politicians, teachers, parents, grandparents, friends and enemies. No exceptions. Religion is immoral, precisely because it allows for exceptions. It's not tricky. It's a case of being consistent. And children know that. They know the difference between fantasy and reality. They know about consistency, as soon as they learn that falling over hurts. They don't believe in things they can't see or feel or touch, unless they spend hundreds of hours being indoctrinated. And (My wife) knows it too. And the in laws are easy to argue with. They have a homosexual daughter. If they ever want to say that we should follow Judaism, then they have to turn around and stone their daughter to death. Check mate.

I heard A caller today on The Howard Stern Show get a plug in for Real-Time Relationships and Stefan Molynuex.A 20 million strong subscriber audience is bound to produce a few hits for FDR.Maybe a phony phone call or two also.

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Hi everyone. I'd like to share my story to get some help understanding roots of my problems and ways to improve.My parents divorced when I was 3 and I spent my childhood with my mom. I never asked much about what happened, I think I was a little bit afraid to ask, but I'm catching up now. My parents live in Russia and I will go there soon to talk in person. My mom said that my father didn't want to spend time with me. He said that he'll do the "knowledge transfer" when I get older and until then it's my mom's job to take care of me. He has been married 4 times and has 3 children, all from different wives. I am his first one. My mom is always bitter speaking about my father calling him stingy. He showed up a few months after the divorce in the middle of a hot summer and took the fridge that he bought before the marriage. It was really difficult to buy major household items like a fridge or furniture in the Soviet Union. You had to know someone or get on the waiting list which was booked months and months ahead.I remember having lots of fun playing with my mom. She would go far and beyond as we dug and crawl snow tunnels and did other fun active things. We didn't have much money, so she had to work a second job at night cleaning streets, which I enjoyed helping her doing especially shoveling snow in winter time. My mom had another relationship when I was in middle school. We had good time with the guy once in a while, but he had drinking periods. It got worse over a few years and he ended up beating my mom and leaving. She got married again about 15 years later and she and her new husband look happy now.I don't remember much aggression in my childhood. I was spanked a couple of times and yelled at rarely. Although, I did have to stand in a corner quite a few times "to think about my behavior" which typically lasted 10-15 minutes until I gathered enough courage to go to my mom and apologize which always felt humiliating. Hugging, kissing, saying "I love you" was mostly missing from our relationship. My grandparents who I had a good time with didn't express love to each other neither. I remember feeling anxiety about touching someone even as a social interaction all the way till my first romantic relationships that I think fixed it. I still feel unease to say "I love you".My romantic relationships seem all follow the same pattern. I fall in love and I'm really passionate during this initial period that lasts for a few months. Then it cools down and I just go with it. I don't feel like maintaining exclusivity is necessary or desirable. My hypocrisy is that I wouldn't offer my girlfriend polyamory, I would just secretly cheat on her. In my inner dialog I would excuse it as a form of self pleasure without the moral context, lying somewhere in between of playing sports and jacking off.I got married 6 years ago and this relationship repeated the pattern. I think it lasted that long because we spent lots of time being long distance due to visa regulations for studying/working abroad. We would see each other rarely, but every time we meet was fresh and exciting after several months of separation. During the periods we lived together we enjoyed doing things, but we would also argue often. A few times I thought about ending the relationship. I was selfish, hypocritical, and tried to dominate her. She wanted me to be more open and share my feelings, but I didn't know how. She was getting older and wanted kids. Something scared me in that idea. It could be the responsibility, uncertainty in our visa situation or lack of a deep and meaningful relationship. She asked me several times and I would simply say I am not ready for kids yet. We tortured each other. I kept dragging the relationship, she would poison it with frustration. When we were apart I sometimes had sex or short relationships with random girls. When she moved to the US she left everything behind to be with me, career, friends, family. I feel so much pain writing how I treated her.About a year ago I found FDR and it changed my life. After months of listening I started applying RTR. First time when I wanted to tell my wife what I feel at the moment when we were arguing, I got so anxious, I couldn't speak. When I eventually told her, she got it right away. She expressed sympathy with me, we stopped arguing and started exploring our feelings. It's been a few months and we have never argued since then, except for one heated argument about philosophy that we resolved speaking what we felt. It has been the greatest time in my life! We spent hours and days cuddling and talking about all things in the world catching up on 8 years of emptiness. Then it struck me, I have to tell her about my past cheating. I felt terrified and I couldn't share my fear with her. At first I wanted to forget the past and enjoy the new life, but I couldn't. It started bothering me more and more. I became bitter inside and started attacking every antirational post on facebook. The past weekend we had a lovely time together biking and chatting about philosophy, it was the last drop. I was so much in love and wanting children, but this black hole was sucking me from inside. I told her that I have a dark secret and I can't live any longer not being completely honest with her. The fear paralyzed me and I couldn't say a word for a while, she looked at me and guessed it "You have another woman". "I had several" I replied. She broke down in tears and pain.She wants to divorce. "You are a monster that builds trust and hits right in the core. You don't have emotions. A lost unhappy person. I don't believe you can change, you are running your RTR experiment on me." she cried. I don't know now if she really understood the philosophy we talked about last few months or she just went along asking questions. I haven't seen her for a few days since.What's wrong with me? Do I lack an ability to bond? Did I not have an example of a true romantic relationship? Was the pain worth the truth? Could or should this marriage be saved?

After years of distance I've been scared to make the vulnerable and honest phone call to my sister to talk about how I feel about our non-existent relationship and how it makes me feel that she facebooks or texts me once or twice a year to tell me she loves me despite the facts that we haven't talked in years and she knows next to nothing about me, or how I feel that she calls me at Christmas despite the fact I'm atheist and our last attempt at debate on the topic was bordering aggression and belittling on her part.She called me this Christmas and left me a voicemail wishing me Merry Christmas, and a week later text me asking for my address I would assume to send me a card for my birthday that just passed, and I felt compelled to call her to have the terrifying conversation that would involve me being vulnerable and honest about my feelings and to ask her what she thinks or feels about my feelings regarding our relationship. Despite my knowledge that text messaging is woefully inadequate for these matters, my gut terror at the idea of calling her motivated me to start with text. I have been thinking for months that asking for her thoughts on male circumcision could be a fruitful litmus test for her ability to acknowledge my likely contrasting thoughts and feelings on a topic since she is a registered nurse at a children's hospital. This could have just been my unconscious protecting me from what it knew would come from this kind of interaction or maybe my false self finding excuses to not engage whole heartedly, or my true self preventing unnecessary brutality toward my own feelings, I don't know.I dove in via text, and this all occurred within about twenty minutes via text message. I was physically shaky and terrified as it all occurred and had a hard time texting with accuracy. Separate from our family dynamic I found her responses to be remarkably obtuse with contradictions and defenses abound, but I made special effort to not even take a position or argue the details as that was not the purpose of this exchange, rather to draw out the memories in me of who she was and still is which, given my body's physical responses before this exchange was even underway, was successful and revealing from the get go. But here it is, word for word:Me: Have you seen any of the information debunking the efficacy of circumcision and highlighting that it is actually genital mutilation? Sister: Ummm.. First of all, babies don't even cry when they get it done bc they are given sugar water. Second it's purely cultural not something weird and cruel. I probably would not but (boyfriend) is English so it's not in his culture anyway. Me: Oh that's interesting. I'd be interested in talking about it further with you since you seem to think its all right under the umbrella of culture. Sister: I mean I don't really want to have a discussion on circs I'm pretty unbiased since I see them done often. There is really no point to do it other than "looks" bc it's not really any more hygienic Sister: Can I just get your address Sister: Lol Me: No actually this is very important topic for me and is meaningful to me. It's also very important to me that the people in my life who love me are curious about my thoughts on a matter like this. Me: So I see the extent to which you aren't interested in discussing this with me or being curious about my thoughts on it as very related to your actual interest in me. Sister: (boyfriend) is uncirced you can talk to him about it lol Sister: Brian you don't even fucking call me back on Christmas and you want to come at me over circumcision?? Me: Are you available to talk? Sister: Not at the moment Me: Why not? Will you be available later on? No response. A couple mornings later I had a missed call from her that she would have made at 2am her time on a Saturday night, which leads me to believe she was drunk when she called. This reminded me of an outburst she had while drunk toward one of my brothers that my brother told me about. He said it was terribly uncomfortable and our sister verbally attacked his girlfriend in ways that made him feel like she was jealous of his girlfriend somehow. A little extra background: I'm 30, my sister is 24 or 25, and over the past seven years we have had very little interaction. I am in the preparation phase of deFOOing and have began honest conversations with my three younger brothers regarding family corruption, their experiences, their thoughts and my thoughts on our current relationships with one another and motivating factors for our lack of connection over the yearsMy sister is known in the family for being hateful and bullying toward those who oppose her or those she does not agree with or those she feels have wronged her in some way. She is aggressive in language and volume, yelling, etc.The last time I was around her was about two years ago at a small family meetup with small talk and no substance, I made an effort to be positive and friendly and had not yet been introduced to philosophy. I'm posting this as a window of insight for anyone who is interested in the very beginning phase of these terrifying conversations.

Later this month I will be attending one of my best friend's dinner party, where she will be serving us a storm of new recipes she's been coming up with. There I will get the chance to meet her other friends and feast on delicious vegan meals. However, as much as I look forward to this being a fun and enjoyable time, an old enemy of mine might also attend. An old enemy who I used to consider my best friend. I have been dead set on going to this event since she invited me, but I'm feeling absolute ambivelance on how to deal with this former best friend being there. He was a good friend of mine for more than a decade, but we've always had some tension between us throughout our friendship. Without getting too much into detail about my history with him (which I will provide in spoilers below if you'd really like to know WHY I feel ambivelance towards him), I just want to say that he became an exploitive and psychologically daunting person to be around as the years went by--until ultimately, late last year I started avoiding contact with him, ignoring his calls and text, and then finally earlier this year I made it clear that I no longer wanted to be friends anymore. How am I supposed to go to this event, still have a good time, and possibly interact with this guy if he approaches me? I don't want to initiate any contact and act as if he's just another stranger at the party I may not get around talking to. I can feel my social anxiety coming already, remembering how he used to humiliate me around other people...I just don't want him to pull the same crap again around strangers. Not that their opinions of me matter, but out of principle that I've grown tired of his destructive ways. What can I do? Do I actively avoid all eye contact and ignore him when he tries to talk to me? Do I act all friendly and pretend to care about what he's been up to? Or, and I feel really uncomfortable about this but...do I ask my current best friend to uninvite him? I find that very manipulative, and although I may be happy with the outcome, I will be robbing her of another guest and him of a possible good time he might have. Now, as to why I hate this guy if you want my most recent history with him...

Hello again! So I finally got to sit down and have a chat with the "Man Hopper" I mentioned in this original topic, and by golly am I surprised at how it turned out. From the very first week I grew frustrated about her, I wanted to have this conversation for the sake of philosophically winning over her lack of reasoning (which would ironically be anti-philosophy I think). Like I intended for it to be my way of defriending her very harshly and officially, but over time I started to think of it as an opportunity to grow. A chance to have an open and honest discussion about what's been going on between us and seperately. When I thought there was only a 20% chance of our friendship growing, I didn't expect it to be the outcome I received. Anyways, I want to keep this as short as possible, so I want to briefly touch on the things I've learned and how VALUABLE AND GREAT REAL-TIME RELATING REALLY IS!!! RTR was my main weapon in this and that prevented me from being a judgemental, over bearing disapprover like this woman's parents. Which is of course the stem of her dysfunction. Her parents are very hard to please, she feels unlovable, so it's pretty obvious that she can only seek love through these men she gets into relationships with. That much is simple, and so is the next point, but just wasn't an easy idea for her to ever realize. Her lack of self worth derives from her parents, yes, because they are over protective and disapprove of everything she does. When I would judge her about her romantic choices, I just became another parent and she was honest with me for once saying that it frustrated her when I got into lecture mode about--well just about anything that had to do loving your self first. She knew that intellectually...but it's something she didn't really take into full account until today. For you see, I told her that I felt like she lead me on. I opened up about how when she first broke up with her previous boyfriend, that there was a week or so where I felt like I wanted to tell her that I MIGHT like her, and that we should spend more time together to see if our friendship can be anything more. I held back on doing so because I didn't want to enable her man hopping habit, but she enacted it anyway with the guy she's with now, and for me that stung. Even though I wanted to spark that with her only out of convenience and proximity...it still hurt. Then she told me that if there was a time in the future where she fully loved her self (so glad she was on the right track during this!) because she doesn't right now, and we were both single and we were still friends, she would give us a shot. Because on her side of things, she admitted that she was also attracted to me during that period but felt unworthy of me because of my philosophical insight. She felt like she could never add up to my level headedness, and I admitted that I could never add up to her sexual experience. It was just a very mutually levelling experience to see what we feared in each other and why we wanted so desparately to keep our friendship strictly platonic. We both resisted the change for our own reasons. For her it was lack of worth being with someone of my emotional intelligence, which she was right about because I KNOW myself enough to know that I would feel insecure to be in a relationship with someone with that habit. I would have to constantly be trying to please her to ensure she doesn't find a fall back guy. For me it was my fear of not being sexually sufficient enough for her (since I've never had sex, but she's had plenty) and of course of the innate jealousy that I have. I'm more mature about it now, but it doesn't make it go away. ANYWAYS I broke my promise and made this very long. I just wanted to share the basics of what happened. There is so much more about it that I can't even verbalize right now because I am just so greatful and happy how understanding we were to each other. And of course how awesome RTRing really was! So like I said, it was no longer about letting her go as a friend harshly, but she suggested that I take my time to digest this all, do my own thing, and contact her again when I'm ready. She knew exactly what I needed when I couldn't even state my own preference at the end of the conversation. I am just really happy that I know my input made an impact on her for once. Thanks for reading and feel free to add your input or ask me anything else about it.