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My girlfriend and I had a lengthy argument last night about whether women are "responsible" for the detriments children suffer from growing up without a father. I ruled out cases due to rape or widowing, naturally. Eventually we agreed that a woman is responsible for the reasonable vetting of her sexual partners, if she is not prepared to terminate a pregnancy via morning after pills or abortion. We also agreed that the extent to which vetting is considered "reasonable" is influenced by the fact that a life hangs in the balance, therefore setting the bar for "reasonable" quite high. She still claims that the father's decision to ditch is far more important/bears more responsibility. Does anyone here think a woman is just as responsible (50/50) or more responsible than the man? If so, why? Is it useful to even discuss the extent to which one person is more or less responsible, so long as it is recognized that they bare some responsibility? Is the question of assigning moral responsibility relevant once it has been determined that, blameworthy or not, women's decisions to better vett their sexual partners can have positive and negative impacts on child rearing as a whole?

The neighbor in the townhouse next to mine has been abusing her 5 year old boy. I hear screaming and high-pitched noises followed by harsh reprimanding by the mother just about every day. I've witnessed her threaten to beat the child as she wrestled him out of the car seat. I believe she is a single mother because I never see the father present. So far I've tried calling CPS. After waiting half an hour on hold I finally talked to someone who told me unconvincingly that people would come to check on the child. I could call back but I'm doubtful the authorities will actually intervene. I haven't said a word to the woman yet, I'm afraid of what I might do given how angry I feel about the situation. I think it would be good for the child to see that someone cares, but is there an effective way to do that? I know I want to do something, if only for my own sanity. I want to get advice from you guys in the community who have faced similar dilemmas.

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?