Comments

1
jesus christ! what terrible letters! That just gave me instant depression.
2
Yeah, the asshole in the last letter definitely doesn't deserve a great relationship. Holy hell.
3
Dan, I really admire you for reading through all the terrible letters you must get and don't post.
4
I LOLed at the 3rd letter. Wow.
5
How on Earth could the boyfriend in the last be a great guy otherwise?
6
I don't know if the "wincest" guy is in a DTMFA situation. Yes, his wife hit him, and that's simply not cool. She might be ditch-worthy for that maneuver, particularly if it's a pattern. But lots and lots of chicks out there are totally insane about porn. It's so prevalent that breaking up a marriage over it is kind of extreme, I think.

He doesn't need to tell her anything about his fapping, or what he faps about. Just do the porn when she's not around. All marriages have secrets...let it be your evil little indulgence that's just for you.

And yeah, third letter = fucking crazy.
7
"Also: when he tops me, he doesn't want me to touch myself or he sometimes gets angry if I get hard because "only women and faggots enjoy being fucked." He's a great guy otherwise..."

Of course he's a great guy otherwise. If you don't consider the things that make people bad people, they are no longer bad people.
8
first of all i apoligies for entering this here ,i am new and do not know how to enter a blog..
i need advise please,,,well my husbands so in law is wanted out of ohio on a warrant one same as nation wide..the sherriffs in az will do nothing.we helped him an the daughter after he sat fire to a aartment building to collect insurance blaming his 3 year old on the fire..we gave him the benifit of the doubt.he was found guilty we helped him get 5 years probaton.helped him get his va beniits for over 2 yeas helped them financally.we moved to az he said he was off probation early drove here and even paid the expenes.he got worried he was wanted so he went to the nieghbor and said he was being mis treated an held here against his will and we hd his money.th police where caled,they ran him he cameback clear .i was really hrt he did this so i told him if he was wated he needed to leave.i wondered the whole time why he wanted us to hold his wallet,he said he would lose it.
the second time he left he called the sherriffs same story they came guns drawn like we where the crimminals.
his daughter went along with it that we where holding them here,now they left his son now 6 wih me and now are fighting me for custody..he pulls stunts like heart attack for attention ...he now has sherriffs dept and the mission and minister o the missin beleiveing his story even his probtion officer..no one will see threw this man and arrest him on the warrant he has played us and the system and living well in az as a arsonist ...what can we do?
9
@8

HOLY CRAP WTF
10
@8: Turn him in. He is shady as fuck and will only keep pulling stunts.
11
@8 go talk to a lawyer.
12
How do any of these assholes get boyfriends/girlfriends in the first place? Or are people just so desperate to have someone that they will date anyone who comes along?
13
How did any of you even decipher what the hell @8 was on about? I gave up after the first couple "sentences."
14
"Wincest" is porn based on the characters of Sam and Dean Winchester, from the series "Supernatural". No idea what WANK is referring to.
15
Longtime Slog readers will not be surprised that I think Baffled might want to breathe, avoid hasty decisions, and seriously consider whether she wants out or if this marriage might have something worth saving.

For her specific concerns about STDs, she could insist on using condoms in the marriage. That protects her from STDs and trains him that he can come with condoms on. It is entirely reasonable to respond to your guy's desire for extramarital sex with a new condom requirement at home.

It is also possible that if you both go out and try to find people to go on dates with, that he will find out that no one is interested in his sorry ass, and conversely, lots of people are interested in you. (You don't have to have sex with them! You can just go out for a nice dinner with someone new whom you find attractive!)

Many husbands want to go out and have extramarital sex, but they find it's a lot harder to make that happen in practice than in theory. Once they figure that out, they often want to go back to the old monogamous system that worked for 18 years.
16
@13 this sentence jumped out at me: "the second time he left he called the sherriffs same story they came guns drawn like we where the crimminals."
17
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing as @13.
18
@12 Yes.

They may be desperate, but don't look down on people who so crave intimacy that they're willing to overlook glaring faults in an SO. Look down on them only when those faults cause them or the people they care about harm, and they don't leave.
19
I don't know if the "wincest" guy is in a DTMFA situation. Yes, his wife hit him, and that's simply not cool.
Um, no, it's illegal. She should be in cuffs and a cell. How hard is that to understand?
20
I have no idea what's happening in this thread. Any of it.

Everybody DTMFA and go get drunk.
21
For the first time in my SlogLife, I agree with everything 5280 just said.
22
The people who keep the selfish, unstable, high-maintenance motherfuckers out of bars by being married to them only get a gold star if they don't reproduce. Unfortunately those type of motherfuckers really screw up their children :(
23
@21 Ditto. And now I don't even know WHAT to believe anymore.
24
"Do selfish people not deserve ANY relationships?"

No more than any other abuser "deserves" love.
25
Jeez, LW -- it's YOUR life. If you're fine with your girlfriend's crap, then... um, it's fine, I guess.
26
@14 Maybe he meant "twincest"?

Yeah, all these MFs in the letters are abusers, plain and simple. The only way they'll ever change is if they get shown that that kind of shit won't be tolerated.
27
No one is entitled to anything.

I'm confused. Recently Dan linked to an essay suggesting that people (who worked reasonably hard) were entitled to an affordable house, affordable college, a vacation.
28
Holy shitting fuck. Never have I ever seen such assholery on the part of the LWs' special others. Daaaaaaaaaaamn.

@26: #14 was feigning ignorance to be funny. "wincest" is incest that is purported to be full of WIN. In actuality, it is otherwise vanilla pornography with an overlay of dialogue in Comic Sans text to the effect that the participant(s) is (are) somehow related to the viewer. This (SFW) is the defining parody of the phenomenon.
29
No one deserves love. People deserve the opportunity to look for love without, say, getting their asses kicked by homophobic rednecks, but no one is entitled to love. And they are certainly not entitled to love from you.

And I agree with @13 on the sentence parsing. If someone can't be bothered to write coherently, then I can't be bothered to read it.
30
@21 Me too!!

@15 Erica P. good advice for the 18 yr. wife.
31
To me really high maintenance people who are selfish do not deserve relationships because they fail at the most basic part of a relationship: caring about their partner. If their partner is just a sounding board, activity buddy, fuck toy, then what is the reward for the person who is the recipient of all that shit?
There are worse things than not having a relationship. Plus if someone is not in a relationship with a shithead, they are free to be open to having relationships with more interesting people.

Self absorbed people are goddamned boring.
32
LW, have you tried talking to your gf about the issue? is she happy with her life? people can change if they want to and are willing to do some hard work (ie, therapy, new routines, journaling, AA, whatever...)
33
My take on "Do selfish people not deserve ANY relationships?" As a selfish person myself--and it took me time to realize I was being selfish--I would ask this: Are they willing to try to change? Do they stop their selfish behavior when it's pointed out to them? When you suggest therapy, are they open to it, as opposed to dismissing it out of hand?

If the answers to all of those questions are "yes"--and if they aren't doing really beyond-the-pale things, like actual physical abuse, or, say, insisting on being allowed to have unprotected sex with others--then there might be hope. If not, yeah, DTMFA.
34
"I would be willing to consider letting him go and enjoy himself, but I am terrified of him passing an STD to me. I know that he would not be willing to use condoms, because they would "interfere" with his erection. "

I think he might be surprised at the number of people into group sex that DEMAND condoms. And as #15 mentioned how FEW would likely be interested in him. Not that I think the advice should be any different. I certainly would DTMF in this instance.
35
Hahahahahaha, holy shit, WANK, did you somehow go back in time and date my ex circa 2002? Jesus, get out now or you're in for years of agony. She might come around eventually but goddamn, you don't need to be there to be her punching bag while she does it. Spill the beans, tell her what you like and what you do, tell her you're leaving her because she's controlling and angry, and then run like a motherfucker and do not look back.

Okay, I grant: if everything else is okay, maybe - maybe - you can lay it all out for her and then tell her that unless she learns to be okay with it, you're leaving. I am pretty pessimistic about that, though. People who are that insecure do not put their issues behind them quite that easily, and they tend to be pretty unreliable themselves.
37
I think #8 is into something.

DTMFA isn't enough. Arson is the solution.
38

Also: when he tops me, he doesn't want me to touch myself or he sometimes gets angry if I get hard because "only women and faggots enjoy being fucked."



LOL, reminds me of my favorite gay joke: How do you tell if your best friend is gay? He doesn't complain when you're fucking his ass.
39
I assume Wincest is reference to the fandom pairing of Dean and Sam Winchester from Supernatural.
40
My boyfriend is a big animal lover, which is important to me, and is a vegetarian, which is great. I can't stand dating men who eat meat, it comes out through their pores. He's very sweet when we're alone, but when he's hanging out with his buddies, he has this real anti-semetic thing going on, and he's really bent on fighting a war on two fronts even though it would make more sense just to crush britain. But he's really charismatic, rich, and very sweet to me. Should I DTMFA or what?
41
@40, Lol.
42
@40 Don't worry about a little antisemitism or megalomania, remember, you can fix him!
43
@15: Longtime Slog readers? You don't post to Slog; you only post on Dan's offerings.

You really seem to have an overinflated sense of your own importance.
44
@15 It's likely the husband is aware of the truth of your last paragraph. That's why he's applying leverage to get the wife to participate. Swinging couple = access, single guy looking to swing = hopeless (at least relatively).

So, if she won't get on board, he's decided to get out entirely, presumably to seek a partner who will play the game. It's a long shot, but that's a better bet than trying to go it alone while she stays at home, and if he's being firm but polite about a "life's short, I'm going for what I really want" decision, he seems like the least assholian in the letters. Coming to it a little late, maybe, but whatever.

These "Ms" here are like the e to fucking x curve: 1. tough but fair, 2. wacko, 3. KA-BOOM!!
45
e to THE fucking x. sigh
46
@40 *Nice* Godwin.
47
And I thought I'd had a couple of really evil boyfriends over the years. I feel so much better about myself now.
48
"But he/she has a lot else to offer" is the new "That's what she said."

Bashar Al-Assad ordered the Syrian military to crack down violently on protesters, resulting in around 1600 deaths over the past few months. But he has a lot else to offer.

49
@43: This is Slog. We're posting on it now.
50
Do selfish people deserve relationships?

Of course Dan is right in theory. Nobody deserves (= is entitled to) a good relationship. We get what we get, from what we put in, and also because of a good deal of sheer luck (or lack thereof).

But people are also quick to put labels on others. 'Selfish', 'unstable'... When I look back on the people I met who could fit these definitions, I also realize they're so different from each other that they should be judged independently, and their personal life stories were often very different.

Bottom line: yes, people can change, and yes, people can stay the same. Yes, your love may redeem this person, and yes, s/he may go on being abusive forever till you're destroyed. Whether or not to DTMFA has more to do with your own limits as to the amount of crap you're willing to take because of the possibility of redemption, which is a case-by-case thing, and actually ultimately impossible to evaluate precisely.

So you have to take risks. Often the best risk to take is indeed to DTMFA, because this is more likely to at least allow you to survive and perhaps find a person you're more capable of dealing with. But ultimately nobody can prove to you that the selfish asshole you're leaving couldn't have been redeemed, that the frog couldn't have turned into a prince(ss). Maybe s/he could have. (I was one, and I did.) But then again maybe you're not the person who could have made this happen. Or... or...

Life isn't easy. Life is about making choices, and then trying not to think too hard about the path not taken. Better worry about the next choices you're going to have to make.
51
Hang on...Not Man Enough gets called a faggot for getting hard when another man is hard and fucking him in the ass. Dude needs to take ownership of that term, wear it with pride, and throw it back in his bf's face. "Hell yes I'm enjoying it; if I weren't I wouldn't let you do it. And you're clearly enjoying it too, faggot. Or did you want to stop?"

And then he should DTMFAnyway.
52
@50 I think the actual point is that no-one is obliged to put up with crap because the other person in that relationship "deserves" them. If its that bad that you're writing to an advice columnist then it probably is time to cut your losses.

Of course this doesn't prevent the selfish person from trying over to redeem themselves, but often they need to loose someone (or many someones) they love before they can have that wake-up.
53
Re: Not Man Enough

For the sake of your sanity, PLEASE leave that guy ASAP.

I'm a gay male (just turned 18 for the 2nd time - yay), who, 3 years ago, denied being gay because I couldn't identify with feminine traits in men.

What changed?

Once I learned what gay really meant, I realized that it was unfair to dislike someone based on being who they are. If you are out, proud, love yourself for who you are, and just so happen to have a few feminine traits, embrace your identity and keep ANYONE who makes you feel like less than away from you.

HOWEVER...

According to your letter, the guy you're dating is only 23. Kudos to you for hanging in there for nearly a year. It IS possible that with time you could educate him on what being gay really means, but ask yourself: do you REALLY want to shoulder that task while missing out on somebody else who will find the feminine side of you as a plus?

While considering that, consider this as well: evolving as his own past his conservative Christian background may be harder than you think. Most gays have "friends" and family who make them feel shitty for being true to themselves. Will your voice as a his significant other EVER have more precedence in his life than the people who keep him conservative and closeted?

Finally, you don't really list your own religious affiliation, but if you do believe in God please understand this: ALL religion is man-made, which inherently makes it imperfect. God is perfect. Whether you believe in God or not, knowledge (and acknowledgement) of who you are calls you to be the better person to others, but please consider how much of YOUR life that you could waste dealing with this guy. Good luck.
54
The last letter is the most ridiculous. You have to love blatant homophobia coming from someone in a "relationship" with someone of the same gender. What a tool!
55
#38
A PG version of that is:

Two men were sitting in a bar. One said to the other, "I think my best friend might be gay. He closes his eyes whenever I kiss him."
56
Sometimes getting dumped is what you need.

After I had ended my relationship with my last college girlfriend (she was still there/long distance), I started a new one with the intention of not being as passive in the relationship. I turned into a more sensitive, caring, focused on my girlfriend kind of guy. In other words I was trying too hard. She dumped my clingy ass, and it was the best thing for me since we never had to deal with her "issues" on a long term basis. She was also gorgeous and sweet (literally), so there was incentive for me to keep trying.

I learned that magical concept of balance, and have used it ever since. I used it to the extent that when I decided to ask my wife to marry me, I still had feelings against doing so (70 pro/30 con). If you can't find any negatives to the relationship, then there most likely IS something wrong that you don't want to acknowledge. In my opinion, when you think you have perfection you are taking away the possibility for change, for the better and the worse. Then when changes happen, AS THEY MUST, you aren't prepared to deal with them (in this case the you means all those in the relationship, including a whole family). Learning to deal with, and even accept, negatives in the relationship that don't stray into the realm of unacceptable abuse is quite simply much more realistic. No one is perfect, and expecting anyone to be so places a burden that can be crushing, for all sides.

So, to my ex, thanks for dumping me.

Peace.
57
@50

No offense to your experience, but people and their love don't redeem broken people. That's a dangerous belief that keeps giving people in unhealthy relationships that they are better off leaving and keeps people with flaws or personality discorders from minor to overwhelming from accepting responsibility for themselves and their actions.

Broken people fix themselves sometimes, and sometimes they do it through the help of counselors or psychological professionals. But no one should ever white knight themselves into an unhappy and degrading relationship on the belief that they are "the one" and their love will "redeem" the poor wounded bird who only scratches with his/her viciously sharp claws out of pain and fear.
58
@56 - I'm calling you out.

"literally sweet" is TMI. Unless you didn't mean literally.
59
Although I agree that the no one is entitled statement is a little broad, I do think that Dan was responding in the context of a sexual, adult relationship. I can't speak for Dan, but I believe he believes that people are entitled to certain basic human and civil rights, children are entitled to parents who don't abuse them and other rights of this nature. The question was about selfish people being entitled to be loved. I think the correct answer is no one is entitled to be loved as an adult. It is a wonderful thing to have, but it is the result of two people being in a relationship. Some people don't get that because of their physical attractiveness, some people don't get it because of their sexual orientation in a homophobic community, some people don't get it because they don't put anything into the relationship that gets that response back.

As to wincest. It may have been a typo for twincest, it may have been the other description. There is also a small cult show called Supernatural in which the main characters' last name is Winchester. In fanfiction these two brothers are often put in a sexual relationship. That has the moniker of wincest. In fact, if you go to Google and type in wincest it is the first definition that appears. Your useless fact of the day.
60
@18 - Perfectly said. I have some glaring faults, among them an intense need/desire to be coupled. I can function on my own and be independent and I don't need (or want) to be joined at the hip, but my work, hobbies, pets, etc. are not what give my life deeper meaning (nor does an imaginary fried).

My relationships and sharing give meaning. That may make me desperate in some eyes, but I certainly hope there are other "desperate" people willing to do the same tolerating/overlooking of my faults as I am of theirs in order to maintain a relationship.

The perfect is the enemy of the good; we are all flawed to one degree or another, and if we do not tolerate those flaws or wait for the perfect (imaginary construct) partner, we are very likely to wait our entire lives. You shouldn't 'settle' for something you know will make you unhappy, but these are not binary choices.

The real key of successful relationship longevity - more than just "communication" - is tolerance and the ability (and willingness) to forgive. Forgiveness is an act of giving, and is a real sign of deep and whole love. I think this is exactly what allows @18 to offer what seems to me to be good advice.

@18 - You're quite right - as a long time reader, it is unsurprising and also good advice.

Of course, abuse should not be tolerated.
61
@58,

Oh yes, I meant what I wrote. She was sweet like candy (did I mention I have an oral fixation?).

(OTOH, if you can't say anything good about someone...)

Peace.
62
Protip*: "wincest" is probably best defined as "awesome incest," and I'd guess that first letter is a 4chan reject attempting a troll. If not: definitely GTFO of that woman's vicinity.

(* I am a professional at the Internet.)
63
LOL at the guy who wants to fuck another guy in the ass but doesn't want that guy to be a "faggot". It's not just a river in Egypt.
64
@53, you turned 18 for the second time?

What does that mean, that you turned 30? Don't buy into that commercial sales pitch bullshit. (From 50) It's all good as long as you're safe, warm, and (somewhat) happy.

Peace.
65
"First: No one is entitled to a great relationship. No one is entitled to a relationship. No one is entitled to anything."

And that, my friends, is why Dan would be a Republican if he weren't gay.
66
@62: Hiya, coworker.
67
@40 - is "fighting a war on two fronts" a euphemism for a mmf threesome?
68
Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I feel much better about being single right now....
69
@67 you know it is ;)
70
I was tempted to keep the comment number to 69 but I just wanted to chime in with some good (very) old fashioned advice from Jane Austen: "Selfishness must always been forgiven, you know. There is no cure."

I'll admit I'm a selfish person. Probably doesn't help that I'm the oldest of four and was an only child for five years. I was lucky to find a guy out there with a very similar personality as me. We treat each other well most days but then like crap on others but we both understand why we do (if anyone really understands why) which I think helps a lot.
71
@57: Right on.

People can change - if they couldn't, no one would ever learn anything - but they have to want to change, and it's often really hard, especially for someone who's pretty broken. You can't judge a whole relationship on the basis of the occasional bad interaction, any more than you should excuse it on the basis of the occasional good interaction (Caralain is right, virtually everyone has some redeeming quality). You have to weigh the overall experience - and while being in a relationship involves inevitably being treated like crap at some point, it had also better involve a sincere, unqualified apology and accompanying tolerance for your own crap.

If not, if someone's being a motherfucker - self-absorbed, controlling, abusive, whatever - often the ONLY way for them to realize they need to change is to get dumped. It could be exactly the harsh wakeup call they need. If OTOH they're not really willing to change, or capable of doing so - then the quicker you get the fuck away from them, the better. Life is too short as it is.

People may not be entitled to a relationship, but motherfuckers do deserve to get dumped.
72
@67 wins the thread, with a valuable assist from @40.
73
@57, you're right that it's ultimately the broken person that heals him/herself, but you're wrong if you think love has nothing to do with the deal. I beg to disagree with you -- the myth here is any extreme idea, any "always" or "never". There is a myth that love always wins and redeems, which is indeed not true, but so is the myth that love never wins and redeems, which is what you're saying (and what so many self-help books say these days).

I know from experience -- it's what happened to me.

What happens is that some people think they are the ones capable of solving a certain redemption case -- 'I am the one who will redeem him/her!' says the naive lover with full confidence. Maybe you are, but, especially if you have no experience in the redeeming business, that's not very likely. (Redemption often involves tough love, sometimes soft love, and always wise love. I think part of the problem is that everybody thinks love has to be of the 'puppy'/'starry-eyed' kind, the "oh my poor darling has issues" kind of love. That is not what I'm talking about.)

The people who remain in bad relationships because they think they can redeem their partner(s) may of course be right, but very often they aren't. Why? Because they don't read the relationship well (they won't recognize the signs from the broken partner for what they are, they'll misread and misinterpret them all the time), and because they overvalue themselves and their love -- they think their feelings are so special, they will eventually be rewarded. This puppy/starry-eyed exaggeration of their own capacities is what gets them into situations they are in no way capable of handling and leads to their suffering and being hurting. These people would indeed do much beter if they DTMFA'd their partners and tried to find someone else who they can better deal with.

Every case is a different case. Every abusive person is different, because his/her life story was different. It's up to you to decide if you want to make a project out of trying to help this person out of love (and remind yourself that this project might fail, since this person has to work a lot too -- if s/he refuses, there's nothing you can do) -- but be honest with yourself, evaluate your motives, and do evaluate your own capacity to do it. If you are the kind of person who can't do it, better indeed not try -- because then you're only going to get hurt, hurt, hurt.
74
@71 (Chase), it's not clear to me on what side of the "love may help" divide you are. You said "If not, if someone's being a motherfucker - self-absorbed, controlling, abusive, whatever - often the ONLY way for them to realize they need to change is to get dumped. It could be exactly the harsh wakeup call they need." -- and I agree completely with that, since I think sometimes this can even be an act of love.

But I agree with this because you said "Sometimes" -- as in, and sometimes this is not the best move. Sometimes there's something else you can do to make the person realize there's something that has to change.

The hard thing about life is that everything is case-by-case. Whenever we want to dish out advice on generic hypohteticals, we tread dangerous territory, in which exceptions aplenty soon raise their ugly (pretty?) heads.

Love does help. A lot. But love isn't everything. And if it can't make the other person realize that there's something wrong that has to change, then it's time to think of other options, including DTMFA.
75
@72,

Here, here!
76
I think love itself is overrated and is often a big mistake. Give me respect, affection, mutual esteem and sexual compatibility, and you can take love.
77
NME should point out that his boyfriend is just as much the fag as he is, homobro-ness aside.
78
@ 76 - If you have respect, affection, mutual esteem and sexual compatibility, in my opinion, you have love. Real love. Which is not the Hollywood or fairytale kind.
79
@ 77 - After DTMFA, of course.
80
@40 - you win the internets, now and forever after, amen.
81
@72, oops,

Hear, hear!
82
@58: This is Slog! Talking about yummy pussy is hardly TMI (except possibly for Dan).
83
Mr Mango @70 - I'm not sure that a quotation given to Mary Crawford, who might be described as a near-villainess (although I differ with that view), ought to count as advice from Miss Austen. Now, if the author had been Mr Wilde, perhaps...
84
@58,@72,

Oh man do I wish it were possible to edit posts after initial submission!

Yes she was sweet (literally), too bad she wasn't sweet (figuratively).

Peace.
85
@65 Have you missed, ummm, every non-sexuality-related political post Dan has ever made?
86
@58: "I'm calling you out.

'literally sweet' is TMI. Unless you didn't mean literally."

She had diabetes, you insensitive clod.
87
@65: ""First: No one is entitled to a great relationship. No one is entitled to a relationship. No one is entitled to anything."

And that, my friends, is why Dan would be a Republican if he weren't gay."

I don't think you understand. It's referring to entitlements of Privilege, not the republican-dubbed "welfare entitlements."

Context is everything.

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