'the'. I seem to be inordinately fond of 'the'.
I have difficulty conceiving of an inordinate fondness for the word "the".
Can you conceive of an inordinate fondness for carrot cake?
"Inordinate" is a good word. I was thinking about "inordinate" the other day.
It is pretty good. 'Fond' is good, too. I like all the words in 2.
8: I can't believe you like money too. We should hang out
This is reminding me of a Letterman top ten list from ages and ages ago, which I think was "Words that sound sexy when Barry White says them". The ones that stick in my head are "Big fat greasy ham" and "Pataki".
I'm very fond of "thing." It's flexible and fun to say.
Can you conceive of an inordinate fondness for carrot cake?
Yes, but only in certain senses of "conceive".
I'm very fond of "thing." It's flexible and fun to say.
I like how "stuff" was a fancy word a long time ago.
I boggled a coworker a few weeks ago by saying 'maelstrom' (as a description of my filing system). Didn't think that one was particularly odd.
Judging from a paper I just got a revise and resubmit for I really liked the word "otiose" when I wrote it.
Well, an inordinate fondness for the the word 'the' is like that, only with the word 'the' instead of carrot cake.
Maybe I should post more quickly or less often.
Do you know what "it is five o'clock here" means? Well, "it is five o'clock on the sun" is just the same, except instead of being where you are you're on the sun.
If I like it so much why can't I spell it right?
I am really hoping to get "nugatory" into my newest research paper. "sea urchin" was already nixed.
If I like it so much why can't I spell it right?
Maybe you're distracted by being so concupiscent.
17: I induced boggling with the adjectival meaning of "catholic" not terribly long ago. That was strange.
I really like the adjectival use of "like".
Do you know what "it is five o'clock here" means? Well, "it is five o'clock on the sun" is just the same, except instead of being where you are you're on the sun.
Right. That's pretty much what they did for the moon landings.
28: That one I find very garden-pathy. There's a line from a Woody Allen short piece: "An impossibility commensurate with two like snowflakes," that I failed to understand for a long time after I first read it. Two what? Whatever the 'two' are, how are they like snowflakes? Literally months later, the proper parsing of the sentence drifted through my head for no apparent reason.
I think it would be easier to work out what 5 o'clock might be on the moon than on the sun.
Minivet, what was that awesome word I learned from you a while ago?
My father likes 'specious'. A client once wrote him a letter that both referred to some argument his firm had made about a bill as 'specious' and said that the client did not at this time choose 'to rattle the saber of litigation', and he was delighted by the letter for ages.
Quiddity.
What about unfavourite words, like the woman I must have mentioned who can't bear to hear the word "portion"?
I'm a big fan of saying "long-lived" or "short-lived" whenever possible. Emphasing that "lived" rhymes with "dived".
Quotidian. I wouldn't have the face to use that one in speech, though -- it's not a real part of my use vocabulary.
I been saying the word "formidable" a lot but using the Spanish pronunciation. It really makes for a great interjection.
A: I picked up your shirts from the dry cleaners.
B: ¡Formidable!
"suppurating"
The last time I heard that used was on Buffy, as in, "You have the cutest little suppurating sores."
36: "gifting" and it's hideous bastard spawn "regifting."
The odd thing about "suppurating" is that it's a precise synonym for another winner, "purulent".
"Fetching" used to mean appealing.
"Felching" used to mean appalling.
39: There are tons of those words for me, but "quotidian" is one I do use.
40: I have in the past gone through a similar period of exclaiming "Incroyable!" despite not actually speaking French.
I induced boggling with the adjectival meaning of "catholic" not terribly long ago.
Depending on the setting, I often take a mental pause when I use it to see if anyone looks especially confused.
I will admit that I have no idea what "catholic" means in its non-religious context.
But you're, like, so totally fetch, essear.
Blume did not appreciate my "Scheßwasser!" phase.
I will admit that I have no idea what "catholic" means in its non-religious context.
Universal or general.
Or broad, as in, "My tastes are fairly catholic" (in re: literature as I first learned it in Gaudy Night).
I once really impressed my fellow group members on a group project in grad school with my use of "insuperable."
There are a fair number of words that I'm very conscious of where I first encountered them. That was a terrible sentence.
I recently learned "vagile" when a cow-orker asked me what it meant (it was in a document he was reviewing) and I had to look it up. It doesn't mean anything close to what you might think it means.
39: Which is ironic, considering the meaning.
You all don't have favorite words that are more catholic than the vocab section of the GRE?
I mean, I like saying "cockdozer" as much as the next guy but that hardly seems interesting, heebie.
Vellity. But only because Ogden Nash wrote a poem about it.
I have a bunch of words that are favorites in the sense that I wildly and melodramatically overuse them: tragic, dire, obscene, vile, bitchin'.
You all don't have favorite words that are more catholic than the vocab section of the GRE?
After too many episodes of Workaholics, I've been known to drop a "tight butthole" into conversation. Do phrases count?
"Fetching" used to mean appealing.
Doesn't it still?
I have been overusing the shit out of "baffling", and of course remain committed to "rad".
"anile" also doesn't mean what you might guess.
'Rampage' has been striking me as rather poetic recently. And at times I've considered trying to introduce an alternate pronunciation version which can can be used either as "the rampage in this parking garage is totes sweet" or "I hate that you have to pay rampage to put your boat the water at this lake."
My father likes 'specious'.
Ooh, this just reminded me of one of my pet peeve words. I hate it when people use "fallacious" when they mean "false."
Darn it, there's an important difference between a claim which depends on an argument which isn't logically valid, and one which makes incorrect claims about the world.
I mean, I like saying "cockdozer" as much as the next guy but that hardly seems interesting, heebie.
When you get tired of that you can switch to "cockstacker", a mysterious insult used in the classic Charlie Sheen film The Wraith.
Octaroon. Pantaloon. And from an opera program: macaronine. They just made that up.
Sopa isn't soap, and ropa isn't rope
And vagile is not an agile vagina.
It's a fragile vagina, like one that prolapsed.
Minivet, what was that awesome word I learned from you a while ago?
You mean "wlatsome"?
Octoroon, btw.
And labile is not an agile labia.
A loved one consistently misuses 'aloof' to mean spacey or out of it, and it drives me nuts.
I like "gradient". But I also like "continuum", which means basically the same thing when used metaphorically, and there's not that many potential uses to divide up between the two.
'Rampage' has been striking me as rather poetic recently.
You'd love my high school newspaper, then.
80: Oooh labile is such a great word. It's the word I use to describe myself when I am hungover.
"Fugacity" is a cool word.
Fu-la-la-la. It's the way that we rock when we're doing our thing.
My father likes 'specious'.
'Fatuous' is my 'specious".
A lot of it is context. I recently heard "squeamish" in an academic context and found it awesome.
I learned a new word* from clew in the killing thread, 'misprision'.
*I have a vague feeling I may have learned it "new" some time in the past as well, but I had no idea when I read it.
I like "fantastic" in the sense of "unbelievable."
"Sesquipedalian" is a useful term of indirect abuse.
I like Ejacula, the outbursting vampire.
Roughly 20% of what I say to my husband is greeted with "You just wanted to use the word '[whatever].'"
Sketchy can come in handy, but creepy is overused.
'Fatuous' is my 'specious".
I can't come across that word without hearing Maude Lebowski saying, "Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey."
I don't think I've mentioned here before that when I was in the 6th grade G&T program, someone's idea of a fun way to teach us some big words was for us to memorize the following paragraph:
You insignificant, supercilious, sarcastic piece of human inconvenience. Do you mean to insinuate that I should tolerate such diabolical insolence from a monstrosity such as you? And furthermore, shut that carnivorous contraption which you commonly call your mouth and take that disgusting grin off your pugnacious countenance.
It does have a good rhythm.
'Serendipitous' is another favorite, but one whose occasional use has helped cement my reputation at work as something of a pointy-headed know-it-all (I'm also the guy who swears).
when I was in the 6th grade G&T program
Somebody was systematically serving gin and tonic to 12 year olds?
"Pugnacious countenance" produces a surprising abundance of serch result hits.
98: Sort of. It took me a few tries to get it right, but it's all from memory. I think I may have found the sheet in my old school stuff as an adult, but that would still be 20 years ago.
I quite like "serendipitous," but it annoys when people substitute it for "coincidental."
100: Not sure if you're just following up on oudemia's joke, but G&T means "gifted and talented," as in: "The students who aren't in the G&T program are without gifts or talents. Sucks to be them."
My all-time favourite word is "ekphrastic." A close second is "economimetic."
102: Very impressive!
The stupidest thing I still remember is PODEPP -- Professional Organized Disciplined Environment with Pride and Profit. That was how management tried to inspire us peons at People's Drug Stores in the 1980s. No one could spell those long words! It was hilarious!
104: Jeez. Guess my sixth grade teacher has a lot of explaining to do. Although on the plus side, he did teach me how to hold a gin and tonic.
It's like that guy from Party Down come to life.
Fuliginous.
Seeing 58: I encountered it for the first (and only?, other than when I use it) time in the summer of 1992, in a small village in the western Peloponnese, when I ended up with a hand-me-down copy of Durrell's Antrobus stories. This was memorable because, without access to a sufficient English dictionary, figuring out what the word meant was pretty much the only occasion I've had to put my years of Latin study to practical use.
Flibbertigibbet is a fun word. I don't think I can actually say it though.
There isn't a typo in 103. L'état, c'est moi.
105: We classicists love our ekphrasis.
I don't have a favorite word, but am feeling ok about bitchin just right now. As used by the Jackmormons.
I've been a fan of "gormless" since it showed up on Unfogged.
Molly just reminded me that last year I was all hyped to form a band called Gormless Dwarves. All the album titles would be action phrases (sort of like the Folksmen's first albums.) Some of the ideas we came up with:
Gormless Dwarves Perform Chores
Gormless Dwarves Score Porn
Gormless Dwarves Abhor Skorts.
The last one was Molly's.
I hereby commit to use "flibbertigibbet" at least once this weekend.
'Witold', whose precise definition I think I ran across during some discussion here.
Can I be the flibbertigibbettiwitness?
Another tied pair of words (they mean the same thing and are equally appealing): "bedecked" and "festooned"
'Byrdynsack', which is oddly the main form of which 'burdensack' is a variant. I don't think I've ever had occasion to use it. The legal Latinizations occasionally *began* it with a y -- 'yburþensak' -- which is clearly a step too far.
I get to use 'vagility' in my work writing.
122: I'm confident we can find at least one on the river.
It has been amusing to me, of late, to replace my usual profane exclamations with comically polite ones, such as "Oh my!" or "My goodness!"
Also, of course, it is fun to read Wodehouse and use various bits of his diction when I inflict my beastly society on people.
123: Testooned with breasticles!
'barbative' and 'rebarbative', especially when applying elegant variation to 'pugnacious countenance'.
113: Favourite ekphrasis ever. (I think I first encountered the word in a essay on the Iliad.)
"Fuliginous" is a delightful word. Do you use it metaphorically or literally? I assume the former, but I quite like the idea of the "fuliginous sky." Fuliginous reminds me of "effulgent," another word I learned from BTVS.
I could totally play this game all day.
'nondescript', one of the rocks my relationship with my last advisor sank on. (Another was 'disinterested', which I think he had a better case against the use of.)
It has been amusing to me, of late, to replace my usual profane exclamations with comically polite ones, such as "Oh my!" or "My goodness!"
I do this a lot. I should work on dropping the occasional "My stars!".
I was thinking about "corpulent" the other day and whether I should start talking about the "corpulence epidemic." (Google informs me I would not be the first, but still in the vanguard.)
||
Gah. Of course it's on the day when I actually have a lot of work to do and almost everyone else is gone that all the office equipment mysteriously stops working.
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I recently encountered suppurating when I had to look up some german word meaning suppurating frontal sinusitis. The word literally translated as something like flowing head holes.
Also commenting using an iPad sucks.
cvrčci is the word I use to refer to the crickets that start showing up in my basement in the fall.
Akimbo, lassitude.
I also use "legal" to express approval of a proposition in an idiosyncratic way that vaguely puns on the literal meaning (i.e., implying that in some world such a thing might be illegal because it's such a dangerously good idea).
--"What do you think about some $2.50 Bloody Marys this morning?"
--"That's legal."
I undoubtedly picked up it from some late 90s movie or TV show I can't remember.
137: The operative word for that situation is "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!"
(Also, sympathies. That blows.)
126: Isn't 'Witold' a Polish name?
Yes, and one which apparently overwrote 'wittol' in my brain. Christ on a stick. But basically "witting cuckold", so it coulda, shoulda been.
124: Huh. I guess 'vagility' does not actually mean 'agility with one's vagina.'
Oh well.
143: Have you been using it wrong for all these years? How embarrassing!
134: "Heavens to Betsy" is a completely natural part of my exclamatory vocabulary. I don't know why.
Also, in honor of slolerner, persifleur and flaneuse.
Poppycock.
Most overused word for me: disaster.
141: Eh, it's not actually that big a deal. There's other stuff I can work on, and the stuff I can't do isn't super time-sensitive. The main thing is just that my mom and sister are coming up to visit next week and I'm taking some time off to travel around with them, so I'd like to get some of this stuff done before that if possible.
It is frustrating, though, because I was hoping to use today to crank out a bunch of stuff while everyone's gone.
Least favourite word right now: "iconic." On account of its being so widely misapplied.
I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Clastics.
145.1: Likewise. Also "Golly Gee Williker."
151: Best hip-hop wordplay ever: GZA's pun on 'pyroclastic flow' in "Crash Your Crew."
134, 145: The Missus makes fun of me for "gosh" and "golly."
151: I will say that a gratifying aspect of geology is its wealth of wonderful words. I keep a small paperback edition of the Dictionary of Geologic Terms in my desk drawer. Lacustrine, pelagic, littoral, riparian, diluvial, alluvial, eolian, benthic, intermontane before you even get to the minerals and specific rock types.
And although it was simply taken from the name of the mountain in New Hampshire, I love the sound of 'monadnock'.
Least favourite word right now: "iconic." On account of its being so widely misapplied.
I like to pretend people are talking about little thumbnails on their computer screens.
Least favourite word right now: "iconic." On account of its being so widely misapplied.
"Iconophanical", on the other hand, is sadly underused, especially given the widespread practice of iconophany among kids these days.
Hm, it seems the problems I've been having with the printers are actually problems with the things I've been trying to print, which is not particularly encouraging but does at least indicate that there isn't a widespread equipment problem.
The more serious problem is apparently the result of a server in Ft. Collins going down and it could take all day to fix, which really throws a wrench in my plans. Oh well.
160: That's a nice -alia. I've always liked 'marginalia', but I became even more pleased when I managed to get the whole margin/marginal/marginalia* sequence in Boggle once.
*Sure, if you get the last you have the other two, but they revealed themselves to me in that order in a very nice way.
160: I'M IN UR PENETRALIA, WEARING UR CRAMPONZ.
160: That's a nice -alia. I've always liked 'marginalia', but I became even more pleased when I managed to get the whole margin/marginal/marginalia* sequence in Boggle once.
*Sure, if you get the last you have the other two, but they revealed themselves to me in that order in a very nice way.
Shit. That was:
There is a fire in the penetralia of Centralia, Pennsylvania.
Badly misspelled.
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Have you ever started to tidy up, and then find that things are so messy that you don't know where to start, so you pick something up and then put it down someplace at random and then you pick something else up and make a little glurping noise because you know you aren't accomplishing anything and then you go to get a box to put things in but get distracted by a different mess and then you make the glurping noise again and pick up three things that don't belong anywhere and then say glpppvfftttsgdwe and flap your arms around until you just decide to write about it on the internet?
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That is my life. The only solution I've found for getting past it is to tidy completely random components of the mess without any consideration of whether what I'm doing is the most effective way of getting it done. And keep doing random cleaning-related behaviors until it looks tractable, at which point I cautiously try planning what I'm doing again.
I had a very similar experience to 167 yesterday, except it was even more pathetic, because it was about how to rationalize my data backup situation--2.5 external harddrives of largely duplicated backup data, broken into partitions I can't rearrange natively with my Mac (since they're MBR partitioned), &c.--so I didn't even have the grounding sense that there's something real there.
167z: I am badly dispirited by discovering that the paper propping up a laptop was actually several inches of To be Done. It isn't what needs to be Done Right Now and I'm still unhappy just looking at it.
...Have just moved it to the pile next to my desk. That helps.
My new thing is, on days when I've left my phone at home: getting up to go to the bathroom, looking around blankly and mind empty for 5-10 seconds, and then realizing that what I'm looking for is the absent phone.
156 gets it exactly right. In that spirit:
sectile
sphene
I managed to fix my printing problem by exporting the pdfs I was trying to print to individual tiff files by page and printing those. Luckily they weren't very long.
And having finally accomplished something today, I should get some lunch.
Further to 173:
ooid/oolitic
plagioclase
feldspar (feldspar! where are you?!)
pegmatite
gabbro
chert
felsic
mafic
aa
pahoehoe
orogeny
isostasy!
thalweg!!!
151: Best hip-hop wordplay ever: GZA's pun on 'pyroclastic flow' in "Crash Your Crew."
I don't know, The Gift Of Gab's "I'm like a meteorite / I could be to your left or even be to your right" is pretty good. Although he should have thrown in a reference to Pedialyte.
"Nugatory". Also, for a long time I was misusing "diffident".
|| Good gravy. Presumably this is fall out from that anti-internet revival meeting at CitiField, but I just got an email from the account of my best friend (lady edition, now ultra orthodox) from her husband. He tells me that J. is no longer receiving anything at that address and that I should now send things to his address and he will "make sure she gets it." |>
180: Good gravy indeed. I just... wow. The mind boggles.
It's sort of not an economy in which I want to participate, but I also don't want her utterly cut off, so more chipper stories and baby pix.
So this is a thing? People really do this?
I should now send things to his address
So she gave up email but he didn't? Or does that mean mailing address?
180. Have you met this husband? My first thought was to be concerned for her safety.
Well, it's just me making the connection between the whole "don't let your wives and daughters on the internet and stay away as much as you can yourself" festival that occurred a couple months ago and the email I just got, but yeah, I got an email from her husband on her account saying that. They live in Monsey and ride the bus with the curtain and all that.
He's ok. They're just crazy orthodox. And he has the zeal of the converted, which frankly I'd been hoping would have worn off a bit by now. (It's a whole crazy story, but he was raised something not Jewish in Germany and then converted as an adult. But he speaks fluent Yiddish and works in diamonds on 47th now. He is still in contact with, visits, and is indeed close-ish with his own family, which I take as a pretty good sanity sign.)
189: Me neither. I can't say I'm really surprised that these folks are all up in arms about this, but it's all news to me.
I suspect they didn't so much blog about it.
That would certainly explain why I hadn't heard about it.
My SIL took over my brother's email address, which was his fistname lastname at yahoo. She was absolutely furious to see one time that I'd "mistakenly" emailed his work address. Our system at this point is that I give him the password to one of my email accounts, and I send him a text during business hours if there's a message for him, from me, there. We do talk on the phone a lot, but sometimes email is more convenient.
193: Good lord. I hate to ask this, but does your brother have ... feelings ... about not being able to have his own private email account? Maybe you haven't asked him; one doesn't want to rock the marital boat.
Wait, your SIL gets angry if you communicate with your brother by an email address she doesn't have access to, and he's conspiring with you to evade her notice rather than pointing out that she's batshit? Have you checked him for bruises? Seriously, sharing an email address, or not using the Internet, could be fine if everyone involved is agreed on it, but once you've got someone who wants privacy but doesn't feel like they can openly insist on it that's really screwy.
I'm sure you realize it's screwy, so take this as support rather than as telling you something you didn't know.
193: Do you periodically still send anodyne emails through the approved channel to throw her off the trail?
Stanley, I never knew you were so conniving.
But wait. Why can't the brother just create for himself another email account? Maybe there's some internal conflict going on for the brother.
I should expect there's some internal conflict -- being married to someone who's batshit will do that to you.
Basically it's the least of his worries in dealing with her. She's totally abusively controlling, in every sphere. When I asked about him opening a secret gmail account, he sighed and said it wasn't worth the risk of her finding out.
For the first 6-7 years or so, he would defend her to the end, but for the past 6-7 years, he's admitted how awful their household is, and points to the tiniest incremental improvements.
Ah. Wow, too bad. Man, what a thing to have to deal with
After we chat on the phone, he deletes it from his call log!
Gosh. I'm so sorry. I'm guessing there are kids.
Yup. But the reason he won't leave is not the kids - it's that he thinks she'll commit suicide if he leaves.
Note: I do not believe this. AFAIC this is classic abusive manipulation. But he does.
Do you mind if I ask: does anyone else in the family know about this? (Not that it solves the problem.)
Poor kids. That's got to be a rough household.
Everyone knows, but my parents and I are the only ones who speak about it frankly with him.
We used to debate it endlessly behind their back, but they've been together since 1994 and so eventually you talk about it less. (They don't know the detail about me giving him my email password, but everyone would understand why.)
204 I guess reveals who we're talking about?
Having small children has been somewhat stabilizing for her, actually. What I'm extremely worried about is when her eldest becomes about the age of Alameida's eldest, and she has the analogous reaction as Alameida had. Except without any cushion provided by the hard emotional work and introspection that Alameida has done over the years - she's spent the intervening years cementing conspiracy theories and constructing elaborately fragile systems of spinning plates. I think at that point the lid might truly blow off their world.
204 reveals that it's somebody who has the ability to edit their own comments, at least.
I'm fairly certain plates just keep spinning forever and science-types are wrong about perpetual motion.
Have you talked to him about what would trigger a decision to take the kids and leave? That is, has he thought specifically about what's too unstable to tolerate?
204 could just be entirely deleted. Along with 212 now, Ned!
Presidential, I wish I knew what to say. What about the wife's family? It would be good if someone else could talk to the wife and see whether she really would commit suicide, whether she realizes how controlling she's being, etc. But that's a longshot.
This isn't much here or there, but a friend of mine is in a vaguely similar marriage: his wife is prone to fits of anger and argumentativeness and snottiness out of the blue. Their (grown) kids have even said to my friend, "Dad, why are you still with Mom? Why don't you divorce? I wouldn't put up with it myself." Ugh. My friend's explanation is that after 35 years of marriage, he can't abandon her now, because she'd fall apart; she just needs careful handling sometimes.
214: At one point I did, and he said if she ever cheated on him, he'd use that as sufficient reason. I didn't think to ask him at the time to articulate what parenting lines he would consider to be triggers. He is not willing to lay any groundwork/documentation now to prepare for the off-chance he finds himself in a custody battle some day.
I'm not terribly worried about you all knowing who I am. I would shit bricks if they discovered this conversation, and so I might clean it up tomorrow. (OTOH I know there's awful stuff that's buried in the years that I've said on this topic, under my pseud, and forgotten to clean up. Good lord I'm coasting on hopeful thinking.)
he'd use that as sufficient reason
Interesting wording. His?
218: More or less his words, subject to my memory. As in he can't conceive of a world where he can disentangle himself, and so he doesn't think about it, but he'd have no reservations if someone handed it to him on a silver platter.
Assuming he's Jewish, have your brother convert to Orthodox. Problem solved.
217: I'll say that I'm pretty sure you've never said anything this bad. Sisterly pique about feeling isolated from your brother, but nothing where I was worrying about him, rather than thinking that he was kind of an ass to let his wife treat you that way. So if you clean this up, I wouldn't worry much about the rest of the archives.
206.1: Oh, dude, UNG pulled this one*. It's the kind of boy-who-cried-wolf bullshit that makes it hard for genuinely suicidal people to be taken seriously. That aspect makes me just as angry as the emotional manipulation. Your SIL will be fine. Your brother should know that. He can't be responsible for ensuring it.
*At some point, he realized I might be okay with that and moved on to other threats.
221: That's reassuring. Thanks.
As in he can't conceive of a world where he can disentangle himself, and so he doesn't think about it, but he'd have no reservations if someone handed it to him on a silver platter.
Yeah. Been there. I really wish I could offer you some words for your brother so he's know it will be alright and he won't lose everything and he won't be responsible for her death or all of the other things he's terrified will happen if he leaves. I will say, Rory reaching the stage where she was rivaling and even exceeding him in maturity made a big difference. Maybe it will be the same for your brother.
I shouldn't comment on this topic while wondering why the bourbon is particularly strong tonight. But still.
224: You certainly shouldn't refrain from commenting out of fear that you'll step on my toes! I would love for his perspective to change. He's got unbelievable tunnel vision, except it's probably highly believable for anyone who was committed to a marriage and later desperately wanted out.
I have occasionally wondered if there were something that someone could have said that would have helped me to get out sooner. I wish I knew, because I would tell you and one or two other people.
A big game changer for me was some attention* from people that made me feel like I genuinely had my own, independent, real value as a person. The biggest game changer, though, was seeing him turn similar manipulation/abuse on Rory. I'd put up with someone treating me that way, but my kid? Oh hell no.
* Much of which attention, in retrospect, totally inappropriate. But whatevs. I've grown!
I've heard from another that what it took to open their eyes in a horrible marriage was an affair with a sane, considerate person. Who they didn't stay with for long, but they then left their spouse. Don't think I can orchestrate that from here, though.
You have access to a blog that is read in such otherworldly places as New Zealand. With a reasonably cooperative readership, you should be able to arrange affairs almost anywhere on the globe.
Yeah. And in my case it was romantic, attempted seduction-type attention. But I am not sure one way or the other whether the sexual tension aspect even mattered. Just feeling adored. Feeling like someone on earth actually thought I was amazing. I almost think it would have been more compelling from someone who wasn't trying to get in my pants. It's just too damned easy to get to a point in that sort of situation where you stop believing you even matter to anyone at all. I advocate finding as many ways as you can to make sure your brother knows you adore him, that you think he can handle anything, that he is strong.
228 is true. Calling all sluts on the Eastern Seaboard!
Also, his vision may not be as tunnel as you think. What we say and what we really believe are rarely identical. Doubts are really hard to be open about.
Setting him up with a New Zealand romance is about as adoring as it gets.
221: That's reassuring. Thanks.
I can second that impression, too.
As in he can't conceive of a world where he can disentangle himself
He knows he should leave. What purpose does discovering she's cheated on him serve? Does it help in explaining his decision to others?
231 makes a good point. If I had to guess, he's also terrified by the prospect of her pouring her energy into a horrific custody battle. Or I would be, at least.
He is not willing to lay any groundwork/documentation now to prepare for the off-chance he finds himself in a custody battle some day.
Doesn't seem like an off chance. Seems like about an 80% chance.
I have a friend going through a perhaps somewhat similar situation. Not with the email restrictions, but trying to get out of a marriage where is wife is genuinely disturbed and dysfunctional, to the point where there have been both (IMO manipulative) suicide threats and a genuinely really plausible fear but that the wife literally cannot take care of herself on her own. It's incredibly tough but he's finally filed the divorce papers this week.
No offense, but don't go into spy work or anything.
What purpose does discovering she's cheated on him serve? Does it help in explaining his decision to others?
My guess is that it's for strength in talking to her - something he could shove in her face and then stick to. As in, he could lash himself to that mast and weather the storm she'd bring if he said he was leaving.
237 made me laugh.
Does it help in explaining his decision to others?
This was a big concern for me.
Explaining the decision to others seems like a huge deal. In reality, it's not that big a deal, at least after 6 months or so. As I believe I'm the only multiply-divorced regular commenter I know whereof I speak, laydeez.
Why does he feel he needs to explain himself to her? I guess what I'm driving at is that I think he's looking for a way to not be responsible for the dissolution.
236: Been there. It was incredibly scary, the worst time of my life, and I almost chickened out a few times. That would have been even worse.
he's also terrified by the prospect of her pouring her energy into a horrific custody battle.
Yep, that was the explicit threat after "I might kill myself if you left" lost potency. I ultimately decided I was willing to fight that war, but actually talking to a lawyer revealed that I didn't actually have all that much to worry about. Therapists and lawyers are the best people ever.
As I believe I'm the only multiply-divorced regular commenter
Don't rush me!
Therapists and lawyers are the best people ever.
For a small fee.
Custody battles only are really scary when people start throwing around false charges of abuse or, worse, false sexual molestation charges. Otherwise you just get your court decree, divide up the time and you're good to go.
Explaining the decision to others seems like a huge deal.
Obviously I am not in his head, but he knows that friends/family are constantly accommodating her very, very rigid demands. I would have guessed that the role of being extremely hen-pecked in public would help offset how much you'd have to explain? Probably none of this is logical, and so not.
There's a deep sunk cost fallacy in relationships. I was hen pecked all these years! Better stick around and make it worth something!
Anyone involved in a terrible marriage, just watch the fine film "Possession" by Andrzej Zulawski like I did last night. Really puts our little troubles into perspective.
247: Sound like she's got a very effective reign of terror going. Near as I can tell the only way out of one of those is lots of relentless bridge-burning. He's not desperate enough yet.
246: In reality, yes. But, God, I was totally sucked in by the "I'm the real primary caregiver and I'll take your child away from you" and so forth threats.
That's the problem with relationships. People figure out what you are most afraid of and know how to use it to manipulate you. Fears make reality hard to see.
It would be good if someone else could talk to the wife and see whether she really would commit suicide, whether she realizes how controlling she's being, etc.
If she is unable to refrain from actively victimizing those around her then maybe she's not for this world. IME the world isn't that lucky. Her preference is to direct that shit outward and she'll just find someone else.
253: If manipulating fears was that effective as a tactic, people wouldn't need to murder so often.
255: Pour l'encouragement d'les autres.
Presidential, this hits close enough to home for me that I'm not knowing what to say, but Di and Haldord and Biohazard seem particularly wise to me. I'm so sorry you are having to live with this and that your brother and his children are in the middle of it too. I've felt a lot of guilt after my own abusive relationship about how hard it must have been for the people outside who knew something was wrong but still weren't able to intervene helpfully. What saved me was a professor who hired me to cat sit and added that I was welcome to stay in the house, whch I eventually did. I wrote about this on a recent survey about the good things her women's studies department has done, but that means that after a decade I still haven't thanked her properly. This stuff is so complicates on so many levels.
(I'm also multiply divorced, but there should be asterisks by them or something as both were long stories and obvious bad ideas from before the start. But.)
I've felt a lot of guilt after my own abusive relationship about how hard it must have been for the people outside who knew something was wrong but still weren't able to intervene helpfully.
I am more inclined to feel, if anything, pissed at the people outside who knew something was wrong. But then, most of my family had to be told more than once that it would be super if they didn't continue to hang out with UNG and, oh, maybe it would be nice not to great his new wife with hugs and kisses in front of me. It would have been helpful if such people* adored me a fraction as much as they loved UNG.
*One person in particular, really. Fuck said person.
That's the problem with relationships. People figure out what you are most afraid of and know how to use it to manipulate you.
The problem with relationships? Jeez, I thought that was what relationships are.
I honestly assume there's nothing that I can do. We've had frank conversations about divorce, but I don't bring it up constantly because I want him to continue to vent freely without feeling like I'm going to be a nudge. I'll be more explicit about how great I think he is, per Di's advice upthread, but other than that, it's his life to lead.
I don't mean that dismissively. Just that, fundamentally, each person is in charge of themself. It's not my decision to make.
261: Right. Not your decision to make, not your problem to solve. Support is good, more is bad.
261: No, exactly right. It's not dismissive, but respectful. You want the best for him, but also love him enough to respect his decisions. You are a good sister.
Or brother. I shouldn't be presumptuous.
Fuck. Such a wrenching night. 8 hours of remembering my friend and mentor with a whole bunch of his closest friends, many of whom I haven't seen in 15 years. It was fitting and proper to be there, but holy shit, that's more pain than I encounter in 8 months most of the time. It's a very hard life. And yet, not nearly so hard for me as for a couple of billion other people on this planet. But then, that was the whole reason I knew him and worked with him, wasn't it?
Too much death and pain and loss and grief. And I'm not the 6 year old girl whose father died. Shit. Fuck martyrdom and all that. I just wish we could all be together again.
Calling all sluts on the Eastern Seaboard!
You rang?
My sympathy to Nat, & Presidential's brother. How awful.
Personally, I prefer the phrase, "she's such a handsome woman."
Oh, just actually read through the thread! Sympathies to everyone whose life is so hard right now. Presidential, I'm really sorry about your brother. I feel like its often easy for men to overlook abuse because they're not trained to see themselves on the receiving end.
Anyways, I've only been divorced* once, but I should get extra points for still being under 30. My relationship was not nearly that level of abusive, but it was abusive, and over time I normalized increasingly shitty behavior as just what relationships were. My ex-husband left me (I'm ashamed to admit this was how it went), and after the fact I was amazed at how little I missed him. When I started dating, he tried to pull all the abusive shit on me again to get back together, but I had enough distance to see how terrible it was. Now, a year later, I'm in a healthy relationship, and I can't believe I stayed so long in a toxic relationship. Seriously, getting divorced feels like breaking out of prison.
But anyways, I think it's great you still speak to your brother, and let him know you're there for him. It sounds like you've told him your concerns, but even if you don't talk about it every time, knowing he has family who will back him up might make it easier for him to leave, even if he doesn't say so now or give you any indication. It might also be good to every once in awhile point out that something he mentions for really isn't normal, not in a "you should leave right now" way, but more offhand, just to make sure he's still questioning a little. I'm sure after 20 years he has no idea what a normal healthy relationship would even look like. I was really lucky to have a network of supportive friends during that time, and it really got me through tough times. Also, knowing I was married to someone whom anyone who had spent more than a little time with thought was a jerk really did help with the final break up, even if I didn't always acknowledge it at the time.
*(divorce still pending)
He is not willing to lay any groundwork/documentation now to prepare for the off-chance he finds himself in a custody battle some day.
Do you think he would mind if you and his other relatives were to document the things you've seen? Not like you're building a case against her, but just so that, if you should ever need to recall exactly what happened and when, you'll be able to.
269.3: Right too. "Normal" is all too often just whatever one can endure.