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Wellness Wednesday for October 11, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I'm not sure it is inconsequential. Moreso if there's any plans for children and one would like a partner who could help guard against their kids getting sucked into this zeitgeist and not compromise with beligerent forces.

I wonder if the last decade of "Who cares, like it really matters, this doesn't affect anything" line IRT LGBTQ issues has led us to this fractious and confused state, where it's been revealed that of course it's consequntial, and in ways big and small affects sports, schools, prisons, women's spaces, law, dating dynamics, corporate duties and expectations, etc. And while that boulder was probably coming any way, I think its mass and power could have been shrunk a bit if more people in their various personal relationships were adamant in calling it as nonsense, and not treating their brain as a private refuge to keep hidden from others in order not to rock the boat.

IME many women I know are very receptive to LGBTQ framings - their husbands and BFs less so. But the men just kinda shut up about it. I know some very Trumpy anti-woke ex-mil guys who allow their wives to take their children to BLM protests and Pride painting sessions, and all they do is grimace and bite their tongue "as long as she's happy". This is simultaneously wholesome and admirable, and also infuriating. Infuriating because this feels too similar to the larger societal pattern of rolling over on LGBTQ issues because somebody (usually a woman or a minority) might be made uncomfortable, with predictably negative consequences.

He can weigh his own scales after this event. I don't think he should take any advice here going one way or another too close to heart. On some level it seems silly to consider breaking up over (ugh) politics, and I'll assume everything else about their relationship is going swimmingly, more or less. Then again, she's basically accused him of having bigoted opinions, and that's awfully close to being a bigot proper. I'd be wondering if there's anything else touching this topic that might prompt this reaction. This is either a trifle or the tip of an iceberg, and you won't know which without more time running into it.

The only other conflict in our relationship is that she doesn't like one of my hobbies (I'm into partner dancing, and she gets jealous of me dancing with other women). Politics has certainly never been an issue.

Her response was telling though. She seemed to see this belief as different from other kinds of belief. My other political beliefs are just politics, but this is being a good person. Kind of a textbook example of why I dislike identity politics, it makes everything personal.

Incidentally, she did bring up our future kids. She asked me how I would respond if one of our children came out as non-binary. I answered that I would expect nonbinary identity labels to have fallen out of fashion by the time our kids are teenagers (edit: apparently the term already peaked a couple of years ago)

I think I'm probably going to just not bring it up and hope that she forgets about it. I barely know one of the guys in question, and I've never met the other. If she presses the matter, I'll probably just concede and then avoid talking about them.

(I'm into partner dancing, and she gets jealous of me dancing with other women).

Noooooo :(

I feel for you man. We are in surprisingly similar situations, hah. Although my girlfriend loves partner dancing thank god.

Understandable, and a fair enough play. Despite my last post, I'd probably do the same.

One does lament, though.