Modern Love: Lindy West and polyamory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she can at least monetize this into another show, then use the cash to DTMFA

You mean after he has taken half of the money in the divorce?

+1 she's not financially incapable of leaving. She's bringing all the $$ into this situation ship.

[Anonymous]

When a guy marries someone less successful and more attractive and lives with her cheating on him, that seems possible to understand in a framework that's neither "he deserved to be cheated on" nor "this whole arrangement empowers him." It can just be a trade-off he's making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She knew he had been divorced twice. She knew he was polyamorous and she chose him. She had agency, she got to decide what she wanted and she decided that she wanted someone who was twice divorced at a young age and into polyamory.

She made a competent choice as an adult. He he was was who she wanted. Now she is again doing what she wants as a competent adult with agency over her own life.

That part. Let her cook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When a guy marries someone less successful and more attractive and lives with her cheating on him, that seems possible to understand in a framework that's neither "he deserved to be cheated on" nor "this whole arrangement empowers him." It can just be a trade-off he's making.

I disagree that he's more attractive. Lindy is very pretty and photogenic, she's just also fat. Her husband is very generic and is also not thin or fit, he just happens to be less fat than she is. Obviously a lot of people are fat phobic, including Lindy herself, who absolutely views her husband as more attractive simply because he's thinner than she is. It's really sad.

I don't think anyone is suggesting she deserves to be cheated on, nor that the arrangement is empowering. Rather I think the main issue people have is that the whole idea of polyamory is being used to try and normalize a transparently bad relationship as merely an alternative lifestyle. Had Lindy entered into this arrangement willingly or enthusiastically, instead of her husband coercing her by lying and gaslighting, I'm sure people who hate polyamory would be mad about it but no one else would care. The reason people are worked up is because the language that Lindy uses to describe the situation herself indicates she does not like it, is unhappy, but also is clinging to the one shred of self-worth she derives from being married and feeling sexually attractive to this man and, now, his girlfriend.

It honestly sounds like her husband and his girlfriend realized Lindy was close to leaving but knew that they could reel her in by having the girlfriend claim attraction to Lindy. Because Lindy is starved for validation about her physical body, this was enough to pull her back into a relationship she knew was not working for but was afraid to leave.

Truly one of the saddest things I've read in a long time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weird people find weird people. I don't know how her husband could attract one person, let alone multiple at the same time.

So true. Goes to show there's a lid for every pot.

[Anonymous]

Lindy has a substack called Butt News. Today's was about the discourse about her:

https://buttnews.substack.com/p/people-are-allowed-to-want-to-be

Seems like more than DCUM is discussing her marriage/relationships. I was surprised that DCUM had mostly a consensus opinion. But seems like a lot of the country does, too.

AND she's at politics and prose tonight, anyone going?

[Anonymous]

Great episode of Blocked & Reported on her book within the last couple weeks.

Early in the book she even says he was seeing one other woman polyamorously and then admitted later that she was lying earlier and knew it was two.

Pretty good scam for a twice-divorced layabout with kids of his own already to move in with a breadwinner and keep messing around.

[Anonymous]

I heard an interview with her this morning on npr. It does sound like she just gave up. I hope they don’t have kids, that would be so messed up she claims to be happy but I noted at one of the words she used like“acquiesced”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope she can at least monetize this into another show, then use the cash to DTMFA

You mean after he has taken half of the money in the divorce?

+1 she's not financially incapable of leaving. She's bringing all the $$ into this situation ship.

That’s terrible, the two cheaters are sponging off of her?!

[Anonymous]

I’m not going, but she seems to be handling the public discourse with some level of grace, which is great for her. If she says she’s happy and in love, then that’s great for her.

I’ll always love her Love Actually movie review. Absolutely legendary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lindy has a substack called Butt News. Today's was about the discourse about her:

https://buttnews.substack.com/p/people-are-allowed-to-want-to-be

Seems like more than DCUM is discussing her marriage/relationships. I was surprised that DCUM had mostly a consensus opinion. But seems like a lot of the country does, too.

AND she's at politics and prose tonight, anyone going?

Look I'm glad if she's happy and in general feel very live and let live about whatever way people want to set up their personal, consensual, adult relationships. If she had not written about this in the book or done that NYT interview and I just heard through the grapevine that Lindy West was in a polyamorous marriage with a man and a woman and they were happy, I wouldn't care one way or another.

The way she has written and spoken about this arrangement is sending up a lot of red flags for me. I have been in a a situation where someone tried to gaslight me into something I was very uncomfortable with by shaming me for being too "limited" or "closed-minded" to want to have the sort of relationship they wanted to have. Lindy's comments on her situation immediately made me think of that situation, and how for years I really did believe that my disinterest in a polyamorous, open, pansexual relationship for myself was the result of me being repressed. It was only via therapy and work on myself that I finally addressed the critically low self-esteem that had me thinking I needed to change what I wanted out of a relationship to accommodate someone who simultaneously claimed to love me but also thought I was very basic and needed to change everything about me to be more like them.

Could I be projecting my own situation onto West? Sure! But I can only call it like I see it and you can't write a whole-ass book about your marriage and relationships and then be surprised when people have thoughts and feelings about it.

[Anonymous]

I have a hard time believing that neither she nor her partners realized that writing/speaking about this relationship the way she has would cause many people to question whether this is something she even wants and whether it's healthy.

She could have written an essay about her relationship as it is now, with the same positive take as in her recent blog post, and I'm sure some people would have been critical (because they would be critical about any non-hetero, non-monogamous relationship) but no one would be like "Free Lindy!"

It's very obvious that the only discourse is focused on how she describes this polyamorous situation starting, and how she didn't want it, and how they almost broke up over it multiple times, and how he started seeing this other woman without telling her, and how she cried and was torn up about it for a very long time. Like how do you read that and then get to the part where she's like "but then I decided to try it out and it's great" and not question it?

It would be weird if people didn't think there were red flags here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great episode of Blocked & Reported on her book within the last couple weeks.

Early in the book she even says he was seeing one other woman polyamorously and then admitted later that she was lying earlier and knew it was two.

Pretty good scam for a twice-divorced layabout with kids of his own already to move in with a breadwinner and keep messing around.

Ugh!!! Everything about this man makes me want to throw up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She knew he had been divorced twice. She knew he was polyamorous and she chose him. She had agency, she got to decide what she wanted and she decided that she wanted someone who was twice divorced at a young age and into polyamory.

She made a competent choice as an adult. He he was was who she wanted. Now she is again doing what she wants as a competent adult with agency over her own life.

She used that agency to make laughably terrible decisions that she now had to cope her way through.

If someone wrote here asking for advice about saying a twice divorce man with kids who made significantly less than her and demanded polyamory, this place would tee off on her for a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great episode of Blocked & Reported on her book within the last couple weeks.

Early in the book she even says he was seeing one other woman polyamorously and then admitted later that she was lying earlier and knew it was two.

Pretty good scam for a twice-divorced layabout with kids of his own already to move in with a breadwinner and keep messing around.

Ugh!!! Everything about this man makes me want to throw up!

The only thing I can think of is that she’s using this book & this essay to really ruin his reputation and make him look like an irredeemable leech.

I hope she has a prenup.