Monday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Would you tell DH’s AP’s husband?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she has just confirmed that her husband has been having an affair. Her husband says that he has now ended the affair but the original poster has considerable anger towards her husband's affair partner. Feeling that the affair partner deserves to have her marriage blown up in the same manner that the original poster has been, the original poster is considering informing the affair partner's husband about the affair. This is a topic that comes up with some regularity in the relationship forum. Generally, as in this thread, posters tend to lean toward disclosure. Not only are several of those who respond interested in vengeance, but they argue that an unsuspecting spouse has the right to know about the affair in order to make informed decisions. The risk of a cheating spouse spreading a venereal disease is repeatedly cited as a justification. On the other hand, some posters argue that this could simply be making a bad situation worse. It could make recovering from the affair more difficult and create an enemy who might complicate things. These posters urge the original poster to focus on saving her marriage if that is what she wants or preparing for divorce if that is her desire. They argue that informing the affair partner's spouse would only be a distraction that would do no good. A number of posters who have been in this situation described their experiences. Those that informed the affair partner's spouse generally seem pleased with their decision. Some found it satisfying for the revenge factor and others encountered cheated-upon spouses eager to learn details that their spouse had hidden from them. There were some bad experiences, however. One poster said that the women with whom her husband had an affair convinced her spouse that the poster was crazy and the affair partner's husband even contacted the poster's husband to discuss her mental health. In another case a poster informed the husband of her husband's affair partner and he showed up at their house with a gun. He threatened the poster's husband, scared their children, and made a huge scene in front of all the neighbors. One of the most common justifications for not telling was the impact it might have on the other couple's children. However, many posters felt that any negative impact on the children was the fault of the cheaters. Eventually this thread transitioned to simple back and forth between the "tells" and the "don't tells" with nobody really adding anything new.

The second most active thread was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum and titled, "What did Fauci actually do wrong?". The original poster argues that most of the criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci is politically-based and is not well-founded. She believes it is unfair and does not reflect the truth of Fauci's long service to both Democratic and Republican presidents. I had not seen this thread until now and, if I had, I would probably have deleted, locked, or moved it. I still might. This is a fairly political topic that is probably more appropriate for our Political Discussion forum. Moreover, topics involving Dr. Fauci always seem to bring out the crazies. The first and most vociferous criticism of Fauci involves masks. Posters accuse him of lying about the effectiveness of masks and wrongly telling the nation that masks were not necessary. I have long been confused about the partisan attitudes towards masks. I sort of get the feeling that the people who don't like masks in the first place and who claim that they don't work are the same ones criticizing Fauci for his initial statements regarding masks. Making things more complicated is that Fauci's position regarding masks has been greatly distorted in the right-wing media. Fauci's original position that masks were not necessary was based on the shortage of masks at the time and a misunderstanding about how COVID was spread. Once COVID was better understood, Fauci became a proponent of masks. In addition, as several posters point out, Fauci is blamed for many of the unpopular COVID measures, such as school lockdowns, for which he is not responsible. In reality, Fauci was a fairly early proponent of reopening schools. Other posters see Fauci as a hero who took a position in the Trump administration despite that putting him in a virtually unwinnable position. They believe that he did the best that he could in very difficult circumstances. As expected, this thread attracted at least one crazy poster. This one was vehemently anti-Fauci, eventually posting at leat 35 times. Mostly the poster stuck to calling anyone who offered even the most modest defense of Fauci a "moron" or an "idiot". The poster insisted that Fauci had lied about masks, was wrong about nearly everything, and was completely dishonest. This poster's response to one Fauci defender was, "I bet you justify and condone behavior of spouses who cheat and abusers of children." If there is anything good that can be said about this thread, it is that the fixation on masks kept posters too busy to engage in the more outlandish accusations such as Fauci being responsible for the COVID virus in the first place. Nevertheless, I decided to lock this thread.

The next most active thread yesterday was the Gaza war thread that I've already covered and will, therefore, skip today. After that was a thread titled, "How did you meet your spouse/partner?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster asks others how they met their spouses, what age they were, and how long they had known each other before getting married. She describes her own story, saying that she had just moved to DC and the only person she knew in town introduced her to the man she would eventually marry. They were married 2 1/2 years later at age 29. A number of posters met their spouses while in college and generally got married shortly after graduation when they were in their mid-twenties. Others, often being slightly older, met through online dating. Several posters remarked that online dating seemed to be more successful a decade or so ago than it is today. Match.com, in particular, was cited by many posters. One poster was literally "the girl next door", meeting her eventual husband when she was 17. They didn't start dating until a few years later and got married when she was 26. Other common methods of meeting were through mutual friends and, of course, through work. One poster dated a woman exclusively through college, but then broke up a year after graduation. At the age of 55, he bumped into her again. She was widowed and he was divorced. They moved into together 5 years later. That was 10 years ago. Another poster was in a long distance relationship with her boyfriend from college. A guy with whom she had mutual childhood friends mentioned to the friends that if she ever broke up, they should let him know. When her boyfriend broke up with her, her friends invited her to a concert to "cheer her up". The guy who who had expressed interest in her made up their foursome. They dated for 3 years before getting engaged and then married a year after that. They have now been married for 27 years. Several of the stories involved long friendships before marriage. As one poster noted, this shows that the "didn't want to risk the friendship" thinking is flawed. This thread was infested by a troll who insisted on attacking other posters. While the troll claimed to be married, she didn't bother sharing her own story. Instead she attacked posters who she believed had too great of an age difference from their spouse. The troll would eventually post 19 times in the thread. This poster was consistently off-topic and abusive toward other posters. It is sad to see head cases such as this take over threads.

The last thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Why does Biden keep pushing free handouts for college?", the original poster is incensed by President Joe Biden's latest plan to excuse student loan debt. The original poster has several objections. She thinks that those who took out loans should pay back what they agreed to pay. She believes that Biden is attempting to buy votes with the gesture. Moreover, she thinks that this is leaving the root cause of the problem — the high cost of college — unaddressed. Finally, she believes that another group of students is either taking on debt now or will do so soon and, in a few years, will also be expecting their loans to be excused. This is an issue that tends to divide posters along age groups. Younger posters generally support loan forgiveness while older posters oppose it. One reason for this is that the older generation was not encumbered with large loans because college was so much cheaper back then and they have a hard time understanding the burden loans now place on many people. I am not going to read much of this thread because I am all too familiar with the arguments from previous threads. Instead, I'll go through the original posters objections. Regarding the first point, those being forgiven now have paid back, or will be required to payback, the amount of their loan or more. What is being cancelled is interest that, in some cases, amounts to more than the principal of the original loan. The principal of the loans either have been or will be paid back. The accusation that Biden is "buying" votes is not persuasive. Politicians are expected to implement policies that are popular with voters, particularly those that voted for them. When Republicans cut taxes for the rich, they put money directly into the pockets of their wealthy supporters. Biden putting money into the pockets of his much less wealthy supporters is no better or worse. Unless the original poster is willing to oppose any policy that is financially rewarding for a political leader's supporters this is not a compelling argument. Regarding the high cost of college and the failure of policies such as this to address it, the original poster has a valid argument. In a perfect world, I am sure that Biden would like to see the cost of college reduced. But Congress has opposed his attempts to take steps in that direction such as his plan for free community college. Often in politics the perfect option is not available so we are left to accept less than perfect solutions. This is one of those cases. Finally, the original poster's last point, that a new generation will take on debt with the assumption that their loans will be forgiven, might be her strongest argument. First of all, I am not sure that is a bad thing. But in contrast to the older generation that has had trouble relating to the burden of large student loans, those who have struggled with such loans understand it all too well. I think they have been successful in passing that awareness on to those who might be considering loans. Perhaps I am naive about this, but, in my admittedly rather limited world, I see a much greater reluctance to rely on college loans than I observed in the past. Colleges, parents, and students all seem to understand the importance of paying for college without relying on loans. So, again maybe I am wrong, but this may be less of a problem in the future.