Talk about marriage: an anonymous place for the things you cannot say at home

Why people talk about their marriage to strangers

A marriage is the one subject you cannot discuss with the person it concerns, and often not with friends either, who know both of you. That is why the stories here are so direct. Long term marriage, feeling betrayed was written by someone who had not told anyone in real life. I hate my wife but I don't know what to do got thirty-eight replies from people who had either felt the same or been the wife. I think I want a divorce is three lines long and got thirty-one answers.

The people replying are not counselors. They are other members, under a pseudonym, many of them married or divorced, and they are allowed to say what friends cannot.

The themes that come back

Reading the marriage threads together, a handful of situations account for most of them.

• Betrayal, discovered or suspected. The thread on how to forgive a cheating husband is about the staying road; the cheating suspicions guide covers the sorting of signs, which is the same inside a marriage.
• A marriage without love, kept for the children, the money or the family, as in the loveless marriage of convenience. The replies there are about what the author is really protecting.
• Sex, or its absence, as in sex with husband: the stories are frank and the replies more so.
• The in-laws and the family around the couple, from parents blackmailing someone into marriage to the dozens of stories in the mother-in-law category.
• Divorce, before and after: how to stop caring and move on from this divorce is the after.

What the replies do that friends cannot

Friends take sides, and they take the side of the person telling the story. The replies here do not know either of you. They ask what the other person would say, whether the problem has a beginning, whether the author has said out loud at home what they wrote here. In the thread about hating a wife, the most useful replies came from people who recognized the stage the author described, and named it: exhaustion with small children, resentment that has never been spoken, or the end of something. Naming the stage does not fix it, but the author knew which conversation to have next.

The replies also refuse to say "leave" or "stay" on the author's behalf. What they do, in thread after thread, is describe what each choice cost the people who made it.

Writing about your marriage without exposing it

Describe the situation and the history, not the people. Leave out names, the town, professions and anything that would let someone who knows you recognize the couple; your spouse did not agree to be described. Readers do not need those details to understand the stage you are in. You sign in with an existing account and only a generated pseudonym is shown; stories are reviewed before publication, and the replies are reviewed afterwards.

When it is not safe

A few of the marriage stories describe fear rather than unhappiness: threats, control of money, violence. The replies change register in those threads and so does this page: a domestic abuse helpline in your country can be called without your spouse knowing, and that call comes before any discussion about the marriage.

Questions and answers

Is this a marriage forum?

It works like one: a story starts a thread, other members reply with their point of view, and the conversation continues under each reply. Everything is public and pseudonymous.

Can my spouse find my story?

Not through the site: no name, no email, no profile beyond a generated pseudonym. They could recognize the situation if you include details only they would know, so leave those out.

Do people here recommend divorce?

Some do, some do not, usually from their own experience. The replies that help are the ones that describe what each road cost them.

What if there is violence?

Then the marriage discussion waits. Call a domestic abuse helpline in your country; it can be done without your spouse knowing.