Could you stay married to a TRA?

Sorry prawn 💐

Sorry for your struggles @SapphosRock. I think ultimately that if this pushback doesn’t end fairly quickly it’ll probably be her that turns against you and pushes you away sadly x

Thanks for the welcome, Sapphos. I'm touched. I've been a bit quiet because I've been helping care for my parents out in the country. I've been living in a kind of emotional bubble. They're 90+ and have carers coming in four times a day. We're extremely close - they were a tower of strength after DH died when our DC were still at primary school. DF died very peacefully last Friday. It's been a weird yet beautiful year.

The two of you should throw your phones in a bloody river and commit to enjoying your relationship.

For me, whether I could stay with someone would depend on whether I thought their beliefs were a) due to them being bad, mean, stupid, or pretending in order to fit in, or b) whether they were a good person who genuinely believed their approach was the right one.

It very much sounds like your wife is in the b) category and she sounds like a genuinely good person. For me, this would be enough for me to stay with someone, if we agreed on most other important issues and values in life.

I hope this doesn't come across as rude as I love this board and have learned so much here - but I would be wary about using this board as your only source of advice on your relationship. I say this because for many people on here this is the ONE key issue right now and they wouldn't be able to get past it. Whereas in real life, there are many good, kind, intelligent people who fall on both sides of this argument, or somewhere in the middle (which is probably where I am). I have plenty of friends who are lovely, clever and excellent critical thinkers, who are definitely more on your wife's side on this issue.

That said, I can see that it is very hard to find neutral places to discuss this, and I worry about your counsellor not being neutral. I hope counselling will at least give you some good tools for agreeing to disagree! You can always carry on venting/discussing on here, if it's something you can't do at home!

Personally from what you say I think it would be a great shame for your relationship to end over this, but I wish you the best of luck either way.

"I just want to pedantically pick up on something some OPs have said, and that I've seen elsewhere online, about respecting different opinions. I think respect is an unnecessarily high bar."

That's an interesting distinction. Maybe I mean more respect that the other person has a different opinion than the opinion itself. I don't think the belief in this case stands up to a moment's logical thought. But then I would say the same of e.g. homeopathy and I still manage to have good friends who are believers or even practitioners.

This particular belief has built in wards to try to prevent believers from thinking about it. Religion does that too in some way, belief itself in the face of doubt is presented as a virtue. Gender belief does that in a more negative way than most religions with even asking questions presented as morally dubious. It sort of makes people police their own thoughts.

Oh dear, it does sound like your wife is deeply enmeshed, Sappho. It isn't just a case of differing and very contradictory beliefs, but a whole way of life for her.

Changing her mind or least accepting you haven't been brainwashed, is going to involve walking away from her friends and, it sounds, her entire social life.

Could you move somewhere else? Getting away from that toxic crew to be by yourselves might be your best chance to work things out?

I used to think the TWAW mantra was pretty harmless as long as organisations felt able to apply the Equality Act exceptions when it mattered for single sex provisions. In particular making women's refuges and organised sport single sex. I never did (and still don't) think public toilets are a big deal.

As women become aware that the mantra 'TWAW' is far from harmless, that orgnisations cannot and will not apply Equality Act exceptions to protect girls and women's safety, dignity and privacy they also eventually realise that public toilets are a big deal.

This incredibly important and informative speech by Professor Clara Greed should be required viewing:

A Woman's Place is to be heard (Clara Greed, Bath, 1st November 2018)
"Professor Clara Greed is Professor of Inclusive Urban Planning at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and a specialist in toilet provision with particular emphasis upon women's needs."

It was word of mouth, @InvisibleDragon. Specifically about grooming language in romantic fraud. Fascinating.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v91g

Who would want to even consider agreeing with hateful bigots?

Yes, and that's a lot of the time the reason they get so incandescently angry when they get backed into a corner and their position is exposed for what it is, and how they can maintain such a high level of cognitive dissonance.

Plenty of people who are clever and kind etc are fully on board with it.

This is the problem, these people are not simply fools. Once people have taken a position, especially a kind one that they get praise for and that is considered progressive, it's incredibly hard to rollback from it.

Who would want to even consider agreeing with hateful bigots?

It's incredibly frustrating that this ideology has so little compassion that it can divide previously close relationships.

I hope you and your wife can tolerate each other's views until this is over. Surely something else will be dominating discussions in 10 years time?

pickleme that radio 4 program sounds really interesting - is it still available to listen to?

To me, the 'desperate to fit in' does apply a bit in this situation, because of the unreasonable behaviour of the friends. If someone publicly calls you a 'Nazi bitch' it is not usually you that has to grovel and apologise. And yet ...

I completely agree with you that this feels like grooming behaviour. Over time the bar is raised higher and higher (or the frog boiled a little more) until you're both condoning (towards others) and accepting (towards yourself) unequivocally abusive and bullying behaviour.

I have a huge amount of sympathy for both Sapphos and her wife, because I've been the boiled frog and it is emotionally very very tough to make a perspective shift from 'these people are my friends and we are fighting for justice' to 'these people are bullies and I have been complicit / participated in abusive behaviour'.

See I don't think this is really true, from sappho's wife's perspective. "She's like the kid desparately to fit in with the cool gang and is happy to shit on you amd anyone else out there in the process to do achieve their approval."

It's more that Sappho and her wife were part of a lovely group of progressive people, happily supporting each other's challenges and changing the world for the better, protecting the vulnerable etc. Sappho suddenly decided to join the bad guys, abandoning her friends and wife and leaving them to fight intolerance alone.

Unfortunately that group was captured and changed its purpose radically, which is why Sappho left, but the people within it didn't notice. They still think they are fighting on the side of the angels, that they are protecting the vulnerable etc. They've been groomed.

There was an interesting programme on fraud on radio 4, about grooming people for fraud purposes, how the fraudster uses emotive language, establishes a scenario where it's not unexpected that they will need to ask for money because it's the nature of the business they are in and a sign of success. They use emotive dramatic language about how much it hurts their soul etc.

It's worth a listen. Join a group, be the neediest person there who needs looking after. Train everyone to protect you at all costs. Put yourself in places you have no right to be and make it known how terrified you are about that, how it hurts your soul to be rejected.... cue everyone dashing to protect you from the situation you should not be in and yet have chosen to be there.

Hand hold @SapphosRock. I've read many of your posts and have seen how your views have changed over time. It must be incredibly hard to be so at odds with the woman you love.

I just want to pedantically pick up on something some OPs have said, and that I've seen elsewhere online, about respecting different opinions. I think respect is an unnecessarily high bar. I know it's out of fashion but I think tolerance is a more achievable aim e.g. I can tolerate a person believing humans can change sex but I can't respect it because it is demonstrably false. I'd also like to make the distinction between respecting a person vs respecting their views. I can respect a person, in the round, who believes in something demonstrably false, but that respect would likely take a dent because I would wonder at their critical thinking and incomprehension in a way I hadn't before.

Very best of luck with the counselling, I really hope it works out. I'm glad to hear you've made connections with local feminists. Irl connections are essential

Yeah, I used to think being kind and understanding meant that they'd be kind and understanding back. They're the modern day equivalent of colonists though, and we're the natives who need "educating" into their doctrines.

I can't advise or have an opinion, Sapphos, but I'm sorry you are going through this.

I think that's unfair tbh. Plenty of people who are clever and kind etc are fully on board with it. Dismissing them in that way gets us nowhere. Why do sensible intelligent women have these views? It's important to understand. I can't understand it at all.

Sapphos used to be v TWAW. She says she slowly realised that it didn't make sense etc.

So I suppose question to Sapphos is why you used to feel that way.

"She's like the kid desparately to fit in with the cool gang and is happy to shit on you amd anyone else out there in the process to do achieve their approval."

Well put.

Oh wow Sapphos

It takes s fair amount to get banned! So she's been vocal for a fair old while.

Oh ok yes swerf is the term.

Swerf is about, essentially, buying and selling sex is great and just like working in an office or buying a loaf of bread and anyone (female) who disagrees is dried up old prune who is jealous of young attractive women making £££ in a great job from their straying husband's

While terf is

Anyone (female) who disagrees that men are women if they say so is a.. ? Well similar arguments to an extent.

I mean we all know these but the ongoing mystery is why for a very long time swerf and terf have gone hand in hand.

On the face of it they are very different issues.

OTOH they are both things that groups of men think are good things to be allowed...

What i find striking from your posts is this isn't merely about a difference of views.

Its about her wanting to fit in and be accepted by a toxic group who have a negative impact on you.

She's like the kid desparately to fit in with the cool gang and is happy to shit on you amd anyone else out there in the process to do achieve their approval.

You should be her priority, but you are being put second to this desire to 'say the right thing' to be part of the in crowd.

In saying she could lose her job because of your membership of women's rights groups she is being emotionally manipulative and coercive.

She can not see the problem with any employer who takes this view. Instead she's almost defending it rather than condemning it as appalling (and probably illegal).

It isn't just that she believes TWAW. Its that she thinks the tactics of intimidating and bullying are legitimate and she's either supportive of it or too cowardly to denounce it - even privately in a safe environment.

I don't see this belief stopping where it currently is for this reason. My suspicion is that it will escalate and become gradually more aggressive in tone and demanding that you too comply with it.

I feel that your relationship is doomed because of it. The respect between you has gone. Your boundaries are being pushed and I bet it gets worse.

I hope I'm wrong.

I don't know, maybe I mixing things up.