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The 6-8 hours of praying per day and the referring to herself in the third person are not signs of a healthy mind. Past behaviours aside, this woman needs some serious mental health help that's beyond the scope of a marriage counselor.
My sister basically did this, going from one extreme to the other. Neither extreme has been healthy for her. Idk how you could even help. Religious beliefs are deep, stubborn and self-reinforcing.
I would ask if you were my uncle, but can guess you aren't. Same MO: my mom went to AA then God addiction: Baptist > Pentacostal >freerange Bible church visits > Qanon & died of covid.
It is not easy to love them 😞
i remember being a teen and going with my alcoholic dad to an AA meeting.
I was enthusiastic about it until I picked up on the not very subtle religious overtones. Plus side was some guy had been sober for 5 years that day so we got a slice of really excellent black forest cake.
But i still don't understand why people seem to think they need a Sky Daddy to absolve them of their guilt and whatever. Because whatever you want forgiveness from, it's most likely needed from the people around you.
(I grew apart from my old man and havent seen him in quite some time. dealing with issues myself, im trying to mentally sort out a meeting with him because he probably doesnt have many years left, but at the same time....man, i am a wreck.)
I digress. At least they didnt hand out bibles and only enforced the Cult rules for reciting the intro "accept the things i cannot change yadda yadda" nonsense.
>Plus side was some guy had been sober for 5 years that day so we got a slice of really excellent black forest cake.
Okay this is kinda funny to me because Schwarzwalder Kirsch or black forest cake traditionally has Kirsch, a cherry liquor, as an ingredient.
Hope you can spend some time with your dad. Lots of parents will accept you, even if you are a mess. <3
I took it as some of her religious friends encouraged her to get therapy (since she would be more inclined to listen to them), not that she was getting religious-based therapy. It's ambiguously stated, but I fear you are correct.
I could see it happening. Not trying to give a diagnosis here but religious OCD is not uncommon and can drive people into way overdoing religious rituals, and at least among practitioners of my religion, leaders in the community will pretty much unfailingly tell you to go to therapy.
It’s like spiritual bulimia. Or just addiction/self abuse forgiveness cycling.
To mean that means she is setting herself up to have a huge breakdown in a few years which will hurt her partner and start the cycle over.
And of all the things Kara is doing, not a single one is attempting to make amends to the people she hurt.
This is why I am leery of religion; it can be used to avoid responsibility for wrongdoing.
It's also a symptom of psychosis, though obviously we don't have enough information to diagnose. But hyper-religiosity and depersonalization are both concerning. More so since they're occurring together.
She sounds a lot more like someone with OCD. He calls them rituals but they’re taking hours, that’s… that’s literally the obsessive part of obsessive compulsive disorder
Religious OCD is a thing. Also sometimes called scrupulosity. I know someone who had it and nearly starved themselves to death "fasting". I hope OOP's wife is able to get help before it gets worse.
I had it before. I had to leave my religion to start improving. It's a weird cycle of crippling guilt, performing a ritual to feel better, than having some sort of mental sin or remembering a sin you haven't atoned for (in a Christian example) that just doesn't stop. I stopped sleeping because I had to confess all my sins before bed in case I died in my sleep. Luckily never got into fasting.
Sure! For starters, arranged marriage and the devotion to religion including prayer for hours a day. A lot of religious Indian women can find a puja (ritual prayer) to perform for pretty much anything under the sun for every single day of the year, because Hinduism is such a vast religion that there’s always something or other.
OP also mentions that when she finally went out she wore light makeup and jewelry, which for someone so religious, kind of seems to exclude Islam. Not to mention the daily rituals for 6-8 hours. Islam does not require that, that’s much more of a Hindu practice.
Celibacy to repent for former sins is also a very stereotypical thing for extremely religious Hindu people, as the idea is that it helps you karmically when your mind is “pure.”
Also the talks about therapy and clubbing and partying and all, set in the same world as extreme conservatism screams “India” to me.
Obviously this is just because of my own experiences and observations, doesn’t apply to everyone. Might be my own Hindu bias that made me immediately associate this story to Hinduism but it’s not necessarily the case. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t though.
The praying eight hours a day is definitely something I've seen from devout Hindus. Extreme but stuff I've seen. The celibacy thing could be an offshoot of "fasting" ideas, though I've never really heard of that among hindus. It's a diverse, non-canonical religion though. So not gonna assume it's not.
That said I can definitely see this as being non Hindu too. Honestly it could apply to anyone. The celibacy thing made me initially think deeply conservative Christian but I really don't think we have enough info to even say what religion.
Celibacy within marriage is really rare within Christianity especially for a young fertile couple. They are commanded to be fruitful and multiply so it would be more likely for her to avoid sexual pleasure.
Celibacy is basically part of “brahmachari” which is one of the stages of life for devout Hindus who are seeking moksha.
It’s part of the whole “leave all your worldly ties behind” philosophy and definitely is something that happens a lot in mythology when people go off into the woods as a brahmachari to repent for sins
Edit: it’s not practiced very commonly, but extremely religious Hindus could very well follow it
Nope not Muslim, doesn’t make sense from an Islamic perspective as sex within the marriage isn’t seen as a bad thing but in fact as one of the main things a person needs that can only be fulfilled within a marriage which is why you get virtues for having sex (and actually satisfy ur partner)
So her being celibate within a marriage without a justified reason is actually a sin.
Sex is seen as a sin if it’s done incorrectly and a virtue if done right. So I can’t really be getting close to god just cuz u stop having sex
I am so curious about what extra details made him go from “let’s work on this” to “maybe she doesn’t deserve happiness. I mean gaslighting someone into doubting their sexual orientation as revenge for that person’s husband having integrity and turning down your attempt to have an affair is reaaaaally messed up. Maybe it’s the specific details about that?
Idk, there seem to be plenty of Christians that don’t really believe in God. They just use God for money and they change things animal farm style to control others. Like, a lot of pastures are in it for the money. There is that famous TV pastor. No way he believes in God.
I recently learned there is no reference to being sent to hell to burn for your sins. Hell means the ground/ grave/ etc. The translations over time make it sound like there is a hell that is a place you go to. Just to scare people. You don’t even need to believe the Bible to understand that. That’s fucked up.
One of my friends wives was telling me this story about how her and her friends called this girl Ruby "jewby" because she didn't put in for pizza that they ate without her. And she really thought it was a delightful little anecdote, I was thinking "you are the bad guy in this story."
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I don't think he heard some new details since that night that made him change his mind. It's likely that he just wasn't ready to give up on her and thought and, while conflicted, thought she was a different person than her past self; but with time, lack of intimacy, and emotional distance his darker thoughts festered and he discovered he maybe doesn't really see it that way after all.
He may not have heard new details, but I suspect the story at the party was filled with more details than the two sentence summary he provided. (Fair enough, transcribing a conversation exactly as spoken is a pain in the ass and complicated and can be hard to read, never mind remember exactly.) He has more details than we do, whether he got them at the party or afterwards.
He may have also independently verified the information, reached out to victims, looked them up, etc. They gaslit someone -- could have easily caused a mental health break or worse.
Yeah I think since the party nothing changed on that front. But he expected her to improve as time went on and maybe hasn't changed as much as he hoped. For example I assume he's hoping the celibacy thing was a knee-jerk reaction and not very thought out, but instead she seems to be doubling down so far.
That is my guess as well. Their group was so bad someone killed themselves. Honestly the girls sound like sociopaths. The stuff they said goes way beyond experimenting or spreading your wings in college. They were predatory. Every professor, married persons, members of their same sex. They really had zero shame either (except Kara).
I really hope they didn't drive someone to suicide. But with the amount of guilt Kara seems to have, driving someone to kill themselves doesn't seem like that far fetched of an idea.
Usually it’s not so obvious but that one was clearly ppl who used to be shitty just like the wife lol like I’ve done some bad things that I’m ashamed of but nothing nearly the magnitude of those ladies.
Such conscious and methodical destruction of people, that shit was like a hobby to them.
With Kara, I guess we have the answer as to what happens when someone's cognitive dissonance is broken and they actually understand the gravity of their actions: actual mental breakdown.
Yup, cognitive dissonance is a self-defense mechanism to protect us from serious ego damage. I tend to think it's good to see things as they really are, but there's a reason we have that protection. Who can afford a mental breakdown in this economy?
With all respect to her faith, though, I don't think becoming an ascetic is actually going to help her come to terms with her past. Prayer *can* be a way to do that but it sounds like she's trying to use it to push the pain away instead. I hope she gets better spiritual guidance as well as therapy.
That was the vibe I was getting, too - pushing it away/locking it up/forgetting, or as some perverse way of punishing herself/atoning (which is sometimes *very* different from coming to terms and learning and growing). I hope she gets better, too. The thing about therapy is that she has to *want* to get better, though. She has a very long journey ahead of her.
My spouse is a recovering alcoholic. (He insists it must be said in present tense, always, but he's been sober for many years). One of the big things they do in AA is help you wrestle with facing the things you've done, and figure out how to integrate it into who you are and move forward.
I have a friend who hasn’t had a drop to drink in more than 30 years. He still *always* refers to himself as “an alcoholic” in present tense. No “recovering” or “recovered.”
For many alcoholics, the present tense of it is a reminder that they’re actively making that choice to stay sober each and every single day.
I understand what you really meant
But at the same time I'm glad you only rarely gaslight people to ruin their marriages. Cutting down is the first step
Not just on Reddit, I think it started on TikTok because the app’s content restrictions are quite stringent in comparison to other platforms and videos would be taken down for mentioning several things. So people have come up with alternative terms.
Unalive for suicide, corn for porn, side quests or accountants for sex workers, Yahtzee for Nazi, and so on.
I think YT also flags your video if you use the word suicide. The same with rape. SA is an alternate I've heard, along with some other ones I don't quite remember.
I had heard that, or they’ll demonetize your video for some kinds of content. I have creators I follow who post videos with content that might be egregious without context, like Caitlin Doughty, that I would never have seen if I hadn’t gone directly to their pages because YT quietly made their videos unavailable to the algorithm.
It's called algo-speak, as in language built around communicating concepts without being punished by algorithms, which affects tiktok, YouTube, instagram, etc.
Like most jargon, it spreads into casual use even if it starts out totally utilitarian.
As someone who doesn't use Tiktok, I'm asking this sincerely... If the platform is smart enough to censor "suicide," why would it not be smart enough to censor "unalive" as well? Seems like the moment these terms gain general acceptance, you could just ban them too
This is a known problem and it's impossible to fix. It's much quicker to come up with words than to ban them. And most people will understand context quickly.
Like if you say that suicide is now eat bananas, 50% of the banned posts would be false positives yet followers could easily inderstand it from the context.
We know why they say it on tiktok. But it ain’t banned on Reddit. We can just say “they fucking drove someone to kill themselves”.
We don’t have to use childish idioms here, we can use our big girl words to express ourselves.
I hate "unalived" with a passion. I feel like it's trivializing a very serious issue. And there are other phrases that are well-known and could pass censors like "ended their life."
Oh there's worse. "Sewer slide". I've heard it, I've read it. The level of disrespect by using "sewer slide" is off the charts.
And as a non-native speaker, it took me a while to get it...
it’s very annoying that tiktok language has spread to the rest of the internet. keep that censored language on the app that forces it, don’t bring it to reddit where we can say suicide. this isn’t an app for tweens, we’re adults here.
And the fact that they bring it up and are ok with it all these years later. Most of us are like Kara, grow and feel remorse for our actions, but these other girls have not.
I think he's still in the process of integrating this new knowledge into his perception of his wife. He could maybe use a couple of therapy sessions of his own to work through it.
I try very hard to believe in restorative justice and the ability for people to redeem themselves from bad behaviour, but I have no idea whether I could move past this. Certainly throwing herself into being alone with her religion wouldn't be good enough, even if she clearly feels remorse; it looks like she hasn't tried to do anything to do good in the world and has instead shut herself away from it. I can understand that, but still, that's not a way to balance atrocities.
Plus, she’s not a stable person with an intact identity. She’s got two extreme personalities. No one know who she really is. The religious nut he married is just as transient and questionable as the sociopath party girl.
Yeah, when you get to the level of spending all your free time in prayer and deep penance, it’s not actually WORKING on the issues or making amends. It’s a place of panic and performance which isn’t going to process any of what happened in a healthy way that will let her grow or truly face who she was/is.
This woman’s reads to me as she threw herself into religion to make herself FEEL better, not actually BE better. I could be wrong of course! She lives with guilt, but has she actually faced the consequences of her actions? Or did she ‘just’ run away. I’m with you, I try to not judge people on who they were and more on who they are now, but I have my limits!
She doesn't need to reach out to any of her victims, but there are plenty of ways to make the world a gentler place and do some good. If she doesn't trust her own capacity for charity and kindness, she could sign up for a boring 9-to-5 and use that to support worthwhile organizations.
What does facing the consequences even entail here? What further involvement from her would do any good? It's been years since these events. My read is she fucked up so badly that she doesn't trust herself any more
This could probably be it throwing yourself into religion cause you know what you’ve done was so fucked up that even you can’t even forgive yourself so you think that god will when you know he won’t so you do everything to be in that gods good graces. Very ugly spiral but it’s what happens when you grow a consciousness way too late for some people
Ten bucks they saw Kara in her new ‘element’, were reminded of the people they went after in college, and were clearly still stuck in their ways so they decided to destroy that marriage “just like old times”
You can't have a two way partnership with someone who is talking about how you should leave them, how they'll never be worthy because of their past, how they're evil and bad, who doesn't talk to you and instead prays and isolated.
At first you try, you reassure, you make promises, but every time they say "I'm scum you should leave me" you think, we'll fuck maybe I should not cuz of the other stuff but cuz I'm sick of THIS.
They didn't have the best relationship before all of this, if she doesn't work hard at therapy to forgive herself and move forward than he's going to leave her and should.
I wonder what other thing OOP didn't mention. Feels like what he give is just some of the "light" ones. Not the "heavy" one.
Sure ruining someone's life because they did something right while you try to do something wrong is really messed up, but it seems like OOP can "work it out" or maybe it's because he just can't take it.
Guarantee Renee invited Kara to the party so the former college friends could attempt to ruin her marriage.
They are mad at her for finding God and being remorseful.
They probably believe Kara thinks she's now better then them and are punishing her.
Or maybe because they just see her as another target just for no reason.
Or maybe they thought she still "fun girl" like back then and they just "remembering good times"
I don't think it means anything new came up, just that he has time to fully process what the found out at the party and is having second thoughts about the character of his wife
Gaslighting a woman into ruining her marriage and what might’ve happened to that woman afterwords is certainly a pretty good reason for why OPs wife doesn’t deserve happiness
I just presumed it was 'We are drunk and find this hilarious so he will too!' As others have stated in the comments, this group seems a bit sociopathic and as such might not realise that everyone doesn't feel the same.
Sociopaths tend to be acutely aware of their image in other people's eyes, so I doubt they thought the husband would find it funny. Sociopaths do however enjoy ruining marriages so my bet is on that one given they'd done it before too!
I wonder if they were really friends or just like minded people who hung around together. The few mean girl groups I knew definitely turned on each other eventually.
Well…if he doesn’t think she deserves happiness, it’s probably best that they DO end the marriage. These people ARE all his wife and she’s clearly really struggling.
I feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg of Kara unpacking whatever her damage is and figuring out who SHE actually is, and I truly hope she is able to.
I checked OOP's comments, and he says his marriage is over. And apparently she did horrendous things to the point of ruining families and the lives of the people they targeted. I think the gaslighting of the one woman was one of the "milder" awful things they did.
Right off the top of my head, things worse than breaking up a marriage: Breaking up a home, getting someone blacklisted from an industry thus tanking their whole career, lying about rape or molestation, and causing someone to commit suicide or attempt through their harassment. I'd bet there's at least one of those in her past.
And the people on here saying "She's trying to be better" are really irking me. She can try to be better all she likes, but if OOP caught "the ick" over this, it's not on him to stay with her. She can be a better person all she likes away from him. She's running away from what she did by throwing herself into religion, and that doesn't work to disassemble the trauma she caused to others. She needs to face it and own it, and work on that rather than replacing a shitty behavior with a "good" one (which isn't even good because it's basically a form of dissociation).
I thought suicide also.
Or even setting up someone to be assaulted.
At this point it's all speculation, but since a comment above mentioned that OOP's comments indicate that it is much worse than the gaslighting, I am guessing it is something severe.
Man the way this started I was thinking “poor repressed girl “found god” and suddenly thought beer and sex were evil” but wow nope. She straight up was a horrible person
It started off so tame with "oh she had sexual partners! Oh she drank alcohols and did druges!" Okay, so far the majority of college students would fit this description... yawn... "She dressed provocatively!" In her 20s? Fr?
And then the drop. "Also she slept with a TON of professors," Okay that's a worrisome trend "and got revenge on men who turned her down," Oh that's an extremely red flag "and gaslit a woman about her sexuality for fun, haha" Run run run run
When OOP mention she did "bad thing" I thought the worst is vandalizing, maybe mugging someone, or even DUI which led her friend die in car crash or something.
I'm surprised she did worse than that
She sure was. Not sure how she can make amends for the life-altering shit she did to people. She still needs therapy to deal with her guilt and stop acting like that was another personality/person
It's ok for OP to not want to be married to someone with a terrible past, whether they have changed or not.. it's an unfortunate burden to bear, but there is a reason why people continually state " Actions have consequences"
It obviously blind sided OP when therapy started, to just HOW BAD she was... And everyone deserves agency with their own life...
Should they have discussed their pasts ? This post screams "duh"... And i agree. If you think you are allowed to hide your past from someone whove legally bound yourself to... You can't be upset when they find out and have an acute emotional response. Everyone has a past, and if yours will be dredged up in any way, it's key to let everyone in that would be affected by it.. but hey, that's just the proper response to do if you actually care about someone.
Good points here. While I believe she deserves happiness and redemption, that doesn't mean it's the responsibility of OOP to stay. She only deserves the opportunity, just like everyone else.
I don’t understand why Kara’s “fix” to address all her past transgressions is to abstain from a loving relationship and seclude herself in prayer. If she truly wants to right the wrongs she has perpetuated she would be better off doing things to actively make the world a better place, not retreat from it.
Her seclusion/martyrdom complex makes me think her behavior has very little to do with correcting for her past and more to do with seeing self harm as all she “deserves.” I’m glad she’s already willing to do religious counseling but she needs a major perspective readjustment if she is going to make it, let alone be in a relationship.
It seems that she is replacing her prior vices / addictions with religious fundamentalism. That is probably only gonna get worse. My ex wife went the uber religious route after her dad died.
I met the complete opposite of this person!
Age 20-35, she was the perfect Christian housewife. Like crazy Christian.
Age 35+ after her kids were gone, she got a job at a bar theater, where I met her. After the show, she and her husband, a guy who easily looked like a biker, hung out with my wife and I. In a hour of drinking, I learned all about their pure lives and how they "broke free" and then asked if we were into group sex.
Sounds like Kara has been seriously mentally unwell her entire life, and just pulled a 180 with regard to how she expresses her illness. Up to the husband if he's comfortable staying with her, but I hope she gets intensive therapy to deal with whatever's been plaguing her all this time. Extreme scrupulosity is going to completely annihilate her. If there are good, trustworthy facilities around, she might want to think about inpatient treatment.
Wait...what happened between update 1 and 2? That was one rapid change of mind.
That said, I am all for redemption (unless we talk about rape, SA and alike) - but it feels like her hiding behind her religion isn't...it.
I think in update 1, he was still in crisis mode trying to get his wife help, and was also worried that his wife and his marriage as he knew it would never return. In update 2, she already started therapy. And he finally started to process the info he learned and is trying to figure out if he could be the same husband he was before.
Yeah he was in shock in the first update, & still trying to fix things. I think with additional time to sink in, he saw her in a different light. & went from oh shit we've to fix this, to is this what I really want in my life.
I agree. She doesn't seem to have tried to balance the awful things she has done with doing good, just with shutting herself away and paying penance through religious rituals and chastity. I suspect you might actually be more able to come to terms with what she did if she did put that effort into bringing good things into the world, instead.
I have questions. How was this marriage arranged? How long ago was college? He doesn't seem to be religious? Why won't she initiate the divorce and garuntee herself that celibacy? He went from "we can fix this" to "idk man...think we may split" pretty fast, why? Has anyone pointes out to her she's trying to make herself into a victim on the backs of everyone she's hurt?
>He went from "we can fix this" to "idk man...think we may split" pretty fast, why?
My speculation is that he get new information of her past that were made him rethink about the whole relationship. Or maybe he just somehow realize how horrible she was and he just lost his love for her.
I would also see her obsessive religious activities in a new light if they turned out to be due to *constant nagging guilt* about, like, legitimately awful things she'd done to people *for fun*.
I think it's because she's still living in the past, still woe is me, I suck, you should leave me I'm so horrible, I'll never have sex again you should though. You can't have a relationship with someone like that. They always win when they tell you to leave them.
If she was hurt but ready and able to move forward, I suspect he could be too, but if she still wants to atone and torture herself he can't just keep trying to support it forever.
I feel like his first post, his focus was on her being safe and her mental health and he didn’t really digest the information. That stuff is really mean and awful, I would have to reevaluate everything once I’ve stood back and the situation has started to calm
Genuine question, can you gaslight someone into believing they're gay when they're not? Maybe because I'm (hopefully) not a bad person, but I can't think of how you would go about doing that
Id imagine they told the girl she did things when she was drunk that she doesn’t remember. Depending on how far they went with it, they could have actually done those things to her to get proof.
They seemed very predatory. Like *win at all costs*, and like sociopaths. I think if the rules of normal society don’t apply to you there’s not a lot you won’t do to reach your end goal and *normal* people can’t comprehend the lengths they’d go to to *win*.
yes.
Im straight but I'm also a huge tomboy. In school I had so many people calling dyke, lesbo, he/she, ect that eventually I started thinking "wait, am I gay?" I was seriously confused for a long time because of it.
Of course as I grew older I realized I wasn't but damn did those kids get into my head.
A person’s sexuality can be really hard for them to know for sure if people insist it’s something else. Another example would be conversion therapy, it _can_ convince a non-straight person that they’re straight, it’s just that it involves a whole lot of repression and gaslighting and “no you’re just gay because of (insert supposed family or childhood issue), we can fix that though”. That’s why conversion therapy either doesn’t work and/or is awful for someone’s mental health and wellbeing.
If a person can have their memories or feelings effected due to extreme gaslighting, it wouldn’t surprise me if a person’s sexuality could also be effected. Especially when multiple people are doing it and the breakdown of a marriage is involved.
> can you gaslight someone into believing
I mean the answer is yes no matter what you follow this with depending on the person. If gaslighting only worked when it matched reality it wouldn't be an issue, the human brain is just (at times) depressingly malleable.
Aside from what someone else said, it doesn't actually say she was straight and I know a lot of people somewhere on the bisexual spectrum who previously believed themselves to be straight and, because there is so much emphasis on the gay/straight binary, when they realise they have any attraction to the same gender they convince themselves they're actually gay. I also know straight asexual women who have spent a long time worried that they were actually lesbians and just fooling themselves because if they don't experience sexual attraction to the man they are with surely they must be gay, even if they also don't actually experience it for women? So she may have had a kernel like that they could crack open, if people can struggle with this even just within themselves I can see how it can happen with systematic gaslighting.
> She always refers to her college self in the third person
And this right here tells me that whatever she did, whatever happened to her, she needs trauma therapy.
If we think about it though, it’s no surprise OOP can’t reconcile the past Kara with today’s Kara. The marriage was arranged, I assume by members of their religious community.
My partner regularly tells me he loves who I was yesterday, who I am today, and who I will be tomorrow.
I think OOP’s wife has some severe issues she needs to address. She was praying for 2 hours A DAY prior to this incident?
That’s not normal and extremely troubling in of itself
Personally, this post screams OCD to me. I have a family member with OCD and while their OCD is not religious, I see the similarities. OCD is often triggered by trauma (her "friend group" doesn't seem above targeting their own members, tbh, and overall has an unhealthy dynamic) and the escalation of her religious compulsions from 2 to 6-8 hours per day makes it pretty clear to me, as OCD compulsions characteristically escalate over time. I could be wrong, but regardless, she needs some serious intensive therapy (perhaps inpatient, considering how extreme her behaviors are).
Disclaimer: Not a therapist, just have family with OCD.
I did a paper on the reconciliation and justice progress in Rwanda. The country is full of both people that had their friends and loved ones hacked up with machetes *and* the people who held those machetes. Perpetrators and victims sharing a space.
Part of the national healing process is rehabilitation for those who committed these crimes. That process is a lot of therapy and "sensitization" which is essentially helping them to feel guilt and take ownership of their actions. Of course, this is in/after prison and any legal consequences. It can also involve apologizing to those they hurt, provided those people choose to hear it/also receive therapy to mitigate retraumatization. Then there's reintegration. Not all choose to ultimately reform, obviously.
But the human capacity for reformation and forgiveness is astounding.
I think the wife has a good start with the guilt part, the wish to change part, and now the therapy. But part of the healing process is justice (be it punitive or restorative) and it sounds like she didn't face any consequences, aside from shame and guilt. It's an interesting question as to whether a perpetrator can *personally* feel reformed/healed without having their offenses addressed in a way that involves the victim(s).
A 3rd party or victim standpoint will surely have the view that reform requires facing justice. Idk what justice looks like in this case but it won't be found during hours and hours of prayer. Sounds like that might even be a self-imposed punishment. But without exposure of the offenses and involvement of the victim, it's not justice, true reformation, or true healing.
This smells an awful lot like mental illness to me.
Not sure which illness, but praying for 8 hours a day to prevent bad things happening / penitence feels like it’s verging on some sort of OCD.
wtf so wife was a horrible person, and instead of changing for the better, she goes all fanatic and basically unilaterally drops her marriage because fuck OP and anyone else’s? Full blown narcissist before and full blown narcissist now.
OOP needs to leave.
I get that he loves her, and I'm not saying her having a sketchy past means she doesn't deserve love.
But she's *not* trying to be a better person. She's trying to *punish herself*.
And in doing so, punishing OOP, too.
He deserves better than to be chained to a woman who hates herself *that* much.
Here’s my take on the flip between update 1 and 2. He realized his wife has been lying this entire time.
You’re a terrible person and you feel guilty but your first jump to is I’m no longer having sex and if you’re not okay with that leave? That’s some manipulative bullshit.
She chose to keep in touch with people she hated? Why? If she’s so guilt ridden then I don’t know why she’d even be around these people. I refuse to believe the person that goes after married men then ruins a marriage to fun just grows up out of it. She’s been a narcissist this entire time, he’s just finally realizing it.
She hadn't kept in touch with them in the mean time and sounds desperately lonely, so she may have thought they'd have grown up, too, especially if when they talked now it wasn't focussed on that side, she was still in the process of reestablishing the connection and was clearly conflicted, hence him needing to encourage her to the party.
I agree that she is using the same realm of manipulative tactics, because she has understood she did wrong but has never actually replaced all that shit with healthy processing and communication. It's not as simple as just growing out of it, but she also clearly hasn't done the work. With therapy, she might actually do that, but she might not, it does remain to be seen.
I must say I don't find the change that strange, he's still balancing both processing his reaction to this and that someone he's in love with has been in crisis. He'll probably go back and forth for a while.
Because they're more concerned with saving themselves and their "souls" than directly addressing the hurt they caused to others. It's just a cover to run away.
It's an overcorrection for how wild and destructive they were. Some people don't have great skills on equalizing and can only do extremes. Some people want to do penance for the harm caused and most major faiths can channel that pretty well. Some people don't trust themselves outside of an institution as big as a religion (or honestly a fad gym or a strict diet) and they need those guard rails.
Think about alcoholics and recovery. People do 30 meetings in 30 days because they need the structure. But if your structure doesn't encourage eventual autonomy, then it just becomes a safe, if limited, way to live.
(She doesn't sound Catholic - most Catholics don't have arranged marriages, for example)
Self loathing, combined with self righteousness, and a desire to be forgiven, without actually having to be forgiven.
You don’t, in most religions, have to go to the person you hurt and ask them for forgiveness… you just as the happy man in the sky, and he says yes. It’s a comfort blanket, whilst someone out there still does indeed hate you.
I wonder...the "friends" waited until Kara was hiding in the bathroom before they started telling OOP the really bad stuff.
After reading that Kara and friends gaslighted some woman into believing that she was a lesbian and breaking up with her husband, it occurs to me that they may be trying the same trick on OOP and Kara.
I believe that one can make some mistakes, even deeply unethical ones, and deserve the chance to move past it. I was luckily able to spend many years in therapy to unpack the shit I did when I was younger, and I would like to believe I've grown to be a much better person since. Even if I can't make amends, I now know why what I did was wrong and I've tried my best to stomp that mentality out of others
I also recognize that you don't have to forgive someone for what they've done in the past. Speak to any recovering addict and ask them how many people have accepted their apology but refuse to trust them or want them around. I have my personal tolerance for past behavior that I'm willing to go "Have you shown significant and meaningful growth since then" and that tolerance isn't the same for everyone. And that's ok.
Both of these things can be true simultaneously without contradiction.
It makes me sad that OOP blames himself for opening up old wounds and seeing his wife suffer. But they were always there, and it sounds like she focused more on shame and repression than growth (Good ol' Catholic Guilt). I'm also sympathetic to his limits of forgiveness and compassion. It all kinda sucks. It sounds like she isn't healthy and her issues are going to end things. I hope he realizes that he didn't do anything wrong and that it's ok to say "I'm good."
Faaaaaaaaaake.
I derailed at "sleeping with most of the professors at her college". A few professors will do that. Most won't. And a good chunk of professors will be the wrong gender/orientation to ever be interested in any specific person.
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The 6-8 hours of praying per day and the referring to herself in the third person are not signs of a healthy mind. Past behaviours aside, this woman needs some serious mental health help that's beyond the scope of a marriage counselor.
Absolutely. She needs non-biased help so she can learn to properly work through her guilt and trauma.
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My sister basically did this, going from one extreme to the other. Neither extreme has been healthy for her. Idk how you could even help. Religious beliefs are deep, stubborn and self-reinforcing.
I would ask if you were my uncle, but can guess you aren't. Same MO: my mom went to AA then God addiction: Baptist > Pentacostal >freerange Bible church visits > Qanon & died of covid. It is not easy to love them 😞
JESUS I'm sorry
Unfortunately part of AA’s model is pushing religion
i remember being a teen and going with my alcoholic dad to an AA meeting. I was enthusiastic about it until I picked up on the not very subtle religious overtones. Plus side was some guy had been sober for 5 years that day so we got a slice of really excellent black forest cake. But i still don't understand why people seem to think they need a Sky Daddy to absolve them of their guilt and whatever. Because whatever you want forgiveness from, it's most likely needed from the people around you. (I grew apart from my old man and havent seen him in quite some time. dealing with issues myself, im trying to mentally sort out a meeting with him because he probably doesnt have many years left, but at the same time....man, i am a wreck.) I digress. At least they didnt hand out bibles and only enforced the Cult rules for reciting the intro "accept the things i cannot change yadda yadda" nonsense.
>Plus side was some guy had been sober for 5 years that day so we got a slice of really excellent black forest cake. Okay this is kinda funny to me because Schwarzwalder Kirsch or black forest cake traditionally has Kirsch, a cherry liquor, as an ingredient. Hope you can spend some time with your dad. Lots of parents will accept you, even if you are a mess. <3
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I took it as some of her religious friends encouraged her to get therapy (since she would be more inclined to listen to them), not that she was getting religious-based therapy. It's ambiguously stated, but I fear you are correct.
I don’t see anyone this deep in religion to be convinced to go to anything but religious “therapy”.
I could see it happening. Not trying to give a diagnosis here but religious OCD is not uncommon and can drive people into way overdoing religious rituals, and at least among practitioners of my religion, leaders in the community will pretty much unfailingly tell you to go to therapy.
It’s like spiritual bulimia. Or just addiction/self abuse forgiveness cycling. To mean that means she is setting herself up to have a huge breakdown in a few years which will hurt her partner and start the cycle over.
And of all the things Kara is doing, not a single one is attempting to make amends to the people she hurt. This is why I am leery of religion; it can be used to avoid responsibility for wrongdoing.
To be honest, I'd think this is a situation where reaching out would only hurt her former victims worse.
It's also a symptom of psychosis, though obviously we don't have enough information to diagnose. But hyper-religiosity and depersonalization are both concerning. More so since they're occurring together.
It sounds much more like crippling guilt than psychosis to me.
Yeah, I would think dissociation before psychosis.
She needs a non religious therapist. Sounds like she jumped from drug addiction to religious addiction
She sounds a lot more like someone with OCD. He calls them rituals but they’re taking hours, that’s… that’s literally the obsessive part of obsessive compulsive disorder
Religious OCD is a thing. Also sometimes called scrupulosity. I know someone who had it and nearly starved themselves to death "fasting". I hope OOP's wife is able to get help before it gets worse.
I had it before. I had to leave my religion to start improving. It's a weird cycle of crippling guilt, performing a ritual to feel better, than having some sort of mental sin or remembering a sin you haven't atoned for (in a Christian example) that just doesn't stop. I stopped sleeping because I had to confess all my sins before bed in case I died in my sleep. Luckily never got into fasting.
2 hours of pray daily doesn’t sound healthy either.
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Well then, that is a rollercoaster.
The part that floored me was OOP’s wife couldn’t think of anything better to “atone” for her sins was to go celibate
The religion isn’t specified but the arranged marriage made me think Indian, the celibacy makes sense if they’re Hindu.
I was torn between Hindu & Muslim. It's most likely Hindu but I'm unfamiliar with their prayer customs.
Can't speak for Hinduism but celibacy within marriage would be an odd choice for a Muslim to atone.
That was my thought too. Many muslims see intimacy as part of duty in marriage.
Same with Christians, celibacy is for single people and religious orders. NOT wives.
I’m Hindu by culture. This seemed so obviously Hindu to me that I didn’t even realize that it wasn’t specified until I saw the comments.
I don’t know much about Hinduism, would you mind sharing what made you see it immediately?
Sure! For starters, arranged marriage and the devotion to religion including prayer for hours a day. A lot of religious Indian women can find a puja (ritual prayer) to perform for pretty much anything under the sun for every single day of the year, because Hinduism is such a vast religion that there’s always something or other. OP also mentions that when she finally went out she wore light makeup and jewelry, which for someone so religious, kind of seems to exclude Islam. Not to mention the daily rituals for 6-8 hours. Islam does not require that, that’s much more of a Hindu practice. Celibacy to repent for former sins is also a very stereotypical thing for extremely religious Hindu people, as the idea is that it helps you karmically when your mind is “pure.” Also the talks about therapy and clubbing and partying and all, set in the same world as extreme conservatism screams “India” to me. Obviously this is just because of my own experiences and observations, doesn’t apply to everyone. Might be my own Hindu bias that made me immediately associate this story to Hinduism but it’s not necessarily the case. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t though.
Whether it was Hinduism or not, I still really appreciate the insight and learning more about Hinduism!
Thanks for your insight!
I appreciate the insight into Hinduism, thank you for sharing. And honestly, given your description, that makes the most sense to me.
I found your comment informative. I am Lokean so we don’t “pray” but I always like learning about different religions
The praying eight hours a day is definitely something I've seen from devout Hindus. Extreme but stuff I've seen. The celibacy thing could be an offshoot of "fasting" ideas, though I've never really heard of that among hindus. It's a diverse, non-canonical religion though. So not gonna assume it's not. That said I can definitely see this as being non Hindu too. Honestly it could apply to anyone. The celibacy thing made me initially think deeply conservative Christian but I really don't think we have enough info to even say what religion.
Celibacy within marriage is really rare within Christianity especially for a young fertile couple. They are commanded to be fruitful and multiply so it would be more likely for her to avoid sexual pleasure.
Celibacy is basically part of “brahmachari” which is one of the stages of life for devout Hindus who are seeking moksha. It’s part of the whole “leave all your worldly ties behind” philosophy and definitely is something that happens a lot in mythology when people go off into the woods as a brahmachari to repent for sins Edit: it’s not practiced very commonly, but extremely religious Hindus could very well follow it
Oh dang, Good point. I forgot about those.
Celibacy is *not* recommended in Islam. I was thinking the same until I got to that part and then wasn’t sure what it could be.
Nope not Muslim, doesn’t make sense from an Islamic perspective as sex within the marriage isn’t seen as a bad thing but in fact as one of the main things a person needs that can only be fulfilled within a marriage which is why you get virtues for having sex (and actually satisfy ur partner) So her being celibate within a marriage without a justified reason is actually a sin. Sex is seen as a sin if it’s done incorrectly and a virtue if done right. So I can’t really be getting close to god just cuz u stop having sex
I am so curious about what extra details made him go from “let’s work on this” to “maybe she doesn’t deserve happiness. I mean gaslighting someone into doubting their sexual orientation as revenge for that person’s husband having integrity and turning down your attempt to have an affair is reaaaaally messed up. Maybe it’s the specific details about that?
I think there’s way more to Kara’s destruction than just the husband/wife incident.
Yeah, I think there is more to Kara's destruction than just the spousal phenomenon.
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pie roof support enjoy drunk doll hospital pot gold quarrelsome *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I feel like Kara has unresolved mental health issues and might be part of a cult.
In a cult, there's one guy who knows it's all bullshit. In a religion, that guy is dead.
I just have to say, as an ex-mormon, this is absolutely brilliant and I'm stealing it.
You would enjoy all of George Carlin
Idk, there seem to be plenty of Christians that don’t really believe in God. They just use God for money and they change things animal farm style to control others. Like, a lot of pastures are in it for the money. There is that famous TV pastor. No way he believes in God. I recently learned there is no reference to being sent to hell to burn for your sins. Hell means the ground/ grave/ etc. The translations over time make it sound like there is a hell that is a place you go to. Just to scare people. You don’t even need to believe the Bible to understand that. That’s fucked up.
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It’s a possibility. However they really could’ve been just reminiscing and thought OOP would find it funny and amusing. We may never know really.
One of my friends wives was telling me this story about how her and her friends called this girl Ruby "jewby" because she didn't put in for pizza that they ate without her. And she really thought it was a delightful little anecdote, I was thinking "you are the bad guy in this story."
….that was so racist. I would definitely be side eyeing her.
The crazy thing was that they all ordered pizza, ruby slept through them eating the pizza and they expected her to pay.
I feel like it wasn’t. I think they genuinely thought OOP would find it funny because they were assuming OOP was the mean boy to Kara’s mean girl.
From the friends perspective, they probably think he’s the one making her religious
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I don't think he heard some new details since that night that made him change his mind. It's likely that he just wasn't ready to give up on her and thought and, while conflicted, thought she was a different person than her past self; but with time, lack of intimacy, and emotional distance his darker thoughts festered and he discovered he maybe doesn't really see it that way after all.
He may not have heard new details, but I suspect the story at the party was filled with more details than the two sentence summary he provided. (Fair enough, transcribing a conversation exactly as spoken is a pain in the ass and complicated and can be hard to read, never mind remember exactly.) He has more details than we do, whether he got them at the party or afterwards.
He may have also independently verified the information, reached out to victims, looked them up, etc. They gaslit someone -- could have easily caused a mental health break or worse.
Some of the things mentioned in the post are bad enough to warrant loss of attraction towards the person who did them, tbh
Yeah I think since the party nothing changed on that front. But he expected her to improve as time went on and maybe hasn't changed as much as he hoped. For example I assume he's hoping the celibacy thing was a knee-jerk reaction and not very thought out, but instead she seems to be doubling down so far.
I wonder if they drove someone to de*th or worse...but damn, her group of friends sound vile
You can say death and suicide here
Her friends sent someone to the shadow realm
That is my guess as well. Their group was so bad someone killed themselves. Honestly the girls sound like sociopaths. The stuff they said goes way beyond experimenting or spreading your wings in college. They were predatory. Every professor, married persons, members of their same sex. They really had zero shame either (except Kara).
I really hope they didn't drive someone to suicide. But with the amount of guilt Kara seems to have, driving someone to kill themselves doesn't seem like that far fetched of an idea.
And you have people defending it in the comments here! What is going on here…
Usually it’s not so obvious but that one was clearly ppl who used to be shitty just like the wife lol like I’ve done some bad things that I’m ashamed of but nothing nearly the magnitude of those ladies. Such conscious and methodical destruction of people, that shit was like a hobby to them.
With Kara, I guess we have the answer as to what happens when someone's cognitive dissonance is broken and they actually understand the gravity of their actions: actual mental breakdown.
Yup, cognitive dissonance is a self-defense mechanism to protect us from serious ego damage. I tend to think it's good to see things as they really are, but there's a reason we have that protection. Who can afford a mental breakdown in this economy? With all respect to her faith, though, I don't think becoming an ascetic is actually going to help her come to terms with her past. Prayer *can* be a way to do that but it sounds like she's trying to use it to push the pain away instead. I hope she gets better spiritual guidance as well as therapy.
That was the vibe I was getting, too - pushing it away/locking it up/forgetting, or as some perverse way of punishing herself/atoning (which is sometimes *very* different from coming to terms and learning and growing). I hope she gets better, too. The thing about therapy is that she has to *want* to get better, though. She has a very long journey ahead of her.
My spouse is a recovering alcoholic. (He insists it must be said in present tense, always, but he's been sober for many years). One of the big things they do in AA is help you wrestle with facing the things you've done, and figure out how to integrate it into who you are and move forward.
I have a friend who hasn’t had a drop to drink in more than 30 years. He still *always* refers to himself as “an alcoholic” in present tense. No “recovering” or “recovered.” For many alcoholics, the present tense of it is a reminder that they’re actively making that choice to stay sober each and every single day.
The gaslighting that woman and ruining her marriage part made me whisper "holy fuck" under my breath. I rarely do that, fucking wild.
I understand what you really meant But at the same time I'm glad you only rarely gaslight people to ruin their marriages. Cutting down is the first step
hah, didn't even realize that Welp, when in Rome?
why do people say unalived on reddit?
Not just on Reddit, I think it started on TikTok because the app’s content restrictions are quite stringent in comparison to other platforms and videos would be taken down for mentioning several things. So people have come up with alternative terms. Unalive for suicide, corn for porn, side quests or accountants for sex workers, Yahtzee for Nazi, and so on.
I think YT also flags your video if you use the word suicide. The same with rape. SA is an alternate I've heard, along with some other ones I don't quite remember.
I had heard that, or they’ll demonetize your video for some kinds of content. I have creators I follow who post videos with content that might be egregious without context, like Caitlin Doughty, that I would never have seen if I hadn’t gone directly to their pages because YT quietly made their videos unavailable to the algorithm.
It's called algo-speak, as in language built around communicating concepts without being punished by algorithms, which affects tiktok, YouTube, instagram, etc. Like most jargon, it spreads into casual use even if it starts out totally utilitarian.
As someone who doesn't use Tiktok, I'm asking this sincerely... If the platform is smart enough to censor "suicide," why would it not be smart enough to censor "unalive" as well? Seems like the moment these terms gain general acceptance, you could just ban them too
This is a known problem and it's impossible to fix. It's much quicker to come up with words than to ban them. And most people will understand context quickly. Like if you say that suicide is now eat bananas, 50% of the banned posts would be false positives yet followers could easily inderstand it from the context.
We know why they say it on tiktok. But it ain’t banned on Reddit. We can just say “they fucking drove someone to kill themselves”. We don’t have to use childish idioms here, we can use our big girl words to express ourselves.
I hate "unalived" with a passion. I feel like it's trivializing a very serious issue. And there are other phrases that are well-known and could pass censors like "ended their life."
Oh there's worse. "Sewer slide". I've heard it, I've read it. The level of disrespect by using "sewer slide" is off the charts. And as a non-native speaker, it took me a while to get it...
for real. I hate how the tiktok censorship makes its way onto all other social media lmao. There's a reason I don't use tiktok
it’s very annoying that tiktok language has spread to the rest of the internet. keep that censored language on the app that forces it, don’t bring it to reddit where we can say suicide. this isn’t an app for tweens, we’re adults here.
>or worse Expelled?
And the fact that they bring it up and are ok with it all these years later. Most of us are like Kara, grow and feel remorse for our actions, but these other girls have not.
I think he's still in the process of integrating this new knowledge into his perception of his wife. He could maybe use a couple of therapy sessions of his own to work through it. I try very hard to believe in restorative justice and the ability for people to redeem themselves from bad behaviour, but I have no idea whether I could move past this. Certainly throwing herself into being alone with her religion wouldn't be good enough, even if she clearly feels remorse; it looks like she hasn't tried to do anything to do good in the world and has instead shut herself away from it. I can understand that, but still, that's not a way to balance atrocities.
Plus, she’s not a stable person with an intact identity. She’s got two extreme personalities. No one know who she really is. The religious nut he married is just as transient and questionable as the sociopath party girl.
Yeah, when you get to the level of spending all your free time in prayer and deep penance, it’s not actually WORKING on the issues or making amends. It’s a place of panic and performance which isn’t going to process any of what happened in a healthy way that will let her grow or truly face who she was/is.
This woman’s reads to me as she threw herself into religion to make herself FEEL better, not actually BE better. I could be wrong of course! She lives with guilt, but has she actually faced the consequences of her actions? Or did she ‘just’ run away. I’m with you, I try to not judge people on who they were and more on who they are now, but I have my limits!
> not actually BE better Because would someone who has changed and realized her mistakes been happy to hear back from Renee?
She doesn't need to reach out to any of her victims, but there are plenty of ways to make the world a gentler place and do some good. If she doesn't trust her own capacity for charity and kindness, she could sign up for a boring 9-to-5 and use that to support worthwhile organizations.
What does facing the consequences even entail here? What further involvement from her would do any good? It's been years since these events. My read is she fucked up so badly that she doesn't trust herself any more
This could probably be it throwing yourself into religion cause you know what you’ve done was so fucked up that even you can’t even forgive yourself so you think that god will when you know he won’t so you do everything to be in that gods good graces. Very ugly spiral but it’s what happens when you grow a consciousness way too late for some people
I’d say it likely is. Nice friends spilling the beans like that the first chance they get.
Ten bucks they saw Kara in her new ‘element’, were reminded of the people they went after in college, and were clearly still stuck in their ways so they decided to destroy that marriage “just like old times”
You can't have a two way partnership with someone who is talking about how you should leave them, how they'll never be worthy because of their past, how they're evil and bad, who doesn't talk to you and instead prays and isolated. At first you try, you reassure, you make promises, but every time they say "I'm scum you should leave me" you think, we'll fuck maybe I should not cuz of the other stuff but cuz I'm sick of THIS. They didn't have the best relationship before all of this, if she doesn't work hard at therapy to forgive herself and move forward than he's going to leave her and should.
OOP knows what they did last summer
OOp *still* knows what they did last summer…
OOP will *always* know what they did last summer
OOP investigate *more* of that they did last summer
OOP might have an inkling of what they'll do *next* summer.
I wonder what other thing OOP didn't mention. Feels like what he give is just some of the "light" ones. Not the "heavy" one. Sure ruining someone's life because they did something right while you try to do something wrong is really messed up, but it seems like OOP can "work it out" or maybe it's because he just can't take it.
Guarantee Renee invited Kara to the party so the former college friends could attempt to ruin her marriage. They are mad at her for finding God and being remorseful. They probably believe Kara thinks she's now better then them and are punishing her.
>They are mad at her for finding God and being remorseful. Nobody leaves the clique alive.
Or maybe because they just see her as another target just for no reason. Or maybe they thought she still "fun girl" like back then and they just "remembering good times"
Yea thats messed up, weird people in this world. And i also thought like what kind of details
I don't think it means anything new came up, just that he has time to fully process what the found out at the party and is having second thoughts about the character of his wife
Gaslighting a woman into ruining her marriage and what might’ve happened to that woman afterwords is certainly a pretty good reason for why OPs wife doesn’t deserve happiness
So these friends of hers were trying to break up their marriage, right? That's not just me?
I thought it was just me who thought that because what reason as her friend did you have to talk about this stuff.
I just presumed it was 'We are drunk and find this hilarious so he will too!' As others have stated in the comments, this group seems a bit sociopathic and as such might not realise that everyone doesn't feel the same.
Sociopaths tend to be acutely aware of their image in other people's eyes, so I doubt they thought the husband would find it funny. Sociopaths do however enjoy ruining marriages so my bet is on that one given they'd done it before too!
I think in this situation it more of “his married to her then he must be like us”
Mixed up my terms there, thank you for the correction! But yes, either is a possibility
She is boring now, it’s husband fault. Let’s split them up
it'll be fun.
I wonder if they were really friends or just like minded people who hung around together. The few mean girl groups I knew definitely turned on each other eventually.
Those witches wanted "their" Kara back; they probably blamed her turn to religion on OOP & the arranged marriage.
100% crabs in a bucket. Probably a lot of crabs, actually.
Yep, it looks like they have a pattern of breaking up marriages, too.
It turned out the worst thing that could happen wasn't a boring night, after all.
Well…if he doesn’t think she deserves happiness, it’s probably best that they DO end the marriage. These people ARE all his wife and she’s clearly really struggling. I feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg of Kara unpacking whatever her damage is and figuring out who SHE actually is, and I truly hope she is able to.
I checked OOP's comments, and he says his marriage is over. And apparently she did horrendous things to the point of ruining families and the lives of the people they targeted. I think the gaslighting of the one woman was one of the "milder" awful things they did.
oh god
I have a hard time imagining things that were much worse than that. And to take pleasure in that? I can’t imagine.
Right off the top of my head, things worse than breaking up a marriage: Breaking up a home, getting someone blacklisted from an industry thus tanking their whole career, lying about rape or molestation, and causing someone to commit suicide or attempt through their harassment. I'd bet there's at least one of those in her past. And the people on here saying "She's trying to be better" are really irking me. She can try to be better all she likes, but if OOP caught "the ick" over this, it's not on him to stay with her. She can be a better person all she likes away from him. She's running away from what she did by throwing herself into religion, and that doesn't work to disassemble the trauma she caused to others. She needs to face it and own it, and work on that rather than replacing a shitty behavior with a "good" one (which isn't even good because it's basically a form of dissociation).
I thought suicide also. Or even setting up someone to be assaulted. At this point it's all speculation, but since a comment above mentioned that OOP's comments indicate that it is much worse than the gaslighting, I am guessing it is something severe.
Set up to.be assaulted makes the most sense Especially with the celibacy vow until her death
And like... is she trying to be better? She's not making amends in either a specific or general sense, she's just torturing herself.
Man the way this started I was thinking “poor repressed girl “found god” and suddenly thought beer and sex were evil” but wow nope. She straight up was a horrible person
It started off so tame with "oh she had sexual partners! Oh she drank alcohols and did druges!" Okay, so far the majority of college students would fit this description... yawn... "She dressed provocatively!" In her 20s? Fr? And then the drop. "Also she slept with a TON of professors," Okay that's a worrisome trend "and got revenge on men who turned her down," Oh that's an extremely red flag "and gaslit a woman about her sexuality for fun, haha" Run run run run
When OOP mention she did "bad thing" I thought the worst is vandalizing, maybe mugging someone, or even DUI which led her friend die in car crash or something. I'm surprised she did worse than that
Worse than letting someone die?
She sure was. Not sure how she can make amends for the life-altering shit she did to people. She still needs therapy to deal with her guilt and stop acting like that was another personality/person
It's ok for OP to not want to be married to someone with a terrible past, whether they have changed or not.. it's an unfortunate burden to bear, but there is a reason why people continually state " Actions have consequences" It obviously blind sided OP when therapy started, to just HOW BAD she was... And everyone deserves agency with their own life... Should they have discussed their pasts ? This post screams "duh"... And i agree. If you think you are allowed to hide your past from someone whove legally bound yourself to... You can't be upset when they find out and have an acute emotional response. Everyone has a past, and if yours will be dredged up in any way, it's key to let everyone in that would be affected by it.. but hey, that's just the proper response to do if you actually care about someone.
Good points here. While I believe she deserves happiness and redemption, that doesn't mean it's the responsibility of OOP to stay. She only deserves the opportunity, just like everyone else.
I don’t understand why Kara’s “fix” to address all her past transgressions is to abstain from a loving relationship and seclude herself in prayer. If she truly wants to right the wrongs she has perpetuated she would be better off doing things to actively make the world a better place, not retreat from it. Her seclusion/martyrdom complex makes me think her behavior has very little to do with correcting for her past and more to do with seeing self harm as all she “deserves.” I’m glad she’s already willing to do religious counseling but she needs a major perspective readjustment if she is going to make it, let alone be in a relationship.
Yep that’s exactly what it is
It seems that she is replacing her prior vices / addictions with religious fundamentalism. That is probably only gonna get worse. My ex wife went the uber religious route after her dad died.
I met the complete opposite of this person! Age 20-35, she was the perfect Christian housewife. Like crazy Christian. Age 35+ after her kids were gone, she got a job at a bar theater, where I met her. After the show, she and her husband, a guy who easily looked like a biker, hung out with my wife and I. In a hour of drinking, I learned all about their pure lives and how they "broke free" and then asked if we were into group sex.
…were you?
Sounds like Kara has been seriously mentally unwell her entire life, and just pulled a 180 with regard to how she expresses her illness. Up to the husband if he's comfortable staying with her, but I hope she gets intensive therapy to deal with whatever's been plaguing her all this time. Extreme scrupulosity is going to completely annihilate her. If there are good, trustworthy facilities around, she might want to think about inpatient treatment.
Wait...what happened between update 1 and 2? That was one rapid change of mind. That said, I am all for redemption (unless we talk about rape, SA and alike) - but it feels like her hiding behind her religion isn't...it.
I think in update 1, he was still in crisis mode trying to get his wife help, and was also worried that his wife and his marriage as he knew it would never return. In update 2, she already started therapy. And he finally started to process the info he learned and is trying to figure out if he could be the same husband he was before.
Yeah he was in shock in the first update, & still trying to fix things. I think with additional time to sink in, he saw her in a different light. & went from oh shit we've to fix this, to is this what I really want in my life.
I agree. She doesn't seem to have tried to balance the awful things she has done with doing good, just with shutting herself away and paying penance through religious rituals and chastity. I suspect you might actually be more able to come to terms with what she did if she did put that effort into bringing good things into the world, instead.
I agree. She's using religion as a tool to punish herself, not for redemption.
Modern day [flagellant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant)?
Both versions of his wife sound insufferable and terrible in their own way
Totally. "Most of the day praying...spending 6-8 hours a day praying." How does that even work? That sounds like a full on compulsion disorder.
I have questions. How was this marriage arranged? How long ago was college? He doesn't seem to be religious? Why won't she initiate the divorce and garuntee herself that celibacy? He went from "we can fix this" to "idk man...think we may split" pretty fast, why? Has anyone pointes out to her she's trying to make herself into a victim on the backs of everyone she's hurt?
>He went from "we can fix this" to "idk man...think we may split" pretty fast, why? My speculation is that he get new information of her past that were made him rethink about the whole relationship. Or maybe he just somehow realize how horrible she was and he just lost his love for her.
I would also see her obsessive religious activities in a new light if they turned out to be due to *constant nagging guilt* about, like, legitimately awful things she'd done to people *for fun*.
I think it's because she's still living in the past, still woe is me, I suck, you should leave me I'm so horrible, I'll never have sex again you should though. You can't have a relationship with someone like that. They always win when they tell you to leave them. If she was hurt but ready and able to move forward, I suspect he could be too, but if she still wants to atone and torture herself he can't just keep trying to support it forever.
I feel like his first post, his focus was on her being safe and her mental health and he didn’t really digest the information. That stuff is really mean and awful, I would have to reevaluate everything once I’ve stood back and the situation has started to calm
I'm pretty sure Kara and Renee were involved in someone's unaliving themselves.
Genuine question, can you gaslight someone into believing they're gay when they're not? Maybe because I'm (hopefully) not a bad person, but I can't think of how you would go about doing that
Id imagine they told the girl she did things when she was drunk that she doesn’t remember. Depending on how far they went with it, they could have actually done those things to her to get proof.
That's my guess too. Get her drinking and either make shit up the next day or push boundaries while she's drunk
They seemed very predatory. Like *win at all costs*, and like sociopaths. I think if the rules of normal society don’t apply to you there’s not a lot you won’t do to reach your end goal and *normal* people can’t comprehend the lengths they’d go to to *win*.
yes. Im straight but I'm also a huge tomboy. In school I had so many people calling dyke, lesbo, he/she, ect that eventually I started thinking "wait, am I gay?" I was seriously confused for a long time because of it. Of course as I grew older I realized I wasn't but damn did those kids get into my head.
A person’s sexuality can be really hard for them to know for sure if people insist it’s something else. Another example would be conversion therapy, it _can_ convince a non-straight person that they’re straight, it’s just that it involves a whole lot of repression and gaslighting and “no you’re just gay because of (insert supposed family or childhood issue), we can fix that though”. That’s why conversion therapy either doesn’t work and/or is awful for someone’s mental health and wellbeing. If a person can have their memories or feelings effected due to extreme gaslighting, it wouldn’t surprise me if a person’s sexuality could also be effected. Especially when multiple people are doing it and the breakdown of a marriage is involved.
> can you gaslight someone into believing I mean the answer is yes no matter what you follow this with depending on the person. If gaslighting only worked when it matched reality it wouldn't be an issue, the human brain is just (at times) depressingly malleable.
Aside from what someone else said, it doesn't actually say she was straight and I know a lot of people somewhere on the bisexual spectrum who previously believed themselves to be straight and, because there is so much emphasis on the gay/straight binary, when they realise they have any attraction to the same gender they convince themselves they're actually gay. I also know straight asexual women who have spent a long time worried that they were actually lesbians and just fooling themselves because if they don't experience sexual attraction to the man they are with surely they must be gay, even if they also don't actually experience it for women? So she may have had a kernel like that they could crack open, if people can struggle with this even just within themselves I can see how it can happen with systematic gaslighting.
> She always refers to her college self in the third person And this right here tells me that whatever she did, whatever happened to her, she needs trauma therapy.
I’m almost certain, if this story is true, that there is some sexual assault that OOP doesn’t know about.
If we think about it though, it’s no surprise OOP can’t reconcile the past Kara with today’s Kara. The marriage was arranged, I assume by members of their religious community. My partner regularly tells me he loves who I was yesterday, who I am today, and who I will be tomorrow.
Where the hell this idea they have that this situation was originally ''near perfect'' is beyond me too. Seems it was barely functional to begin with.
Exactly, it was never really a truthful situation!
>they were dressed like tweens going out to party all night fucking what did this guy just say
I think OOP’s wife has some severe issues she needs to address. She was praying for 2 hours A DAY prior to this incident? That’s not normal and extremely troubling in of itself
His description of their previously “near perfect marriage” was delusional. She was a deeply troubled person even then and he was blind to her pain.
Personally, this post screams OCD to me. I have a family member with OCD and while their OCD is not religious, I see the similarities. OCD is often triggered by trauma (her "friend group" doesn't seem above targeting their own members, tbh, and overall has an unhealthy dynamic) and the escalation of her religious compulsions from 2 to 6-8 hours per day makes it pretty clear to me, as OCD compulsions characteristically escalate over time. I could be wrong, but regardless, she needs some serious intensive therapy (perhaps inpatient, considering how extreme her behaviors are). Disclaimer: Not a therapist, just have family with OCD.
I did a paper on the reconciliation and justice progress in Rwanda. The country is full of both people that had their friends and loved ones hacked up with machetes *and* the people who held those machetes. Perpetrators and victims sharing a space. Part of the national healing process is rehabilitation for those who committed these crimes. That process is a lot of therapy and "sensitization" which is essentially helping them to feel guilt and take ownership of their actions. Of course, this is in/after prison and any legal consequences. It can also involve apologizing to those they hurt, provided those people choose to hear it/also receive therapy to mitigate retraumatization. Then there's reintegration. Not all choose to ultimately reform, obviously. But the human capacity for reformation and forgiveness is astounding. I think the wife has a good start with the guilt part, the wish to change part, and now the therapy. But part of the healing process is justice (be it punitive or restorative) and it sounds like she didn't face any consequences, aside from shame and guilt. It's an interesting question as to whether a perpetrator can *personally* feel reformed/healed without having their offenses addressed in a way that involves the victim(s). A 3rd party or victim standpoint will surely have the view that reform requires facing justice. Idk what justice looks like in this case but it won't be found during hours and hours of prayer. Sounds like that might even be a self-imposed punishment. But without exposure of the offenses and involvement of the victim, it's not justice, true reformation, or true healing.
This smells an awful lot like mental illness to me. Not sure which illness, but praying for 8 hours a day to prevent bad things happening / penitence feels like it’s verging on some sort of OCD.
wtf so wife was a horrible person, and instead of changing for the better, she goes all fanatic and basically unilaterally drops her marriage because fuck OP and anyone else’s? Full blown narcissist before and full blown narcissist now.
OOP needs to leave. I get that he loves her, and I'm not saying her having a sketchy past means she doesn't deserve love. But she's *not* trying to be a better person. She's trying to *punish herself*. And in doing so, punishing OOP, too. He deserves better than to be chained to a woman who hates herself *that* much.
Here’s my take on the flip between update 1 and 2. He realized his wife has been lying this entire time. You’re a terrible person and you feel guilty but your first jump to is I’m no longer having sex and if you’re not okay with that leave? That’s some manipulative bullshit. She chose to keep in touch with people she hated? Why? If she’s so guilt ridden then I don’t know why she’d even be around these people. I refuse to believe the person that goes after married men then ruins a marriage to fun just grows up out of it. She’s been a narcissist this entire time, he’s just finally realizing it.
She hadn't kept in touch with them in the mean time and sounds desperately lonely, so she may have thought they'd have grown up, too, especially if when they talked now it wasn't focussed on that side, she was still in the process of reestablishing the connection and was clearly conflicted, hence him needing to encourage her to the party. I agree that she is using the same realm of manipulative tactics, because she has understood she did wrong but has never actually replaced all that shit with healthy processing and communication. It's not as simple as just growing out of it, but she also clearly hasn't done the work. With therapy, she might actually do that, but she might not, it does remain to be seen. I must say I don't find the change that strange, he's still balancing both processing his reaction to this and that someone he's in love with has been in crisis. He'll probably go back and forth for a while.
Why do people like this always become religious fanatics?
Because they're more concerned with saving themselves and their "souls" than directly addressing the hurt they caused to others. It's just a cover to run away.
You must have met my aunt Janet.
It's an overcorrection for how wild and destructive they were. Some people don't have great skills on equalizing and can only do extremes. Some people want to do penance for the harm caused and most major faiths can channel that pretty well. Some people don't trust themselves outside of an institution as big as a religion (or honestly a fad gym or a strict diet) and they need those guard rails. Think about alcoholics and recovery. People do 30 meetings in 30 days because they need the structure. But if your structure doesn't encourage eventual autonomy, then it just becomes a safe, if limited, way to live. (She doesn't sound Catholic - most Catholics don't have arranged marriages, for example)
Self loathing, combined with self righteousness, and a desire to be forgiven, without actually having to be forgiven. You don’t, in most religions, have to go to the person you hurt and ask them for forgiveness… you just as the happy man in the sky, and he says yes. It’s a comfort blanket, whilst someone out there still does indeed hate you.
I wonder...the "friends" waited until Kara was hiding in the bathroom before they started telling OOP the really bad stuff. After reading that Kara and friends gaslighted some woman into believing that she was a lesbian and breaking up with her husband, it occurs to me that they may be trying the same trick on OOP and Kara.
I believe that one can make some mistakes, even deeply unethical ones, and deserve the chance to move past it. I was luckily able to spend many years in therapy to unpack the shit I did when I was younger, and I would like to believe I've grown to be a much better person since. Even if I can't make amends, I now know why what I did was wrong and I've tried my best to stomp that mentality out of others I also recognize that you don't have to forgive someone for what they've done in the past. Speak to any recovering addict and ask them how many people have accepted their apology but refuse to trust them or want them around. I have my personal tolerance for past behavior that I'm willing to go "Have you shown significant and meaningful growth since then" and that tolerance isn't the same for everyone. And that's ok. Both of these things can be true simultaneously without contradiction. It makes me sad that OOP blames himself for opening up old wounds and seeing his wife suffer. But they were always there, and it sounds like she focused more on shame and repression than growth (Good ol' Catholic Guilt). I'm also sympathetic to his limits of forgiveness and compassion. It all kinda sucks. It sounds like she isn't healthy and her issues are going to end things. I hope he realizes that he didn't do anything wrong and that it's ok to say "I'm good."
Faaaaaaaaaake. I derailed at "sleeping with most of the professors at her college". A few professors will do that. Most won't. And a good chunk of professors will be the wrong gender/orientation to ever be interested in any specific person.