RedroverRedrover
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
NOW I WANT CHRISTMAS TO COME SO BAD GUYS I LOVE IT SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!! 🙂
Every cracker that I’ve ever seen has come with the crown, yes.
Christmas crackers are awesome! I had no idea you didn’t have them in the US. They do usually come with a small toy, which is a possible choking hazard I guess. As long as you’re watching your kid it’s fine. We gave one to our son last Christmas and he was 3. Mostly they like pulling them apart and hearing the snap!
You guys don’t have paper crowns in your Christmas crackers??? We always get a crown, a joke, and a little toy or trinket.
I *love* Christmas. I’m an atheist and so is my husband, so we don’t do church. I actually do really miss the singing at church, but not enough to make me want to attend the rest of the service, lol. But we basically do the stuff I did growing up. My husband isn’t too into Christmas, I think his parents’ divorce kind of sullied it for him. But he knows how much I love it and is fine with indulging me (and now the kids).
The one thing that we’ve had some trouble with, is that when my husband was a kid and found out Santa wasn’t real, he felt really betrayed. He felt tricked and lied-to. I’d never heard of that before but I googled it and apparently he’s not the only one. So, he didn’t want to do the whole Santa thing because he doesn’t want our kids to feel the same way. I’m ok with that conceptually, but in practice it’s very difficult, because all the other kids at school and wherever think Santa is real. We can’t have our kids going around telling them he’s not. Either they won’t believe our kids and ours will get picked on, or our kids will be ruining a Christmas tradition for other families. There’s really no way to win, because in our society Christmas is so centered on Santa and on kids believing he’s real.
So our compromise is to explain to them that Santa is the “spirit of Christmas”. He’s an embodiment of all the goodness that we feel, and how we should treat people. He’s real, in that sense. They’re too young to understand that right now, we say it but they don’t know what it means. But as they get older they should just naturally get it. Our 4-year-old has already asked if he’s an actual person, and we said no, but that he’s still real because he lives in all our hearts and minds. So, we’ll see how that goes.
But legal brothels can still have sex slaves. That’s where your analogy breaks down. It’s more equivalent to reputable breeders buying (or actually stealing) puppies from puppy mills and then passing them off as their own well-bred ones. And in addition everyone knows this happens but does it anyway.
Countries where prostitution is legal have actually seen an *increase* in trafficking. Because if you were a sex trafficker, where would it be easiest to sell your wares? Somewhere that selling sex is illegal, or somewhere that it’s legal? Of course it’s easier somewhere that it’s legal. You just have to get your slaves into the country somehow, and then you’re golden. You’re now in a legitimate business with no fear of reprisals, as long as no one finds out your “employees” are there against their will. This is why prostitution needs to be legalized everywhere, otherwise the slavery gets concentrated in the few places where it’s legal. And Australia does have legal prostitution, so it’s a good bet that there’s plenty of trafficking there.
So again, unless you actually know the prostitutes, like you went to highschool with them or something, and you know their situation, like they’re free to go home and no one’s threatening to kill their family if they don’t show up to work every day, then there is literally no way to know that a given prostitute is not a slave. No way to know. You’re taking a risk, every time.
I agree, there are a lot of willing participants. Do the “johns” know which ones are willing and which are not? Of course they don’t. Which means that every person who hires a prostitute is risking that they’ll be raping a sex slave. And they’re ok with that.
I have nothing against prostitution conceptually. I’d love to see it legalized and have regulations around it to protect the sex workers. But that doesn’t exist right now, and there is a huge amount of trafficking. You can’t separate it from the conversation until it actually gets removed from sex work. It’s part and parcel of it, right now.
There’s a massive difference between visiting brothels and having casual sex, because brothels (and prostitution in general) have a huge sex trafficking problem. Especially if the women he was sleeping with there were not Australian. If they were from a poorer country, then the likelihood that they were sex slaves goes way up. If you meet a rando at a bar and go home with them, they’re probably not a sex slave. Huge difference.
While the drive to bring her lunch seems like a bit much, the other things she asked for were pretty normal I think. I don’t understand why the girlfriend’s getting all the blame. Some, sure, but not all. Where he makes plans and just cancell them? Emotionally cheats? For all we know she was desperate for any sign that he cared about her at all and that’s why she was asking him to come see her at work.
Chance, I think you’ve done some great reflection. I agree with everyone that it’s a bad idea to get back together with her while she’s still clearly very upset about how you treated her in the relationship. I would say give it 6 months. Just wait. Don’t get back together. Even date someone else, maybe. Then after 6 months decide if you want to open that door again. Right now you have a hole where she used to be, and the hole hurts, and you’re trying to fill it back up. Instead you should let it heal, then you’ll be able to see the relationship as it really was. And then you can decide if it’s worth it to try again or not, with a clear head.
The only reason you should have to fight for a relationship is if there’s an external hurdle. Like, say, you’re different religions and your parents don’t want you to be together. That’s when fighting makes sense.
If you’re fighting and there’s no external hurdle, then think about that. What are you actually fighting? You’re fighting yourselves. There’s something wrong if that’s happening. If a relationship works, then there will be no such thing as “fighting for it”. What you’re doing right now is fighting against your own feelings.
And yeah, as Kate said, of course he’ll “fight” to win you back. He knows you still want him, and that if he puts on a good show you’ll take him back. That’s easy. But it’s not any kind of guarantee that he’ll stay faithful. It’s not doing anything to rebuild the trust he broke. It’s just an empty gesture.
Also you don’t sound that happy. He’s the one who made you feel the way you feel when you “can’t stop thinking about it”. Just saying.
People you love may very well screw you over, that’s true. But people who *love you* won’t. Not unless they’re an extremely damaged person. Anyway, it sounds like you’re going to stick with him regardless. At least get into couples counselling to see if you can get past this. It will also show you how hard he’s willing to work at helping you past it – if he doesn’t work at it, well, that tells you how important your happiness is to him. If he works at it really hard, that might be just the thing you need to see to get past this. But just wishing you could get past it isn’t going to do anything but make you miserable, you both need to take action. Good luck.
