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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1782 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for July 30, 2025

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Along the lines of what Amadan said, I think you need to first think about what the long-term future looks like with all of the options you are considering.

Say the woman at least intends to be genuine and the baby is real and actually yours, and you actually move there and attempt to raise a family. Do you really know this woman well enough to know what a long-term relationship with her would look like, across such a huge gap in culture and wealth? I don't know what you did with her over those weeks, but did you really see her in enough situations to get a feel for who she really is? Do you speak any of the local language at all? And what of your friends and family and any career you may have here in the US (assuming you were born and raised in the US, or wherever else you're from), what will they think of you when you tell them you're moving to the Philippines to marry and raise a family with a local stripper? What if it ends up not working out and you have to move back?

Or say you go along with the idea that the kid is real and yours and you want to support it. This will be an obligation for decades, and it will almost certainly come out eventually. What if, 8 years from now, you get into a serious relationship with a regular woman in your actual home city? She will eventually find out that you're sending money to and communicating with someone in the Philippines. What will you tell her and what will she think of you as a result of that?

Or option 3, you just block and ignore her from now on and completely forget about her, possibly sending money for an alleged abortion before doing so. This option closes the door on this unfortunate situation for good. Nothing in your current life or future will be affected by it, nobody will know except your own conscience and the people of the Motte here.

When you think about it like that, I think it's clear that Option 3 is the only real choice. Does it feel a little bad? Yeah maybe. But you acted like a total douchebag travelling to the Philippines and having unprotected sex with a third-world sex worker in the first place. There's nothing to do now but complete the act and ditch her. There's no magic pill to get out of this cleanly for you. If you feel bad about it, congratulations, you've discovered that you are not actually a total douchebag. Therefore, cease doing douchebag things. It's not really that bad in the grand scheme of things - you screwed up, but you've learned some about who you are and why you should not do certain things. And yeah, 95% chance she's scamming you and the kid is fake or not actually yours, and if it's the other 5%, well she's in the business and not a little kid, she should damn well know this is a possibility by now, and if not, it's about time she learned. Either way, she already has a big family and 2 kids, she'll be okay in the long run whatever the actual deal is here.

Let me see if I understand your logic. You're telling him to knowingly and intentionally abandon a woman and his potential child, and the proof that he's a better person is that he'll feel a little bad about it afterward? That's not character growth - that's learning how to rationalize being a selfish coward. Bah was considering sacrificing his entire life to do what he thinks is right. You don't even care if it's a scam or not you're telling him to sacrifice his integrity to protect his comfort, and then pat himself on the back for it!

The ironic part is that he would only be a douchebag if he followed your advice. You act as though he treated her like a third world pump and dump, but he is in love with her! He met her family, spent his time with her, sent her money for an abortion - because he's smitten. And you tell him, assuming it's real, that instead of taking personal responsibility for his actions, he should run and leave his own kid being raised by a sex worker in the third world? And for little more than the negative opinions of others? And then cap it off with a rant about how she needs to take responsibility for her actions?

I might think Bah is a naive lovefool, but I at least admire his commitment to his responsibilities, scam or not. I think you are a douchebag.

Edit - Bah replied while I was writing this saying he isn't in love with her and the problem is solved, but since your advice assumed he was too, I'll leave this comment as is.

Dude.

Others have pretty much covered it. This is like textbook Filipina scamming 101. Your post reads like a white guy reading a list of "Dos and Don'ts in the Philippines" and carefully checking off every single Don't. I almost don't believe it's real because it's so on the nose and it's hard to believe anyone is this naive. I don't mean that to be insulting, honestly I don't, but... man.

So realtalk, you sound kind of like you are desperate for this to be real, she really is pregnant with your child and she really does love you. And no one can say that is 100% impossible. Maybe you are the one guy in a hundred (or more) who gets told this story and she's sincere. But do you really want to let yourself get milked on those odds?

Look, even if you did go back, demanded a paternity test, and it turned out to be yours, how does this end? I have known guys who married former bar girls there. It just... doesn't turn out well. Almost never. Those girls are damaged and they have already been steeped in a way of life that makes them cynical, mercenary, and not well suited for stable monogamous relationships. I am not even condemning them for it; it's a survival strategy for desperately poor women who have few other options. You can feel sorry for them, but you have to be realistic about them.

That said, on the remote chance that you really did get her pregnant, and she decides to keep it, and you can verify this, do the right thing and provide for your damn kid.

I am not even condemning them for it; it's a survival strategy for desperately poor women who have few other options.

It's almost never merely a survival strategy nor are they that desperate.

From their perspective, converting pussy to pesos (or whatever local currency) is just a path of lesser resistance and higher ROI than grinding away at some regular day job like a chump. A newish-model smartphone, a replenishing supply of makeup, and a recurring supply of new clothes aren't going to pay for themselves—which her stupid parents and/or an ordinary boyfriend/husband are/would be too stingy or poor to provide. Scamming foreign men is the cherry-on-top, whether playing the short- or long-game, as it's easier and more profitable—and even more fun—than picking up more shifts as a bargirl or tacking on an additional side-gig at a normal day job.

I'm aware of what you think of pussy-havers, but most of them don't get into the life because they just wanted a new smartphone. You can argue they could have or should have chosen some other (likely even more miserable) grind, but you don't actually need to despise them.

You can argue they could have or should have chosen some other (likely even more miserable) grind, but you don't actually need to despise them.

This isn't meant to be a continuation of the conversation you're having, but my answer to this is: Porque no los dos? It's perfectly reasonable to despise someone who defrauds others in predatory ways with huge psychological and possibly financial consequences for their target; disgust is an appropriate thing to feel. Most people who do terrible things do so because of some prior circumstance; serial killers often have long histories of childhood abuse, mobsters and criminals often grow up in unstable and poverty-stricken backgrounds, that in and of itself doesn't excuse the act. Dysfunction breeds dysfunction. You can feel sorry for all these bad actors while also simultaneously thinking their actions are beyond the pale, that it warrants serious punishment, and that it may not be possible to reintegrate them into a stable society that values prosociality.

That said, on the remote chance that you really did get her pregnant, and she decides to keep it, and you can verify this, do the right thing and provide for your damn kid.

Sorry, but I could not disagree more with this moral dictum and find myself to be far more in agreement with the other commenters here. Especially if this was baby-trapping. OP should have mitigated his risk more effectively, but I don't believe he has any obligation to support a family created entirely against his will, particularly if it was premised solely on the deception of the mother. Here, all choice goes to her, and all obligation goes to him regardless of whether he was duped or not. There is no world where that is an even remotely just outcome, and it creates perverse incentives in favour of patently undesirable behaviour such as baby-trapping which just results in more dysfunctional out-of-wedlock births, the very thing such a policy should ostensibly be trying to mitigate. The only reason why women do this in the first place is that it works. Maybe it shouldn't.

It's particularly unjust in context of the widely-accepted ability of the mother to avail herself of safe haven laws regardless of the circumstances of conception; an abandonment option which unilaterally ensures that the kid will be left without any biological parents by default and deprives the father of any choice to parent if he wishes to do so. (Compare this with paternal surrender; a hypothetical surrender-mechanism that still leaves said kid with one parent and lets that parent decide what relationship she wants to maintain with it, yet it is controversial.)

That being said, we've talked about this at length before and I suspect we're firmly at an impasse on this topic. Probably an example of one of these terminal moral things that's impossible to shift via argumentation.

EDIT: added more

Sorry, but I could not disagree more with this moral dictum and find myself to be far more in agreement with the other commenters here. Especially if this was baby-trapping. OP should have mitigated his risk more effectively, but I don't believe he has any obligation to support a family created entirely against his will, particularly if it was premised solely on the deception of the mother. Here, all choice goes to her, and all obligation goes to him regardless of whether he was duped or not. There is no world where that is an even remotely just outcome, and it creates perverse incentives in favour of patently undesirable behaviour such as baby-trapping which just results in more dysfunctional out-of-wedlock births, the very thing such a policy should ostensibly be trying to mitigate. The only reason why women do this in the first place is that it works. Maybe it shouldn't.

If we were talking about a case where the courts were compelling him to look after the kid (which I agree creates perverse incentives) or when he had done everything he could to mitigate the chance of pregnancy but been deceived, I would agree. But trusting a hooker when she says she's on birth control and not bothering with anything else is not that. And maybe I'm typical minding, but if it was anything like the times I've blindly trusted a woman who told me she was on birth control, the truth of the matter is that in the moment I didn't give a single shit if she might get pregnant. At most I might have thought "well there's always plan-b" but by and large I was thinking with my dick. And when you go to your dick for advice you should expect to get fucked. I can see your point from a societal perspective, but from a personal perspective only one thing matters - taking responsibility for your actions. And from an evolutionary perspective only one thing matters - protecting your offspring. I am with amadan here - provide for your kid. Personally in a situation like this I'd try to get custody of the kid and bring it home with me.

And maybe I'm typical minding, but if it was anything like the times I've blindly trusted a woman who told me she was on birth control, the truth of the matter is that in the moment I didn't give a single shit if she might get pregnant.

Would you have had unprotected sex with her had she stated she was not on birth control? If no, then clearly you did in fact give a shit to some extent if she might get pregnant.

If you would still have done so, then yes - I'm not sure it's appropriate for you to be typical-minding.

I am with amadan here

So I'm under no impression that Amadan will ever agree with me (or that many of the people advocating this will ever agree with me, really), which is why I declined to pursue the point too much, but okay let's examine the core of this moral evaluation for a bit. If it is really the case that a child not only has the right to provision, but has the right to provision from both biological parents - if depriving the child of this is so unacceptable that freedoms should be curtailed to pursue that objective - then the following should also be a logical corollary of this belief:

1: A woman should not avail herself of the services of a sperm bank, as it results in the production of a child without the father involved. Single women should be barred from using a sperm bank under any circumstances, and if they do they should be aggressively socially shamed for intentionally producing a child who will grow up in that deprived state. After all, the statistics on children raised by single mothers speak for themselves. Same thing for men and surrogacy.

2: It should be against the law for a woman to leave the biological father off the birth certificate, or to fail to inform him of the existence of a child. She should be required to identify the father and get him involved in supporting the child either by choice or by force. A woman who does not do so is being horribly negligent and selfish and should be castigated.

3: Women should have no access to safe haven abandonment (or adoption, for that matter) under any circumstances, possibly even extremely coercive ones. Under this moral framework that is even worse than paternal surrender as it results in the unilateral abandonment of a child and alienation from both biological parents, and is a complete and total infringement of the child's right, excluding it support from even just one parent and possibly consigning it to become a ward of the state.

Of course, none of these things are currently the case. Are you willing to assent to all the above, and state that anybody who makes the above choices in contravention of these dictums is being capricious and immoral? If so, I would say you're perfectly consistent. Understandable, have a nice day. If not, it stands to reason that children do not in fact have the inherent right to the support of both biological parents, and that it's permissible for a child to end up without this supposed right for many reasons, including "she just wanted to be a single mother", and "she just didn't want her child". In practice I don't actually think most people believe that a child has an inherent and inalienable right to support from both biological parents, they certainly don't prioritise it above all else. They are perfectly willing to infringe on this principle especially if they can be convinced that it gives women more choice.

If it is perfectly moral for a single woman to use a sperm bank and produce a child out of wedlock which will not be entitled to any support from the father, by extension it should be perfectly moral for a man to surrender responsibility for a child before birth; after all it produces the very same outcome if the woman decides to keep it. This especially applies if he was duped into becoming a father through false representations, regardless of whether or not he was "thinking with his dick". But I don't think most people who advocate this position have really thought through its moral ramifications.

Personally in a situation like this I'd try to get custody of the kid and bring it home with me.

In theory I agree that would be good (I would not want a child of mine in the custody of a woman who would do something like that), in practice that's not going to be easy.

I was talking about not despising them for being in the sex trade.

As for supporting a child you created, it's not about the woman who baby-trapped you. That sucks. But if there's a human being you created with your actions (and you chose to put your dick in her), I absolutely despise anyone who'd refuse to take responsibility for that and leave the child you created to poverty and probably being brought up in the same life, no matter how much you despise the mother.

That sucks. But if there's a human being you created with your actions (and you chose to put your dick in her), I absolutely despise anyone who'd refuse to take responsibility for that and leave the child you created to poverty and probably being brought up in the same life, no matter how much you despise the mother.

I don't actually view the father as being hugely responsible for the creation of the child in this circumstance. The child was created primarily via the mother's deception, and the father was operating under a situation of false information. In addition, in similar fashion to another user in the thread, I don't have a high opinion of the inherent role of DNA in creating a link between child and father.

Finally, as I noted, this assignation of responsibility to the father creates a pretty horrendous incentive structure where baby-trapping is incentivised, since that system allows such women to benefit from it. The net result might in fact be more children born in such a dysfunctional situation and raised by fucked-up women, and that seems like a rather anti-utilitarian outcome one would want to discourage.

I think most people would find the idea that a woman who's had a child due to holes being poked in a condom should not be able to avail herself of safe haven abandonment or put the child up for adoption (for the ostensible benefit of the kid) pretty displeasing. Granted, she could've taken a morning after pill or birth control to mitigate her risk, but she relied on the biological father's representations. Though I will say that the argument for that prohibition is actually stronger given that the woman in question had options like abortion once she realised she was pregnant, and thus actually had to decline to take steps to terminate the pregnancy before a child was produced.

Of course, safe haven abandonment, adoption etc is allowed for women due to their default custody of out-of-wedlock children, even in situations where the woman in question was being exceptionally irresponsible, whereas legal paternal surrender is not often considered legally or socially permissible even under circumstances of coercion or misrepresentation.

I don't care what the mother did, I care about the child who was created by your actions, no matter how evil the mother. Yes, it sucks to have been trapped like that. It also sucks to be a child abandoned due to the caprice of not one but two parents.

You are right that we've discussed this before and won't agree. I will not change my position that there are few people more deserving of being spat on than those who'd justify abandoning a child of theirs for whatever bad actions of the other parent.

Yeah this definitely reflects a deep-seated and probably intractable difference in morality. As I said, one of these terminal moral values.

But, that being said, I would at the very least like if those who advocated such positions made attempts at ensuring moral consistency. I can't say and won't make judgements on whether you have or not, but in my experience people generally don't.

The law certainly doesn't meet these standards, anyway. It should go one way or the other. I know what I would morally prefer, but any consistency is better than no consistency.

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Those girls are damaged and they have already been steeped in a way of life that makes them cynical, mercenary, and not well suited for stable monogamous relationships. I am not even condemning them for it; it's a survival strategy for desperately poor women who have few other options.

I’m afraid I have to second this. I had a friend who married such a girl in another Asian country. He believed that she had retired and that since he was now providing for her she would not be tempted back into old habits that she clearly disliked.

It was not so. The habits of decades don’t fade so easily - she chafed at the lack of power she had as the demure receiver of her husband’s money and returned to prostitution behind his back to fund a secret drug habit and (I suspect) to get back some agency in her life. Then he lost his job and things blew up completely.

Sloot and others have already covered it, but I thought I'd give you a youtube link to a Filipina who worked in 'tourism' and lays out the scam for you (warning NSFW language).

She's not like other bargirls, bro. You're definitely not just another John to her, bro. Plus, sex workers would never lie to their clients, bro.

You went all the way to the Philippines to spend your time with a single-mother prostitute? The Hock would sound like a better use of time to me.

And then you nutted inside her. Are you intentionally speed-running the cardinal list of "things not to do" as a Western man in Southeast Asia?

I understand the thought of having an out-of-wedlock child with a single-mother prostitute is rather unpalatable, to say the least. Especially a potential daughter, who would almost certainly follow in her mother's footsteps.

An expected value calculation is tough: while the severity might be high (she's pregnant and the baby is yours), the probability is low. Here are three possible avenues to consider:

  1. Do nothing, don't send her money. Ignore or block her. Chances are she's lying about being pregnant and if she isn't, it being yours. Even if she's pregnant and it's yours, there's no guarantee she'll abort instead of having the baby and sticking you with two decades of financial support for her, the baby, and her two others kids. Or if she's pregnant and it's not yours, pretending to you and her other Johns that it's each of yours, potentially earning up to two decades of financial support from each of you—a diversified portfolio of passive income from her scrotation.
  2. Send her the money for the abortion pills. Might be worth it for peace of mind. However, then be ready for escalations in the guilt-tripping and sob stories, saying how she loved you too much to go through with the abortion, and now needs even more money for pre-natal care and to make ends meet (especially since the pregnancy is or will soon be interfering with her job performance).
  3. Play a reverse uno card. Use her own spells against her. Love-bomb and smother her. Say you can't wait to be a family together, that you already quit your job in preparing to move to the Philippines so you, her, the baby, and her two kids can live happily ever after. You're stoked to be a dad to three; you wouldn't be a stepfather, but the one who stepped up. You knew it was destiny from the moment you saw her in that club. However, funds are tight now that you're out of work. Before she starts showing, can she pick-up some extra shifts at the club to help out with your plane ticket? You two can do a paternity test together after you move in with her, just a lame formality that your paranoid lawyer best friend insists upon while the fairytale continues. See if she breaks the sound barrier in getting an increased ick and blocking you from everywhere possible.

(edit... should I just move to the Philippines and raise a family there? the living there is really cheap so i could afford it. But there's really not much to do there except drink, fuck, and pray)

You're telling on yourself with that problematic remark about there being nothing to do in the Philippines except drink, fuck, and pray. It betrays a reductionist, colonialist attitude toward a country with a rich history, a diverse region with a stunning variety of cultural and geographical beauty. After all, what kind of sick fuck prays?

It betrays a reductionist, colonialist attitude toward a country with a rich history, a diverse region with a stunning variety of cultural and geographical beauty.

You've clearly never been there. And you misinterpreted a lot of what I said. so whatever. thanks for trying I guess.

You've clearly never been there.

Confidently asserted, yet wrong. I indeed have been there. While I didn't spend any time with single mothers, prostitutes, or single-mother prostitutes—I did bang a high single digit number of non-single mother, non-prostitute Pinays. And none of them asked me for money (whether directly or indirectly) nor was there any sort of weird drama afterward.

Not that it requires having been to the Philippines nor having any experience with Pinays to spot the red flags described in your thread-starting post. Nor is the theme of women-playing-men-for-money specific to the Philippines, or SEA, or even specific to foreign women with Western men. Women using their sexuality to get resources out of men transcends time and space. It doesn't take a chef to suspect if something smells like shit.

And you misinterpreted a lot of what I said. so whatever. thanks for trying I guess.

I thought the sentence right after the one you quoted made it obvious I was joking, if the sentence itself and the one preceding it weren't already obvious enough: "After all, what kind of sick fuck prays?" Wild speculation, I know, but might stubbornly overlooking cues perhaps be a recurring tendency of yours?

You could consider mustering up a fraction of the disagreeability toward her as you've displayed in this thread toward people replying to you.

I'm being curt because for me this isn't just shitposting on the internet or idle speculation about something abstract, and I have to actually figure out what to do about it. Most of the replies I've seen are people like you who just want to tell me what a horrible person I am, or others who just googled "philippines scam" as if I'm not aware of the possibility. Believe it or not, I'm not a complete idiot, although I freely admit that I have many personal problems. But dealing with this situation is just more important to me than sparing the feelings of anonymous strangers who are trying to take a dig at me.

Anyway she sent me photos of her at the hospital today, recovering from the abortion. So it wasn't a scam. (yeah yeah I hear you thinking "but what if the hospital photos were also fake!" she's not some expert photo editor or stage magician). Turns out I actually know more about my personal life than random people on the internet.

It was a mistake for me to post this here, I know. People on this site just want to speculate about abstact issues, not deal with anything real.

I don't think you're a horrible person. Most commenters (even the fellow who thinks basically all women are deceitful whores) are just seeing red flags waving and trying to save you from making a mistake while you are obviously emotionally invested in a way we are not.

If I were you I wouldn't worry a lot about whether her pictures sent from the hospital are "real." Consider it a bullet dodged (and consider why she'd be sending you proof that she aborted?) and move on. This isn't going to end in some happy love story. Do not try to be Captain Saveaho.

and consider why she'd be sending you proof that she aborted?

because she's not an idiot, she's also aware of how scammy this seems but she still felt it important to tell me.

Anyway yeah, problem solved I guess. I like this woman but I'm not at all in love with her like how the people here seem to think, just trying to avoid being a total scumbag. But it seems to have all worked out so... hooray!

Most of the replies I've seen are people like you who just want to tell me what a horrible person I am

I didn't say you were a horrible person, because I never thought you were a horrible person. Naive, stubborn, sensitive, defensive, pussy-whipped, yes, but the former four traits could be a temporary status as the result of the last and not a permanent fixture of your personality.

Anyway she sent me photos of her at the hospital today, recovering from the abortion. So it wasn't a scam. (yeah yeah I hear you thinking "but what if the hospital photos were also fake!" she's not some expert photo editor or stage magician).

It's entirely possible she was at the hospital today recovering from aborting your fetus, but <Old Joe from Breaking Bad Voice>: How do you know the photo was from today? How do you know the hospital photo was from an abortion? Did you see a photo of her holding her medical records with the contents readable? Even if she was in the hospital for an abortion today, how do you know the fetus was yours? If you sent her money for the abortion or "abortion," how do you know you were the only John to do so?

Chicks in both poor and rich countries alike will reuse old photos (or videos) to invent excuses, create alibis, or provide "corroborating" evidence for themselves. This only increases for women of dubious backgrounds abroad and can include hospital photos, of which foreign chicks can have aplenty, as in many countries people use hospitals for general practice services (not only the ER/urgent/specialized care say, Americans, might associate with hospital visits).

As an example, a classic variant of the old photos scam is young women planning dates with Western (or even local) men and when the time comes, sending photos of her herself all dolled up, saying she's ready but just needs him to send money for cab fare. Where once the money is received, she'll then block him or make some excuse to flake/temporarily ghost in an attempt to keep the gravy train going. This scam can naturally be pulled with multiple men simultaneously. Albeit it's somewhat tougher for chicks to pull nowadays since genre-savvy men will say they'll just send an Uber via their credit card, but the counter-defense chicks have developed is to say they don't trust Ubers or rideshares for this or that security or some other reasons, and need cash to use a trusted personal driver.

Turns out I actually know more about my personal life than random people on the internet.

You might know more about your personal life than random people on the internet, but you may not know more about hers than random people on the internet. You may know less due to unwise inferences; this being your personal life and you being smitten with her is likely clouding your judgement. Hence the recommendation that people shouldn't represent themselves in court: "he who represents himself has a fool for a client."

It was a mistake for me to post this here, I know.

Hmm yeah, that was the biggest mistake with regard to creampie-ing and developing one-itis for a single-mother prostitute: posting about it and your e-acquaintances not being overly reassuring as to her Wonderfulness.

I don't think that's true Bah on either account and I'm glad you posted it, I think many people here would deliver the same advice and tough love to a friend of theirs.

Have you ever had a friend who is smitten with someone and not thinking clearly? Every post I've seen in this thread comes off to me as people who are trying to knock a friend out of their lovestruck perception of reality. Some of them are a bit harsh, but mostly in response to you fighting being knocked out of this lovestruck state.

What would you tell a friend if they came to you with a question, "Hey, so I may have impregnated a single-mother Philippine prostitute I picked up at a strip-club and I'm thinking about moving there and starting a family with her"?

What would you say to your friend if you think the above decision was a really bad decision? Your responses in thread come off that you kinda want this fantasy to be true and that you found love and a family. If you choose not to do the above, I think you should spend a lot of your effort to find a woman in the US and start an American family. Something is clearly missing from your life you really desire and I want you to satisfy it, just not in a way which I think will lead you to disaster.

Something is clearly missing from your life you really desire and I want you to satisfy it, just not in a way which I think will lead you to disaster.

Besides the lessons learnt, this is the biggest thing to take away. Addressing the core need that isn't being met (intimacy) and consciously addressing it in a healthy way.

The reverse uno option here is genius and the absolute best move for you here Bah. If there is one thing that is clear from your replies in this thread, it's that you really want to have a kid with a Pilipina dame. You aren't so much asking for advice as you are looking for a reason to believe her when all your instincts tell you not to. Sloot's strategy will prove one of you is right.

Southeast Asian here. I very much doubt she is pregnant. Seriously, as someone who has had a family member be falsely accused by a Filipina for money, she was trying to trap you the entire time. This chick took one look at you and probably (correctly) sussed out you were an easy target.

Lots of stories like these. Watch this video, containing an anecdote where a Filipina tried to convince a guy that she was pregnant by using a friend's urine. The ability to produce a positive pregnancy test is not evidence of her pregnancy.

Also, I wouldn't say this but it seems you need it:

  1. Don't get drunk and stupid in foreign countries.
  2. Use protection.
  3. Don't hang out with random thots who clearly want your money.

These are regular "white people in Southeast Asia" precautions. You are going to attract a lot of attention, most of it unwanted; do not put yourself in compromising situations.

So you think it's literally impossible that a Filipina could get pregnant from unprotected sex with me? I know there are many scams... but there's also real biology.

Also yeah shut up whatever. (I know you're right but...)

Anyway thanks for your insider advice.

Of course it's not literally impossible, but every part of this reads like a textbook scam and I would place the probability of this being the case at somewhere upwards of 90%. She is a stripper and probably has experience with hooking up with clients, what is the likelihood that she suddenly had a lapse of judgement or her birth control failed in this specific instance? It's far more likely that this is a scam, either the baby was entirely planned, she was already pregnant or there is no baby. (The first possibility strikes me as the most unlikely of the three.)

If you really need certainty there's @sun_the_second's suggestion that you should probably send just enough for the abortion then never speak to her again. I would not necessarily recommend that course of action though, even if it would ensure your peace of mind. The only thing worse than becoming a target is falling for the scheme. Just because she looks innocent and sounds truthful doesn't mean she is.

If there's no baby, great. no problem. I send her enough for the abortion (which is a very cheap there). Maybe she scammed me out of the equivalent of like $20. you can make fun of me for being an idiot.

If it's planned as a a more elaborate scam to get pregnant... you see my problem? or whatever maybe you don't you just want to seem smart and not like those suckers who get conned by a woman into helping her with her kids.

Sorry, I get that this is stressful and maybe I sound judgemental (you do, in fact, have my sympathies). If she's not asking for much then not really a problem then, I suppose. The issue is if the requests for payment continue.

But your other concern isn't actionable. If she really babytrapped you, there's not really anything you can do short of engaging in criminal activity to stop that from happening. You can only control what you can, and either choose to get involved or not (I don't blame you at all if you choose the latter, the baby was primarily her responsibility and not yours).

I mean, if she's actually pregnant and it's actually mine... what would you do...? I feel kinda guilty just running away.

If this is baby trapping and she lied about being on birth control, I would reiterate my assertion in my prior comment: This is something she's committed against you and as such you're not obliged to participate. But it ultimately depends on what you feel you can live with.

Right, you're firmly committed to your prior that she's lying about everything and I'm a naive idiot. So in that case the correct choice of course is to give her nothing and walk away.

But since I'm actually in this situation, I have to think about other possibilities so...

More comments

If you’re not joking, don’t speak to her ever again, she’s not pregnant and if she is it’s not yours.

i'm not joking, she showed me a pregnancy test and we spent enough time together that it's unlikely (though not impossible) that it's not mine.

You think a sex worker doesn’t have other clients?

I would assume that the pregnancy is, simply put, not real. It might be a lot harder to believe she's lying to you after spending all that time with her, but from the outside it looks like Scamming Rich Yankee 101. Doubly so if she's a stripper since strippers are well known for making guys feel they love them.

If she's actually pregnant I doubt she's actually going to be much worse off than usual seeing as she already has two and managed. If you want to be guilt free then send just enough for an abortion then delete her number and block her.

For what it's worth, she showed me a pregnancy test. Also the way she talks seems noticably different now.

Of course she could be faking the pregnancy test and the talking. I have no way of knowing for sure. At first I thought it was fake, but right now i'm like 80% sure it's real.

What would you do if you sent a woman money for an abortion and she didn't do it?

If I intended to separate from her forever, which I'd be doing in a similar case, I'd cut contact before she could tell me whether she did or didn't do it.

As I understand it you feel like you are responsible for a child regardless of whether she had it solely to suck money from you or not. I can't help with that. My view on how much DNA matters in terms of creating a metaphysical link between father and child is dim. If she schemed to do it, she can have the whole damn responsibility for raising a third kid in the third world.

Lesson for the future I guess, wrap it up. Especially when fucking strippers. Especially in the third world.

Some time ago I posted that my field - a subfield of physics, with research largely funded by the U.S. Dept. of ______ - was on pins and needles due to a zany scheme by the Department to completely reorganize how research was done (and not, as people tend to assume, due to Elon Musk. Though probably helped along by the impulse to be ostentatiously but ineffectively budget-conscious.)

That scheme took time to be launched and has been in progress for long enough that prior grants are beginning to expire unreplaced, and as of today, that hits me.

If my group manages to survive, they want me back, which I'm glad to hear, but the rumors flying at this point are wild, supposing that nobody is going to be spared, but all eventually left to run dry 'til maybe the next calendar year. (Though Congress seems blissfully unaware of this, actually raising the funding of our field to record levels for next year. Disapproving huzzahs for fiscal irresponsibility, I guess.)

So I think it's unlikely I'll be able to return to my previous place, and also unlikely that I won't have to move for a new job. Which is kind of a shame - even though I've been living in an incorrigible single-party state, the place I've been living has been moderate enough, and I've grown to feel like it's home, especially due to my church. But oh well. I will go where I must go.

And in the event anybody knows anybody who could have use of an aerospace engineer/fluid physicist, I'll probably be available over the next few months.

Honestly, it might be for the best for you personally. The conversion rate from in a Ph.D. program to tenured physics professor is laughably small. Even if you make it to the tenure golden land, you will have given up what will probably be the most productive years of your career in opportunity cost to make the starting salary of a quant at a B-tier fund. You'll also have to move a zillion times anyway for a very likely postdoc grind.

I don't know what the state of the art is in fusion research, but if you can manage to crank out even one marginal paper applying ML/RL techniques, call it AI on your CV and you should be able to get into the interview pipeline at some big tech or quant finance firms. Crush the coding interviews with leetcode grinding. Practice not doing anything too weird in the face to face. If you update your linkedin and are at a top 30 program, you should have recruiters contacting you regularly. They will provide interview prep. If you are not at a top 30 physics program you are never making it to the tenure golden land anyway, it doesn't matter how good you are. Something like 70% of the faculty in R1 research institutions have at some point attended one of something like 10 schools. Of the remaining, something like 90% come from a pool of the next 20. (US based, there's a paper about it somewhere on I think the arxiv)

Once you have your foot in the door, join the line of people hoping to jump to the next unicorn, or rest and vest.

What are your go-to strategies for making small talk with "normies"? I was working alone with someone high-ranking for a couple hours with lots of downtime and she asked me about my hobbies. Without thinking too much I answered truthfully (foreign languages, science/math/history). I might be overthinking it, but I think most of my hobbies being essentially studying left a weird impression.

  • Football and other spectator sports
  • Running/lifting/biking and other participatory sports
  • Beer/whiskey/cigars
  • Grilling/meats/cooking
  • Travel

Perhaps I am simply a normie.

Talk with them how the world is going to hell and agree with them. This is what everyone is thinking, they just differ about the reasons.

It's because we live in a broken and fallen world corrupted by sin.

See - it is already working

😊

Talk about kids. I assume you don't have kids, but you can talk/ask about theirs. If you can mention being an aunt/uncle in relevant ways, then you've made a good conversation.

If they don't have kids, then they probably have a pet that they treat like a kid and you can talk about dogs/cats.

A long time back, I'd once met a lady I'd intended to marry. We'd found this image generator that claimed to show what the kids of any given couple might look like. I can't vouch for its veracity, but we thought our baby would look very cute.

At one point, we hadn't been careful enough while fooling around. This lead to an accidental pregnancy, and almost as quickly a miscarriage. We were, I must admit, relieved at that time. We weren't at a point in our lives when we could afford to have children.

Aqouta's post below reminded me of that. Knowing I would very much regret it, I still fired up ChatGPT, found a picture of us as a couple, and asked it to show me what it would look like if we were a family. The end output has almost brought me to tears. If there's a lesson to be learnt here, let bygones be bygones, and don't give yourself unnecessary psychic damage. Especially if you do so knowing full well that it was never to be. I'm going to pour myself a very stiff drink.

(As imaginary children go, entirely fantasized by the product of matrix multiplications, I think they were gorgeous and I could have loved them)

In the end, the drink didn't do enough, so I did what I usually do and wrote another essay.

Time for an Ulcerative Colitis and medical billing update! Paging @Throwaway05 and @self_made_human.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I have been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, a couple of years back, but that finding out in advance how much treatment was going to cost was nearly impossible. My colonoscopy to diagnose the disease cost me about 1500 dollars out of pocket. My doctor then put me on Velsipity, which was not covered by my insurance, but did have 2 years supply covered free by the drug company. My drug company did in fact approve the drug and add it to their formulary list, a couple of months ago. Just in time for my doctor to decide it wasn’t actually really stopping the progression of my disease, so we had to look for another drug to try. So it goes.

But before that I needed another colonoscopy! Again, no one could tell me how much it was going to cost me. It ended up costing me about 2,900 dollars out of pocket this time. Why the difference? Well because the first one was coded to my insurance company as routine, while this one is diagnostic. Nothing was different about the procedure at all. Diagnosis? My Ulcerative Colitis has progressed from mild to moderate to moderate to severe. So, my doctor decided we were going to try Tremfya, a biologic medication.

If you anticipated my next question was “How much is this going to cost me?” Then have a cookie or three! And if you correctly anticipated the answer was “I don’t know” then take the whole box. I can’t eat them now anyway. Tremfya is on my insurance companies list, but it has a whole bunch of caveats attached to it. They only cover so many doses; they only cover it from certain pharmacies they only cover it after you’ve tried other medications.

The drug manufacturer has a payment program, which may help people cover the out-of-pocket costs. Up to 20,000 dollars a year. Which sounds pretty helpful! But there is a twist. For Tremfya, your first 3 loading doses need to be delivered by slow infusion, which means you either need to go to a medical facility, or have a nurse come out and hook you up to a drip. Once again this will have a cost attached to it separate from the cost of the drug itself. I’m told having a nurse come out is by far the cheaper option. So, I pick that and see the Tremfya program may also cover up to 2,000 dollars for infusion costs per annum as well.

Note the important words there, however. May. It is not guaranteed, and the drug company can stop it at any point for any reason. So, I talked to the specialist pharmacy that is contracted to come out and do my infusion. How much will I have to pay? If you guessed the answer was “I don’t know” then you are to my shock, wrong for once. They said 40 dollars per infusion. Which sounds downright reasonable!

So, I go ahead and book the first treatment. The nurse comes, she is very nice, gets a vein on the first try and we spend 2 hours filling out multitudes of forms. I don’t immediately die or go into anaphylactic shock as some of the dire warnings on the medication indicate so I’ll count that as a victory. But now the time has come to pay the piper. I log into my insurance portal a couple of days later and I see the charges for the drug and infusion costs are pending. I wait a few more days with bated breath and then I am both unhappy and happy. For my cost for the drug itself was 0 dollars!

Let’s go back and look at the breakdown. A single dose of the drug was billed to my insurance company for 17,000 dollars. Normally I’d have to pay 20%. But my insurance company very kindly registered me for the Tremfya manufacturer program and that reduced my OOP to zero. Great. But that is 3400 dollars from that 20,000 dollar pot, for one dose. So let's put a pin in that.

Now let’s revisit the infusion cost. This is not for the drug, this is for the cost of having a nurse come out and administer it (and I was told it is much cheaper than having to go to a medical facility). Just close your eyes for a moment and guess how much the initial bill is. Got it?

Well, it is 35,000 dollars. My insurance company negotiated a discount to only 15,000 dollars. So I am billed around 3000 dollars out of pocket. Except the pharmacy had said after checking with my insurance I would only have to pay 40 dollars per infusion. So what gives? Well we have to go back to the OOP maximum! Because the insurance company administered the Tremfya program and got the money from them directly, the 3,400 odd dollars for that didn’t go towards my OOP maximum, because I didn't pay anything. So I am on the hook for the co-insurance here, not just the 40 dollar co-pay.

So, I looked up this on some UC forums and discovered this is indeed a thing. Many people have to force their insurance company to let them apply for the program on their own, because if you do that, it counts towards your OOP maximum. As you are billed, pay the balance and then get re-imbursed. So, while it looks like the insurance company is trying to help you, it actually screws you over. I call my insurance company and after two escalations and some back and forth they agree to apply the amount to my OOP maximum. This plus the previous colonoscopy costs means I now don't have to pay co-insurance costs for the rest of the year. Just co-pays.

I guess I'll worry about next year when I get there though at least I'll just be on 17,000 dollars a dose pen injectors by then. I'll hit my OOP max 3 doses in, which should be covered by the Tremfya fund.

Also don’t get me started on what the difference is between Annual Maximum Out-of-Pocket and Total Yearly Out-of-Pocket Maximum which are two entirely different figures and are very unclear as to the difference.

The Tremfya does appear to be working, for anyone in a similar situation. Although improvement in UC is measured in months and half-steps so we will see where I am in a while. Velsiptity did nothing but I also had no major side effects.

I'm not sure the NHS is better than the US system, but it's certainly less stressful and complicated from the point of view of the end user. Slower and less efficient though most likely.

Not to derail this but I had thought you had Crohn's, not UC. Of the two, UC seems preferable (in that it does not run the length of the digestive tract) but of course both seem extremely uncomfortable. I'm continually amazed at the US healthcare system and I think one of the many benefits of living in Japan is this kind of situation. I could probably get a colonoscopy in less than a week if I needed to, and would be charged a few hundred bucks at most after insurance. In any case you have my sympathies.

Sorry about that man. Don't have time for much of a comment here but I also have severe ulcerative colitis (have had it for years) and bad insurance.

Semaglutide has been quite effective for treating me. It's better than Humira (my previous drug), and its total price is cheaper for me than my Humira copay. Maybe it's placebo, I don't know, but it's working.

Huh, i'll look into that, thanks! Humira is on my list if Trenfya fails as it stands, but which drug works for which person seems very scattershot.

I appreciate you taking the time to reply!

  1. Congrats that it seems to be helping.

  2. I am on vacation and absolutely obliterated right now but I'll respond because I don't want to forget about this.

  3. U.S. system is bonkers, it has its advantages but it is still bonkers. Lots of wealthy companies invest in not paying or making things as confusing as possible.

  4. For the most part doctors are employed cogs who have no control, authority, or influence (these days). Usually your contract gives up your right to be in charge of coding and shit. We have enough to do unfortunately and limited ability to help so we don't know and can't do much. Understanding billing is a full time job.

  5. I support attempts to fix or simplify things as long as you don't throw the baby out with the bath water but 90% the first step is cut doctor salaries and I'm out.

Thanks for responding! I wouldn't support cutting doctors salaries I don't think. Not that I am in charge of that sort of thing anyway! I also don't think it is the doctors job to be able to know all the costs. But I think it should probably be someone's job (probably at the insurance companies end) so that patients have transparency up front. It's hard to know what treatment to choose without knowledge of the costs as well as the benefits.

Enjoy your vacation!

Health systems do sometimes try and figure this stuff out and help patients but its complicated because insurance companies make a full time job out of causing issues here - one of the classic is the way that COPD/Asthma inhalers change every year because insurance companies change what they will pay all the time.

The insurance company has no desire to clear things up with their staff for the obvious reasons.

With respect to diseases like this you will absolutely get the best possible care in the U.S. because no socialized system will spend the money involved. It will just cost you an arm and a leg in the process.

Firstly, my condolences, UC is a shitty disease (the pun is not entirely intended).

If you expect actual advice, my ability to help is rather limited. Maybe a year or so back, when this was a topic I'd been branding into my brain, I could have told you something useful. As it is, some of the drugs you've mentioned are brand new, and unheard of in UK practice. I have very little reason to look at biologics, and trust me, the names are just as abstruse to me as they are to you.

Given what you've told me, it seems your doctor thinks the cheap/easy options like aminosalicylates or corticosteroids are no longer effective. I don't know how much of the impetus behind the additional colonoscopy's was to stage the disease and how much was to screen for or exclude colon cancer.

The NHS probably would have been simpler and easier. If I'm being thankful for the few benefits the system has, wrangling insurance is something I'm mercifully reprieved from worrying about. You would have had a harder time getting the specific biologic you're on, but I'm not sure how significant the differences are between them. We're not so backward that you wouldn't have had an equivalent at hand.

Have you considered the feasibility of going to Mexico for treatment? I'm talking out of my ass here, and I can't imagine it would be easy to go there on a regular basis. It may or may not be cheaper.

If you expect actual advice, my ability to help is rather limited

Oh not so much advice, just tagging you in on a kind of NHS related post. Colonoscopy is both as you said to stage the disease and because she worried about colon cancer, as UC increases the risk and I'm in my 50's and a meat eater.

Luckily while I am partially retired, I am reasonably well off so a few thousand dollars will not break my bank. Mainly I just dislike how up in the air everything is, as to what something will cost at least ballpark.

I'd say some of the burden the NHS takes off patients compared to the US it puts onto medical staff. And my brethren in Scotland are not exactly renowned for their physical or mental health so I am sure you have your hands full as it is.

Neither patients nor I have to worry about insurance, so that's a relief!

The NHS is well past its prime. I would say it's undergoing a slow-motion collapse. If you show up to the ER with a condition that is liable to kill you in a few minutes or hours, you'll probably be seen to very quickly. Everything else takes its sweet time. Something like a routine colonoscopy might take months to get an appointment for. The wait lists are just too long.

I'm not at an age where I have to worry about significant medical expenses, but later down the line, one must confront the choice between cheap/quick/quality. The NHS errs on the side of the former.

I'm not at an age where I have to worry about significant medical expenses, but later down the line, one must confront the choice between cheap/quick/quality. The NHS errs on the side of the former.

It does. Which is why in the US I had like 5 people call me (pharmacist, nurse, Drug company rep, pharmacy tech, doctors office) before my infusion, all that cost disease money over here is at least employing people!

I seem to have lost the ability to focus on a book for more than 30 minutes in the last month, which is concerning. Maybe this is just an ebb in the tidal process that is my relationship with reading, but this time it feels different. It's not so much a lack of time, but feeling like I should be doing something else (working, running, or texting mainly). Sometimes this feeling is valid, but mainly reading is for time when I don't have the energy to do these things (run, work, or be social).

What can I do about this? Or do I just need to chill?

Have you changed the types of books you read? Sometimes I feel reading is a sloge compared to my youth, but then I remember that I have traded Animorphs for Wuthering Heights and while there are fewer cliffhangersthat keep me reading past bedtime I do get more out of it.

Everyone here needs to chill.

I knew another doctor with ADHD who would take stimulants so he could engage in recreational reading. I found this rather perverse, but I suppose if you're trying to familiarize yourself with continental philosophy, it might help.

Just chill.

You need to chill in general.

Welp, 9 week visit went poorly, we're probably going to have another miscarriage, we'll know for sure in a couple weeks. I looked up the odds, seems like there is only like a 30% chance the problem is some kind of chromosomal thing that makes us totally inviable.

We found out a couple weeks ago my sister is expecting her second in January, they would have been similar ages. We're going to another baby shower in a couple weeks. This really sucks.

Condolences, that's really hard.

That sucks indeed. Sympathies.

When we just considered having children, the doc told us it wouldn't work out. Just plain not biologically in the cards for her. So we considered one life choice taken away from us, but what can you do, shrug and embrace the irresponsible lifestyle. And then the doc turned out to have been wrong. Life finds a way, it seems. And then, all my wife's fretting and panic nonwithstanding, the pregnancy went off without a major hitch, and we got a fairly healthy kid out of it. And now we are a highly dysfunctional family that barely scrapes by and I don't want to even think about the issues the kid will have in her teenage years.

Children go not to the most deserving, or the best prepared, or the most suitable, or those who most want them. Life isn't fair, and deals out kisses and gut punches almost entirely at random, as far as we mere humans can perceive.

How do you intend to deal with it?

I'm sorry. That is not an easy position to be in. Your wife might know all the things that a shrink or gynecologist might say, but they seem hollow or unhelpful when you try to apply them to yourself.

If I can say something somewhat hopeful, what basis do you have to claim 30% odds of there being a genetic abnormality? You frame it as one that's present in either your or or partner, as fetuses can get them de novo even if the parents are alright.

It's been a while since I brushed up on my chromosomes, but my understanding is that only ~5% of couples experiencing repeated miscarriages have an underlying chromosomal problem. I presume those are balanced reciprocal translocations, Robertsonian ones and so on.

Have you guys been karyotyped? Did one of the doctors specifically relay this to you, or is this something you've been trying to figure out yourself? Ask your wife for more details, I expect they've been giving her a far more detailed debrief than you've received, or at least she understood more of it by virtue of medical training.

In the absence of more information, I'd be very averse to ascribing your difficulties to such. Even if that's the case, there's reason to hope that IVF would help! Something like PGT-SR would help identify viable embryos that have dodged the bullet. IVF is expensive, but I expect the two of you can afford it. I wish you guys well, and hopefully you come out of this with the happy family you deserve.

I'm sorry, I went through this with my first wife a few times. Including a placental abruption at 37 weeks that was devastating and 3 miscarriages at sub 10 weeks. We ended up with 3 healthy kids before she passed, so I suppose the try again advice is still the go to. At times it really is just a crap shoot.

I'm sorry, man. We had our first pregnancy self terminate early and while I wasn't affected much, my wife took it really hard.

Aren't early miscarriages really common? I thought like a 1/5 of known pregnancies miscarried in the first trimester and some 30-50% of all pregnancies.

Are you sure two early miscarriages really puts you in 30% chance of being unviable with eachother? It sounds high.

Yes, I think it's something like that.

A couple of years ago, when I was off birth control, I was driving alone and kept puking which is very rare for me, but didn't have anywhere to pull off. Not pleasant at all. Then later that day got an unusually heavy and abrupt period. Probably an early miscarriage.

Do chromosomal things make people unviable with each other where both partners would be fine if they had some different partner? I don't know much about pregnancy.

Unfortunately, no. Just one person having them can be a deal-breaker. There are rare mutations where chromosomes are malformed, and during the process of recombination when embryos form, they just don't pair up right. It would be exceedingly unlikely to find someone with the same kind of defect, such that this goes off without a hitch.

It's still not the end of the world. IVF usually helps find the embryos that would be viable.

I'm so sorry to hear this!

Lost and overwhelmed.

My wife (20 years) and and have been having marital difficulties, I believe she's depressed and has become involved in some online extremist communities. Her online 'persona' had been bleeding through in real life more and more.

Yesterday being the netadmin for my own network I undertook a block of many of the apps and sites.

Today while she was collecting our 4 children from vacation bible school, I saw she had left her laptop open. She'd been very secretive with it recently. I snooped.

She's been sending bitcoin to someone in control of an @aol.com address apparently believing she's arranging an in person meeting with Elon Musk, who she says in her email she has been in contact with for a while. They're expecting 10k for a meeting with Elon.

She's refusing to see a therapist alone or with me, she's refused to see a psychiatrist.

Anyone encountered anything like this?

Any suggestions?

Prepare your divorce, both legally and in the practical sense of how you'll take care of your kids when she's not around anymore etc. Maybe you'll get lucky and manage to drag her out of this for good, but if not, or if she relapses, you'll sleep better knowing that Plan B is in place and you needn't stick out a detereorating situation out of uncertainty regarding the alternative.

How is her parenting in these times? How is yours? How old are the kids?

I spoke to an attorney last week. It was sad and depressing. I completed the documention exercises he recommended before I blocked the the extremist content from the network. This is a non-perfered option.

There are areas for improvement. 2 years ago, she insisted on homeschooling. I'm reenrolling the children for the start of school in the fall. It's challenging, I work full-time, I've not been to the office in several weeks. I may switch to a full remote work plan. 12, 10, 8, 6

That's rough. I wish you good luck.

At least fall isn't far, and your kids are grown out of the most care-intensive ages and (mostly, I suppose?) not into teenage rebellion yet.

Do you have any nearby relatives or friends who might help you out when needed?

No relatives really. I am only child, both my parents have passed. I'm the youngest of my cousins, and they're all 3000 miles away. Only one of my cousins would really be able / competent to help. My wife's mother and brother are in Germany. Their relationship is odd / tense.

The mother and brother are in the same Regierungsbezirk and don't see eachother that often. We traveled to Germany late last fall. We were there for 3 weeks. It was the first time she met 3 of her grandchildren and her only granddaughter and the first time she'd seen our oldest in 10 years. We saw her twice. The brother and his family we saw 4 or 5 times though 2 of those were with their mother and 2 were activity outings with the children.

We're active in our local church. I've shared all of this with the pastor and his wife. They've been incredibly supportive. I shared this yesterday with my 'work wife' he was shocked but very supportive. I've a good group of friends in my men's bible study group. I've not shared any of this with them. I feel if I were to they would be supportive but I also feel it would make church uncomfortable for my wife.

She's refusing to see a therapist alone or with me, she's refused to see a psychiatrist.

If you have the capacity, you might consider talking to a therapist for yourself, partially because this is a lot to deal with, and partially because they may be more familiar with resources and ideas that may be helpful to her.

It probably isn't much, but you have my sympathies and prayers, anonymous internet friend.

I've been meeting with our pastor weekly for several weeks now.

Today during the crisis intervention counseling she agreed to both individual therapy / psychiatric care beginning tomorrow, and couples / marital counseling at a TBD date.

Amazing news. I will pray for your marriage.

Oh, dear lord. You have my deep sympathies.

I've helped out from the tech side with some elder fraud victims that had a similarish pathway, though the marital relationship and legal side is going to be wildly different. That said, while the FBI really only categorizes 'elder fraud', there's a pretty wide variety of both subclinical mental health episodes and simple unfamiliarity that gets abused pretty heavily by the same scammers.

From the tech side, the most urgent thing is to figure out your security environment. Even if there ends up being no organic problem, people in this sort of mode are incredibly vulnerable to scams and grifters, and I would not be surprised to find that bitcoin bit is not the first of its kind, several types of attack make 10k USD liability the low end of risk (who wants to get banned by Chexsystems!), and some scam victims react to the perceived time pressure of a helper pulling them away from their scammers by going full-in. Keep and take a very good look at your recent transaction history. If either of you are using debit cards routinely, change that as soon as you can. Some banks or credit card processors will have options to reduce the credit limit on your cards, and most will have it for other transaction types. You may be able to request international transaction blocks, and some banks will have a Trusted Contact Designation (though this is intended for elder care situations, so may not be viable even if present). Check that your credit score is frozen. If possible, implement an ACH debit block and only whitelist services you absolutely need. Make and keep good records of financial transactions that is not dependent on continual access to the financial services in question. Ideally you'd want to separate finances, with automated transfers, but that's... a hard pull even for elder fraud cases; I wouldn't expect it to be possible here.

While rare, I have seen scammer trick people into installing keyloggers and/or RATs -- ideally you'd want to get her a clean machine, but checking running services, monitoring outbound network traffic, and the normal security checks are probably going to be more doable here. If you're willing (and your router supports it), it's a good time to move away from a default any any outbound firewall rule, but that's more to make you the more annoying target than to actually block attackers. If you're not doing a ton of LAN traffic, consider switching your wifi to a guest network and turning on guest network isolation, or implementing strict VLAN limits, for similar reasons. Keep an eye out for 'free' VPNs, if you've blocked websites; they can be amazingly sketchy.

Social side is harder, in a lot of ways.

If you can't get her to a therapist or a psychiatrist, at least try to evaluate what she's looking for. You're not going to be able to make an evaluation of depression vs bipolar disorder versus impulse control versus a thousand other options, so try to resist the urge to think in DSM terms. But you can probably find out if she's looking for a big payout, or political power, or recognition by the powerful, or something more esoteric (I've seen two cases where the victim had a One Weird Trick they really wanted to apply to bigger scales).

Genuinely believing clearly wrong things doesn't necessarily mean an organic cause and some (even some very smart!) people just get tricked, but if she can't be persuaded away from any of it or strongly resists checking or validating claims of the scammer, that does point that direction.

It's probably overly optimistic, but I think you've mentioned your wife is a full-time housemaker, and recently became a stay-at-home-mom after having a more conventional career. Rarely this sorta attraction toward scams can show up as a mirror to the typical breadwinner mid-life-crisis sorta behavior, where a housewife (or househusband) is looking for a ton of meaning in life. That's still not great, anymore than the 40-year-old in a bad toupee driving a convertible into a wall is! And sometimes it's combined with organic problems. But sometimes there's options to negotiate in this space: it's hard to get people in this sphere from wanting to do something, but you might be able to persuade on what that something is with stupid questions, or by suggesting that smaller-scale investments that require a lot of her efforts will be more renumerative.

At the other side of things... don't fixate on it, but seriously evaluate how prepared you are for a potential divorce, and evaluate if she's making preparations. I don't know enough of that class of problems from the parents side, but I do know it's one plausible motivation for very poor risk assessment for investments.

I can't speak on the radicalization side without more information, and you've got a million valid reasons to not want to go into that publicly.

I spoke to an attorney last week. It was sad and depressing. I completed the documention exercises he recommended before I blocked the the extremist content from the network. This is a non-perfered option.

Being a suspicious sysdmin I was already viewing flows in real time with ntop. I'm blocking tor, outbound VPN from the VLAN her devices are on and also run several domain block lists in DNS. I also trap and force all DNS though my DNS servers and use a block list to block all the well know DNS over https servers. Opnsense firewall.

After I confronted her with the emails and transactions she agreed to go to a crisis counseling service. She now agreed to engage with a therapist / psychiatrist. She goes back tomorrow. She says she knew it was a scam but sent the money anyway because they were nice to her. I don't understand.

White well-being / nowhiteguilt.org is the bailey I'm sure you can imagine the motte.

After I confronted her with the emails and transactions she agreed to go to a crisis counseling service. She now agreed to engage with a therapist / psychiatrist. She goes back tomorrow. She says she knew it was a scam but sent the money anyway because they were nice to her. I don't understand.

Forgive me for using a crude term but "pig butchering" is what this class of scam is called in the industry, if that helps you with your research. It's based on a Chinese term.

The scammers invest a lot of effort into making the victim feel good. They're often romantic in nature. For a lot of the victims the story that they're talking to a celebrity is just a foil for having an online friend. They know, on some level, that it's not really that celebrity they're talking to.

A lot of victims have some degree of mental illness but sometimes the victims are just lonely and engaging in some twisted variant of OnlyFans, paying for some kind of friendship.

The scammers can still be pretty ruthless though, switching to blackmail once the victim tries to end things. So she may be desperate not to lose contact with them.

I'm sorry this is happening for a start. I'm sure this must be very stressful for you. I suppose the main question is whether if you explain it to her does she recognize she is being scammed? Or is this a delusion and she really believes that she is talking to Elon even when you point out it is a scam?

If she's depressed then she might fall for a scam easier, but it's still different than if it is a full blown delusion. Is there perhaps a trusted pastor or faith leader (as you mention bible school) that you might be able to call upon? If she doesn't want to engage with conventional medical/therapy perhaps that is an alternative? Either through faith-based marriage counselling or even just them coming round for a cup of tea for a chat in a more informal way?

I'll know in a bit. She's out at the moment.

She's been very resistant to any sort of help. She's refused to speak to our pastor either alone or with me and has refused all suggestions of counseling, therapy or psychiatry. I've been speaking with our pastor regularly in person in addition to frequent texts and emails.

Speaking to her nurse practitioner today, the NP recommended taking her to the walk in psychiatric service at our hospital. I anticipate she'll refuse.

If she persists in the delusion that she's been speaking to Elon Musk after being advised of the scam, I thought I'd see if our local PD would assist in having her sectioned. I've already left a message with the detective regarding the scam.

Ok, are you in the UK or the US? If the UK, you might be able to enlist the help of the local adult social care department as a halfway house between psychiatric treatment and therapy. We used to offer just chat sessions to people suffering stress et al. But disconnecting even from a trusted pastor sounds worrying, so social services may not be an option either as that will need voluntary engagement.

Is there a trusted family member of hers who might be able to get through to her? If it were my wife, I'd be going to her brother and her cousin she is very close with for example. Not quite an intervention perhaps, but a display that multiple people she trusts are worried.

Having said that, you know the situation better than me, but I have seen spouses sectioning their sick wives/husbands result in the end of the marriage multiple times, so just make sure to think through your options. This is a legitimately tough thing to go through so make sure you are also looking after your own health. If you're engaged with your pastor at least you have some kind of outlet.

Good luck seems inadequate, but I will wish it anyway.

US.

After confronting her with the email and the screenshots of the transactions she agreed to go to a crisis counseling walk in service. They saw us right away, she was much more amenable to seeing a therapist / psychiatrist after talking through things with the crisis counselor. She goes back tomorrow.

I'd reached out to her brother several weeks ago. Unfortunately they were estranged when we ment and married. Didn't really reconcile until ~14 years ago, and we've only seen him in person once in the last 12 years.

I was really very surprised how supportive and engaged the local police department was when I reached out about options, thankfully I did not need to go down that path. Small town life.

She now says she knew it was a scam and sent the money anyway because they were nice to her and it was part fantasy. Though the money and bitcoin was very real and not fantasy.

I've a friend who's a psychiatrist in the UK. He and my wife did A&E rotations together in Ireland. He and I are talking tomorrow.

I really appreciate your advice, thank you.

Well being willing to get help is at least a positive sign. And knowing it was a scam but treating it as a kind of escapist fantasy a la a new sports car seems maybe better than being delusional, hopefully. Still not great financially though of course.

I'll hope the help she is able to get is effective and this is a short term issue fueled by depression and the like. I don't think I have anything more from a technical side so just hope and good wishes.

I love this site.

I don't contribute even remotely the same level of thoughtful and well-considered effortposts that many do, I disagree with shit tons of bad takes (that are almost always well-argued) and in some cases I just nod with awe at not only the intellect (by which I mean an ability to read, remember, and consolidate massive amounts of text, both discrete and historical) on display here at times. Fuck the haters.

Thanks to all for making my online experience richer, regardless of the timbre of your political sensitivities and whether they skew differently from my own.

Also happy birthday to that one Mottizen (you know who you are)!

This site is one of the few forums that doesn't make me constantly go "Why the fuck is everyone a bunch of retards who are violently opposed to even trying to get facts correct or using their brain?"... Like sure, there are idiots also here but not to the massively overwhelming extent that is the norm pretty much everywhere else. And I'm not even talking about anything politically related.

It's so bizarre. Many Golden Age web forums had a lifecycle involving the creation of an off-topic board, then the politics (containment thread/containment subforum/topic ban) to try and keep things from getting out of hand, then the drama built and built until it dominated the whole thing or it collapsed.

But here we've had the reverse. We were the containment thread, which was then jettisoned into its own /r/, then escaped onto its own site, which has made room for more good "off-topic" discussion to grow.

Yeah, same. The Motte is very comfy.

Dude, you contribute enough that I remember your name. That puts you in a pretty select group, I barely remember 10 posters from here and I went to HS with one of them and regularly text another. I really enjoy your travelogues and I'm happy you're part of this place.

Kind of you to say, thanks.

I'm just a lurker, but I'm very happy this place exists. It provides a model for how I should behave in other communities as well.

Hey I was thinking of posting something similar. I really like this place and I’m glad it seems to be flourishing and getting good new folks.

Huh you preempted my post, I was coming here to essentially say the same thing:

On the rare occasions I wade back into reddit these days, I'm reminded how much lower quality the discourse there is in general. Arguing to win is the default, instead of arguing to understand. People will happily and uncharitably pounce on any minor mistake or misunderstanding they can in order to get a rhetorical edge. I've gotten old enough at this point that I just don't care anymore, as soon as I get the impression that someone is arguing to win I just nope out and let them have it.

There were no "golden days" of reddit either (aside from when TheMotte was there lol), I've been on reddit essentially since the very beginning and although it's had its ups and downs it's never reached the heights of TheMotte.

So yeah, this place is amazing, and I hope you guys keep doing what you do.

Reddit is really not a good place to have reasoned arguments with people who are interested in actual engagement. I tried getting back onto there under an alt account talking mainly about non-political topics, and made a fairly long post where detractors (including a small number of self-proclaimed credentialed professionals) came in and decided to soapbox at length while refusing to address any of the statistical data posted. The overwhelming sense I got was "I don't have time for this crap".

Just reminds me how much better this forum is as a place for discussion. Not perfect in the slightest, but stepping foot back onto Reddit is like debating with a bunch of bad actors who really just want to soapbox about how right they are, and who love engaging in selective myopia as soon as something doesn't confirm their viewpoint. It's not the kind of forum I'm interested in anymore.

On the rare occasions I wade back into reddit these days, I'm reminded how much lower quality the discourse there is in general. Arguing to win is the default, instead of arguing to understand. People will happily and uncharitably pounce on any minor mistake or misunderstanding they can in order to get a rhetorical edge.

It's not just reddit. Photography forums, musician forums and pretty much anything else that isn't either super strictly moderated or deals with super technical topics so that most users are far to the right of the bell curve.

I love it too. It's probably the only online forum I participate in at this point; I've been spoiled rotten to the point I can barely enjoy any of the rest.

Though I wish I had more energy to effort-post. I used to make big posts full of citations and dense argumentation more before and get into spirited disagreements and butt heads with users but I feel like my contributions have been rather lacking as of late. Life gets in the way I guess.

I'm kind of the same. I don't effort post, but I enjoy being here and the people here.

I like that even the ones I disagree with are at least speaking my language.

What is this place?

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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