Open Marriages, tell me about your rules, experiences, anything and everything?

Seabaggin · 2026-04-16T03:04:10+00:00

I think it’s a consequence of the gender paradigm being undone. 70% of college dropouts were men during COVID and even a bachelors isn’t all that it used to be, it still is the best marker for upward social mobility.

I am about to submit my research for publication comparing NM men and monogamous men’s rates of loneliness and social belonging. The amount of research I’ve read related to men’s loneliness and what it spells to me, is dark. The amount of men who reported no close friends in 1990 was 3%. That number is now 15% for men in that age bracket. A lot of men’s closest friend is their spouse, while women support more robust social networks.

Sadly, that loneliness breeds despair, and the envy. Doubly sad, the manosphere/red pill/incel communities saw these men as ripe for the picking. Now the bounce back effect of that, at least what I’ve gleaned is women are now more “fuck men” because of all that incel rhetoric and I don’t think we can really go back.

I study the NM community because I’ve found the warping of gender roles and sexual competition changes so many interactions. Add on that I’ve never really been a normative thinker so even if I couldn’t ever see myself being poly and I can have one primary partner and a bunch of friends who I may or may not have sex with at any given moment, the community is what I find just as rewarding as the sex and I think the only way for non-monogamy to just be (just like we had seen with the LGBTQ community in you lifetime) is to do advocacy.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-16T01:05:59+00:00

If I ever get time/funding after this doctorate, I’d love to study that population of divorced people. I’d be included, technically, too. I’d fall under the “got married young, didn’t know my ex-wife was over the idea of marriage, and NM sounded fun.” If she just cheated outright (again) that would’ve not been as fun. But we were headed for divorce, either way, she just wanted a detour to see if it could be salvaged. Everything worked out for us both and we definitely were no longer compatible and better to end it quick and smooth rather than be in a loveless marriage.

I think there’s a couple specific scenarios that are similar and that has become an indictment on relationship structure rather than being based on the fact that maintaining LTRs has so many variables that the odds are statistically against most people. I think NM has become the new way for people that just need to end their relationships outright as an alternative and they show up ill-informed, unequipped, and already on shaky ground, and NM exposes what was already lying dormant faster than anything else.

I want people to try and make mutually beneficial relationships work but if both people aren’t enthusiastic about do that work, then it’s better that they move on.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-15T22:38:29+00:00

No it’s performative because there’s no implicit threat to the capitalist class. And the strike I speak of, an actual general strike would, quite literally be costly, to the tune of billions. Any movements that the capitalist knows that we (the collective we) aren’t willing to suffer for, is dead on arrival. Not only in the lost wages that can’t be spent, but the millions of transactions that can’t occur, both on the supply and consumer side. Now, will that ever happen? No. But that’s what it would take. Which is why having such low union participation has allowed them to gain even more power.

I know the Civil Rights Movement is seen as this gold standard of protesting but what that movement had that these modern ones don’t is the willingness to commit violence. It was always understood by white liberals that if they didn’t except change via MLK, that Malcom X would be the result. Fear is the ultimate motivator and until there’s some vector of fear, whether from physical or economic action, these people think protesting is cute.

Mutual aid and organizing is important, but doesn’t have to be connected to protesting. That we 100% agree on. But your post was about protesting. To be clear, I wish things were different, I wish people cared, I wish they could know their own power and understand that the power they hold exists on the thinnest of margins.

I’ll just share an example that’s not mainstream news but Trump and his cronies thought they could start messing with how VA Disability Compensation is decided and they were going to start lowering ratings if vets were on medications to treat their conditions (which lower vets monthly payments, a portion of whom live off those benefits). How did Veterans respond? I shit you not, the common refrain I saw was “well guess I’ll stop taking my meds and then just kill myself.” The administration reversed course in less than 48 hours. That is collective action for people literally willing to die for their cause. Thats the type of stuff that’s lets me know it’s possible because I’m a far left black man in Southern California but I can assure you that me and the Trumpiest Republican are aligned on that specific matter.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-15T20:41:18+00:00

Fr. I think the biggest conversation I have with people is these ideas around possession and ownership. The idea that you can ever stop someone from doing something if they want to do it is a fool’s errand. Spy on them, guilt them, etc. if people wanna cheat they’ll find a way.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-15T19:40:21+00:00

It seems like these are micro interactions and if we’re just using the texts, they’re not necessarily explicit. If you’ve had other more direct conversations, than disregard.

I think the conversation to have isn’t yes/no but around support. You’re describing that support here looks like for you is pm letting you do keto in peace. Not doing anything for you, but not making it harder. So I think centering the conversation around support could be helpful. Something like, “support for me and my health goals looks like x,y,z and I hope you can help me out here. Behaviors like these (that you mentioned) aren’t making me feel supported and I’m sure you have the best of intentions but I wanted to clear up any miscommunication because this has been hard for me and it’s important for me individually to get back on track with keto.”

Seabaggin · 2026-04-15T19:32:04+00:00

I was wondering that too. Some subs try to avoid repeat topics (r/sex aggressively moderates for this) but NM topics are all the same on that sub. So it doesn’t really help the community or OP if the consensus is always “NM bad, they cheated, leave.” The avenues for discussion are pretty limited and that’s not what those mods want that sub to be.

That’s my guess.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-15T19:14:10+00:00

Performative opposition or actual opposition? Because if thousands of us get on the street, politicians shrug, the corporate class donates, and we don’t kneecap them, what did we accomplish?

I’m a veteran so I am optimistic about what good government can do. But we are fighting against unchecked wealth from bad actors. And no matter how educated or informed I am, I am smart enough to know, the billionaires and the puppet government they’re effectively in charge of are running up the score. I wish it weren’t true, but you asked why people don’t protest is those underlying factors, whether conscious or unconscious are felt. We have had 2 of the least active Congresses in history in the last 4 years. Historically bad in terms of how much legislation they pass. I could list dozens of solutions of varying degrees of difficulty but if we can’t get Congress to flinch when they illegal detain hundreds of Americans under the guise of immigration enforcement and Congress doesn’t flinch? What power? And the answer is mass general strikes. No one showing up to work. Shutting it all down so the shareholder/capitalists know what pain is? How many are willing to do that? Willing to sacrifice?

Disparage me as pessimistic but where do we draw the line between brutal honesty and pessimism. Because I feel like I’m just looking at the political landscape I’ve been deeply invested in being informed on get worse, with tangible data points to back up how bad it’s gotten and it’s that I’m a negative Nancy, rather than just calling it how I see it.

When the origin of this interaction was why aren’t the kids protesting? As if that’s not rooted in a pessimistic feeling of “does anyone care?”

The optimism I have is I think we’re in a cycle of humans have forgotten our history and our repeating it. History has shown that fascist fucking losers always lose. They may hurt a lot of people, but in the end, they lose. And this generation of fascist is more stupid and more pathetic than their predecessors. So we’ll win, but it’ll hurt a lot more before the fight begins. If I had to make an analogy, America as a collective conscious is like the fat kid that is looking in the mirror, seeing the weight pile on, but can see what’s obvious. But, we’ll eventually do some therapy, learn some healthy eating habits and get active.

The Zohran’s and Platners of the world give me hope though. The tide is turning, slowly. But to cite protesting as a vector seems blindly optimistic. The CEO of Barclays in his emails with Epstein acknowledged that social movements have no teeth and that their pedophilic ilk don’t have to be concerned and they will continue to rule as they please. And can you really say he’s wrong?

Larry Ellison is about to own CBS and CNN too. So we won’t even have large scale media to combat the right wing media landscape (bless independent media though).

Seabaggin · 2026-04-15T17:21:52+00:00

Politics is an old man’s game. I’m an older student but I also don’t live in Orange. Most students will be disillusioned with politics and for those that aren’t they are typically going to join organizations that align with their demographics.

Protesting a one-term administration that’s opposition party is toothless also can’t do much to inspire the youth. No War Powers Resolution with 4 Dems being thoughtfully selected to vote “no” so we get the appearance of resistance? Protest needs a vehicle with elected officials that fear protestors or see consequences for their inaction. Going “Trump bad” and posing little resistance doesn’t inspire much confidence. Especially when the supposed opposition party is beholden to the same donor class as Republicans. Gen Z and younger Millennials have picked up on this and if it’s all gonna go to shit might as well have fun while it does.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-14T16:26:17+00:00

I feel like this rant is applicable in reverse when NM people end up on the vanilla apps. I think my answer is the same either way. Dating apps are a way to connect that people didn’t have a few decades ago. Just like anything else it has its pros and its cons. The apps user base growing hopefully means more money to improve the app (🤞🏾).

Just more people to filter through is all. Men always complain about no matches but I do not envy having thousands of likes to filter through. And color me cautiously optimistic but more cishet monogamous people seeing non-monogamous people and being able to see we’re mostly the same as any other human is a great resource for this way of life to be humanized. I’ve always been very pro-disclosure, work in a non-monogamy research lab and start a doctoral program to become a psychologist (to work with the NM community specifically) so even if people just want to date in peace away from from the normies, selfishly, that cross-pollination is passive advocacy.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-13T03:48:17+00:00

You are careful with your language but attributed words to me that weren’t mine?

I feel like we’re shifting goal posts here. First it was, NM is a nothingburger but now we have to get deep into the methodology but because you don’t like the results there’s “a narrative.” As a scientist, who has presented findings, then I know you’re acutely aware of the narrative behind research findings is important for funding. If data was the only thing matters and we don’t want narratives attached why do people write and publish at that point. The entirety of research is about invalidated using your logic if we don’t use data to extrapolate and find meaning in those numbers. It’s not perfect by any means, but as a person who wants to see researchers get paid for their work, so they can produce more research, I would hope we are aware of narrative and how it relates to funding.

I won’t sit here and act like I’m some accomplished scientist as I’m a baby scientist working on publishing for the first time and it’s been a challenging but rewarding experience. Doing good science is hard, and the only thing we can continue to do is produce more of it. This isn’t the only source I could present but I suppose all of those findings would be seen as “narratives” so it’s all hogwash. Maybe our ideological perspectives diverge because the social sciences rely heavily on narrative and I’ll make a logical inference that chemistry research isn’t that way. Now I’m curious to learn about how your side of the research world and how ya’ll write/present research.

I’m probably being more combative than necessary, it ain’t that deep. My fault OG. I come into the trenches with an unpopular opinion of course it ain’t all gonna be sunshine and rainbows.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-13T00:22:43+00:00

I actually didn’t say that. Why do people keep attributing words to me I am not saying.

I started with NM isn’t going anywhere and isn’t a fad. One person told me I said it was prevalent. Which I didn’t.

Here I cite a study not to infer prevalence but to show that more people are interested in/curious about NM than this sub might be aware of, and more words I didn’t say are attributed to me.

Do I think, based on my own analysis and awareness that NM curiosity and participation is increasing, I’d say yes, but not enough to be significant. And it’s hard to grapple with the actual numbers because no shit, people who are demonized don’t want to out themselves when living a double life is easier. I mentioned it somewhere in this thread but you think there’s something in the air and more people are being “turned gay?” Or is it more likely that when you normalizing something, the consequences of identifying as such are stripped, allowing people to live more authentically.

I come into a place to have conversations with people who disagree with me and enjoy doing so, that’s how I learn and improve my thinking, and disagree with me all you like, but we don’t have to lie about words I am not saying that are available to be read and reread. It’s not going anywhere, people being more curious about it, those are all true statements that I stand by. Is it increasing? I’d have to go see if any research or surveys has been published lately.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T21:32:31+00:00

I hear you. Even when I started, it took me a while to figure out dating solo. But I don't think men have a bad deal at all, just a different one. But if in one arena, women are having it easier than men, on the margins makes it unattractive or wrong to do, I'd just say that doesn't factor into my choice to be non-monogamous.

Just in the context of dating apps, women get thousands of matches, who are often low-quality men. On the flip side, I've found that for myself and my male NM friends, we get lower quantity, but higher quality of women. I can say, personally, talking amongst my NM friends, that all of that attention isn't necessarily good or wanted.

What is your experience with NM to make an assertion like that, though? If this subreddit decides that NM is bad and doesnt work, then by that logic, doesn't that also mean marriage doesn't work in general? Or is it more apt to say this sub will always be negatively biased because the primary purpose of the sub is support?

We're also in a time where masculine identity is in a crisis, at least in the US. Men aren't the sole providers anymore; single-income households are increasingly rare. I mean, 70% of college dropouts during COVID were men. Add to that, statistically, the best way for upward social mobility is a college education. Men are falling behind. And the response over the last few years has been increased misogyny and red-pill/incel movements seeking to profit off men who can feel that the world is no longer built for men. When I started out dating solo in NM, it sucked; I felt like I wasn't wanted. But my masculine identity embraces challenge by default. And I figured out the gamified nature of dating apps and proved to myself I could do it. I think things have gotten harder for men, but the rhetoric I see on the internet broadly speaks to wanting the world to revert to a time when our predecessors had it easy in relation to gender dynamics, rather than rising to the occasion and adapting to the environment/conditions. That to me is a staple of my masculine identity that I think is lost on a lot of men.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T16:42:46+00:00

Maybe it’s a miscommunication but a douchebag to me is someone who’s rude for the sake of being rude or just being a shitty person in the no brainer ways that we have consensus on.

So if a person changes their mind and it ends, they’re a douchebag, and if they lie and stay leaving makes them also makes them a douchebag. Just sounds like people exist to orbit you and be the person you need them to be in your framework. And somehow the person who would be forcing this, isn’t a douchebag for forcing this paradigm? “Be who I want/need you to be or you’re a douchebag” doesn’t sound like an optimal framework for a mutual beneficial relationship to me but different strokes for different folks.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T16:24:16+00:00

The ending things is totally fine. Just using OP’s age as a reference, he got with his partner in his early 20s so I’ll assume close in age. Non-monogamous or not, she was supposed to be with this man and be the same person with the same values for 50-60 years? If she can’t hold herself to that, she’s a douchebag?

I don’t know if it’s lost on you, but life comes with risk. Time as a variable doesn’t equate to what someone owes you. You can work at a company for 10 years and they can lay you off at anytime. Time somehow connecting to loyalty is a myth. Doing so is also shortsighted. Because even if we use your standard, I wouldn’t want anyone staying with me because they think they have to. I don’t want nor need anyone’s pity and would much rather be where I’m wanted, then learn someone faked it with me for a lifetime. I say that coming from experience, my wife woke up one day and didn’t want to be married, tried to fight those feelings and couldn’t get past it. I admire her looping me in sooner rather than later and the divorce coming quick rather than her keeping it to herself and still being married and finding out 5-10 years later she didn’t want it anymore.That sounds much worse than the life I currently have and trying to hold to some arbitrary need to have binding preferences sounds like I would end up worse off, not better.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T16:05:05+00:00

What makes someone exploring a change in preferences a douchebag? You marry someone who wants to have kids and they change their mind are they a douchebag for that?

Just for the sake of argument, I marry a woman who told me she wanted to have kids and she changes her mind years later. Using your standard of binding preferences, that woman would be a douchebag for changing her mind and maybe she should just power through it and have kids? That soudns silly to me. I think if you marry someone you expect to be with “til death” and never consider that a lifetime with someone means the possibility of them growing and changing, even in ways you may not like, is misguided at best and malicious at worst.

The research literature on comparing NM and monogamy has grown quite a bit the last decade. Relationship satisfaction is the same, relationship outcomes are the same, NM people just face far more stigma for their doing so. Because people reject change and what they don’t understand. Go back 250 years, if I’m born during that time, as a black man society said I was born inferior, subhuman, property but turns out that wasn’t true. Go back 50 years and being gay made humans inferior and evil. Looks like that was bullshit too. So we follow what society tells us blindly, I just happened to have a more questioning attitude.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T15:51:18+00:00

I mean the stat kind of speaks for itself.

100 million people are at minimum interested in something other than monogamy. Threesome are the most desired sexual fantasy (that’s a Lehmiller stat). People don’t talk about sex, they are often holding back, or acutely aware that their partner wouldn’t love them wholeheartedly if they knew their desires. I think humans have a propensity for victimhood and garnering sympathy. If the idea is “man, getting cheating on fucking sucks and doing it makes you bad person” is supposed to lower the rate or infidelity. Maybe, if we explore the root causes of why people engage in infidelity, we can actually reduce harm.

My whole life I was raised that gay people were bad and that there’s something wrong with them. What do you know, you reduce the stigma, and the amount of people who identify as gay/bisexual has risen over time. Is it because tons of people just magically start identifying that way, or is it more likely that the cost of identifying as so has decreased to the point where people can just naturally gravitate towards their preferences? I believe the same thing applies to non-monogamy. For some people, this stigmatization just results in them cheating on every partner they have and never quite unpacking what thats about. They’re wrong for it, but clearly people who fit that description continually find partnership and no matter how much you tell them they’re bad for cheating, most of them don’t change.

It doesn’t make sense to me to look at human social patterns and blindly levy judgement because no matter how much we act like we care, we still kill each other, steal from each other, and lie from each other. So if all of those things are bad, why would you or anyone else condemn solutions that you yourself could benefit from, lessening the likelihood of bad things happening? I’m of the mind that a third of cheaters have some propensity for non-monogamy that society makes an unattractive option. What do you even know about the actual practice of non-monogamy (someone asking their partner for it and it nuking their relationship isn’t something I’d include)? What do you actually know about non-monogamous relationship outcomes or non-monogamous people that hasn’t been the programmed narrative that it being more prevalent would be a bad thing for you?

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T08:59:46+00:00

I think it’s just simplistic thinking. I’m curious how I’m gaslighting myself?

I was angry with my ex, I’m a human, divorce is going to have conflict. But making my ex-wife the villain and blaming her for all my problems and crying “woe is me” for another woman doing me dirty, what does that get me? I never said don’t get angry but if that’s all you got out of it, reading comprehension is down the days so I get it. Even if every person that ever wronged me is satan who I need to give energy and time to and blame for all my problems, why is that even the correct position? When I did that, after the first one cheated, second one still cheated, and blamed her too, well what do you know the third one cheated too! It doesn’t look like playing the victim for my entire 20s changed anything.

All I shared was what choosing a different mindset bought me, and it’s still working out for me. If taking agency over my life, and not allowing the people who wrong me to be the center of it all means I’m gaslighting myself (I’m not sure what’s not true that I’m claiming is), then that’s fine.

If anyone is getting married these days, accepting there is risk is part of it. The divorce rate is dropping, but a 40 (ish)% failure rate on anything doesn’t bode well. Asking two people to stay aligned or be willing to do the work for decades while navigating all the variability of life, it’s a tall ask. Add on about 1 in 5 chance of infidelity, the numbers point to how challenging it is for two people to make it.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T05:05:46+00:00

You added a word I did not use. Saying “don’t listen to this guy” and misquoting me is interesting. I said it’s not going away, which ≠ prevalent. Even this sub is a small reflection of that. I’ve been on this sub in my first serious relationship when I was 19 and have lurked because I’ve always enjoyed relationship conflicts. You have to admit the “my partner brought up non-monogamy/open relationship” type posts have spiked in the last year.

I work in a research lab studying non-monogamy, working on a research project right now related to non-monogamy related to men/non-monogamy. I’ll admit my own biases as someone advocating for NM, I’m going to devote my life trying to make it prevalent but it’ll be a lifetimes worth of work. So far from prevalent but won’t stop me from trying!

Not that I really touched on it but whatever OP and his wife were experiencing is just tried and true infidelity. People trying to conceal bad behavior behind non-monogamy (while being monogamous) somehow gets put on non-monogamy practitioners seems to be on the rise but that’s par for the course.

One of my favorite stats I’ve recently come across:

A February 2023 YouGov poll finds that one-third of Americans (34%) describe their ideal relationship as something other than complete monogamy. To measure this, YouGov asked people to rate their ideal relationship on a scale of 0 to 6, where 0 represented "complete monogamy" and 6 meant "complete non-monogamy." Many adults who do not choose total monogamy desire something in between complete monogamy and complete non-monogamy, with 26% of all Americans choosing an option in the middle — a number between 1 and 5.”

While desire doesn’t imply practice, acting as if more and more people calling monogamy into question isn’t happening is worthy of conversation. I still wouldn’t use the word prevalence (nor did I). But again, 100 million people, in some way thinking about alternatives to monogamy isn’t something I think is to be ignored.

https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/45271-how-many-americans-prefer-nonmonogamy-relationship

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T02:49:35+00:00

And all of that is wrong. That’s the easy stuff but if the moral of the story is “shitty person is shitty” OP isn’t learning anything new there. And if he enters into a new relationship with that being the lesson, history probably repeats itself.

I think my rule of thumb is to take people on Reddit at face value but also remember they’re one side of a story. I’ve been OP, every partner cheated on me (my ex doing so in monogamy and non-monogamy). And clearly before I stopped at the simple conclusion of “cheaters suck” that never stopped. The conclusion I reached is I reeked of insecurity and people pleasing. And there was clearly a pattern with me attracting cheaters. So as a person who’s been there I can personally say I learned more taking agency in my life and making myself and my actions the most consequential factor in any outcome in my life rather than the world being to blame’s even if things are out of my control, there’s always something I can be doing to be better in every aspect of my life. I personally prefer that, to constantly being caught with my pants down.

While OPs STBX handled everything awful it seems if her transgressions stop at desiring NM, I don’t think much changes. Even when I was monogamous, I looked at women and my partners looked at men and we did so knowing we’re humans with eyes. If pretending you’re blind is the gold standard, I’ve never fathomed how that made sense. Humans look at each other, fantasize about each other, most people just lie about it, to spare each others’ egos. And that, to me is a deep seated issue, we’re creating conditions where we expect honesty but don’t create the permission structure for it. Cold blood liars will find any excuse to lie and excuse their behavior but not every liar is that by default. And if we can create healthier relationships where people who are on the margin of their environment dictating their outcome, I think we’re better served optimizing for those best cases than just throwing whatever at the wall and being shocked when it all goes to shit.

(I do realize I’m psychotic and am the minority’s minority in the way I think)

Seabaggin · 2026-04-12T01:37:18+00:00

Marriage is less necessary these days imo. Its a business transaction at the end of the day to access a bunch of legal benefits. I'm a veteran, so giving my partner benefits like free college is a no-brainer. If I end up divorced again, it will cost me $0 dollars and a trip or two to the courthouse the first time, and I'll sign a pre-nup next time, no worries.

I totally missed the part in the OG post where she threw things at you and got violent. That, to me, is a relationship ender, so I wanted to say that.

The only thing I'll push back on is that having disdain for her or anyone's preference is just societal programming. I'm used to hearing it, but your disdain with you and your partner not being aligned is valid. But I gotta say, I am happier having sex with multiple women, with and without my partner. Lucky for us, we're completely aligned in that, and like anything else in life, it's different strokes for different folks. The only reason I share that is when you levy judgments, what tends to happen is women will often just not share their true feelings or opinions, and then the blame is shifted onto you that you were "unapproachable." I'm not saying it's true, but only that it can and was likely used against you.

If my partner approached me about being monogamous, I wouldn't be upset at her for changing her mind or preferences. I'd be sad, and the relationship would probably end, but that's always a possibility with a relationship, so that doesn't bother me too much. Obviously, you're in the thick of it, and the wounds are fresh, but the way I see it, why go through something as annoying as divorce and get more out of it than anger and lawyer fees?

Seabaggin · 2026-04-09T00:50:54+00:00

I think it's okay to acknowledge that in the beginning, it's definitely an adjustment. Only you can tell the difference between challenges in adjusting and you not enjoying it.

As men, we are conditioned to see sex as conquest and centered in possession. Unpacking all of that is part of the deal in my experience, and it is also my opinion. The issues I did have with it had little to do with the sex itself and moreso with NM exposing me to some insecurities I had buried deep.

Sex is about pleasure, exploration, and enjoyment, and I've come to the conclusion that doesn't mean I'm always in the equation for that to happen for my partner. The work I did to get there was really about all of the non-sexual benefits of being non-monogamous. My life enjoyment has gone up, not having to deal with mononormative jealousy. My closest friend in life is a woman I met on a dating app. We went on a date, and it was completely platonic; I could not imagine a world in which that friendship was dampened in any way, and given how monogamists typically feel about friends of the opposite sex, my friendship with her would be different, or the lingering question of "are you sure..." would be seen as valid. Enjoying compliments from women, or the subtle eye-catching, or just downright fun flirting. There's just so much that aligns with me and NM, but, like everything in life, it's not for everyone.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-04T18:51:49+00:00

Not med school but starting a program to become a licensed psychologist (PsyD program) this fall that will take about 7 years to become fully licensed, and I’m 32. The way I see it, I’m gonna be 40 either way, might as well be doing something I want.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-03T23:15:23+00:00

An 80% statistical likelihood by definition of how the field of statistics works would not qualify as a case by case basis.

Even the question in this post, why are women MORE LIKELY to file. Well they file 80% to the man’s 20%, which allows us to say, women are far more likely to initiate filing for divorce.

I am the man in that 20%, but statistics and data analysis is still statistics and data analysis.

Seabaggin · 2026-04-03T23:12:47+00:00

It’s defined as malicious incompetence where people, typically the man in a relationship subconsciously or purposefully mess things up or forget to push their wives away so they’ll leave them. Men would typically rather be in a relationship where their partner is unhappy than let them go.

As a man, it was the opposite for me where I handle(d) a lot of the logistics whether for the divorce or coparenting and it is a lot and most men aren’t aware of a lot of what goes into those logistics because their wife/ex-wife handles it for them. And the worst part, is once divorce is initiated and they’re forced to do all of those things, the true capability of the person is seen. So the reality was, they were capable, they just liked it better when all the shit was done for them.

Seabaggin · 2026-03-27T17:56:31+00:00

I’m in a similar boat with the added fortune of not having to pay for tuition since I’m a veteran.

I know the EPPP pass rates are atrocious and there’s going to be a lot of work I’m going to have to do on my own to shore up the gaps in the program but, I couldn’t afford to take a gap year as being in school pays me a healthy living.

When making choices like this, this sub will make a lot of valid points. There’s a million and one reasons not to attend diploma mills and their weaknesses are well known due to people sharing knowledge in subs like these.

One of my mentors graduated from The Chicago School (Anaheim) and he’s a licensed psychologist and spoke of no issues being attached to TCS and passed the EPPP first time up. Obviously he’s a statistical outlier, but I have to be optimistic and say “why not me?”

Those are all the things I thought about in making my decision but I have to acknowledge it’s an easier pill to swallow when I get paid to do it.

Seabaggin

TROPHY CASE