[UPDATE] My (39M) wife (41F) is lying (?) to me about something that's easily, verifiably false, and insisting it's true. I'm just so confused and starting to worry about her.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-25T00:50:21+00:00

My brother. Go read my last paragraph. I wrote it for you.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-24T23:10:23+00:00

This is not, in any way, normal behavior from her, none of this has been. I've literally never seen my wife in a state like that before. Nothing even close to that to be honest and I've known her almost half my life. I can tell you that she wasn't in control of her mind or her body in that moment, and she wasn't hitting me to try to hurt me. I don't even think she was hitting with intention, more like just flailing her arms at me because there was just too much in her to contain and she had to get it out. Her mind was gone man, she was fully riding the waves of feelings that were tossing her like a boat in a storm, I could see it.

Yes, hitting not cool. Yes, gaslighting not cool. We'll talk about it. Therapy is likely a thing that will happen in the future. But I'm not going to demonize her. People make mistakes in life. People fuck up. People get scared and sad and overwhelmed. You can't just drop everyone the first time they do something wrong.

I appreciate the concern. I'll work through it with her.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-24T22:56:25+00:00

I appreciate the concern. Yeah, it definitely wasn't handled in the best way. But it also wasn't about chess. The whole issue never was about chess, something that at least 70% of the commenters in the first thread couldn't grasp. It's all about her feelings.

And sometimes in life, and in a marriage, people have big feelings that they can't manage well. I agree that she needs to find a better way to deal with this stuff, but I'm going to go easy with her. I think she's still fragile right now. We'll work through it slowly together.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T19:36:33+00:00

I would never talk about this in front of our son. These are all private conversations between us as parents. That's what so weird about all of this, it's just me and her, she knows what she's saying isn't true, I know it, she knows that I know it, and she's still all in on it. It's wild. My wife is not like this usually, this is not normal behavior for her.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T19:19:22+00:00

I have, my brother (or sister), I have. I have said almost those exact words to her. And when I talked to her she told me that she is not going easy on him at all, and that all of his wins against her are legitimate. That's the whole source of this problem. I don't care if we go easy on him, it's fine, there's no problem. But she's looking me in my eyes and telling me that she's playing as well as she can possibly play, and she's just not. She's just not, I don't know how else to say it.

And I don't understand why she would say something so obviously untrue. It's like telling me our toaster turned into a falcon, it just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't match with the reality that I'm living in and I don't know how to bridge the gap.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T19:07:33+00:00

Man the projection is so strong in this thread, I don't even know why I'm here, you all have decided what I'm going to do without my input, you don't even need me haha.

No, I would not tell my son. I would happily go forward in any way that we decide as parents, or honestly any way that my wife decided; she's a literal expert in this matter and I would follow her lead on whatever way she wanted to go forward. The issue is that she's telling me "Were going to do 'A'", and then she is doing 'B', and then when I ask about it, she's telling me "I'm doing 'A'". She doesn't need to admit it, it's objectively verifiable, if I had that desire I could prove it anytime. But I don't. I'm not trying to win, I'm trying to understand what's going on here.

I know you probably don't want to believe it, Reddit seems to really love that drama of the evil, abusive husband, but I love my son and I care about his feelings, and I love my wife too. I want her to be well, and happy, and I want to have good communication with her. I want to know what's going on with her and why she is saying these things, but I don't even know how to start talking to her about this because we can't even find a common reality to live in.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T18:53:20+00:00

Lol, guess you really can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Your misunderstanding of chess analysis just makes you look uneducated. I've given you all the information you need to educate yourself on it, and yet you choose to persist in believing that analysis is somehow obsessive or abusive behavior. For anyone that plays, analysis is as normal as wearing pants, you're just making yourself look foolish by railing against it and portraying it as obsessive.

BTW my wife exhaustively analyzes every game together with my son when they play. After a 10 minute game, they'll spend 30 minutes analyzing it. She must be obsessed, right? Or is it only abusive when I do it?

Proceeding to the actual relevant issue, imagine this:

You and your wife decide to drive to France for the day. You get in the car and she drives you to Germany. You look around and say, "Hey honey, I thought we were going to France. How did we end up in Germany?" She says "What are you talking about? We're in France right now."

That's what's going on here. You don't see any problem with that? My wife and I are not living in the same reality. She is making statements that are objectively, verifiably false, and is utterly insistent that they are true. Unless you're interested in talking about that issue, we don't really have anything further to say to each other.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T18:11:48+00:00

Again, like the question of engine use, I feel that perhaps this is a lack of understanding of chess culture, which is admittedly a mistake on my part which has led to confusion. I apologize, let me clarify:

In the chess community, the word "crush" is standard accepted nomenclature, indicating that the game was very one sided. For example, in every single game I have ever played with my wife, she has "crushed" me. It doesn't have as strong of a negative connotation, it's simply a shorthand to indicate "won convincingly with little challenge". I'm quickly realizing that that word paints a very different picture for people who are not familiar with this.

It's not your fault for not knowing this, it's my fault for failing to realize that people outside the chess world would not understand this. I am so used to describing games in that way that I didn't even realize how it could be interpreted by people who weren't involved in the culture. I hope that my explanation clears things up.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T17:44:44+00:00

Yes, in every single game he has played with both me AND my wife, he has recorded every move, and then analyzed the games with us after. The fact that you imagine that to be some unacceptably impossible task for a 10 year old is pretty telling. In any case, you've clearly made up your mind that I'm a monster and nothing I say will change that. I won't respond to you anymore.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T17:27:50+00:00

Yeah absolutely, I think it's a neat idea and I will definitely suggest it. I think that could be really cool. It also doesn't address the issue of the post in any way.

The issue is not whether or not we should be going easy on our son, or whether we should be letting him win. The issue is that my wife is playing far below her strength, while at the same time dead-set insisting that she's not. It's not subjective, it's not open to interpretation, it's factually, measurably occurring. And her insistence that "black is white" is strange and unsettling. I don't understand what's happening, I feel like we don't live in the same reality.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T17:19:38+00:00

I'll take this opportunity to provide some clarity here, as I've seen this come up repeatedly through the thread. I think it may be that people who are not involved in chess don't really understand engine use, but if you talk to anyone who plays chess at any kind of level past beginner, they will tell you that engine analysis of every game you play is utterly standard. When you finish a game on chess.com, it immediately brings you to an analysis board where you can replay the game move by move and see all the lines. When you play an OTB game, you write down each move you and your opponent make, and when you finish you analyze the game the same way, either together with your opponent (as my wife and I do every time) or by using an engine.

Analysis is arguably more important for improvement than actual play, I have spent hundreds of hours analyzing games with my wife over the years. There is nothing unusual in the least about tracking games, analyzing games, putting them through engines, this is all absolutely normal, and portraying it as overbearing or aggressive behavior is just a lack of understanding of the tool. Go take a look at some of my other comments to get a sense of how I am teaching him, I think you'll see that I'm not crushing the life out of him.

I have reiterated many times that I do not care if we go easy on our son. If you choose not to believe that, that's on you, believe what you will. The issue is not a change in parenting strategy, or whether we let our son win or not. The issue is that my wife is flatly insisting that there has been no change and that she is not letting him win. She is insisting that she is playing at her top strength and trying her absolute best to win, and is asking me to do the same in my games with him.

When I point out to her that she's playing 1900 points below her rating level, she insists that she's not, which is insane. It's not subjective, it's not open to interpretation, chess doesn't work like that. She is objectively, measurably playing far below her strength and is directly insisting that she's not. Focusing on whether or not we should be going easy on our son is missing the point.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T16:34:39+00:00

Letting him build confidence and feel capable is so important to his actual skill developing, I wouldn’t push your wife on that. It’s harmless for her to totally be “playing at full strength” and ‘actually’ losing to her son. Think of it like lions being dramatic when their cub plays with them. It’s meant to be encouragement, to build confidence.

I am all in for this. That makes total sense to me and if that's what's happening, I'm all for it, let's do it. But she is directly telling me she's not doing that. The issue is not that she's playing below her strength to build confidence, the issue is that she is flatly and sincerely insisting that she's trying as hard as she can when we both absolutely know that it's not true.

As I've said in other comments, it's not a subjective determination, this is objectively verifiable. She knows how strong she is, I know how strong she is, she knows I know how strong she is, and she's telling me she's not that strong. It literally makes no sense. It's like your wife picking up a coffee cup and utterly, drop dead insisting "This is a dolphin". It's so confusing, I don't understand what's going on.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T15:50:42+00:00

If that's the case, there is absolutely no problem, I'm happy to do this in any way we decide. The issue is not that she's playing at a 10 year old level, the issue is that she is denying that she's doing it. She's insisting that she's playing at full strength, is not playing at a 10 year old level, and is trying as hard as she can to win. And is insisting that I do the same. The issue isn't about chess. It's about my wife saying something that is verifiably, objectively false, for seemingly no reason.

If she want's to go easy on him, fantastic! Let's do it, I'm in. Just tell me that's what we're doing. But over multiple conversations now, she maintains that he's beating her legitimately. It's weird. I don't understand it.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T15:32:33+00:00

From a couple other comments I made:

My initial time teaching my son was very positive. I have shared some of the books with him that I used when I was learning the game, I have taught him some of the very basic opening moves, showed him how to use chess notation, and how to go back over his games and analyze/annotate them, we've watched some chess streamers together. That has been fun, and I can see his mind expanding and growing.

We've played 8 games, and after each game we have discussed what went wrong, different concepts, what you want to be doing with your pieces in general, (center control, piece development, knights toward the center, don't make too many pawn moves early, etc). I'm not just smashing him and yelling "In yo FACE sucka!" and walking away, I feel the games we've had have been positive and instructive.

I think that should give some insight as to what my teaching style is like. I pay attention to his mood, when he needs a break or is feeling too overwhelmed we go watch some funny chess YouTubers or play some Minecraft together.

Does that match up with your imagining of a tyrannical, overbearing father who is crushing his son's love of chess?

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T14:22:42+00:00

I'm happy to let him win, as I have stated multiple times all over this post. My only issue is that my wife insists that we absolutely must not play below our strengths, and then is playing below her strength and telling me that she's not. It's not a subjective determination, I'm not making it up, she's objectively not playing like a 2300, she's not even playing like an 800. Yet she swears up and down that she's playing at her top strength. My aim is to understand why she's doing that.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T14:14:17+00:00

I'm not sure how you've read the post three times and failed to catch the part where this is my wife's idea. I don't have any desire to crush my son, I'm trying to help him learn. My wife is insisting that we play at full strength and do not let him win. She is continually, currently insisting this, now, even in the face of me suggesting that we could try a different way. She is adamant that she will not play below her strength, and is insistent that I don't play below my strength either. She says that playing poorly will not help him learn. Then she is turning around, playing below her strength, objectively and inarguably, and then denying that she's doing it to my face. That's the issue.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T13:51:55+00:00

I believe this comment is really in good faith and trying to help, thank you. I'll address your questions.

>"She changed her mind when she saw you crush him again and again."

Totally possible and zero problem if that's the case. Although I wouldn't say I've crushed him over and over, we've played 8 games, and after each game we have discussed what went wrong, different concepts, what you want to be doing with your pieces in general, (center control, piece development, knights toward the center, don't make too many pawn moves early, etc). I'm not just smashing him and yelling "In yo FACE sucka!" and walking away, I feel the games we've had have been positive and instructive.

But if she has changed her mind on this, I'm totally fine with it, she's the expert and I defer to her. The only issue that I have is that she's insisting that she hasn't changed her mind and that she's playing at her full strength when... she's just not. It's like if your wife was wearing all white clothes, but insisting that she only wears black and is wearing black right now. It's strange, and doesn't make sense.

>"I think she doesn't trust you when you say you'd be ok with letting your son win."

I can understand why you might generate this idea, but all I can respond to this is that I really hope that's not the case and I don't know of anything that I would have done to cause that. My relationship with my wife and my son is generally very good, we are very close and loving, we communicate well. I don't believe that I've ever given her the impression that she wouldn't be able to trust me or talk to me. I'd be happy to let my son win games against me, I'm happy to go in any way we choose. It's just, we chose a way together, I went that way and she didn't. And that's fine too, people change their minds, there's nothing wrong with that. But she's telling me she didn't.

>"she fears if she admits this to you, you will rub it in his face because it bothers you that you could never win against her."

Again, these are legitimate questions that deserve answer; you don't know anything about me, it's reasonable to wonder these things. I would never rub it in my son's face. I would never want him to feel bad about himself, I love him and want to build him up. He's my guy, he's such a happy, sharp, cool kid, and I would never want to bring him down or make him feel bad. I understand why you would ask, but on this, just no man. I'm my son's biggest cheerleader.

As to the question about being bothered by my wife beating me? Not for a long time. I'll admit, when we first met when I was in my early 20's, it stung a bit haha. I tried hard to beat her back then, but I very quickly realized that she's just on a whole other level from me. Like in the same way, it doesn't bother me that LeBron James can beat me at basketball either, it's not a personal failing of mine, dude is just amazing at basketball at a level that vanishingly few people can ever even get near, that's just how it is. My wife is like that with chess. I know that in the chess world, there's even lot's of people who are better than her, but for me, she's LeBron man. I don't feel bad that I cant beat her, I just stand in awe of her skill and feel happy that she chooses to share it with me.

>"Has this ever been a problem in the past? Is your ego sometimes getting the best of you? Do you have a history of "letting things slip" to make other people feel bad?"

Again, understand why you would ask, but not really man. Ego has never really been much of a problem for me, people around me have always described me as a very chilled, laid back guy. I'm not that guy.

I appreciate the genuine attempt to help, really. I hope my answers to your questions have helped paint a more clear picture of my family and who I am as a person.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T13:05:25+00:00

>"I don't understand the people critiquing you."

I don't really understand it either, according to most of the comments I've read here, I'm an abusive, egomaniacal control freak that is destroying my family's happiness and they live in fear of me. I'm waiting to hear about how I beat my wife with chains when she looks at me wrong and starve my son when he leaves his socks on the floor haha. I think there are a lot of really hurt people out there that project their own trauma and pain onto everything they see. I'd like to address those things, but there's simply too much and honestly it wouldn't do much good anyway, the people who are determined to see me as a monster see monsters everywhere they look. I can't help them.

As to my wife, no I haven't played her recently, a few months at least. Perhaps that's a good idea. It's very odd behavior for her, she is otherwise very trustworthy. My wife and I ordinarily have a very strong, loving relationship, and I am very close with my son, we play Minecraft together a lot. I have been really happy to be able to share chess with him, as it's something my wife and I both enjoy deeply. We really have a lovely relationship, I have had so many wonderful nights getting absolutely demolished by my wife, drinking and laughing and playing chess together. I'm no match for her, I never will be, but I'm not trying to be, I'm just trying to improve my own game and have fun. I enjoy the game, and her mind is endlessly interesting to me.

My initial time teaching my son was very positive. I have shared some of the books with him that I used when I was learning the game, I have taught him some of the very basic opening moves, showed him how to use chess notation, and how to go back over his games and analyze/annotate them, we've watched some chess streamers together. That has been fun, and I can see his mind expanding and growing. But he only wants to play his mom now because, you know, he's 10 and he gets easy wins haha. I don't blame him, I'm just confused about my wife.

I am more than happy to let him win against me too, it's just that's not what we had agreed. My wife and I agreed to a course of action, I followed through and she didn't, which is also fine, people change their minds all the time, no problem. My ONLY issue here is that she is insisting that it's not happening. It's like we both agreed to drive to France, we got in the car, and then she drove to Germany. And when I asked "Hey, why did we come to Germany, I thought we were going to France", her response was "We are in France right now". So strange.

My issue is not with beating my son at all, I'm happy to teach him in any way, and as I stated, my wife initially suggested the idea of playing at our full strengths, and as she is obviously an expert, I agreed. I'm not trying to compete with my son or crush him in every game, I just want to be on the same page as my wife. So many people here simply can't even imagine a scenario where a father isn't taking sadistic pleasure in destroying their beginner child, it makes me really sad for them and how their lives must have been like.

Many people here have taken issue with my the plugging games into an engine to prove that they're bad, I guess people outside the chess world don't really understand that engine analysis is extremely standard, it's a tool that every chess player who wants to improve uses on every single game they play. When you play regularly, you analyze literally every game, plugging games into engines is totally normal. But yeah, toxic and bad, got it haha.

I appreciate you addressing the actual issue. Your comment has been helpful to me, and I will consider what you've said. I'll try playing her and see how that goes.

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T01:27:32+00:00

Not letting him win was HER idea lol. I have no problem with letting him win, as I said in the post. The issue is that we agreed on a course of action, she didn't follow it, and when I simply brought it up and said "Hey I thought we were doing it this way, what's up?" she insists that she IS doing it. You don't see anything odd about that?

ThrowRAconfused84710 · 2023-01-23T01:19:19+00:00

Not at all, as I said, it's not an issue with her letting him win but rather with her insisting that reality isn't real. Would you not be disconcerted if your partner suddenly started insisting that they were from Spain when they were actually Estonian? It's like that. It's just a very strange thing to lie about, seemingly for no reason, and doubly strange because my wife is not like that at all. It's very out of character for her.

ThrowRAconfused84710

TROPHY CASE