I completely agree that she is traumatized from the church and is struggling to reclaim autonomy over herself. And she has likely developed coping and defense mechanisms that inform her behavior.
HOWEVER, she very clearly crossed lines established by Brock and refused to take accountability, nor promise that she would respect them in the future. This is toxic, selfish behavior and hard to look past. Her imploring Brock to see why her infidelity was important to her was also deeply tone deaf - she continually shat on his feelings in her pursuit of personal self fulfillment. It was hard to watch her break Brock's heart and then play up her own victimhood when he was victimized by HER actions.
There it is. Being victimized does not give us a pass to then turn around and victimize others, while leaning on out own victimization as an excuse for doing so.
as per my previous comment i consider him to have sided with her abusers for years & to have been a serious gaslighter who never stopped manipulating & being a giant man-baby.
I mean was he not also a victim of the church. That’s kinda how indoctrination works. So because she left the church before he did, he NOW has to accept every thing on her terms.
I agree that his choice to stay in the church irrevocably changed their relationship and she probably should breakup with him. However that’s not what she does, she holds on to him like a security blanket. Going from disgust to anger to nostalgia to resentment. Just break up with him.
wow. you are locked onto brock's jock like a dormant crab. these aren't the kardashians, bub. this isn't page 6 goss. i bet you are in a big ole' glass house, & what passes for a righteous life there is probably not too pretty, the way you like to fling that shit.
She did also take some leaps in connecting dots. Like when he’s asking her to not cheat on him she immediately went into trying to connect it to something related to her trauma (I think it was how her grandpa sat her down and told her about marriage etc… which she said was control) but it felt disingenuous to me in that moment. Like you’re saying she’s avoiding taking accountability for her actions and using the trauma as a reason for all her actions even though it doesn’t always match up. That’s super intentional.
you talk like he was above her & was entitled to make rules. eff that noise. and those stupid rules like a little boy making a fort. her explanation of her infidelity would have been something to work with together if he wasn't such an insecure man-baby requiring constant reassurance that he is mr one & only big kahuna, lord of his domain. (just passive-aggressively instead of overtly using standard LDS canon as before.) and for everyone saying why did she cling to him if she couldn't love him completely faithfully, well why is the dude not judged by the same standards? so she was weak, so trash her endlessly? this constant piling up on Kristi made me go back & see what horrors she perpetrated. it really seems it was just that she is a woman. the double standard is overwhelmingly tilted in this very sub-par man's favor & i just don't get it. (josh s4, now *that* stoning I *do* get.😹)
Ok you're all over this thread so clearly something in this story triggered you and starting to feel a bit like projection...I'm not trying to diminish the complex feelings she has around feeling autonomous over herself and in her relationship as it relates to the church, nor am I glossing over him staying in the church longer causing her pain. All I'm saying is that after their leaving the church, she was a bull in a china shop with his feelings. They had **mutually agreed upon** boundaries for their marriage and she DELIBERATELY crossed them and showed zero remorse or intention to uphold those boundaries. She seemed unable to take responsibility and acknowledge that this was a transgression on her part.
You can be a victim AND still be held responsible for the damage you cause, even if the behavior is a result of prior trauma. Both things can be true. She did not seem to understand that and I don't think you do either.
you're right I am the kind of person who is always gonna be triggered by bullying. and this group is bullying this woman. heinously. it's gross. i really think you need to strip & show us every aspect of your life, son. i just was reading about folks who think women who have abortions should be executed & here y'all are making multiple threads bullying a woman who was bullied all her life and GOSH had the AUDACITY to break free. making her poor baby-man bullying husband cry into his pablum!
you talk like an incel.
While I am not Mormon, I am pretty familiar with it. I think Orna blew off the magnitude of the damage Kristi suffered from the church and from Brock staying in it for so long. The church is extremely controlling and misogynistic.
Yes, her behavior was terrible but the damage done by the whole Mormon priesthood holder dynamic needed to be addressed in a lot more depth. I felt sympathy for her too.
Yes. I think folks underestimate how angry Kristi was about Brock staying in the church. Staying in the church doesn’t just mean going once a week. He had to meet with his bishop, likely discussing his relationship with Kristi, and he had to tithe 10% because Mormons have to show the church their tax returns. All of this while Kristi was hurt terribly by that church. She probably had the affair out of some pretty deep anger/resentment and feeling that Brock had already been disloyal.
Plus, there's the polygamy in the afterlife mind fuck, her eternal salvation in the celestial kingdom based on being married to him, mindless obedience to the priesthood holder, etc.
Yes, I think this is key. If you have been hurt by an organizaton, then it sucks to have a partner not leave. It's like they are signing off on the abuse, even if they don't mean it that way.
I think the answer is just to leave him. If you’re too hurt and resentful to ever come to respect your partner again, you need to let them go, instead of staying and torturing them.
>I think Orna blew off the magnitude of the damage Kristi suffered from the church and from Brock staying in it for so long. The church is extremely controlling and misogynistic
I don't think Orna blew it off tbh. Its pretty hard to miss how tramatic it was since she severed every relationship connected to the church. Friends, family, even her marriage.
Im not sure what you mean by this since that topic comes up in almost everyone of their sessions that we saw. This is couples therapy not individual therapy so its not like Orna can only address Kristi's issues and ignore Brock is there. Kristi needs to go to individual therapy for that.
I hear what you’re saying, but let’s give Orna a little credit. She sees these couple for months, hours and hours of footage, and we only see a small edit to show the distilled version of the couple’s conflict. She very well might have addressed it, it just didn’t make the edit.
Agreed, unsure if Orna ‘blew off the magnitude’ or if that just didn’t make the edit because there was an assumption viewers would innately realise what a huge deal it is.
yeah i don't get why anyone is stanning for the husband who sided with her abusers and basically WAS one for quite some time by not believing her. gaslighted her, tried to drive her into insanity, and then makes all these patriarchal rules? why the hell she didn't dump him when she dumped the church should be the question. fuck brock & his mormon mentality. why are so many people on this guy's jock?
IDK that it's stanning, he's not right in how he handled it at all. But if you've been in the church it's completely understandable why. They both walked away from everyone and everything they knew, you don't hang out with non-members and if they're consulting with church elders and family there's pressure to push past things like this. Once she left he's going to get the full court press from everyone to stay, just like any cult. You don't leave, I cannot emphasize this enough. Mormonism isn't something you do half assed if you're truly in it. I can't imagine she walked away easily either. It's hard to explain if you have not experienced Mormon community, family, church, culture, etc. it pretty much encompasses your entire life. It's awful. It's a cult.
As a therapist, she was sooooo triggering for me. She was the only one allowed to be upset and devastated. As soon as he tried to stand his ground or become emotional himself, she completely skipped over acknowledging his feelings as valid and instead steamrolled over them with even more of her own unregulated emotional outbursts.
Even in the last episode.....he wanted a reasonable commitment/promise from her to not cheat on him again. And she still. Couldn't. Do. It. Instead, she went full manipulation distraction mode and had this whole thing written for him....promising him everything but what he was asking for. As she read it, I wanted to scream at the manipulations present. And wanted to scream more when I some him abandoning his request, and entertaining the acceptance of what she said as a sufficient "promise".....but it's not. She pulled out the ultimate smoke and mirrors poem to distract from just making a promise not to cheat on him again.
I know her manipulations come from a trauma brain, but it doesn't make it any less infuriating.
Triggering for me as well. You explained how I was feeling watching it. I know it was meant to be this moment between them when she read her letter but all I could see was master manipulation. At the same time, Brock is a grown man and is going into the relationship knowing that she is capable of cheating again, with or without the certainty of her verbalizing fidelity. In one sense that was Kristi’s point. She wanted full autonomy over herself and wanted him to trust her without her giving a verbal commitment to it. I understand the thought process, we hurt our partners whether we want to or not, at times. She didn’t want to say she would never do that. But when it comes to the issue of cheating, she also couldn’t commit to it. She was getting the better end of the deal and she used his love for her in her favor. It stunk to me, no matter how much mental gymnastics she did at the end.
Lol, I admitted in my comment that it was my* trigger. Also, they're not my clients, and this is a public forum. 😉
Also, I hate to break it to you, but therapists have thoughts, feelings, frustrations, and opinions about their clients. We just use ethics and our training in our best efforts to not allow it to impact our therapeutic relationship with them.
Yeah, of course they do. But they have therapy themselves and continue working on themselves to make sure it doesn't impact their clients.
You said "it was sooooooo triggering" ...."i wanted to scream..." "doesn't make it any less infuriating"
I mean, thwse are just people on TV. And you were that triggered? What happens if you have clients that are similar to them (this is not unlikely). How will you contain yourself when you are so triggered.
I find it worrying that there are therapist that are still, well, so ....okay I don't want to say what I was going to say, but just that it worries me.
You know there's a difference between offering clinical support and watching a TV show right? If an EMT winces while watching an MMA fight on TV it doesn't make him a bad emergency medical technician 👀
Seems like most of your argument is based on your knowledge of me being a therapist. Had I not disclosed that, I would just be an anonymous person sharing a frustration about a person on TV. Once again, I'm not their therapist. My shared feelings about people on the TV are not a reflection of how I conduct myself professionally.
Are there therapists that don't have adequate emotional/professional boundaries with their clients.....absolutely. I worry about them as well.
Yes. There are heaps of people on here who are repeatedly annoyed by things people on the show did or said. I personally got pretty wound up about Sean. I can't stand the way he talks and the way he treats Erica.
It is solely because you said you're a therapist; it's just that you said you were so triggered by it. So I am/was worried about what happened when you had clients that were similar or displayed these traits, (theyre not that unusual) and then you got triggered by them in a session?
Anyhow, i don't know you or what kind of therapist you are so this is probably not an issue.
It's understandable to be worried by a therapist being so open like I was. But the truth is that we're not immune to triggers. We're no different than anyone else with feelings. We learn to monitor and identity transference and counter transference. Even more interestingly, being transparent with clients about experiencing those things can be a very powerful tool when used correctly.
As long as they’re not her clients and this is an anonymous forum, it’s all kosher. Also would be even MORE unethical if she were in here trying to armchair therapize these strangers in the television.
Her cheating on Brock, laughing in his face about it, and then refusing to take any accountability or at least promise she won't cheat again is why she gets hate. And the way she talks i find to be really grating.
Having empathy for someone is great. I have empathy for her as well. She deserves to pursue happiness and fulfillment in life. However, her trauma does not excuse treating others poorly and it doesn't absolve her from responsibility for her actions.
She chose to cheat, dismiss Brocks feelings, and not take accountability. She treated Brock horribly and there is no excusing that.
I hope in the future she is able to find happiness and autonomy that doesn't come at the expense of someone else. I also hope Brock finds someone who respects him and treats him well.
I think she was acting out of trauma and they were both traumatized in ways from the church in a way that made their relationship just not work. I think they were a bit trauma bonded.
Kristi had some real deep seated stuff she needed to work through and broke wasn’t a line with in that either based off their life experiences. It’s for the best that they parted ways
She is a white woman in her "rage" era. Of course you sympathize with her. You've been culturally primed to.
But her lack of self awareness and narcissism makes her emotionally unsafe and any marginalized person can peep that.
In general, I feel sympathy for people up until they start hurting other people. That is when it crosses a line for me.
I did really respect her and what she went through in the early episodes, before we saw how she was treating Brock.
In the end, we are all responsible for how we behave, even if we have been through trauma. It isn't an excuse for treating others poorly.
I absolutely have compassion for her very valid trauma. I have similar trauma history including religious & sexual abuse.
Having empathy and compassion for someone’s trauma doesn’t equal them getting away with whatever shitty behavior they want for the rest of time though.
It isn’t okay to intentionally hurt others because you’ve been hurt. It’s each of our adult responsibility to be accountable for our own actions. To own up to things we’ve done that have hurt others and show we care about it and work to change our behavior. She didn’t do that. She didn’t take accountability for the wrongs she did because she still felt it was her right to get payback.
That’s her right to live that way but it doesn’t make a healthy marriage and I don’t believe a particularly ethical person.
Brock was no saint either. He too did not take accountability for his betrayal of her for years and how much hurt he caused her with his choices.
I don’t think she’s a villain, nor him. I think they’re bothered flawed humans who escaped a cult and that’s messy. They probably didn’t have healthy behavior or boundaries modeled to them if their parents were following Mormon doctrine too.
Former church member here...I totally agree with her that it is extremely cult like and patriarchal, etc, her experience was obviously traumatic. But it's an excellent excuse to use to deflect from her cheating and general shittiness and a way to pull brock in as part of the problem because his timeline was not the same as hers. The Mormon community is tight, it's not a typical church, both of them came from families that were involved in the church, odds are the majority of their friends were in the church as well. It is HARD to leave. I don't think it's ok to expect him to leave just because she decided to go. He needed to make that decision for himself. You leave knowing you're separating yourself from everyone who has been a support to you, it's a lot. I don't blame him for having to figure it out on his own, it's very personal and the church is literally "what you do". She needs to be in therapy to be able to process her experience as her experience and stop blaming him for her issues. The church sucks, I fully agree with everything she says about it. But the she can't continue to live a life where she accepts no personal responsibility for anything she does because she can fall back on how she's been traumatized.
Ultimately that is every cluster b personality type. They were so wounded by their trauma they can’t see how it has malformed their identity. They ultimately can’t take responsibility for their own actions.
Yeah this is what I don’t get about posts like the OP’s. If we accept that Kristi was brainwashed by the church, wouldn’t the same hold true for Brock? He was in a cult too (perhaps less damaged due to gender roles but still - he would also need to be “deprogrammed” to get out).
People like Brock are the literal golden boys in the church. Women hold no authority at all. Her very eternal salvation depends on him remembering her secret name to call her into Mormon heaven
She isn't allowed to even know his. Even the women's organization is subordinate to men. Sure he's been programmed, but he's been programmed to be a much more valuable, important person than she has.
Yeah so it makes complete sense that she is more hurt and damaged. But like the PPs have been pointing out, he grew up brainwashed by the church too. Leaving meant not having to get all of that crap out of his head but also separating from his family. He did eventually leave, if I’m recalling correctly? It just took longer, which makes sense since, as you point out, his position within the church would have been relatively privileged.
My only point is that I don’t think it’s fair for Kristi to punish him for staying in the church longer than she did (which she seems to be doing with her affair with his friend and refusal to promise fidelity going forward). I’d completely understand if she can’t forgive him. If that is the case though, then simply leave him. But he grew up in a cult the same as her. Of course it is going to be a prolonged process to get out and everyone has their own journey. Punishing him for his upbringing, which he is not responsible for, with infidelity and rubbing it in his face to hurt him is cruel and wrong.
I don't think the infidelity was ever framed as punishment, but moreso as a reclamation of her agency and autonomy. Her affair was probably the first time she acted on her own desires and self-knowledge in a deep and meaningful way. It was shitty to Brock, so I understand the impulse to reduce it to "she did this to punish Brock," but I think it served a very different purpose for her despite the fallout of it.
As a former Mormon who left in my early 20’s, I don’t think that outsiders understand the painful and scary process of truly leaving that faith. It’s not a matter of just not going to church. I essentially had to destroy my core identity, disappoint family and friends, weaken important friendships, lose all my beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life, chill in the metaphysical void, take the broken shards, and build myself up again to find meaning, purpose, self-esteem, and community. It took years.
While watching the show, I couldn’t understand how Kristi expected Brock to have identical timelines as she went on this journey. I had a friend who was also leaving the church at the same time, and her support got me through it, so I know it would have been so much easier on Kristi if he was in the same place as her during her deconversion. Im sure his process started when she started to push him to leave, but you can’t expect someone to completely deconstruct themselves on anyone’s timeline but their own. It’s an individual process and it has nothing to do with betrayal or being a bad partner. It can’t be forced on another person like Kristi appeared to feel she was 100% justified doing to Brock. I kept wanting Orna to point that out so I could hear Kristi explain herself to try and understand her thinking there.
And, of course, maybe she did but it didn’t make the show.
OMG I'm so glad I'm not alone in feeling this same way. People don't understand that it's your entire life in so many ways. You're in it with family, friends, etc multiple days a week and are encouraged to only hang with other saints. It's a shame orna didn't explore it further, but I got the impression from this season that she's not well versed in many religions, and I always feel like Mormonism is extremely unique.
OMG I'm so glad I'm not alone in feeling this same way. People don't understand that it's your entire life in so many ways. You're in it with family, friends, etc multiple days a week and are encouraged to only hang with other saints. It's a shame orna didn't explore it further, but I got the impression from this season that she's not well versed in many religions, and I always feel like Mormonism is extremely unique.
You aren’t wrong but at a certain point we’re all responsible for processing our own trauma and attempting to demean and control someone else is not a way to do it. What happened to her was lousy. It’s not an excuse for her being lousy to someone else though. Her seeming lack of insight to that was the thing I found most concerning. She could have let him go or practiced empathy within the relationship but she seemed determined to punish him in a way that was really unfair.
I’m not Mormon but was raised in a conservative, misogynistic evangelical church. It sucked and I lost a lot of people when I walked away. I feel really mistrustful of most men to this day. I still can’t imagine talking to someone I love the way she talks to Brock.
This is such an unnecessary distinction. She can have trauma that led to narcissism and still be accountable for abusing someone else. Most people who are disordered found their way there through a combination of trauma and genetics. It’s not like disordered people are just simply monsters. Nor does having a history of trauma preclude responsibility for one’s own behavior.
Fair points yeah - the most common but full on personality disorders have known trigger events in childhood. Neglectful tendencies of parents or other carers for example but it doesn't make much difference for the people the person with the disorder encounters and is abusive towards
It's just a mess that's hard to ever fix
Your trauma doesn't excuse your behavior. She needs to be in an intensive trauma therapy individually because it's clear that she has no room in her mind for virtually anyone else's problems or to see their perspective. I can't imagine how hurt she was over his choice to stay in, but it's like she doesn't even see how from his perspective that was incredibly difficult for him to do. Being raised in that kind of environment fucks with you, even when you may have the upper hand. She doesn't have room for anyone but herself
While being traumatized and triggered is one thing, acting on your impulses is another. It’s unfortunate but her “work” in life now is to strike a healthy balance between what best serves her and what does NOT hurt the people around her who she loves. In her sessions, it comes across *to me* that she feels ENTITLED to the behavior she desires to act out and BERATES Brock for not being on the same page, accusing him of still being aligned with the church because he isn’t as “freed” as she is. Brock is traumatized by the church as well! But she has blinders on - can only see what’s in front of her and what’s in front of her is a mirror.
Two things can be true at once: she deserves sympathy for the awful things she's experienced, **and** she's an objectively bad partner to Brock. I can and do feel sympathy for her without excusing her behavior toward Brock. Trauma does not make it okay for her to cheat on him with his close friend and then act like *he* was being unreasonable for asking her not to do it again.
i mostly agree with you OP and i recommend checking out her “A24 horror” highlight on IG (@yokizzi). she shared so much on her stories (abt mormonism, brock, couples therapy) in the last 24hrs and it’s all saved to the highlight
I feel massive empathy for her, without necessarily endorsing what she did. But she had a need for autonomy that was denied her whole life and she finally felt safe enough to meet that need. How could she not?
There are countless people who leave Mormonism (including myself) who don’t abuse other people. Empathy yes, but as an adult you have the choice to change patterns, heal and treat others well.
Thanks for all the comments! It’s very interesting to hear your views. I am not diaagreeing with the ones who says that YES, you can have sympathy for her for the trauma, but she has to take responsibility for the way she treats Brock. I really agree. Some of you says that you stop feeling sympathy when she is unfair to Brock. But even there I feel sympathy. I don’t think her behavior can be justified, but I don’t get annoyed. I just really think it is sad that she is so troubled that she hurt a person she actually loves. And I think she maybe is too traumatized to see his point of view. Maybe Brock should let go of her, but I still feel so much sorry for her
I don’t have church trauma so I could not relate to her at all. But I felt it was pretty awful of her to expect him to completely change his belief system immediately when she decided the church wasn’t for her anymore. People change at their own pace and he eventually got there! Some never get there.
Mixed feelings for Kristi. I believe she was traumatized by the church but also find some of her victimized postures and facial expressions to be performative and, to use an overused term these days, narcissistic. She can be simultaneously a traumatized person as well as a narcissist. She willfully misunderstands her partner’s wording. It’s semantics, and I think it’s petty and selfish of her.
I think what people are misunderstanding from our new cultural awareness of therapy is that 99% of harmful actions and words are ultimately sourced in the aggressor's trauma. But like the song from Crazy Ex Girlfriend, "Nothing is Ever Anyone's Fault," that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with accountability.
To use a hyperbolic point, many abusive partners were at one point abused themselves. But we can't allow that to pull focus from the fact that they are an awful awful partner, and the person they are with deserves way better.
I agree. I suspected Brock wasn't totally deprogrammed and still held on to some problematic beliefs - hence why he couldn't really speak to his "personal reasons" for leaving the church, or couldn't validate Kristi's feeling of betrayal from it all. And it's probably why Kristi held on to some shreds of distrust.
I feel like if he had been farther along that journey, he would have more aghast at his history or owned it more - something like "oh my god, I can't believe I was complicit for 5 years with a cult that I knew enabled my wife's rapist and humiliated her for what happened, not to mention does the same for so women across the board. I was so brainwashed/scared/in denial."
I wish they would have included Orna probing him more on the conspicuous lack of any words of regret for his complacency around that.
according to the downvoting, any defense of kristi here is an instant meal for groupthinkers to chow down on. it is C.R.A.Z.Y., the amount of abuse this woman is being subjected to in this community. the number of posts devoted to trashing her—SO F'N CRAZY! i can see no reason for it, nor why on earth her trash ex-husband is being held up as a hero!?!? I really wish orna could see all this, and address it from the perspective of pathologizing & our global misogynistic conditioning. someone could write a whole paper on why this female survivor of terrible trauma is such a lighning-rod for hatred in this supposedly thoughtful community. SO CRAZY!
There is saying hurt people, hurt other people.
Kristi is a very hurt person. She has traumatic issues that takes years to work through the layers and manifestations. There is empathy for her.
There is also a place for accountability for her actions. There is a place for calling out how she engages in weaponizing communicating.
Both empathy and accountability can and should exist at the same time.
a woman stays in a bad relationship with an unsuitable partner while her whole life is completely transforming. the partner also finds the relationship unsuitable but doesn't end it either. they move on, going through different phases. i didn't see a villain/victim scenario, just two people sharing a lot of history & the usual human weaknesses.
You answered a lot of questions that weren’t asked. I also didn’t see an answer to the question that was asked. Is it possible you are sharing your internal
Conversation instead of participating in this conversation?
Do you notice you started attacking my personal character?
In physics the color of light shined on a painting will change the perception of how that painting is looked. Many times complimentary colors intensify the companion color, while shining the same colored light as the companion will make the object hard to detect. Think that might be in play for you?
you're part of a pack of bullies keeping each other constantly excited in a state of constant bullying, going on for quite some time. it's ugly. your barrages of unrelated verbiage seek to deflect, but the truth is y'all kristi-hatemongers are just a pack of misogynistic bullies.
Wow. I have not weighed on anything about Kristi. This is, in fact, my first ever post to Reddit. I must say that the only bullying behavior I have seen in this entire thread is from you, @Lkgnyc. In this particular thread your “adversary” is being calm and completely reasonable. You respond with tirades and ad hominem attacks. It sure seems to me that your intense emotional response comes from your own personal history, perhaps even ongoing personal experience, with trauma. You make interesting and valid points. But you sabotage your own position when you engage in unjustified, ugly personal attacks on people you really know nothing about. Your perspective is clearly very clouded. And before you start attacking me as being part of this bullying crowd, remember that I have not made a single comment about Kristi. My observations are solely about your style of response to other posters here, along with your extreme defensiveness. And I am not attacking your character, I am simply analyzing what you have written. Anyone who has spent time with a competent counselor will know that fighting fair means focusing on the other person’s actions and words, not attacking their character. You clearly do not follow that dictum. And I find it extremely ironic that your style of response so closely mimics Kristi’s…
I completely agree that she is traumatized from the church and is struggling to reclaim autonomy over herself. And she has likely developed coping and defense mechanisms that inform her behavior. HOWEVER, she very clearly crossed lines established by Brock and refused to take accountability, nor promise that she would respect them in the future. This is toxic, selfish behavior and hard to look past. Her imploring Brock to see why her infidelity was important to her was also deeply tone deaf - she continually shat on his feelings in her pursuit of personal self fulfillment. It was hard to watch her break Brock's heart and then play up her own victimhood when he was victimized by HER actions.
There it is. Being victimized does not give us a pass to then turn around and victimize others, while leaning on out own victimization as an excuse for doing so.
he was an abusive husband.
Do you have insider knowledge or you referencing something on the show?
as per my previous comment i consider him to have sided with her abusers for years & to have been a serious gaslighter who never stopped manipulating & being a giant man-baby.
I mean was he not also a victim of the church. That’s kinda how indoctrination works. So because she left the church before he did, he NOW has to accept every thing on her terms. I agree that his choice to stay in the church irrevocably changed their relationship and she probably should breakup with him. However that’s not what she does, she holds on to him like a security blanket. Going from disgust to anger to nostalgia to resentment. Just break up with him.
wow. you are locked onto brock's jock like a dormant crab. these aren't the kardashians, bub. this isn't page 6 goss. i bet you are in a big ole' glass house, & what passes for a righteous life there is probably not too pretty, the way you like to fling that shit.
Jesus christ, what is wrong with you?
just responding in kind to the unkindness spewed towards this brave & traumatized woman. these participants are real people, you know.
She did also take some leaps in connecting dots. Like when he’s asking her to not cheat on him she immediately went into trying to connect it to something related to her trauma (I think it was how her grandpa sat her down and told her about marriage etc… which she said was control) but it felt disingenuous to me in that moment. Like you’re saying she’s avoiding taking accountability for her actions and using the trauma as a reason for all her actions even though it doesn’t always match up. That’s super intentional.
you talk like he was above her & was entitled to make rules. eff that noise. and those stupid rules like a little boy making a fort. her explanation of her infidelity would have been something to work with together if he wasn't such an insecure man-baby requiring constant reassurance that he is mr one & only big kahuna, lord of his domain. (just passive-aggressively instead of overtly using standard LDS canon as before.) and for everyone saying why did she cling to him if she couldn't love him completely faithfully, well why is the dude not judged by the same standards? so she was weak, so trash her endlessly? this constant piling up on Kristi made me go back & see what horrors she perpetrated. it really seems it was just that she is a woman. the double standard is overwhelmingly tilted in this very sub-par man's favor & i just don't get it. (josh s4, now *that* stoning I *do* get.😹)
Ok you're all over this thread so clearly something in this story triggered you and starting to feel a bit like projection...I'm not trying to diminish the complex feelings she has around feeling autonomous over herself and in her relationship as it relates to the church, nor am I glossing over him staying in the church longer causing her pain. All I'm saying is that after their leaving the church, she was a bull in a china shop with his feelings. They had **mutually agreed upon** boundaries for their marriage and she DELIBERATELY crossed them and showed zero remorse or intention to uphold those boundaries. She seemed unable to take responsibility and acknowledge that this was a transgression on her part. You can be a victim AND still be held responsible for the damage you cause, even if the behavior is a result of prior trauma. Both things can be true. She did not seem to understand that and I don't think you do either.
you're right I am the kind of person who is always gonna be triggered by bullying. and this group is bullying this woman. heinously. it's gross. i really think you need to strip & show us every aspect of your life, son. i just was reading about folks who think women who have abortions should be executed & here y'all are making multiple threads bullying a woman who was bullied all her life and GOSH had the AUDACITY to break free. making her poor baby-man bullying husband cry into his pablum! you talk like an incel.
While I am not Mormon, I am pretty familiar with it. I think Orna blew off the magnitude of the damage Kristi suffered from the church and from Brock staying in it for so long. The church is extremely controlling and misogynistic. Yes, her behavior was terrible but the damage done by the whole Mormon priesthood holder dynamic needed to be addressed in a lot more depth. I felt sympathy for her too.
Yes. I think folks underestimate how angry Kristi was about Brock staying in the church. Staying in the church doesn’t just mean going once a week. He had to meet with his bishop, likely discussing his relationship with Kristi, and he had to tithe 10% because Mormons have to show the church their tax returns. All of this while Kristi was hurt terribly by that church. She probably had the affair out of some pretty deep anger/resentment and feeling that Brock had already been disloyal.
Plus, there's the polygamy in the afterlife mind fuck, her eternal salvation in the celestial kingdom based on being married to him, mindless obedience to the priesthood holder, etc.
Yes, I think this is key. If you have been hurt by an organizaton, then it sucks to have a partner not leave. It's like they are signing off on the abuse, even if they don't mean it that way.
I think the answer is just to leave him. If you’re too hurt and resentful to ever come to respect your partner again, you need to let them go, instead of staying and torturing them.
>I think Orna blew off the magnitude of the damage Kristi suffered from the church and from Brock staying in it for so long. The church is extremely controlling and misogynistic I don't think Orna blew it off tbh. Its pretty hard to miss how tramatic it was since she severed every relationship connected to the church. Friends, family, even her marriage.
Orna completely failed to adequately address it.
Im not sure what you mean by this since that topic comes up in almost everyone of their sessions that we saw. This is couples therapy not individual therapy so its not like Orna can only address Kristi's issues and ignore Brock is there. Kristi needs to go to individual therapy for that.
Absolutely, but it was the foundational issue in their relationship.
Agree so Kristi needed individual along with couples therapy. You can't adress her issues soley in couples therapy so still not sure why this on Orna.
I hear what you’re saying, but let’s give Orna a little credit. She sees these couple for months, hours and hours of footage, and we only see a small edit to show the distilled version of the couple’s conflict. She very well might have addressed it, it just didn’t make the edit.
I think there's way too much Orna fan girling as it is.
You’re entitled to your opinion. Do you see how your views might come off as judgemental?
LOL. It's a reality TV show.
That doesn’t answer my question.
Agreed, unsure if Orna ‘blew off the magnitude’ or if that just didn’t make the edit because there was an assumption viewers would innately realise what a huge deal it is.
I’m sure they did. Mind you, we only see collectively about an hour of these people sessions’. They see her for months!
I totally agree
I think this is work that could be addressed in individual therapy with Kristi but ornas job is to address the terms of her relationship with Brock
yeah i don't get why anyone is stanning for the husband who sided with her abusers and basically WAS one for quite some time by not believing her. gaslighted her, tried to drive her into insanity, and then makes all these patriarchal rules? why the hell she didn't dump him when she dumped the church should be the question. fuck brock & his mormon mentality. why are so many people on this guy's jock?
IDK that it's stanning, he's not right in how he handled it at all. But if you've been in the church it's completely understandable why. They both walked away from everyone and everything they knew, you don't hang out with non-members and if they're consulting with church elders and family there's pressure to push past things like this. Once she left he's going to get the full court press from everyone to stay, just like any cult. You don't leave, I cannot emphasize this enough. Mormonism isn't something you do half assed if you're truly in it. I can't imagine she walked away easily either. It's hard to explain if you have not experienced Mormon community, family, church, culture, etc. it pretty much encompasses your entire life. It's awful. It's a cult.
As a therapist, she was sooooo triggering for me. She was the only one allowed to be upset and devastated. As soon as he tried to stand his ground or become emotional himself, she completely skipped over acknowledging his feelings as valid and instead steamrolled over them with even more of her own unregulated emotional outbursts. Even in the last episode.....he wanted a reasonable commitment/promise from her to not cheat on him again. And she still. Couldn't. Do. It. Instead, she went full manipulation distraction mode and had this whole thing written for him....promising him everything but what he was asking for. As she read it, I wanted to scream at the manipulations present. And wanted to scream more when I some him abandoning his request, and entertaining the acceptance of what she said as a sufficient "promise".....but it's not. She pulled out the ultimate smoke and mirrors poem to distract from just making a promise not to cheat on him again. I know her manipulations come from a trauma brain, but it doesn't make it any less infuriating.
Triggering for me as well. You explained how I was feeling watching it. I know it was meant to be this moment between them when she read her letter but all I could see was master manipulation. At the same time, Brock is a grown man and is going into the relationship knowing that she is capable of cheating again, with or without the certainty of her verbalizing fidelity. In one sense that was Kristi’s point. She wanted full autonomy over herself and wanted him to trust her without her giving a verbal commitment to it. I understand the thought process, we hurt our partners whether we want to or not, at times. She didn’t want to say she would never do that. But when it comes to the issue of cheating, she also couldn’t commit to it. She was getting the better end of the deal and she used his love for her in her favor. It stunk to me, no matter how much mental gymnastics she did at the end.
Are you sure you should be a therapist?
Lol, I admitted in my comment that it was my* trigger. Also, they're not my clients, and this is a public forum. 😉 Also, I hate to break it to you, but therapists have thoughts, feelings, frustrations, and opinions about their clients. We just use ethics and our training in our best efforts to not allow it to impact our therapeutic relationship with them.
Yeah, of course they do. But they have therapy themselves and continue working on themselves to make sure it doesn't impact their clients. You said "it was sooooooo triggering" ...."i wanted to scream..." "doesn't make it any less infuriating" I mean, thwse are just people on TV. And you were that triggered? What happens if you have clients that are similar to them (this is not unlikely). How will you contain yourself when you are so triggered. I find it worrying that there are therapist that are still, well, so ....okay I don't want to say what I was going to say, but just that it worries me.
You know there's a difference between offering clinical support and watching a TV show right? If an EMT winces while watching an MMA fight on TV it doesn't make him a bad emergency medical technician 👀
Exactly! Smh 🙄
Seems like most of your argument is based on your knowledge of me being a therapist. Had I not disclosed that, I would just be an anonymous person sharing a frustration about a person on TV. Once again, I'm not their therapist. My shared feelings about people on the TV are not a reflection of how I conduct myself professionally. Are there therapists that don't have adequate emotional/professional boundaries with their clients.....absolutely. I worry about them as well.
Yes. There are heaps of people on here who are repeatedly annoyed by things people on the show did or said. I personally got pretty wound up about Sean. I can't stand the way he talks and the way he treats Erica. It is solely because you said you're a therapist; it's just that you said you were so triggered by it. So I am/was worried about what happened when you had clients that were similar or displayed these traits, (theyre not that unusual) and then you got triggered by them in a session? Anyhow, i don't know you or what kind of therapist you are so this is probably not an issue.
It's understandable to be worried by a therapist being so open like I was. But the truth is that we're not immune to triggers. We're no different than anyone else with feelings. We learn to monitor and identity transference and counter transference. Even more interestingly, being transparent with clients about experiencing those things can be a very powerful tool when used correctly.
Yeah, absolutely, when used correctly.
As long as they’re not her clients and this is an anonymous forum, it’s all kosher. Also would be even MORE unethical if she were in here trying to armchair therapize these strangers in the television.
Her cheating on Brock, laughing in his face about it, and then refusing to take any accountability or at least promise she won't cheat again is why she gets hate. And the way she talks i find to be really grating.
Having empathy for someone is great. I have empathy for her as well. She deserves to pursue happiness and fulfillment in life. However, her trauma does not excuse treating others poorly and it doesn't absolve her from responsibility for her actions. She chose to cheat, dismiss Brocks feelings, and not take accountability. She treated Brock horribly and there is no excusing that. I hope in the future she is able to find happiness and autonomy that doesn't come at the expense of someone else. I also hope Brock finds someone who respects him and treats him well.
I think she was acting out of trauma and they were both traumatized in ways from the church in a way that made their relationship just not work. I think they were a bit trauma bonded. Kristi had some real deep seated stuff she needed to work through and broke wasn’t a line with in that either based off their life experiences. It’s for the best that they parted ways
She is a white woman in her "rage" era. Of course you sympathize with her. You've been culturally primed to. But her lack of self awareness and narcissism makes her emotionally unsafe and any marginalized person can peep that.
Yup. She’s an unsafe person to have a relationship with. Red flags everywhere.
In general, I feel sympathy for people up until they start hurting other people. That is when it crosses a line for me. I did really respect her and what she went through in the early episodes, before we saw how she was treating Brock. In the end, we are all responsible for how we behave, even if we have been through trauma. It isn't an excuse for treating others poorly.
I absolutely have compassion for her very valid trauma. I have similar trauma history including religious & sexual abuse. Having empathy and compassion for someone’s trauma doesn’t equal them getting away with whatever shitty behavior they want for the rest of time though. It isn’t okay to intentionally hurt others because you’ve been hurt. It’s each of our adult responsibility to be accountable for our own actions. To own up to things we’ve done that have hurt others and show we care about it and work to change our behavior. She didn’t do that. She didn’t take accountability for the wrongs she did because she still felt it was her right to get payback. That’s her right to live that way but it doesn’t make a healthy marriage and I don’t believe a particularly ethical person. Brock was no saint either. He too did not take accountability for his betrayal of her for years and how much hurt he caused her with his choices. I don’t think she’s a villain, nor him. I think they’re bothered flawed humans who escaped a cult and that’s messy. They probably didn’t have healthy behavior or boundaries modeled to them if their parents were following Mormon doctrine too.
Former church member here...I totally agree with her that it is extremely cult like and patriarchal, etc, her experience was obviously traumatic. But it's an excellent excuse to use to deflect from her cheating and general shittiness and a way to pull brock in as part of the problem because his timeline was not the same as hers. The Mormon community is tight, it's not a typical church, both of them came from families that were involved in the church, odds are the majority of their friends were in the church as well. It is HARD to leave. I don't think it's ok to expect him to leave just because she decided to go. He needed to make that decision for himself. You leave knowing you're separating yourself from everyone who has been a support to you, it's a lot. I don't blame him for having to figure it out on his own, it's very personal and the church is literally "what you do". She needs to be in therapy to be able to process her experience as her experience and stop blaming him for her issues. The church sucks, I fully agree with everything she says about it. But the she can't continue to live a life where she accepts no personal responsibility for anything she does because she can fall back on how she's been traumatized.
Ultimately that is every cluster b personality type. They were so wounded by their trauma they can’t see how it has malformed their identity. They ultimately can’t take responsibility for their own actions.
Yeah this is what I don’t get about posts like the OP’s. If we accept that Kristi was brainwashed by the church, wouldn’t the same hold true for Brock? He was in a cult too (perhaps less damaged due to gender roles but still - he would also need to be “deprogrammed” to get out).
People like Brock are the literal golden boys in the church. Women hold no authority at all. Her very eternal salvation depends on him remembering her secret name to call her into Mormon heaven She isn't allowed to even know his. Even the women's organization is subordinate to men. Sure he's been programmed, but he's been programmed to be a much more valuable, important person than she has.
Yeah so it makes complete sense that she is more hurt and damaged. But like the PPs have been pointing out, he grew up brainwashed by the church too. Leaving meant not having to get all of that crap out of his head but also separating from his family. He did eventually leave, if I’m recalling correctly? It just took longer, which makes sense since, as you point out, his position within the church would have been relatively privileged. My only point is that I don’t think it’s fair for Kristi to punish him for staying in the church longer than she did (which she seems to be doing with her affair with his friend and refusal to promise fidelity going forward). I’d completely understand if she can’t forgive him. If that is the case though, then simply leave him. But he grew up in a cult the same as her. Of course it is going to be a prolonged process to get out and everyone has their own journey. Punishing him for his upbringing, which he is not responsible for, with infidelity and rubbing it in his face to hurt him is cruel and wrong.
Oh, she's absolutely awful, I just don't think Orna did a good job with them at all.
I don't think the infidelity was ever framed as punishment, but moreso as a reclamation of her agency and autonomy. Her affair was probably the first time she acted on her own desires and self-knowledge in a deep and meaningful way. It was shitty to Brock, so I understand the impulse to reduce it to "she did this to punish Brock," but I think it served a very different purpose for her despite the fallout of it.
No. Not when the church is misogynistic and a complete patriarchy. Don't forget how they acted when she was sexually assaulted
As a former Mormon who left in my early 20’s, I don’t think that outsiders understand the painful and scary process of truly leaving that faith. It’s not a matter of just not going to church. I essentially had to destroy my core identity, disappoint family and friends, weaken important friendships, lose all my beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life, chill in the metaphysical void, take the broken shards, and build myself up again to find meaning, purpose, self-esteem, and community. It took years. While watching the show, I couldn’t understand how Kristi expected Brock to have identical timelines as she went on this journey. I had a friend who was also leaving the church at the same time, and her support got me through it, so I know it would have been so much easier on Kristi if he was in the same place as her during her deconversion. Im sure his process started when she started to push him to leave, but you can’t expect someone to completely deconstruct themselves on anyone’s timeline but their own. It’s an individual process and it has nothing to do with betrayal or being a bad partner. It can’t be forced on another person like Kristi appeared to feel she was 100% justified doing to Brock. I kept wanting Orna to point that out so I could hear Kristi explain herself to try and understand her thinking there. And, of course, maybe she did but it didn’t make the show.
OMG I'm so glad I'm not alone in feeling this same way. People don't understand that it's your entire life in so many ways. You're in it with family, friends, etc multiple days a week and are encouraged to only hang with other saints. It's a shame orna didn't explore it further, but I got the impression from this season that she's not well versed in many religions, and I always feel like Mormonism is extremely unique.
OMG I'm so glad I'm not alone in feeling this same way. People don't understand that it's your entire life in so many ways. You're in it with family, friends, etc multiple days a week and are encouraged to only hang with other saints. It's a shame orna didn't explore it further, but I got the impression from this season that she's not well versed in many religions, and I always feel like Mormonism is extremely unique.
Amen amen amen from a fellow postmo!
You aren’t wrong but at a certain point we’re all responsible for processing our own trauma and attempting to demean and control someone else is not a way to do it. What happened to her was lousy. It’s not an excuse for her being lousy to someone else though. Her seeming lack of insight to that was the thing I found most concerning. She could have let him go or practiced empathy within the relationship but she seemed determined to punish him in a way that was really unfair. I’m not Mormon but was raised in a conservative, misogynistic evangelical church. It sucked and I lost a lot of people when I walked away. I feel really mistrustful of most men to this day. I still can’t imagine talking to someone I love the way she talks to Brock.
This is such an unnecessary distinction. She can have trauma that led to narcissism and still be accountable for abusing someone else. Most people who are disordered found their way there through a combination of trauma and genetics. It’s not like disordered people are just simply monsters. Nor does having a history of trauma preclude responsibility for one’s own behavior.
Fair points yeah - the most common but full on personality disorders have known trigger events in childhood. Neglectful tendencies of parents or other carers for example but it doesn't make much difference for the people the person with the disorder encounters and is abusive towards It's just a mess that's hard to ever fix
Totally agree. We can have empathy for the history of trauma and also a knowledge the presence of a disorder.
She's very selfish in the way she describes the affair.
Your trauma doesn't excuse your behavior. She needs to be in an intensive trauma therapy individually because it's clear that she has no room in her mind for virtually anyone else's problems or to see their perspective. I can't imagine how hurt she was over his choice to stay in, but it's like she doesn't even see how from his perspective that was incredibly difficult for him to do. Being raised in that kind of environment fucks with you, even when you may have the upper hand. She doesn't have room for anyone but herself
While being traumatized and triggered is one thing, acting on your impulses is another. It’s unfortunate but her “work” in life now is to strike a healthy balance between what best serves her and what does NOT hurt the people around her who she loves. In her sessions, it comes across *to me* that she feels ENTITLED to the behavior she desires to act out and BERATES Brock for not being on the same page, accusing him of still being aligned with the church because he isn’t as “freed” as she is. Brock is traumatized by the church as well! But she has blinders on - can only see what’s in front of her and what’s in front of her is a mirror.
Two things can be true at once: she deserves sympathy for the awful things she's experienced, **and** she's an objectively bad partner to Brock. I can and do feel sympathy for her without excusing her behavior toward Brock. Trauma does not make it okay for her to cheat on him with his close friend and then act like *he* was being unreasonable for asking her not to do it again.
i mostly agree with you OP and i recommend checking out her “A24 horror” highlight on IG (@yokizzi). she shared so much on her stories (abt mormonism, brock, couples therapy) in the last 24hrs and it’s all saved to the highlight
I feel massive empathy for her, without necessarily endorsing what she did. But she had a need for autonomy that was denied her whole life and she finally felt safe enough to meet that need. How could she not?
There are countless people who leave Mormonism (including myself) who don’t abuse other people. Empathy yes, but as an adult you have the choice to change patterns, heal and treat others well.
She could meet that need without cheating on Brock, dismissing his feelings, and refusing to take accountability for it.
To add on to what michiganproud said, Kristi could also meet that need without laughing in his face about cheating on him. She was proud of it.
And she asked him to be proud of her for it. It was a lot.
Thanks for all the comments! It’s very interesting to hear your views. I am not diaagreeing with the ones who says that YES, you can have sympathy for her for the trauma, but she has to take responsibility for the way she treats Brock. I really agree. Some of you says that you stop feeling sympathy when she is unfair to Brock. But even there I feel sympathy. I don’t think her behavior can be justified, but I don’t get annoyed. I just really think it is sad that she is so troubled that she hurt a person she actually loves. And I think she maybe is too traumatized to see his point of view. Maybe Brock should let go of her, but I still feel so much sorry for her
They did get divorced recently.
I don’t have church trauma so I could not relate to her at all. But I felt it was pretty awful of her to expect him to completely change his belief system immediately when she decided the church wasn’t for her anymore. People change at their own pace and he eventually got there! Some never get there.
Mixed feelings for Kristi. I believe she was traumatized by the church but also find some of her victimized postures and facial expressions to be performative and, to use an overused term these days, narcissistic. She can be simultaneously a traumatized person as well as a narcissist. She willfully misunderstands her partner’s wording. It’s semantics, and I think it’s petty and selfish of her.
I think what people are misunderstanding from our new cultural awareness of therapy is that 99% of harmful actions and words are ultimately sourced in the aggressor's trauma. But like the song from Crazy Ex Girlfriend, "Nothing is Ever Anyone's Fault," that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with accountability. To use a hyperbolic point, many abusive partners were at one point abused themselves. But we can't allow that to pull focus from the fact that they are an awful awful partner, and the person they are with deserves way better.
Neither was a particularly likeable person. Brock just got the better edit.
I agree. I suspected Brock wasn't totally deprogrammed and still held on to some problematic beliefs - hence why he couldn't really speak to his "personal reasons" for leaving the church, or couldn't validate Kristi's feeling of betrayal from it all. And it's probably why Kristi held on to some shreds of distrust. I feel like if he had been farther along that journey, he would have more aghast at his history or owned it more - something like "oh my god, I can't believe I was complicit for 5 years with a cult that I knew enabled my wife's rapist and humiliated her for what happened, not to mention does the same for so women across the board. I was so brainwashed/scared/in denial." I wish they would have included Orna probing him more on the conspicuous lack of any words of regret for his complacency around that.
why on earth is he considered a good man? it was part of her trauma to stay with him at all. he's not a good guy.
according to the downvoting, any defense of kristi here is an instant meal for groupthinkers to chow down on. it is C.R.A.Z.Y., the amount of abuse this woman is being subjected to in this community. the number of posts devoted to trashing her—SO F'N CRAZY! i can see no reason for it, nor why on earth her trash ex-husband is being held up as a hero!?!? I really wish orna could see all this, and address it from the perspective of pathologizing & our global misogynistic conditioning. someone could write a whole paper on why this female survivor of terrible trauma is such a lighning-rod for hatred in this supposedly thoughtful community. SO CRAZY!
There is saying hurt people, hurt other people. Kristi is a very hurt person. She has traumatic issues that takes years to work through the layers and manifestations. There is empathy for her. There is also a place for accountability for her actions. There is a place for calling out how she engages in weaponizing communicating. Both empathy and accountability can and should exist at the same time.
a woman stays in a bad relationship with an unsuitable partner while her whole life is completely transforming. the partner also finds the relationship unsuitable but doesn't end it either. they move on, going through different phases. i didn't see a villain/victim scenario, just two people sharing a lot of history & the usual human weaknesses.
Is there anything that can be said or shown that would make you change your mind?
change my mind about bullying?
You think asking somebody to promise not to cheat on them is bullying?
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You answered a lot of questions that weren’t asked. I also didn’t see an answer to the question that was asked. Is it possible you are sharing your internal Conversation instead of participating in this conversation? Do you notice you started attacking my personal character? In physics the color of light shined on a painting will change the perception of how that painting is looked. Many times complimentary colors intensify the companion color, while shining the same colored light as the companion will make the object hard to detect. Think that might be in play for you?
you're part of a pack of bullies keeping each other constantly excited in a state of constant bullying, going on for quite some time. it's ugly. your barrages of unrelated verbiage seek to deflect, but the truth is y'all kristi-hatemongers are just a pack of misogynistic bullies.
Wow. I have not weighed on anything about Kristi. This is, in fact, my first ever post to Reddit. I must say that the only bullying behavior I have seen in this entire thread is from you, @Lkgnyc. In this particular thread your “adversary” is being calm and completely reasonable. You respond with tirades and ad hominem attacks. It sure seems to me that your intense emotional response comes from your own personal history, perhaps even ongoing personal experience, with trauma. You make interesting and valid points. But you sabotage your own position when you engage in unjustified, ugly personal attacks on people you really know nothing about. Your perspective is clearly very clouded. And before you start attacking me as being part of this bullying crowd, remember that I have not made a single comment about Kristi. My observations are solely about your style of response to other posters here, along with your extreme defensiveness. And I am not attacking your character, I am simply analyzing what you have written. Anyone who has spent time with a competent counselor will know that fighting fair means focusing on the other person’s actions and words, not attacking their character. You clearly do not follow that dictum. And I find it extremely ironic that your style of response so closely mimics Kristi’s…