Yes, I believe the honesty you put in your posts does affect your advice. If you do not have the experience/ background/ life you state to have, you may not have the experience to backup your advise; besides, someone who feels the need to flat lie or exaggerate is probably not mentally stable at the time. I believe that sometimes a person feels so desperate that they might blow things out of proportion and/or even embellish a bit, but if that the person's "permanent state", then she has a problem.
This is the kind of blog where you can actually be yourself; if not here, where?? If you are just looking for a pat in the back maybe this is not the right place. Mostly everyone who is here, is here because they have/had a problem, so i think that the least we deserve is honesty and respect.

I think this is an interesting perspective--I'm friends with several steptalkers on FB though, so at least I know those posters are not creepers, or if they were, they do an admirable job of updating their FB to reflect what they mention on Steptalk.

I think in general though, ST makes our marriages sound WAY worse than they really are, so I always have to remember when I'm posting to someone that this is just a snapshot in their very long life, and by no means reflect what they go through 24/7. Same thing when I receive advice--sometimes it's out of proportion to my life in general but does reflect for that moment. I had someone tell me I should rethink having a second child with DH because of one fight (that was probably born from being very tired on both our parts) even though it was probably the first argument we had in 2 weeks and was resolved easily the next day. I keep in mind that they picture it being like this all the time, and can understand why they would advise the way they do.

I value truth a lot so I give the best I could in terms of me posting about my life, which is also why I'm okay with accepting friend requests on FB--I got nothin' to hide so if people wanna look at my relatively boring life to make sure I'm telling the truth, I welcome it.

I don't think about it much. If you're lying, you're lying. That's on you. It doesn't affect me. The only time I ever lied was about skids ages by a year or so to keep BM from finding my profile on here. I don't have a glamorous life though or pretend to. I'm pretty simple.

Lying about my life does not interest me. I am very transparent and enjoy the advise given for my situation.

And if others posters are lying, I don't have any respect for that. Why come on here and waste our time??

I never really thought about it. Are they alot of liers on here?

Since this is an anonymous site, I feel like I can be more honest here than on a site like Fakebook. I'm sure that's dangerous now that my DH is getting ready for a custody battle. Could that be why people embellish? Is it an attempt to make the story just a tiny bit off so that they can't be recognized easily on this site?

*thinking about deleting my account now.

I am completely 100% honest on this site.
I could care less what a million strangers think of me, i don't know them, let them say what they want.
BUT, I'm here for advise and input from others, lying will give me BAD advise as it will not accurately describe my situation.

I have, in the past, back tracked in order to not be the "bad guy" because I was desperate for acceptance. But I learned that I'll take what advice I can use in my step life and not care if strangers like me or not. But everything I've posted has been the truth. Because to be honest, most of it is just too stupid and petty to be made up. I'd rather other posters tell the truth, because if they don't, I feel like I'm wasting my time giving my advice to someone who doesn't need it. As for the shit stirrers, I've learned to ignore and/or delete. I make my life negative enough on my own, I certainly don't need someone else doing that for me lol. And I'm honest about myself. My life isn't horrible but it isn't absolutely amazing either lol. I point out my own flaws, not for pity or attention, but because I've sought out advice on ways to fix these flaws. I ask some of the same questions again and again because sometimes, I'm not a quick learner like everyone else. Sometimes, I can't help but roll my eyes at those who claim to have "perfect lives" because it's a fact that nobody is perfect and neither is their life. But sometimes it's hard to tell who is lying..some people are excellent actors and some people may really have amazing marriages. I just take the advice most useful to my situation and kind of ignore the rest.

I wish I could say I was lying about the stuff I have posted. I mainly post about my 2 youngest SK's. When I first came on this site, in my first post, I put different ages for the youngest 2.

totally honest. with all this being anonymous, there's no reason to lie.

i would hope everyone here is being honest and truthful - although this is a venting site, the vast majority of us find tremendous support too, and feel a strong connection to certain members. it'd be sad if that connection had a fraudulent base.

the only form of deception that i'm ok w/ here is changing certain details to protect anonymity. but that's it.

One of the reasons I don't care if SO ever found this site is because everything I have posted is the truth. I'm sure it would turn into a huge fight because "I hate his kids" but its 100% the truth.

I come to the site because I feel like many of you are living my same life. It makes me feel less insane.

Its an anonymous site. I don't know why people would lie. I feel if I lie I won't get the advise I need.

If someone is embellishing about THEIR lives, thats on them and how would we find out anyway?

Did I miss something? If someone said they had a beach house, why would you assume that's a lie? There are houses on the beach, presumably someone owns them and some of those people might be stepparents. I must have missed a thread where a lot of lies were exposed. Did I?

Next question -- how can I get a beach house?!!!?

I'm so honest anyone could easily find me on here. yal know my race, age of skid, where I live, etc.

I do know specific people that lie. It's easy because the lies get crossed. I try to think it's to keep from getting found out. But I do think some people use this site as a popularity contest.

Someone accused me of making up the whole "My BS17 knocked up a girl" story.
Why in the fucking world would I ever do something like that?!?!?!
They went as far as saying that they couldn't believe that my son, who a year ago wanted NOTHING to do with the baby while the girl was preggers, is now, a weekend Dad, that is loving every inch of his precious little girl.
To that poster, cause I can't remember who it was, I say "GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU STUPID ASSWIPE!"
You only WISH you could be as good a mom as I am.

I don't lie here. About anything. I am so grateful for this site. My marriage survived some of the worst times because of it.

I don't care if people lie. Actually, some of the really creative ones are funny as hell and I end up enjoying them! I realize not everyone does, though.

In any case, it affects me not one little bit whether a random person on the internet gets flowers from her DH daily or never. It has zero impact on my life whether someone retires with millions at age 24, has 6 skids or 1, boys or girls, or anything else. In real life, from someone I knew personally? Yeah, THEN it might affect our friendship or what I thought of her? On an internet forum though, I just can't be fussed about it.

I don't lie, myself, because as others have said it affects the advice you get. I'm also really bad at it.

I guess I don't understand what the point of lying is... EVER really. I mean unless you are trying to protect one's feelings or something (i.e. why yes! Your carrot colored hair that you proudly dyed yourself looks cute! or no those pants don't make you look fat)

Whatever.. to each their own, if telling lies makes you feel better about yourself, then carry on. Just don't be surprised when someone notices and call you out.

At any rate, I've got to run! Climbing Mount Everest at 1:30, and I have to pay the butler, maid and limo driver before I leave. Might not see you gals around because I'm leaving for Fiji tomorrow and then jetting straight to Paris from there. Hugs and kisses!

LET'S GUESS SHALL WE?

FACT OR FICTION?
BM showed up drunk to my engagement party ranting and raving in tears that her and DHs divorce was all her fault, she is jealous of his new life/love with me, wants him back and had cheated on the boyfriend she was with more than 5 guys.
Anyone wanna guess if that's true?

I don't lie about the facts. I think maybe sometimes when my emotions are high, it may sound worse than it is but that's with anything.

It's anonymous here. I did change my username because my DH was saying things to me verbatim of what I wrote, even though it's not a lie. I just want to vent and get advice, I really don't want him to hear it as I say it here because sometimes it's not in a nice way and I don't want him to be hurt by it. If that makes sense. LOL

Personally I have not given much thought to whether people lie on here or not, actually because it is anonymous I'd hope most people feel comfortable enough to tell the truth. I don't have many friends that are in blended families so I come here to vent and talk about my frustrations in a community that actually understands what I am going through. For so long I felt like I was mean for feeling the way I do about the skids or certain situations but here it's different. I wouldn't expect people with intact families to know how I feel and most will judge me and say how can you not love his kids, they are apart of him.

Now that being said, I do believe that there are people on here that are trolls. They go through people's post and purposefully try to get an argument or fight going and I'm not really sure why because I thought we were here not to judge one another but to be that voice that actually gets it (perhaps a bit dramatic lol).

It's an anonymous site so you're going to get those who lie or embellish a story. I wish I was making up the troll crap we deal with. I may overreact to some things but what I post is honest (including my feelings about the situation). The trolls come just to stir things up. They are probably the same people who simple have multiple user names on here. They are the ones that thrive off drama but we tend to spot them quickly and call them out.

There was only one time that I was not completely honest by omission since I did not know how to deal with the fact that my 19 yr old DD was pregnant and I had no support from DH. It took me a few weeks to sort it out but I did tell everyone in a blog that I was not completely honest. Other than that I have been straight up and honest with everyone. If someone on here does not tell the truth, embellishes their life so be it. You cannot get honest advice based on lies told.

I could care less what someone has, does not have, etc. but do not pull on peoples heart strings and lie about abuse or be a snake and befriend someone just to dig up their dirt and out them to vile people in their real life. That would be effed up.

I don't understand why a person would lie on an anonymous venting site. But then again, I don't know why a crazy parent would use their children as pawns either.

I may change my opinion or "tone" based on my own experiences or mood of the day but I do not lie.

My mother is a compulsive liar. That made for many hurts over my lifetime. I used to lie when I was younger. Than I came to the realization that telling the truth takes so much less brain power than trying to remember who you told what to. Also, I decided that I wanted to be as unlike my mother as possible and take after my dad who couldn't tell a lie to save himself, probably.

Then again, I also get hurt by trying to give the benefit of the doubt to everyone and get stepped on at times because of that. I'd still rather be who I am. I can look at myself in the mirror and be okay with who I am.

Most of the time, I am an OVER sharer.

I was wondering if anyone would bring this subject up. I think it is really sad that some posters exaggerate or flat out fib about their life, when it is so darn obvious. Especially when it doesn't add up with things they have said in the past.

I have been on these boards for over 5 years, and have seen some posters lives get rosier and rosier with each and every post or reply to a post. Very pathetic when most of the posters here are asking for real like advice or are hear to just rant.

I personally have never lied about my situation. In my early days of posting, I was posting darn near daily. But my situation has improved because of some of the techniques that I have learned on the board, such as how to institute hard boundaries.

In the spirit of truthfulness, sometimes I wished I could quit coming to this site. The skids are aged out and pretty damn PASed out. Most of the memories that posts dredge up are not all that fond of memories. But this site helped me a lot, even though I wished I would have found it sooner, and I hope that maybe something I say can help someone else.

I also like to read how certain other posters' lives are going.

>How important is it to you that the people on ST are truthful in what they post? <

To me. It doesn't mean anything.

To a forum community, it means everything.

Just ask that teacher posing as teenager who joined a usenet community populated by mostly teenagers (I'm trying to find the article so I could quote my source properly). This happened many years ago but speaks volumes to internet anonymity and the dangers of posing as someone else. This teacher joined this on-line group in an effort to understand teenagers better. Her attempt may have seemed like a noble one. Over time, her popularity grew and a couple of guys expressed interest in her and were starting to email her on a more intimate level. She realized that she had taken her ruse too far and she quit the usenet group altogether suddely, citing personal reasons. In a panic, the usenet community pooled their resources together to try and track her down thinking something bad had happened to her. One boy actually flew out to meet her (he somehow got her address). Imagine his surprise when he was greeted by a woman 30 years older than him.

Sometimes I wish I was lying. But you can't make up the shit that's happened to me, or a lot of us!!

I got court docket to back up the worst that BM did, locking OSD in a dog cage with a gun to her head. That is what made dumbass DH finally file for divorce from the sorry witch. The only people I have told about the horrible stuff BM has done is Stalk and my BFF or I told my bosses that if I did not show up for work one day that means BM killed me and someone better call the police to check on me.

Well online or "offline" I wouldn't judge anyone's advice by how much they share/don't share or even lie about their lives. There are some really great advice-givers here and when "going through it", their wise words have given me comfort.

I haven't posted much lately since SO is back in court for the 4th time since we've been together... however I had already put it out in the universe that I hope BM sees herself objectively in my posts because it's 100% truth and there might be a part of her that can actually self-reflect...not that she would change, but she might. All of it is verifiable, backed up with FB screenshots, text messages, and emails, and I'd happily give out HER name if anyone wants it. LOL

However, I am extra-cautious about posting my name, city, etc. since I have been stalked before by a man from a harmless, religious (!) Internet forum and by BM. When people start mentioning your kid's name, your address and where you went that day, shit gets real. I'm sure that if I hadn't been stalked by the guy a few years before BM started, her stalking may have been dismissed as baby mama drama and not been so impacting... yet, it really triggered and scared the shit out of me... which is why I came to this site in the first place.

Cheating is common in marriages, I think somewhere I saw it was about half of both men and women cheated, or something high like that. So nothing unusual about tales of the BM cheating, but I always wonder about the truthfulness when the BM is promiscuous, everyone in town can have her, she spreads her legs for who ever asks.

Some women are like that, but I think that is a very very small percentage of the population. Promiscuous to the point of having sex with any one that asks, etc. i think that could be a lie/exaggeration

No way could I make up what actually happens in my life. I had no idea I would have the conversations I do or the BM would send such long and crazy ranting emails. I never knew kids who wiped poop and boogers on the wall and THEN EAT WITHOUT WASHING THEIR HANDS! I never knew such stench and the fact that I am always wrong and know nothing and, according to BM, live my life to screw someone else's up. I never knew that a BM could send ************written legal notice*************which is, of course, legally valid(in her world).

Being a SM is a weird, weird role.

I want real advice and suggestions, can't get that from lying.

Sometimes what you NEED to hear isn't what you WANT to hear.

I have too much going on in my life to care if others lie about their life. Hopefully their fiction brings them peace.

The shit in step life is just too weird at times. Fabrications on an anonymous site are pointless.

I'm honest about step life. Some things I don't post about because they are trivial but the rest is sadly true. Some days I go back and read or think over the last few years and go WTF was I thinking. Why didn't I find step talk then? Why didnt I realise it would be like this?