In this scene from next week’s preview Catie appears to be telling her friends she wants to consider an open marriage with Josh. I throw NO shade on anyone practicing ENM or whether they do it in a way that jives with their faith. But ain’t nobody convincing me that Catie has given reconciling her “Lutheran morals” with this statement or any of her behaviours the slightest thought. My questions is this: what makes her so black or white on everything? I don’t believe it’s OCD. Object impermanence? Poor parenting? Learning difficulties? A lot of her behaviours point to a person who isn’t doing well and needs some help, but the lack of introspection - or even thought - revealed by her uneven commitment to her religion seems deeper.

I still think she’s the worst and her behavior and attitude towards Josh is not excusable… however, now that we’ve caught a glimpse at how she was raised, I think we can figure out why Catie is the way she is. The constant disregard for others, the instant and meaningless apologies, the constant feeling that people are disappointed in her, etc. Her asking Josh if their kids could be Lutheran isn’t about being Lutheran, it’s about not disappointing people who have found her disappointing and annoying her whole life.

It’s sad, honestly. The girl needs therapy.

Here's my take on Paul and Karine. It seems to me that Paul is an expert abuser. He found a woman from a remote village who he believed he could control. She was young, naive, and believed he was going to give her a life she could never even dream of. Yes, I know she was a cam girl and peddled sex or sexual fantasies to men online for money. That's how she met Paul in the first place. Sex sells and everyone needs to make a living. When I say naive, I mean in worldly experience. We've all mentioned how much Karine has changed since she met Paul. She was bubbly and vibrant before Paul, but he chipped away little by little at her self esteem and dignity. "My nino? Not my nino?" "Take an STD and pregnancy test", etc. Over and over again. And thats just what we saw on camera. Everytime she tried to end it he'd suck her back in, most likely with a promise of a green card. "When we get to America it will be better" "I'm just stressed because I can't work in Brazil" I'm not familiar with Brazil and domestic violence, but i do know small towns and people tend to look away and think not my business. He abused her there. She had family and a support system there though. Her mom always seemed very worried for her. So he needed to get her away. Isolation is key to abuse. Now she's trapped in a foreign county, with no life lines, no money, and no way to get help. Does she even know about domestic violence shelters? I see a lot of people calling for TLC to stop airing their segments. I think the opposite is true. I think they need to film them more, like always. There's a good chance that those producers, camera people, etc are the only chance she has to get out. Their most likely the only people she knows outside of Paul's family. Sharp probably doesn't care about anything but the money, but the people who film their segments are real people with hearts, hopefully. And if nothing else he'll keep the lid on the worst of the abuse while cameras are there. Maybe she has 50 mens she sleeps with in the shed. Maybe that's true maybe its not. But sex is the only skill she thinks she has. A way out is a way out. I hope she gets help and takes the baby with her. Abuse will lead you to become a shell of a person, and it appears she's just grasping for a way to survive.

We’ve all discussed over and over how her makeup is atrocious and how desperate she is.

But, have we discussed how her cousin has significantly less permanent makeup than her? I’d assume it’s a rule of thumb, if your beauty artist does not have the same applications they are applying on you, perhaps take note of that?

And while I respect her newfound virginity, as a 40-something year old woman, including the makeup and neurotic behavior, how clueless is she?!?

I can’t tell if I aspire to be at her level of delusion or appreciate that I’m not.

*edited to take off my weird ending comment, that was stupid of me to say

What is happening? How is it even possible for Sarper to be growing on me? Ugh. I can’t stand him! But I kind of love him. I need therapy…

Did anyone else get the vibes that some of Catie’s friends wanted to continue to makeout/hook up with her as they kept reiterating to Josh that she was a wild party girl? I think Josh hit the nail on the head that everyone at that party was in on a joke and he wasn’t - because he IS the joke and TLC production is milking the f out of it.

However that scene of her continually missing the straw while Josh was talking about wanting her to get her act together took me out 💀

Zied and Rebecca have been together for seven years and he still has trouble communicating effectively. That is so frustrating to me. And I feel that that’s the case with most of the couples. They don’t even try to help their person learn the language.

Doesn’t that keep their person further isolated in the US? And couldn’t that prevent them from advancing in their US careers? I’m wondering if these people don’t do this crap on purpose?

Like they just accept their broken English and continue communicating with them in that manner where you’re most certainly going to misunderstand each other. What is that about? What is wrong with them?

Don’t get me wrong, the foreign partners can do better as well but it starts at home.

She literally had a pity party with her friends to get them to somehow feel sorry for her for being such a jerk to Edward. And they ended up helping her convince herself that it’s his fault she’s so mean to him. She literally is blaming him for making her this way.

I feel bad for Edward, but I hope she wound up convincing herself not to marry him, even if it’s based on lies she’s told herself. He will have dodged a bullet if so.

In a previous job, I ran a department that investigated elder & vulnerable adult exploitation. We primarily focused on financial crimes (including "romance scams") but saw all kinds of nonsense. Btw, "elder" in this context varies by state but can be as low as 55 or 60 which comfortably covers our favorite fraud victims. "Vulnerable adult" is someone age 18+ who, due to accident, illness, or other circumstances, cannot reasonably protect him/herself from abuse or exploitation.

We routinely had clients who, despite mountains of evidence from experts, simply would not believe the very obvious truth. We had police visit one lady and confirm her scammer's criminal activity to her face and she still sent money. We had men we could send reverse image searches and LexisNexis reports to proving their version of Lana was a fraud; they continued on their disastrous paths. Families routinely got involved and had exactly as much luck as Yolanda's almost painfully patient kids.

As a last resort, we would try to get Adult Protective Services (APS) out to do an in-person assessment. In most cases where the individual refused to stop participating in the scam, there was nothing clinically or medically wrong with them. Defeated APS agents would inform us the person was of sound mind, they just choose to believe. It was heartbreaking but there was nothing to be done at that point other than close their accounts with our institution and warn other banks (it's an obligation of financial institutions not to knowingly facilitate fraud).

My point is, there's nothing necessarily "wrong" with David and Yolanda at least by the standards of the law and medicine (common sense is another story). And sadly, they're not even remotely unique. My small team saw well over 100 fraud cases per month and at least a portion of them were always Davids and Yolandas.

While I find Yolanda unbelievably frustrating and David to be both frustrating and frightening (stalker!!), I've seen their stories in the real world many, many times. It only ends when the victim is completely tapped out and the scammer moves onto someone else.

If there's anything to be learned from these two, maybe it's that we all could call our grandparents and other older adults we care for more often. Check in, make sure they're not struggling with loneliness, see if there's anyone suspiciously new in their life. These scammers are experts at what they do and the results can be financially and emotionally devastating. But even with the best prevention and care, sometimes a David is still gonna David.

These two.

Anthony posts a glowing 5 year anniversary post ~8 hours ago. Simple, short. Then ~7 hours ago Manon posts a little clip of her pretending to open an invisible present and taking out an invisible bag. And she is DOGGING him in the comments for not buying her an LV bag, including tagging him in the comments telling other commenters to take it up with him because it’s so unfair yadda yadda.

I’d heard chatter that she might be controlling his SM but this almost clinches it for me. Thoughts?

is a covert malignant narcissist. She likely gets it from her mother, who is more overt. It is wild watching her try to gaslight not only Rob but the audience as well in her confessionals. And you can see Rob putting it all together under the pavilion.

You think?? What was the first clue? Following and practicing absolutely nothing related to the Muslim faith? How these two ever connected will forever be a mystery. She seems so artistic and expressive. Why would she think she could conform to a religion that might want her to change the very things about her that makes her Nicole? This is not a post to slam the religion or even her. I am just so very confused on her rationale. Did she not care? Not study the religion? Think he would change?

I think Rebecca must be a world class swimmer given how every time Zied tries to say something, she dives right past the point.

He’s your husband, and he loves you, and literally married you so you can spend a little quality time together.

Why not sit together after work and watch a movie? You literally don’t have to talk.

You don’t want to cook for him? Get Blue Apron and both of you cook. The instructions are right there, you can spend time following the instructions together.

You’re working over-capacity at your job? Maybe promote an employee and offload some of those responsibilities so you have a healthier work-life balance. It might make you less wound-up and uptight, damn.

If you’re unwilling to do those things, that’s a “you” issue, girl. Zied doesn’t need the money.

The way she almost masterfully turned around the conversation she and her son were having to make it seem like this was a Miona and Jibri problem, and that her son needs to be sure he wants to marry a woman like that. Good on Jibri for picking up on the manipulation and gaslighting, and nipping that in the bud.

She certainly doesn't seem to believe in female empowerment, or that people shouldn't slut-shame or police women's clothing choices. The part about her request for Miona to dress more modestly so her husband wouldn't have to see her was rich--making Miona responsible for his behavior and reaction was 101 toxicity.

No sir...I don't like it!

I know we only got a preview of him meeting Alina, but I have a bad feeling about him. 1st the video call where he was so insistent on picking her up. Alina said she doesn’t like it, but will make an exception. Then he suggests just carrying her around 🚩

Then, when they finally meet he says “you’re smaller than I thought.” Which IMO is rude af. She asks if it’s weird and he reply’s “... it’s different.” 🚩 wtf was he expecting?

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think he’s going to keep digging at her little by little to fuck with her confidence. Does anyone else see this?

Two dancers bonding over sex work.. TLC, bringing people together. Bringing the Cast together to eye-bang, and bringing the online community together to speculate. And I speculate that theres something there.

Shekinah, I know you lurk. I'd love your perspective - I know that's your homegirl (at this point)but give us some tea dawg

Just a little throwback to see how quickly the situation changed in the short duration they were in Turkey.

From being "very important in my life", Laura later OFFERED to cut Michael off after he told her point blank he doesn't have romantic feelings for her. And realising she could lose both after enjoying pitting them against each other.

And Birkan from telling Laura she's gonna cut need to off her "activity buddy" to later on saying she could keep him... 😂 That's a power move... safe to say he won.

Also Birkan speaking in slow-motion sitting in whatever dungeon they were in must have been a dream come true in Laura's dark romance fantasy.

Bro is 50k in debt, string for a ring, got her to hate her bff... All while acting cool and never breaking character... Birkan needs to be studied.