OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum / Amazing changes coming to SSN

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** September 29, 2021 9:55 pm

Daryl wrote:
I totally get that. I'd be quick on the report button if I saw someone join and start telling us how we should be happy, etc.....

We are already quick to identify somebody who doesn't belong. I think we have that covered

I realise I am but a small voice on the other side of the world, have no financial input or say in how this site is run but did anybody think to have a seperate section/board for the resources that have been so helpfully provided for the men and women who've been the destructive component in so many lives...? To me it's rubbing salt in already raw wounds and may turn a straightspouse away when she/he realises the site is not solely for us

If I was boss of OurPath there's no way I would have put Resources for Straight Partners and Resources for LGBTQ Partners on the same list..!
Elle

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** September 30, 2021 1:38 pm

longwayhome wrote:
.....It’s a big upgrade this site just undertook, that they were able to save the forum in its current form, well that really does deserve Kudos.

"socially acceptable changes is PC" ....I can see the way the world is changing, most of it with good intentions behind it but I am in a situation where the inclusion of the very people who have a hand in the destruction of who I am...don't deserve to be here.

Sounds like the straightspouse is supposed to thank their lucky stars the people making the decisions have deigned to keep the Forum in it's current form because if they were allowed free reign the Forum as it is would be changed like everything else.

Elle

**Posted by lily** September 30, 2021 4:07 pm

Longway - yes it's happening everywhere - I used to think of the Straight Spouse Forum as a bastion against the rising sands.

I just did a search - the first link that looked of interest as in offering support to straight spouses who have discovered their partner is gay was a couple of pages in and was the American Psychologists Association, I clicked on it and it had a link to Amity Buxton and to the Straight Spouse Forum.

The last thing I knew the keywords in the banner were how you got your website picked up not so much what's in the content - ie we can type straight spouse support as many times as we like and it will not help but putting it on the banner does.

Would OurPath be getting any viewings if it weren't still linked to the straight spouse network through this forum?

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** October 1, 2021 12:33 pm

longwayhome wrote:
Elle, just to clarify my point, I may not be clear, sorry, what I’m trying to say is the old forum and the technologies behind the old site and the new site and those newer technologies, sometimes they aren’t compatible, you aren’t always able to integrate your web applications together. If this integration had not worked, The old forum would have been retired, perhaps still viewable to us, but no editing would have been allowed. A new forum would have also been introduced within the new site Instead of having our old forum.

I never intended to mean it was a decision someone made.....

I was never talking about technologies....... I was talking about people, and it wasn't technology that made the choice to allow LGBTQ in it was people....and I think in the work to make a new site politically correctly inclusive and relevant in today's world OurPAth has cheated the Straightspouse. "don't look now, we have new stuff going on over there but look! we've kept your forum!"

Elle

**Posted by lily** October 1, 2021 6:37 pm

yeah, exactly.

But to complete the technological conversation from my perspective, the previous forum on the Voy Forums platform was oldfashioned and superior from the perspective of the poster if not for the data mining companies. and they are still going just fine.

Straight can mean a lot of things as well as not bent. yes they are pushing a big barrow uphill to get this forum picked up by Google through OurPath rather than by it's history as the Straight Spouse Network. In terms of a public forum at least, hasn't OurPath just swallowed SNN?

We've always been a friendly welcoming helpful group. We never needed to be told to be more 'inclusive' we need protection more like. In my view there's a line been crossed here with all this inclusion. And the line is a crucial one for the straight spouse - the belief that you must not question the right of a person who experiences same sex attraction to deny it.

Yes, generally that is socially acceptable, no problem with that but when it comes to helping the straight spouses who come here - that is exactly the help they need. To question that right.

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** October 6, 2021 1:45 pm

I have just read through the last eight pages of comments in this thread and hey...we're all banging our heads against the brick wall of decisions already made.

When I read the title "Amazing changes coming to SSN" ..it was a misconception. It should have read "We're changing the Straightspouse Network name" or "Amazing changes coming to this site"

Elle

**Posted by lily** October 6, 2021 2:39 pm

yes, I must admit I realised it was, as you put it a brick wall of decisions already taken but now I have come to believe it is a deliberate scuppering of this forum. How could you be capable of putting up this site and not be able to recognise that the name change would drop us out of the google searches. Why do it, and why the support for this?

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** October 6, 2021 2:46 pm

lily wrote:
..... Why do it, and why the support for this?

Lily...I haven't seen a response to your request to have our forum kept as the Straightspouse Forum.

**Posted by oliviap** October 6, 2021 11:23 pm

I agree with Lily completely. If the name was changed in order to attract donations it does not make much sense. When I started questioning my GID husband's sexual orientation, it took more or less 9 months to discover the existence of the SSN. It was only by chance that I discovered the site. I don't think I would have ever discovered OurPath. My husband and I were together for 42 years and I am 60 years old. I am definitely not tech savvy as the younger generation seems to be. My opinion is that the amount of new members will decrease because they will not be able to find OurPath on the internet. I think it is important that statistics of new members joining since the name change should be calculated and compared to statistics when the name was still SSN. The main purpose of this site is to assist partners who question or have realized that their life partners are or could be LGBTQ. The only way they can be assisted is by actually finding this site. SSN has been a life-line for me for the past 11 months. I sincerely hope that newbies will discover OurPath. I have my doubts.

**Posted by Kel** October 10, 2021 12:38 am

The purpose of the section for LGBT Partners is to educate them how to come out to us while doing the least amount of damage to us. The entire guide is geared toward helping straight partners in the end.

What we found when we did some looking around is that there were guides for LGBT+ people to come out to their employers, their parents, their children, their friends. But zero about how to come out to your spouse/partner. Who better to write that than us?