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'My wife is lying to me about beating my son at chess. I feel like I'm going crazy.' UPDATED

Jul 5, 2024 | 2:26 P.M. ET

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

I have an odd and very specific issue with my wife and wanted some perspective on it. More than anything I'm just confused, really. I'll lay out the details:

So my wife is really good at chess, like really good. She used to play in tournaments, she is a titled player, I think her peak FIDE rating was around like 2300-2350ish, she's good. I am... not haha. I enjoy the game, but I am nowhere near her, I have an online rating of 1120.

Recently our 10 year old son has started to show an interest in chess, and we have been teaching him the game. Before we began teaching him, my wife and I had talked and come to the agreement that it would not benefit him to go easy on him or let him win, it was better to play at our real strengths and help him understand the game,

help him learn to analyze his games, replay the critical positions, and understand where he could make improvements or choose a different line. We were totally on the same page on this, full agreement.

However, when my wife plays with our son, she has been letting him win. She is not playing anywhere near her real strength, and after about 30 games between them over the course of the last few weeks, he has a plus score against her, which is crazy lol. For context, over the 16 years that we have been together I've had, at a guess, around 1000 games with my wife.

I have never beaten her. Not once, not ever, not a single game. She just demolishes me, rolls me off the board. Once, about 5 years ago when she had the flu, I drew her in a perpetual check from a losing position and I was VERY proud of that haha, I hold that as one of the strongest games I ever played.

The only way I'm winning a chess game against my wife is if she falls asleep at the board and I win on time, she's just that far beyond me. So here's the odd thing. When I try to talk to her about it, she just... lies to me? She flatly insists that she's playing to her full strength and all of his wins are legitimate, which is just simply... not true. At all.

And before I get the suggestion that he's perhaps a prodigy and that the two of them are playing at a level that I can't understand, that's not the case. I have observed their games, he is playing like a beginner. I have plugged some of their games into an engine, and the engine just breaks down crying at how bad the play is on both sides.

It's not a subjective interpretation, these games are objectively bad. My wife is simply refusing to capture hanging pieces for multiple turns, intentionally making bad trades, making anti-positional moves that make no sense, refusing to execute extremely simple combinations that even I can see.

Like, my wife can see mate in 3, she can probably see mate in 15, and the idea that she is missing those things is nonsensical. When I play my son, I crush him. I'm not blaming him, he's still learning the game, but he's still at the level where he can fall for the Scholar's Mate and making 1 move blunders, that's just where he is.

When I try to talk to my wife about it, she insists up and down that she's playing as well as she can, and she's so earnest that it almost seems like she genuinely believes it. I'm beginning to worry about some kind of mental illness, like I have no idea what is going on here. I've never had anything like this with her, normally we're very communicative, this is really out of left field for her and really very odd.

I've tried talking with her about it multiple times now, but I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, I don't even know how to discuss this with her when we can't even agree on what is objectively happening in reality. It's like trying to discuss how to build a sailboat when you can't agree on what water is, or if cloth and wood are things that exist in reality. I don't even know how to start a conversation here.

As it stands, my son won't play with me anymore because I always win and it's disheartening for him. If it was simply a case of my wife seeing that he needs a confidence boost and changing her mind about letting him win, I of course would have zero problem with that, I'm 100% on board, we can totally do that.

I've said that directly to her, but she's dead set adamant that she's absolutely not going easy on him in any way. The issue isn't that she's letting him win, it's that she's refusing to admit it. It's just so bizarre, she's just blatantly insisting that reality isn't real. I don't know what to do.

TL;DR: My wife is insisting that she is not letting our son win at chess. She unquestionably is. What do I do?

Relevant Comments:

Someone blames him for crushing his son and being unreasonable in his playing:

"I'm not sure how you've read the post three times and failed to catch the part where this is my wife's idea. I don't have any desire to crush my son, I'm trying to help him learn. My wife is insisting that we play at full strength and do not let him win. She is continually, currently insisting this, now, even in the face of me suggesting that we could try a different way.

She is adamant that she will not play below her strength, and is insistent that I don't play below my strength either. She says that playing poorly will not help him learn. Then she is turning around, playing below her strength, objectively and inarguably, and then denying that she's doing it to my face. That's the issue."

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

Yet she swears up and down that she's playing at her top strength. My aim is to understand why she's doing that."

Go ahead, break your son's spirit and tell him:

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

No, I would not tell my son. I would happily go forward in any way that we decide as parents, or honestly any way that my wife decided; she's a literal expert in this matter and I would follow her lead on whatever way she wanted to go forward.

The issue is that she's telling me "Were going to do 'A'", and then she is doing 'B', and then when I ask about it, she's telling me "I'm doing 'A'". She doesn't need to admit it, it's objectively verifiable, if I had that desire I could prove it anytime. But I don't. I'm not trying to win, I'm trying to understand what's going on here.

I know you probably don't want to believe it, Reddit seems to really love that drama of the evil, abusive husband, but I love my son and I care about his feelings, and I love my wife too. I want her to be well, and happy, and I want to have good communication with her.

I want to know what's going on with her and why she is saying these things, but I don't even know how to start talking to her about this because we can't even find a common reality to live in."

People offer actual advice, and he responds with bafflement at the amount of people "misreading" his post:

"I don't really understand it either, according to most of the comments I've read here, I'm an abusive, egomaniacal control freak that is destroying my family's happiness and they live in fear of me. I'm waiting to hear about how I beat my wife with chains when she looks at me wrong and starve my son when he leaves his socks on the floor haha.

I think there are a lot of really hurt people out there that project their own trauma and pain onto everything they see. I'd like to address those things, but there's simply too much and honestly it wouldn't do much good anyway, the people who are determined to see me as a monster see monsters everywhere they look. I can't help them.

As to my wife, no I haven't played her recently, a few months at least. Perhaps that's a good idea. It's very odd behavior for her, she is otherwise very trustworthy. My wife and I ordinarily have a very strong, loving relationship, and I am very close with my son, we play Minecraft together a lot. I have been really happy to be able to share chess with him, as it's something my wife and I both enjoy deeply.

We really have a lovely relationship, I have had so many wonderful nights getting absolutely demolished by my wife, drinking and laughing and playing chess together. I'm no match for her, I never will be, but I'm not trying to be, I'm just trying to improve my own game and have fun. I enjoy the game, and her mind is endlessly interesting to me.

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

That has been fun, and I can see his mind expanding and growing. But he only wants to play his mom now because, you know, he's 10 and he gets easy wins haha. I don't blame him, I'm just confused about my wife.

I am more than happy to let him win against me too, it's just that's not what we had agreed. My wife and I agreed to a course of action, I followed through and she didn't, which is also fine, people change their minds all the time, no problem. My ONLY issue here is that she is insisting that it's not happening.

It's like we both agreed to drive to France, we got in the car, and then she drove to Germany. And when I asked "Hey, why did we come to Germany, I thought we were going to France", her response was "We are in France right now". So strange.

My issue is not with beating my son at all, I'm happy to teach him in any way, and as I stated, my wife initially suggested the idea of playing at our full strengths, and as she is obviously an expert, I agreed. I'm not trying to compete with my son or crush him in every game, I just want to be on the same page as my wife.

So many people here simply can't even imagine a scenario where a father isn't taking sadistic pleasure in destroying their beginner child, it makes me really sad for them and how their lives must have been like.

Many people here have taken issue with my the plugging games into an engine to prove that they're bad, I guess people outside the chess world don't really understand that engine analysis is extremely standard, it's a tool that every chess player who wants to improve uses on every single game they play.

When you play regularly, you analyze literally every game, plugging games into engines is totally normal. But yeah, toxic and bad, got it haha.

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

More responses from OP clarifying:

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

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

Totally possible and zero problem if that's the case. Although I wouldn't say I've crushed him over and over, we've played 8 games, and after each game we have discussed what went wrong, different concepts, what you want to be doing with your pieces in general, (center control, piece development, knights toward the center, don't make too many pawn moves early, etc).

I'm not just smashing him and yelling "In yo FACE sucka!" and walking away, I feel the games we've had have been positive and instructive.

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

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

I can understand why you might generate this idea, but all I can respond to this is that I really hope that's not the case and I don't know of anything that I would have done to cause that.

My relationship with my wife and my son is generally very good, we are very close and loving, we communicate well. I don't believe that I've ever given her the impression that she wouldn't be able to trust me or talk to me. I'd be happy to let my son win games against me, I'm happy to go in any way we choose.

It's just, we chose a way together, I went that way and she didn't. And that's fine too, people change their minds, there's nothing wrong with that. But she's telling me she didn't.

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

Again, these are legitimate questions that deserve answer; you don't know anything about me, it's reasonable to wonder these things.

I would never rub it in my son's face. I would never want him to feel bad about himself, I love him and want to build him up. He's my guy, he's such a happy, sharp, cool kid, and I would never want to bring him down or make him feel bad. I understand why you would ask, but on this, just no man. I'm my son's biggest cheerleader.

As to the question about being bothered by my wife beating me? Not for a long time. I'll admit, when we first met when I was in my early 20's, it stung a bit haha. I tried hard to beat her back then, but I very quickly realized that she's just on a whole other level from me.

Like in the same way, it doesn't bother me that LeBron James can beat me at basketball either, it's not a personal failing of mine, dude is just amazing at basketball at a level that vanishingly few people can ever even get near, that's just how it is.

My wife is like that with chess. I know that in the chess world, there's even lot's of people who are better than her, but for me, she's LeBron man. I don't feel bad that I cant beat her, I just stand in awe of her skill and feel happy that she chooses to share it with me.

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

Again, understand why you would ask, but not really man.

Ego has never really been much of a problem for me, people around me have always described me as a very chilled, laid back guy. I'm not that guy. I appreciate the genuine attempt to help, really. I hope my answers to your questions have helped paint a more clear picture of my family and who I am as a person."

Clarification on the word 'crush': "In the chess community, the word "crush" is standard accepted nomenclature, indicating that the game was very one sided. For example, in every single game I have ever played with my wife, she has "crushed" me.

It doesn't have as strong of a negative connotation, it's simply a shorthand to indicate "won convincingly with little challenge". I'm quickly realizing that that word paints a very different picture for people who are not familiar with this."

People think it's weird to use a chess analyzer: "I'll take this opportunity to provide some clarity here, as I've seen this come up repeatedly through the thread. I think it may be that people who are not involved in chess don't really understand engine use, but if you talk to anyone who plays chess at any kind of level past beginner, they will tell you that engine analysis of every game you play is utterly standard.

When you finish a game on chess.com, it immediately brings you to an analysis board where you can replay the game move by move and see all the lines. When you play an OTB game, you write down each move you and your opponent make, and when you finish you analyze the game the same way, either together with your opponent (as my wife and I do every time) or by using an engine.

Analysis is arguably more important for improvement than actual play, I have spent hundreds of hours analyzing games with my wife over the years. There is nothing unusual in the least about tracking games, analyzing games, putting them through engines, this is all absolutely normal, and portraying it as overbearing or aggressive behavior is just a lack of understanding of the tool.

Go take a look at some of my other comments to get a sense of how I am teaching him, I think you'll see that I'm not crushing the life out of him."

Son analyzes the game too:

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

Two days after his original post, he shared this update:

I took the advice that was presented in the original thread, and yesterday when my son got home from school I invited him to play a game of what I decided to call “Switch Chess”. Users in the last thread suggested that we play in a way where, at any time, my son can call out “Switch!” and we flip the board around, he gets the side I used to have and I get his.

We played, and it was great. It was super fun, we were laughing and having a great time. At the end, he fed me all his pieces and then called “Switch!” and chased my lone king around the board, it was hilarious. We were into our second game, laughing and yelling, he was up out of his seat dancing, when my wife got home.

The second she saw us playing, I could tell she was immediately mad. She didn’t say anything but she was clearly pissed, she was radiating anger. She left the living room and went to our bedroom. I finished up with my son, told him we could play more later, and went to the bedroom to go talk to my wife. I asked how her day was and she just said “Fine.”

I just let the silence go for a few seconds and she asked how I was playing with him. I told her about Switch Chess, and how he could flip the board around anytime he wanted, and she immediately told me “Don’t play with him like that, it’s not good for his development. In fact, just don’t play with him at all anymore, you’re just going to mess him up.” Which was, you know… pretty hostile.

I didn’t say anything, just looked at her like “What is going on?” I could see her start tearing up; I moved toward her to go hold her and she just went ballistic. Started crying and screaming at me that I couldn’t have chess, it’s hers, it’s not fair, I have everything and she has nothing and I can’t take this from her, total meltdown.

I just had to let her go off for a while and let it out, then once she cried it out a bit I approached her gently and sat with her and we talked about it. Because we’re married and we love each other.

She told me she feels like our son loves me more than her. Which from where I’m standing is like… crazy, our son adores his mom, but that’s how she feels. She said she has always felt that he liked me better, and she’s jealous of all the things he and I do together and the close relationship that we have, and she feels like she doesn’t have any point of connection with him.

When he was younger, I took about a year of leave to stay home with him, and she said that in that time I developed a relationship that she can’t have with him. She told me I have everything with our son and she feels like she has nothing, that we play Minecraft, we watch YouTube together, I teach him to cook, I have long conversations with him.

And she knew that if I started playing chess with him, it would just be another thing that she couldn’t compete with me on, and that he would like me better like always, and would want to play with me more. She admitted that she wanted to sabotage me and make it un-fun for him to play with me, so that he would only want to play with her and she could have something to bond with him on.

That was really tough to hear. My son and I do have a close relationship, but I really thought their relationship was just as good, I had no idea she felt this way. I never imagined she felt like she had to compete with me. For years, apparently. I felt so bad for her.

She said she pushed me to agree that we wouldn’t let him win so that she could be the fun one to play with, and that when I realized she was letting him win and questioned her about it, she just panicked and said that she was playing at full strength even though she obviously wasn’t and it didn’t make any sense.

She said she knew it made no sense but she just said it, and once it was said she felt too trapped to back away from it so she just kept saying it. She told me she's been terrified that I might start losing to him too, and that he would stop wanting to play with her.

I asked her why she didn’t just talk to me about this and she said it’s because she was too ashamed, that she knew that she was being hateful and messed up, and that she’s a horrible person but she couldn’t help it.

I just held her for a long time and told her she’s not horrible at all, that I love her, that our son loves her, and that she’s the most wonderful mother in the world. I really believe those things, my wife is amazing. It ripped my heart out to hear how hard she was being on herself. She just kept insisting that she was messed up and evil and what she did was horrible.

I told her I could completely understand why she did what she did. To be honest, I’m still very hurt by her behavior, and honestly feel pretty messed up from the weeks of questioning my sanity, but of course I did NOT tell her that lol, NOT the right time. We can talk about it later.

I told her that I love her, and I fully understand how she felt. I told her I understand what a massive part of her life chess is and how she must have felt that it was being taken away from her. I told her I never want to compete with her on anything, least of all our son’s love. I held her and reassured her for a long time.

We had a pretty emotional night last night, but I think we're in a better place now. In the end, we decided that chess can be her thing with our son for now, I’ll hang back and just let them have their time. Maybe in the future when my wife feels more secured, I’ll start playing with our son again.

Later on, I’ll talk with my wife about how she approached this, and how it made me feel, but for now I’m just happy she feels better and that she’s not going crazy, and that I’M not going crazy haha, because I was really starting to feel like I was going nuts over the past while.

I want to address all of the people who told me I was an insane, egomaniacal, controlling monster; a shitty husband who loves bullying his wife, and a sadistic father who loves torturing his child. There were a LOT of you.

I’m certain that nothing I’ve written here will change your opinion of me, I'm sure you will somehow find a way to continue to blame me for causing all of this, that I’m neglectful, and evil, and excluding my wife, or any of the other things that you project onto me, but I want to address you anyway.

I want to tell you that I really feel for all of you; I truly hope you find peace. I can see how deeply you’re suffering, how bad you’re hurting. I’m so sorry that your lives have left you in a place where you can’t even imagine a scenario where a father might actually love his child, where a husband isn’t vicious and monstrous demon trying to destroy his wife’s life.

I’m sorry that’s how you see the world. I want you to know that the world isn’t always like that, and you don’t have to keep living like that. You don’t have to keep living in that world where everything you see is evil and everyone is out to do harm. You don’t have to stay there, you can come out. I really hope you get the help you need. Life can be better than that. I wish all of you well.

My wife and son are playing chess right now. I'm really happy about that.

[EDIT] To stem the absolute tidal wave of comments on this: Yes, I will get my wife into therapy. Thank you for your concern.

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