I have a lot to say on this subject but I’m not in a position to type a novel. Commenting as a reminder to check back on this later tonight. Tl;Dr takes a lot of work and soul searching.
Edit: Finally getting around to this. The holiday was super busy.
My partner and I have been through many ups and downs. The secret I’ve found is to force yourself to have adventures together. Go hiking somewhere you’ve never been, attend an event, take a vacation to the beach. Make memories!
Also, what really clicked for me was advice I received from my therapist. Imagine a chart with submissive/dominant on one axis and nice/mean on the other. Chart out exactly where you want your partner to be, and have them do the same.
Then you do the work to encourage your partner to get to your ideal place, and they do the same for their ideal. If you want them to be nicer, be nicer to them. That part of the axis is nice-to-nice and mean-to-mean. But the other axis is opposite - if you want them to be more dominant, then you need to be more submissive and vice-versa.
My partner and I tried this strategy very deliberately for a few weeks and it did wonders for us. Eventually it stuck. Our dynamic is now very powerful and fulfilling.
Admittedly we’re still struggling with intimacy after an affair on his part, but I feel hopeful that we’ll make it work.
This is the 3rd time he’s trying to break up with me, and last time he promised that he’d wait for me and that he won’t break up with me again and that I’d be the one to do so. Just my trust in him is shattered after this.
I know you like him, but that second time should have been the sign to walk (if the first one wasn’t enough).
I am just not sure which way to take this, try to continue with the visit and maybe still stay together or just decide not to go and cut him off from being friends.
If there’s no chance of a compromise between the two positions (ie don’t visit, say you get the message but you can stay friends. Just as long as you know that, a few months from now, you won’t be trying to talk him into giving it another chance) then I suppose you go with the latter option.
I don’t know either of you or your dynamic but it looks almost inevitable that, if you flew out there and talked it through, you’d agree to give things another go. Then a few months later you’d be right back at this point again.
He’s said he doesn’t want the relationship to continue three times, you need to accept that and do whatever you feel you need to do to ensure it doesn’t happen a fourth time as this isn’t good for either of you. If that means cutting off all contact then so be it.
Reading this thread variously - honestly, your relationship sounds exhausting.
It’s taking more from you than it’s giving back. Regular blowups followed by patch-ups that leave you back where you started, with nothing but fallout and pain to show for it.
She fucks up, but is simultaneously too fragile and yet too able to hold you hostage to be held accountable; somehow you’re the one that has to earn your way back into her good graces, and you dare not upset the apple art by trying to change the dynamic or, god forbid, assert some boundaries along the way.
Rinse and repeat until it leaches the calcium right out of your damn bones.
Look, I get it. Anxiety disorders are no fun, mental illness isn’t the fault of the person who has it, and I have no doubt that she’s a wonderful person overall.
But you’re not getting paid for this. You’re not her carer, you’re not her parent, it’s not your job to clean up after her your whole life.
Would you take on that role for someone with stabyouintheface-itis, a condition that caused an otherwise lovely person to stab you in the face every month or two, entirely outside of their control or intent?
Hard pass, am I right? Not their fault, but not your job, so no. The impact of this one is lesser, but the principle is the same.
And yes, people can change and adapt and do better. Supposedly, at least - I haven’t seen it myself.
In the meantime, you deserve better things in your life than just pissing it away down someone else’s crazyhole.
Be by yourself, or be with someone who doesn’t take all your emotional resources just to break even. If your gf eventually manages to turn it around and get in better control of it, such that you can both benefit from the relationship, then great.
But until then, it’s just wearing you down and not filling her up. With the best will in the world towards her, you should go elsewhere.
I thought you were really insightful and I just wanted to give you an update because, if I was lost before, I’m really fucking lost now.
Last night she attempted suicide. I am reading these from my couch while we sort out what the fuck to do.
She went to the bedroom while I was reading on the couch around 8:30 after she took a shower. Within 5-10 minutes she called my name. I came in and she had a bottle.of her pills in one hand, and enough of them to kill a horse in the other.
She was shaking, but pretty numb when I gently took the bottle and pills out of her hands and held her. It took probably another 15-20 minutes for her to say anything else. Then she started sobbing.
This is the first time I’ve witnessed a suicide attempt, so I’m shaken up.
Anyway, thank you for the advice. It was thought provoking and I’m going to pick my way through it while I cope.
It takes some growth, but once you realize that girls are just human beings themselves, it becomes a lot easier. Nobody expects perfection from other humans in casual conversation. If you say something stupid or fumble your words then laugh it off and keep going. People like people with a sense of humor who don’t take themselves too seriously.
Feel however you want to feel, just don’t let a single motherfucker tell you how you should.
I was ‘stuck’ with a useless ass parent until he experienced a sudden death. I should have felt relief but the person I was dating at the time was insisting that I should be grieving. I actually had a pretty awful dinner a week after the funeral where I was being berated for not crying enough. The ex had unresolved daddy issues and was grieving vicariously through me.
Anyway, later on I was cleaning his car and found proof that he was cheating on my mom for years, then his poor financial decisions kept cropping up. That motherfucker haunted me a decade after his death with his various mistakes.
That’s just my experience, but in the end I ended up gretting the little bit of sympathy I did feel, and you know yourself and your parent best. If you dont feel they’re worth the feels, they probably arent.
Oh, wow. That’s amazing. My parent isn’t as bad in severity as his mother, but there are a loooooot of commonalities. Wow. It also made me think about my 2nd parent and how they didn’t stand up for me as much as they should have. Wow. I’m gonna chew on this and watch it again.
Most of his videos are of a similar vein, tackling different aspects of trauma and growing up with narcassists; I also recommend them if you have the time.
Thank you for that missing missing reasons link! I feel ever-so-slightly wiser for having read it.
I've heard missing missing reason stories from coworkers and acquaintances without knowing exactly why they seemed off. The details about why they do it were very illuminating.
My mom died a decade ago, and my dad about two years ago. Neither were great, and to a certain extent, their passing left a bit of relief that I was no longer responsible for them. However, with them gone, there is no longer a chance to fix those relationships. They are both dead and my relationship with them will forever have been shitty.
It is sad to think about those times when my dad would tell me he wanted to try to be a better parent, but I’m the end, he never followed through. I don’t look back and think about how he doesn’t have any more chances to fulfill those promises, I see it that he can no longer break that promise to me that he would try.
I know that my parents would not change, they would never take responsibility for how their choices hurt others, they would always continue with their selfish behaviors, and they would never be the parent that every child deserves. Some people can’t be fixed.
I think you can be sad and relieved at the same time. But i don’t think there is any reason to try to feel sad. I grew up to be jaded in a lot of ways and there are a lot of situations where as people we are expected to have an emotional response but I unabashedly own up to my lack of care and don’t even try to fake it in the slightest. I somehow think that disingenuous grieving is worse than no grieving at all. And don’t feel guilty for feeling relieved either, you suffered a lot with this person in your life, and you shouldn’t keep suffering after this person is gone. Reclaim that mental space for yourself and allow yourself to breathe.
Our parents are who the people they are. Yes, they brought us into this world and we owe our existence to them, but they have/had a responsibility to us.
We are who we are because of them, for better or worse. Who we are is because of who we became due to their influence. If they were the best parents and served our best interests, or the worst and failed us, they are still our parents.
We don’t have to forgive them, we don’t have to love them, we don’t have to respect them, we only have to acknowledge them for how we turned out and that doesn’t depend on how good or bad they were. If you are a good person, or aren’t who you feel you should be, be greatful for their reference point.
Bad or good are just subjective references to something else, how you feel about something or someone is up to you. We don’t know your life, we don’t know your parents, and we can’t decide how you should feel because we can’t tell you how you should feel about them.
You have to live with what you feel about them, do and act as you feel you should, and be validated in knowing that being better than your worst instincts makes you better than most.
You are your own person, be the best person you can be and act accordingly.
You need to learn how to forgive yourself first. Do you think a minor detail like that would have been something that would have convinced your partner to leave you? It sounds like you two worked everything out and built up that trust again. Bringing it up now only serves to clear your own conscience at the cost of opening up old wounds.
Look, you acknowledge that you made a mistake, you’ve atoned for the bad things that you’ve done and made amends with your partner, and you’ve found a blissful happiness. It’s time to let that baggage go and forget the past. It won’t be easy, but the first step is to realize that everybody is fallible and that sometimes we make mistakes and we can’t always rely on having our guilt absolved by another.
I don’t think you should force friendship until you are ready to. You can co-parent perfectly well with minimal communication until you are ready to communicate more without it hurting a whole lot.
When my last long term relationship ended she wanted to be friends after. I was still really hurting and those random texts and phone calls and invitations to get coffee hurt me and reminded me of what I had lost on a regular basis. I went no contact for about half a year, when the mourning process was over and I had accepted that I was better off without her, it felt okay to be back in contact.
So I disagree with the other posters - protect your heart. Your kids will be okay. Your kids want a parent who is happy. They can’t have that if you’re forcing friendship contact with your ex that is hurting you and prolonging the grieving/healing process. Go minimal contact, take care of your heart, rediscover how to be happy as a single person, then when you’re ready you can talk to your ex more regularly, if you ever want to.
As a child of divorce, what was more important to me was that my parents were happy. Kids can tell when their parents are hurting. And my parents being friendly never felt that important. You can be friendly and nice to each other at pick up and drop off without having to text and have phone calls and get coffee outside of strictly child related interactions. Your kids won’t know if you and your ex are texting regularly. They will know if you are sad.
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