eating is better than not eating. takeaway for the third day in a row? reheated leftovers? sandwiches for dinner? who cares! eating is better than not eating! obviously it’s best if you can be eating balanced and filling meals regularly, but it’s more important that you survive than that everything you eat is perfectly healthy. if you only had a slice of bread for lunch, you still ate something. you need food to stay alive. well done. eating is better than not eating.
Reminds me of my mom getting remarried several years ago, for about a weekend - dude waited until after the wedding to tell her he expected her at waiting at home with dinner waiting when he finished work.
I dunno, like I get that this version of manhood is “normal” but goddamn is it the most brittle, contemptable fuckin thing
This is NOT these women’s fault in any way - these men hide their misogyny until they think you’re hooked. They know what they are doing.
These women are wise and brave. I admire them so much!
Not even touching the fact that he thinks teachers and nurses are lesser…he wants her to be less so that he can be more.
Am i the only one that thinks they could have come back from this? Like please tell me this was just the straw that broke the camels back and not a one off event. He must be an at least somewhat respectable person if she managed to stay with him up til that point. Him feeling lesser is a taught facet of his life pushed upon him by the patriarchy. It obviously damaged the way he viewed his gf, and his relationship, but that doesnt mean it cant be untaught. And of course its not this womans responsibility to be his teacher, but i hope she at least made him aware that this is what happened and why she left…
Literally how can you come back from someone wanting to have more power over you?
He’s not a little kid, he’s a grown ass man and if he hasn’t learned that 1. Teachers and nurses are smart as fuck and 2. That women aren’t and shouldn’t be lesser to him then when the hell is he going to learn from that?
Why does it need to be a final straw? Signs that someone is this fucked up are logs, not straws. And being a “respectable” person is easy when you’re lying about who you are and what you think.
These guys waited until they thought their women couldn’t possibly exist without them and then tried to shut down the things that made them special. Being nurses. Public defenders. Teachers.
These men pointed out what they were so proud of… how hard they worked… and tried suggesting that they stop. Tried making them feel bad about it. This is a common pathway into emotional and psychological abuse.
It was designed to make them feel bad and give it up. The next step would have been “what else can I take away”. Those situations where the woman’s confidence is shattered and it takes her years to get free of the asshole… 9/10 started with comments like this.
Please understand that this wasn’t an off the cuff thing. This was something he’s been thinking for a while, but waited to say til he thought he could make her change to suit him.
This is so important. These are not normal or innocuous comments these are red flags and classic behavior of abusers. People like this are insanely manipulative. They hook you in and pick you apart piece by piece. It starts with this, moves on to isolating you from your support system, and then flashforward a few years and you’re convinced that you’ll never be good enough and you need them to survive. You end up broken and completely subservient. These women did the right thing and are brave for speaking. Abusers aren’t usually the neighbors you hear screaming and shattering dishes like you see in the movies. They’re your “friendly next door neighbors” and they keep quiet. People are too scared to talk. Again, why her speaking up is so important.
THIS STUFF ALL OF THIS.
People wonder how anyone stays with an abuser - this is how. Because manipulative people don’t hit you or insult you on the first date. They wait until you’re invested in them and the relationship, and then they start small, with comments like this.
And they rely on the fact that so many people’s reaction will be “okay, that sucked, but we can come back from this.” They bank on their victim thinking that way. They might even apologize and claim they won’t do it again. But they always do, and they escalate slowly, so you’re a frog in a pot of hot water.
Don’t wait for the tenth red flag, because by then you’ll be starting to think that hey, that’s actually kind of a nice shade of red, so maybe it’s not so bad to have all these red flags around, maybe if I just decorated with them they’d be okay.
Also, women are not rehabilitation centers for poorly behaved men.
Ladies, this is how you do it.
And dudes absolutely start this shit slow. They gradually sprinkle it in, and slowly ramp it up, increasing the temperature of the water until the women are like the frogs, mostly unaware that they’re swimming in boiling water.
And when they do ramp it up to a new level, it’s often with something like this - when a woman’s committed to a new level on the relationship, like moving in together or deciding to be exclusive. They’re pushing the envelope now that the woman’s more invested.
And this woman did the right thing by moving out asap. Maybe she could salvage the relationship, but getting out is the first priority.
I could tell you all about what a lovely, affectionate, A+ boyfriend my asshole ex was – how he loved how strong and independent I am – right up until I moved in witn him, and then he set about trying to systematically tear me to pieces. Lying about everything from how he wasn’t allowed to make a spare key for me to what people at work were supposedly saying behind my back, isolating me from potential friends and then trying to make me doubt reality. Putting my clothes through a hot wash so they shrank. Berating me for taking a sick day. Never mind the cheating; I’m more offended he thought I was so stupid I wouldn’t notice, than that he did it, because by that point I was well out of fucks.
Why did I stay, if I knew within two months that he was a piece of shit? Simple: I wasn’t being paid enough to leave, and all the people I could have asked for help also knew him, possibly better than they knew me; when I reached out cautiously for support, most of them said it was in my head, or some bullshit about cultural differences that I knew was false. I didn’t feel safe and had nobody to lean on.
If your partner throws up a red flag once they get you dependent, don’t wait until it’s an alarm siren. Get out.
So many people never learned to live with harmless discomfort at any point in their lives and holy fuck does it show
“But I wanna know!” You’re gonna have to learn to be ok with not knowing some things, especially when those things involve personal details about strangers that they’re not comfortable sharing.
“But it’s confusing!” If you take the time to educate yourself it’ll no longer be confusing. Otherwise you’re just gonna have to learn to be ok with being confused.
“But it’s weird!” You probably do weird things all the time. Everyone does weird things sometimes. Life goes on.
“But it scares me!” Is it hurting you? No? You’ll be fine. Being scared and being harmed are not always the same thing. Learn to tell the difference and then act accordingly.
“But I want it!” And I want a million dollars. You can’t always get what you want.
A lot of people were also never told “no” as children and the consequences of that manifest in similar ways. Learn to be ok with being told “no.” You’re not gonna die if you don’t get your way in every single situation ever.
At my big age I’m somehow still surprised and appalled and scandalized when I’m faced with realities like when you don’t eat you are hungry, and when you don’t sleep you are tired
