I just wish I’d never said yes. They got so invested in me and I hurt them so bad.
Oof, that’s one of the roughest. That happened to me a couple years back and I still feel bad about it. The most I can say for myself is that I learn how to tell if someone was falling for me too hard when I knew the relationship was going nowhere.
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I feel like I’m gonna cry. I hurt them so bad. I can’t take back the things that I said and they weren’t lies or heat of the moment thoughts, but I did say them pretty harshly and I think I made it harder than it could’ve been.
I have a massive crush on this girl and we;ve been flirting for like a month or two (ok, she’s been flirting with me and I’ve just frozen cause I don’t know what to do) and when she gets back to Boston from Christmas break from school, I’m deffo gonna ask her if we can date. I’ve never done this before with any modicum of tact so I’m curious what I should know before I do it.
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I’m a bit intimidated by the broadness of the prompt so I’m gonna try and paint in broad strokes.
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you are far more aware and concerned with your issues than they will be
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they like because of the way you are so don’t feel like you need to change or cover up an inadequacy to make them “really” like you
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first dates are always awkward
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you are looking for a partner that works with you, so avoid feeling like you need to do something personally unpleasant to appeal to them
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no matter how bad it goes, it’s practice for the next date
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Embrace the awkward. Thrive in it. Let it empower you.
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The other person is also awkward.
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I’m really stuck. Since my wife’s mother died suddenly two weeks ago she’s been grieving and I’ve been trying to support her. A few days ago my endurance dropped and started to struggle. I pushed on though and awkwardly complimented her cooking, she took it as insincere and started calling me out.
I’m like the kiwi in this video. I couldn’t handle the criticism and I started crying. She’s taken this as a betrayal, of me putting my emotions and ego ahead of her. The more she accused me the more I got upset.
We worked on it and got back to an equilibrium but the next morning I worked on self improvement, reaching out to a old friend but she said that I should be focused on her at this time.
On the evening when she got home from a day at the solicitors I asked her how it was but she asked me what kind of evening she was in for with respect to how I am going to be. I started talking about how I would be attentive and loving but she told me she didn’t believe me and when the conversation went on I was once again accused of just wanting to talk about myself and my issues all night. I thought about telling her that she brought it up but I silenced myself but she asked me if I was about to blame her again. She took this as a betrayal and that I was actively inhibiting her grief.
I just don’t know what to do. Maybe we should split up but that’s not what we really want. I’m trying to improve myself and gain some emotional maturity but every time this happens I succumb to her criticisms and fall apart. It feeling like she’s cut me and my betrayal is that the wound is bleeding. I try to apologise for this but can’t make it make sense so it comes out as insincere. She says I’m trying to make myself the victim and that’s the action of an abuser. I just don’t know what to do.
We have a one year old daughter and I can’t bear for her to grow up to be like me. If I keep doing this or I leave her she will, but I can’t find my coping mechanism.
I tried therapy a few years ago but she thought I was just bitching about her for an hour each week and ultimately it was better to stop.
There are so many videos on how to deal with this avoidant attachment person (a term I only recently added to my vocabulary) but not how to do better as the avoidant party.
This is therapy territory IMO, but couple’s therapy only works if both parties are into it. If your wife took your therapy sessions personally, then I’m not sure it’ll work. Sounds like you both would benefit from individual therapy.
I’m getting a sense you have some issues to work through on your end. Your language seems to center a lot of negativity around yourself, and that’s an unhealthy sign. Could be depression or anxiety or proto-narcissism - focusing on your failures as a way to bring attention to yourself and all that.
It also sounds like your wife could be picking a fight? It’s troubling to try to express how you feel and then be told “I don’t believe you,” but without a history and both perspectives it’s impossible for Internet strangers to suss out what’s going on.
Get individual therapy.
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I missed this at first but it’s telling. Why is this your instinct? What would you hope to achieve? This seems significantly likely to hurt someone, and seems to serve to deflect the question instead of address it. Has this been a pattern of behavior on your part?
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That right there is the crux of my selfishness, I want to say things that are likely to hurt others to defend myself. I usually fight the instinct to actually say it but then I stumble and the feeling is plain. That reinforces to me that I’m already doing well because I didn’t actually say it and I’m being judged for something I didn’t do which justifies that am right to think it again later.
I’ve got to take responsibility for myself by calming down and sorting myself out. That’s why I posted here, my support network has dwindled to nothing, but I get that I can’t just blame things like that and I’m responsible as well for cultivating things like that.
You do recognize that, when you stumble and make the feeling plain, you effectively do the thing you claim to have not done, right? Impact trumps intent and all that.
I’m not a therapist and I’m pretty sure nobody else here is, but this sounds like a thing you cannot manage alone, and your wife is not responsible for unwinding it either.
Get a therapist of your own if you don’t already have one.
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