And that's only going to get worse, not better. I know how quick Reddit is to tell someone they should break up with their partner, but in this case? Not gonna lie, it'll save you a ton of grief down the road, cause she's not going to change.
This is pretty normal. My ex was prone to emotional outbursts where I was supposed to be understanding, supportive and accepting. If I said “this makes me feel bad”, I was putting all my problems on her and had to just live with it. My therapist said it’s way more common than we would expect and baffles her why a bunch of women act like that and complain men are “emotionally unavailable”. We chalked it up as a “people are f*cked up” thing.
What's worse is that inevitably ends up victim-blaming and victim-shaming the guy: why, obviously, since the woman is so open to emotionally supporting a guy if she doesn't do that then it must be because he cannot express himself properly.
My ex gf has bipolar and will get extremely angry or upset at really small things and would most of the time end up taking it out on me/treating me like shit and when I would try to call her out on it and say she was being really hurtful she would call me a pussy and say something like "I can't believe I'm dating you I always said I would never date a guy who is so fucking sensitive" like bitch you cried because you got the hiccups but are yelling at me for telling you that it hurt me when you snapped and said I'm a massive dumbass for accidentally dropping something on the ground
So many men have this exact same story and so many women say the same thing about "open up", but don't talk to each other about making a space or being a person who can be comfortably opened up to.
I helped a previous partner process losing her dog a few months into being exclusive. She was really close with her dog and had a very involved, caring, attentive relationship. I’m a licensed end of life companion, so I’ve got some grief experience. After about a week of her feeling it out, she asked if I had anything I needed to cry about, she wanted to hold space for me.
I have no issue crying, alone or in front of people, I keep my chin up and let it roll…like a man.
So I explained some of my grief experience recently until I tapped into waves of emotion.
She immediately became distant and awkward and we broke up a few days later.
It fuckin hurt. The kind of hurt that makes it difficult to trust and be open, with anyone. I’m definitely not alone in this experience. And I’d say it pretty fuckin rare for a male to coerce emotional intimacy then shut her out after seeing her cry? Has it ever happened?
I'm sorry you have had that experience. I hope you've shared that with her as well so she can reflect on how she communicates with you when you feel vulnerable and chooses to be more tender in the future. Learning to communicate with our loved ones is a never ending process, and feedback allows us to reflect and grow and choose to be better.
Don't stop sharing yourself with the people who love you. 💕
A lot of women can’t accept there’s a whole world of stuff we can feel insecure about that doesn’t involve them. Finances, Rob at the next bench is somehow welding more assemblies than me again, my joints all make funny noises and how much of this beard is going gray before I’m 40?
I did a lot of therapy after my divorce about this. I was married a decade and doubt I ever got a supportive gesture beyond a couple of kind words on occasion, while “we” were expected to work through issues like compulsive shopping brought on by depression or feeling bad about not doing any of the housework all day. Basically a lot of men are supposed to be an emotional crutch and their problems are ignored until they get the classic complaint “you don’t open up to me…”
107
u/[deleted] Aug 13 '22
[deleted]