None, in a word.
You’re probably right. My implication was that if people stop playing into to this “attention whoring” or whatever you want to call it; then maybe these “victims” will stop it with their whole “poor little me” thing.
And victims is in quotation marks because they aren’t really victims, right?
That’s definitely one of the biggest hurdles to accepting and confronting the situation. Who the hell wants to admit that she’s let herself be abused, especially when she has the reputation of being strong and assertive?
SHAKES puts the word “victims” in quotes and suggests that we’re sitting around saying “poor little me.” Ah well. Part of coming to terms with being a victim of abuse is accepting that thre are assholes out there who will think that we’re making it all up.
Right. As long as we’re talking about somebody who refuses to get out of a relationship despite the overwhelming evidence that it is completely bad for them.
Had the girl in the above thread posted something to the effect of “Wow, I just realized what a selfish insensitive jerk my boyfriend is, so I dumped his ass.” She would have my complete and total sympathy.
I find it very hard to be sympathetic towards the willfully obtuse.
I wasn’t trying to talk specifically about the other thread, but I’ll bite. Here’s what she said, in part:
Willfully obtuse, right? Certainly nothing there to suggest that you ought to respect the state of sheer terror she must be in from day to day. It’s just so much easier to talk about overwhelming evidence and her “refusal” to get away than it is to acknowledge that sometimes it’s more complicated than that.
The woman’s being torn apart, and on top of that, she’s tearing herself apart over it. Probably better to help her with the tearing than to shed a tear over the state she’s in despite, as far as we know, doing not a god damned thing wrong.
I never said the person was “just being stupid”; I simply refuse to concede that stupidity is not an element in it – especially when the person willfully refuses to change. As I’ve already said. That doesn’t make the person’s reasoning illogical, or their feelings invalid. People can process bad experiences as easily as good ones and still come to a decision that is not smart by any measure. So it’s great that you can decide that they are not doing anything wrong, but a person who recognizes an abusive situation and refuses to change it or leave it is IMO certainly doing something wrong, and willfully so, and I have very little sympathy for it.
I don’t know Green Bean’s sitch, and I’m not asking, but I do note that her experience is not what I’m talking about: When she had an awareness of being in an abusive situation, she left it immediately. What I’m talking about are people who recognize they are being exploited, or abused, or even just treated shabbily, and who further recognize they could leave, but who don’t. I think all of us know the sort of destructive co-dependent relationship I’m talking about. Those participants may decide to stay for a whole host of motivations, but I as an outside observer do not have to respect that choice. And I do think it is a very legitimate question at what point treatment a person willfully submits to consititutes “abuse” and at what point a voluntary participate to destructive codependency no longer is a “victim.” Those questions don’t mean I don’t “understand” those terms; they mean I might not define them as generously as you apparently would.
Why she feels she needs to talk to this guy about anything is beyond me. She hates him so she should leave his ass. End of story.
What really sticks in my craw is when woman like this have children. Now these children have to be subjected to this BS because their mother doesn’t have enough backbone to get away from the guy.
I know a woman who’s boyfriend gets gets drunk, then gets pissed off about something stupid and then proceeds to punch holes in the wall. I can only imagine the terror these poor kids have to live through on a day to day basis. This guy does of other f’d up stuff too, but I wont go into all that.
I wish I could say this is the only time I’ve seen or heard of this kind of thing going on, but I can’t.
I don’t have to rip her down, and I don’t have to shed a tear for her, either. Those are not the only choices, despite your implication to the contrary. But if the person in question seems unwilling to take constructive advice, and sympathy can’t be mustered, there’s no point in participating in the thread, right? So guess why I’m not over there. But I certainly see that observers could determine that she is doing a whole host of things wrong (meaning, not in her best interest, and completely within her power to change), as opposed to your declaration that she’s “doing not a god damned thing wrong.” And I don’t see why your opinion is necessarily more valid than theirs.
Problems getting out of a bad relationship? Plenty of sympathy and assistance…up to a point.
Going BACK to a bad relationship? None whatsoever.
I think one of the most frightening things in the world is to step into a situation that is unfamiliar. Even if the current situation is undesirable, it’s a familiar undesirable. Sometimes the fear of just taking that step is bigger than any fear of the consequences.
I pity them more than I sympathize, since sympathy implies a capacity to relate to their situation.
With physically, emotionally, or verbally abusive relationships, there is only so much a bystander can do, and while it is painful to watch a friend or family member suffer in their relationship, you cannot rescue them or make them see the light. Along the way there are many, many points where they will make decisions you disagree with, using rationalizations that are shortsighted or naive. At some point, the sympathy you have becomes mostly frustration and pity. You still want to help them, but you can’t.
For non-abusive bad relationships, I sympathize when people aren’t happy, when awkward conversations need to be had, when hard decisions need to be made, and when unwanted change has to take place. But when people stay because staying and being miserable is better than being alone or upsetting their life, it’s hard to remain as sympathetic. It puts you in the same place-- you can’t do anything except regret that they’re unable or unwilling to do what it takes to make themselves happier.
I’m not perfect, nor do I think I’m being heartless. I just found that it’s really easy to get swept up into other people’s dysfunctional relationships, and get angry, depressed, hostile, resentful, etc., right alongside them. It’s not healthy. You have to maintain a psychological and emotional distance from dysfunctional relationships you aren’t personally in otherwise it’ll wreck you too.
In my mind the measure of your compassion is not in having it only for those you deem worthy, but in also mustering some for those who require of you only compassion and not judgment.
I also believe that sometimes, in life, you have to go around the track more than once to get the lesson. Some people get the lesson first time around, in one lap, lucky them. Some people seem to have to go around a few times for some of their issues.
Beating yourself up about it, and harsh judgment, from a cruel world, don’t shorten the journey, in any way. As far as I can tell, that only serves to further confuse someone who is already being messed with in an emotionally abusive fashion. I really can’t see that contributing anything positive to the situation.
The person trapped in a codependent abusive situation cannot hear enough,
“When people show you who they really are, it’s your job to SEE!” Just keep saying it, softly and gently, every chance you get. Until they can hear it, really ‘hear it’.
Personally, I think they deserve heaps of my compassion.
They’re victims, but partly to themselves. I’ve been in a bad relationship that could have ended up being abusive (he just didn’t have the energy or the bent for that) because I was so totally set on making it perfect that I didn’t realize he wasn’t pulling from his side of the cart. Was it my fault that he didn’t pull? No. But I kept lying to myself, and lying to myself was my fault.
It strikes me that more then a few of the people “asking for advice” because of their inconsiderate or whatever partner are merely indulging in a nice little bit of sympathy hunting.
They are supposedly adults who can sort their problems out one way or another even if its by leaving the "abusive "partner but for whatever reason they choose not to and luxurate in self pity.
My mother was married to a violent,alcoholic psycopath who used extreme violence both on her and myself and my brothers on an almost daily basis.
He threatened to hunt her down and kill her if she left him and meant what he said.
These people with their pathetic self imposed non problems whining to strangers on the internet,boo hoo poor little hard done by me, totally inspire my contempt.
If the partner is hurting your life so much then leave them,if you’re just indulging in a little bit of over exaggerated amateur dramatics then keep it to yourself .
Like so many things, it’s always far more complex in reality than in theory. I read, but didn’t participate in that thread - not because I’m not sympathetic but because the inner turmoil is something that needs to be worked through and black/white advice just doesn’t cut it. If you like, it’s the antithesis of the ‘Why don’t you - yes but’ game.
For instance, even if one party, let’s call them X, isn’t getting what they want from a relationship and there’s no real possibility of changing that doesn’t mean that they are ‘good’ and the other party (Y) is ‘bad’. X might well still be attracted to Y, physically or emotionally, they may care deeply about Y’s future, wish to support and nurture Y, feel sorry for Y and so on. These are conflicting emotions, and giving advice on a practical level doesn’t go near to addressing those issues.
Ultimately then, I feel sympathy because it’s heartless not to. I don’t see this as being attention-whoring any more than I think all the ‘nice guy’ threads are attention-whoring. It’s basic human emotions and dilemmas being played out on the Internet.
I know a 19 year old whose live-in boyfriend beat her up and pulled out a good chunk of hair. When she came crying to me, I said “Look he is going to say it’s your fault. He is going to say he’ll never do it again. He’s going to want you to come back to him. If you do, you’re a fool and I don’t want to know you.” This is a person I’ve known since she was conceived.
He did and she did and I cut off all ties with her. Two years later she got in touch with me to let me know I was right and she had left him.
To be fair, I didn’t actually “leave” right away. I lived in the same house with him for another 8 months while we were going through the divorce process and working on selling the house. There were good sound reasons for this, but it means that I did stay in an abusive situation even after I realized what was going on. But I was taking active steps to extricate myself, so I guess that’s good. The abuse escalated during that time, but as bad as that was, it had the positive effect of making it even easier to walk away.
Well, as my mother always said
“Can’t nobody tell you when you’ve had enough.”
When it comes to situations like this, if someone asks for help or advice, I’ll do anything in my power to help. If I see they keep coming around hunting for sympathy, or as Maastricht put it, playing the “Why don’t you – yes but” game, I’ll peace out. A lot of the time, the only thing that can be done is leave them to destroy their lives. I’ve had enough toxic ‘friends’ to be able to spot the pity-Patties from the genuine hard-luck cases.