If you want to read in fascinated Horror how People make Money with books of terrible terrible advice: (and the sarcastic comments)
As someone who probably qualifies, in the writer’s book, as having been to ‘‘hell and back’’… I haaaaaate this shit. I hate this cloying, saccharine writing, and the implication that having a trauma history means you get to live by different standards in your relationships. There are the hard realities of PTSD and then there is just being a self-absorbed asshole.
I’ve seen this attitude a lot, lately, particularly in younger women. It’s the typical teenage desire to feel particularly deep and unique (in this case, uniquely damaged) layered over with warped romantic expectations. That love interest, in their heads, exists only to fulfill their own emotional needs. Very little thought is given to the reciprocal action. It’s tragic because no relationship is sustainable based on such unrealistic expectations.
Thanks, Grrr!, I needed that little self-esteem boost.
Ahh…More Retarded Assholes.
Yeah…The OP definitely fits a pattern I’ve seen in a number of my female friends. It’s kind of like, just because they were in bad relationships or had problems with drugs or alcohol or basically just figured out being a grown adult is sometimes “hard”, they adopt this “Real Housewives” attitude where they feel justified in creating all sorts of drama around them and people are just supposed to look past it and embrace them for the strong empowered woman they think they are.
In reality, who in their right mind wants to deal with that drama? Find someone without all the baggage.
This shit made me cringe. I read a few paragraphs and couldn’t finish it.
I read the article to my husband and he laughed his ass off.
It’s like… due to my unique circumstances, living with chronic depression and PTSD and having to deal with how that affects him, I’m not going to sit there and claim that everyone should be perfectly mentally healthy before starting a relationship. I’m living with chronic illnesses that inevitably impact him. But you have to have empathy and awareness of your partner no matter how much you may be hurting. And you can’t let it affect how you treat the people you are sworn to love. And in the instances that it does affect them, you need to own that shit and make it right. Immediately.
I’m trying to allow for the fact that nobody’s perfect, without being permissive about stupid bullshit. Maybe it’s one of those ‘‘know it when you see it’’ kind of things. I think if you’re not sure you can treat your partner right because of past baggage, you should sort that shit out before you get involved with someone.
As an aside, I’m weirdly heartened by the fact that some of you have never heard of MRAs.
If a woman I was considering asking out (up front, I’ve been married for 17 years, so this is purely hypothetical) handed me the piece linked to by the OP, I’d thank my lucky stars that she did so before we started dating.
I feel sorry for that woman. I really do. But I’m definitely not the guy she needs. I couldn’t endure the crap she’d be sure to dish out. I wish her well finding the Superman who can keep loving her more, whenever things get rough.
But it ain’t me, babe. No no no, it ain’t me babe.
It ain’t me you’re looking for.
One Thing is interesting: in the “50 shades of Grey” thread, it’s argued that “ordinary Girl rescues broken (abusive) man by converting him to a good Person” is a common clichee in princess/ romantic chick flicks and romance novels.
Here we have the opposite: A broken woman needing a good man to heal her. Yet the reaction is a bit different.
I think as Long as Hollywood and countless novels (not just Pulp romance novels) Show “Epiphany therapy” and “True love (+ a good fuck) cures all Trauma” as solution - because it’s not only more romantic, but so much easier for the audience than “if you have Trauma or Problems, go to therapist and start working on yourself for next 5-10 years, which will be hard and frustrating and painful.” - we will get articles like These as Logical endresult.
I’m not sure how the reactions between this thread and the 50 shades of Grey thread are really different.
In both cases people are saying the message of the fictional work is bunk. In both threads they’re saying that working to heal damaged people is somewhat doable, but most often far more trouble than it’s worth. And utterly pointless unless the damaged person agrees it needs fixing and is willing to work to fix themselves.
What is the difference you think you see?
Or is the difference simply that it seems that stereotypical men are more likely to say “Flake not worth my time!” when facing a damaged woman but stereotypical women are more likely to say “Ooh goody; a fixer-upper!” when facing a damaged man?
Perhaps in some people, but not in me. I find this attitude vile in either direction. It is, for that matter, vile if it were two women, or two men.
The reason it’s popping up in this thread in the man-should-love-shitty-woman form is because we’re talking about a social media meme, and on social media it’s presented that way 99% of the time.
Of course you are correct in that Hollywood loves this theme (in both directions) because it provides the audience with the fantasy notion of “The person who will love you no matter what,” a fantasy served up in many flavors (and for most of its history Hollywood has largely been serving its customer base with the implicit assumption it’s serving white males.) And… actually, in a movie, whatever. Movies aren’t supposed to be real and anyone who patterns their life after a movie is a fool who would act the fool if they never saw the movie anyway. There’s no such thing as superheroes, talking toys or a Galactic Empire, either, but I still enjoyed Iron Man, Toy Story and Star Wars.
Similarly, “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” while being a pretty good example - Bridget Jones is a complete shit to Darcy, but, by Gosh, he still loves her! - is an enjoyable movie. I mean, in real life I’d run from Bridget Jones like Usain Bolt trying to outrun a polar bear, even though she’s hot (Bridget, not the polar bear) but it works fine as a lighthearted comedy. Looking at a male example, I cannot think of any earthly reason why Helen Hunt’s character falls in love with Jack Nicholson’s major league asshole character in “As Good As It Gets” but the movie got a bunch of Oscar nominations so I guess people liked it, and that’s fine. Most people then leave the cinema and DON’T treat their partners like shit, or put up with ridiculous shit.
Look, as a heterosexual man I’ll tell you straight up we’re as prone to making the “I can fix this fucked up woman” error as women are of doing the reverse. I made this error. My best friend made this error. I know men who made this error and learned from it, and sometimes the lesson took longer to learn than others, but no matter what it’s a huge, huge, huge mistake.
No one is perfect, but there is a difference between a pretty good car that you’re just not all that thrilled about the way the climate control works and it doesn’t have quite as much cargo space as you were hoping for but it’ll do, and a car that is actually engulfed in flames. The former you buy, the latter you run from before it explodes.
This, which in itself seems to feed into the victorian stereotype that men are half-savages, who Need the soft touch of a woman to become civilsed; and that women are interested in talking about (and healing) the relationships, men are Content to never talk about anything (besides sports).
For all I know, “Man heals broken woman and helps her learn to trust & love again” is a common trope in romance. And that’s fine if it is, but it doesn’t make me think that it works that neatly in real life.
I mean, I like movies where a guy with a duffel bag full of guns shoots up everything in the tri-country area on his quest for revenge but I wouldn’t advocate for that as a real-life good decision just because it makes for entertaining escapist fantasy.
I find your idea intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
The article gives some really good advice…if you are considering adopting an abused rescue dog.
But the gist of the “advice” given in the article is - this person doesn’t believe in unconditional love and will constantly try to test your “unconditional love” for her. And if you pass one test they’ll just do something worse. Then when they find the thing that actually drives you out the door they’ll be “I was right, no one will ever love me. You promised to love me unconditionally and you broke that promise”.
I made this mistake once – with an abused young adult I was trying to help, not a romantic partner. I got really tired of being accused of being controlling and abusive whenever I expressed any displeasure at all …“you need to wash your own dishes” would start hours of drama. Then he started cornering me and accusing me of wanting to beat him up which was when I realized I was in actual physical danger.
Which is a point the article missed. The constant testing of unconditional love is an escalating process that can lead to actual physical danger. It is fairly well accepted that being abused can lead to abusiveness and one should never confuse willing victimhood with sainthood.
Right, that doesn’t sound like “needing to be reassured you are loved”. It sounds more like sone form of Borderline Personality Disorder.
After RickJay’s excellent post, I braved the article with the intention of pulling out some more choice quotes to chortle over.
It’s an impossible task. An embarrassment of riches. The only part of the article that makes any sort of sense is the byline.
Oh gag.
I suppose we all have the impulse to try to save the lost puppies, stray kittens and broken birds of the world, but at some point, the screaming, sucking neediness with no return turns into a no win situation.
Don’t know how many times the advice “Don’t stick your dick in the crazy” gets tossed out, but there’s a reason it does and yet, some guys still need to be reminded. Not sure what the corresponding advice is to women, but we need to be told, too sometimes.
Then there’s our own version of this story playing out here on the dope with one of the posters and his new wife and her sad history of prior abuse and their mutual alcoholism. It would be nice if he could swoop in like a rescuing angel and save her from the damage of her past, but the reality as he writes it seems to be that loving someone just isn’t enough.
If you were to make the effort all the same, accompanying each hilariously awful quote with some sarcastic, pithy commentary of your own design, I am sure we would all be much, much richer in terms of sheer entertainment value.
There’s also a good reason that every serious mental health professional/ therapist/ psychatrist, whether Freudian or modern, is forbidden from helping/ analysing People related to them, or Partners; and why Partners/ relatives are discouraged from reading a book on psychology and trying to treat their Partner/ relative (oftentimes without their knowledge or Agreement, making it Manipulation).
Like physical doctors, there Needs to be a distance in order for the Patient to properly vent and trust that the Problems they reveal will not be used against them in Argument later; for the Patient to get angry or upset with the therapist, as the therapy continues and conflicting emotions come to the surface; and so on.
So a therapy might help getting a Young adult/ adult to believe that they can be loved - a Partner telling them “I won’t leave” despite increasing attempts to test and drive away can’t.
That’s why traumatized children when getting into foster care, who often do have legitimate abandonment issues, get therapy in Addition to a new Family of loving parents.
Thing is, in real life, overly needy women aren’t nice enough to come straight out and tell you “I’m crazy, and will torment you and make ridiculous demands, just to make you prove you love me.”
I wish crazy people were really this forthcoming, so we could all avoid them! In reality, they’ll just ACT like manipulative psychos without warning.