Reminds me of that shitty Sheryl Crow song.
Putting up with someone treating you badly doesn’t prove you love them more. It might prove you love yourself less.
Yes, these things are absolutely related. :rolleyes:
Overall your post is a darn fine analysis. The author is way overplaying the emotional aspect because her audience likes to way overplay their emotional aspect. She’s delivering the assault with a potpourri (thanks Not Carlson) that her audience demands.
When faced with someone living that scenario I mostly think it’s not so much that their emotions are so large, but rather their grown-upedness is so small. The emotions just seem large by comparison.
Which ties in with the current multipage discussion about people with BPD. The punch-line being that BPDs’ emotional development is stuck in the Terrible Twos. It’s not that they’re overemotional; it’s that they’re under grown-up.
Now, *that *is what I call a darned good analysis.
So, this here article isn’t a recipe for dealing with someone who is actively trying to hurt you. The recipe for that, BTW, in grown-up land, is not “love them harder”. It’s usually “call the police”, because successfully hurting a grown-up often requires something on the level of theft of money or property, actual physical injury, or the abduction of their offspring. Grown-ups are resilient that way.
No, this is advice for dealing with someone who behaves like a toddler. And if you read it like that, I don’t think it’s too bad. The way you deal with a toddler is to behave like a grown-up. Don’t be a toddler back at them.
Note that when she is extremely complicated and hard to understand, *you *should be very simple and predictable. She has a bazillion conflicting and stormy EMOTIONS (thunder and lightning). You should basically stick to just one: Love.
Basically, she wants you to behave like her parent. Which I think is fine, actually, if you’re into that kind of thing. Personally, I don’t think this person would bother me all that much, although YMMV. And presumably, there are other things about her that I like, unrelated the subject of the article. The key point is: Stay calm. I don’t think “love her harder” is supposed to mean shower her with roses, or be a weeping doormat. It just means that even if she gets worked up over nonsense, you shouldn’t. Because someone has to be the grown-up in this relationship.
When she is as stormy as the great oceans, be as constant as the northern star.
When she is as fiery as a pot of hot chili, be a cool cucumber.
When she is a wavy squiggle on the vast canvas of her life, with ups and down like ancient mountain ranges, be her flatline.
Love her. And then later, in bed, love her harder.
Well said again.
The other thing that stood out to me in the BPD thread was that the guys dealing with their women’s toddlerhood reported truly amazing sex when they were in clingy mode instead of petulant independent mode.
I’m a very calm cucumber, and I’m married to a similarly calm woman. But if I ever had to go looking again I might test ride one of those quasi-BPD thingies for just that reason. You wanna be a toddler? I’ll teach you how to live like a toddler! 
Well, thanks. But the credit for that final line goes to Helena330, in case anyone missed that post earlier:
Indeed.
Although, for my part, oddly enough, the most earth-shaking times in bed were with a very cool cucumbery lady. You know those librarians, who take off their glasses and shake loose their hair? As it turns out, that’s not just a myth.
But anyway, I feel like this is falling into place now. Excellent teamwork.
I thought of a different song
“It seems that you needed a martyr.
Just a regular guy wouldn’t do.
But Baby, I won’t hang upon a lover’s cross for you.”
- Jim Croce
I’m the resident defender of at least one of these groups so I will just say:
MRA: Yeah generally pretty awful groups in the US, but we shouldn’t forget that under the same umbrella are many groups, particularly outside the US, that seem to have reasonable-enough aims, like trying to make custody laws more balanced.
PUA: Generally most of the guys in this scene are just sharing info on how to be more attractive, but outside the group people like to assume the worst; and so the assholes get the most attention and forwarded links.
For me, things like Real Social Dynamics (which was one group within PUA) really helped me at a time where I thought I would always be hopeless at flirting / dating etc. I wouldn’t hesitate to show female friends a real social dynamics video; heck I sometimes will share advice that I originally got from there.
You can hide 'neath the covers, and study your pain,
make crosses of your lovers, throw roses in the rain.
Am I a bad person for thinking this needs to be a Doper meme? Mod me harder!
IMHO, almost every unsavory group of people - white supremacists, MRAs, radical feminists, communists, etc. - has some kernel of truth in the mound of garbage.
MRAs do raise some valid points - such as a legal double standard in how women get treated by the criminal justice system vs. men, such as the societal double standard when a woman punches a man vs. vice versa, etc.