Rather than hijack this thread about a woman who killed her child, I wanted to ask a separate question. You see, she killed her 12 year old daughter because her boyfriend said it was the child or him. This is an extreme case, but I know of animals who’ve been put up for adoption because their owner was told it was the animal or the boyfriend and I’ve read of people who give up hobbies because their SO has told them they must, unless the pet or the hobby is posing some kind of explicit danger.
This is something I don’t understand. If someone has someone or something they love and they had that before you came into their lives, why would you issue such an ulitmatum and expect them to pick you? Yes, I know some animals can be pretty badly behaved, but that doesn’t apply all the time. Why do people do these things and, just as importantly, why do people give in to the ultimatums? If someone told me “Either the cat goes or I go!” I’d tell him (I am not going there!) I’d be seeing and petting the cat, not him.
I think this is one of those occasions where it’s an easy choice to make when emotionally uninvolved but a trickier one when you are. It’s the dark side of love - just as people are willing to make countless sacrifices as a couple to each other, or take considerable risks to be together, so too can people make what appear to us as entirely idiotic choices that we don’t understand.
Like you said, the killing of a child is a pretty extreme example, and i’d peg it down to that particular woman being friggin’ nuts. But in general, I think this kind of thing is just an aspect of romantic entanglements that people don’t celebrate along with anything else. It’s the inevitable result of the slight insanity that love brings out in people.
It would seem to be about control from a narcissistic person or someone with other issues. I’m guessing that they just have a pathological need to be the sole benefactor of the other persons affection. Maybe because of some trauma, not feeling like they could trust the love of their parents, or because of a ‘disorder’ like narcissism.
I’m going from the starting point of having two people who are reasonably well adjusted and considerate. All bets are off when people are mentally deranged.
I suppose it’s because the ultimatum giver (UG) is happy with you, but dreadfully unhappy with the object of the ultimatum (OU).
If the UG is unhappy with the OU, he has a number of choices:
1 - Stick around and be miserable / resentful of the OU
2 - Leave, under the assumption that you like the OU better than him
3 - Ask you what is most important in your life, him or the OU.
#3 is the adult thing to do, but is essentially going to be an ultimatum.
WRT your cat scenario, would you prefer to have him stay around, hating your cat for the next 10 years? What if there was a good alternative to keeping the cat, like giving it to your parents, or a friend? Would your thoughts change if he was the most wonderful caring animal-loving guy in the world, but was deathly allergic to cats, and spends most of his time with you either bleary eyed or zonked by Benadryl?
Go to any gun discussion board and you’ll see any number of posts from men who ended relationships when their girlfriends gave the ultimatum “it’s the guns or me.” You’ll see similar threads at motorcycle boards. Probably at most any hobby-oriented board.
Some folks just seem to have a need to make their SO give up something that is important to the SO. Maybe it’s some kind of fucked-up test of the SO’s love. Maybe it’s from a desire to exert control over the SO. All I know is that anybody who would issue such an ultimatum is a person with whom it would be bad judgement to have a serious relationship.
It a trait common in animals, a male will drive away rivals and kill the offspring of the female so she is totally dependent on him, the sense of remorse causes a dependence bond to him.
We do see this all the time in humans, men will ‘mark their territory’ letting other men know that she is taken, to stay away, and to some extent sometimes try to isolate her from activities she likes, pets, her children sometimes killing them (both born and unborn).
While the man does not kill/murder them directly, he can do so by giving pressure to the woman, and since the goal is to separate her from them, he is effectively trying to kill them off from her life. Since the woman has a hand in it, she can be blamed, and sometimes has hidden guilt and feels a greater obligation to stay with that man.
Simple solution; dump the boyfriend and find someone else who isn’t so obsessed over the latest purchase.
However, I think that for at least some of the people in question (and here I’ll say I think it’s usually women as opposed to men who give in to the “me or X” ultimatum) there are some serious self-esteem issues; they think that “Billy Bob says he LOVES me and no one else loves me and no one else ever will, so it’s Billy Bob or nothing!”
That’s a really simplified version of what seems to go on in some women’s minds, from what I can tell. It goes beyond “settling” for the first guy who seems really into them, they honestly believe (and sometimes I think the males perpetuate this belief) that this is their ONLY chance to BE with someone for the rest of their lives, and if they pass this up they’ll spend the rest of their days sad and alone. So they figure, better to be with Billy Bob even if he’s a jerk or abusive or whatever, because he keeps paying attention to me and keeps saying he needs me, etc., which is probably why so many battered wives/girlfriends stay with the assholes who abuse them. They’ve been convinced that they’re unlovable except for this one person who puts up with them, and even though they are abusive, well, maybe they deserve it and besides, Billy Bob still comes home to me, so he MUST love me…
OK, that was rambling a bit. The point is, it really seems like this is very similar to the reasons why women stay with abusive assholes in relationships. They’ve been conditioned to think that it’s a healthy and normal human relationship to be treated like shit for the most part, with a few tidbits thrown their way to make them feel special just to keep them in line. Every time I see one of these stories on TV where the obviously abused woman declines to press charges against her boyfriend who just gave her a black eye “because he loves me” I just want to scream.
I find it pretty wierd that no one suggests the option that’s obvious to me – he wanted out of the relationship, so he assigned her an impossible task, secure that she would refuse. All the men’s magazine articles I’ve read, on the subject of breaking up gracefully with a woman, say something similar – if you want the breakup to go smoothly, you have to do something, slightly unpleasant, just before – that is what softens the blow, not telling them “It’s not you, it’s me” or some such story. Instead, you have to prove it’s you.
Wouldn’t it be better to just cheat on her? I mean, as opposed to “you have to GET RID OF YOUR 12 YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER”? If the dude cheats on her, the daughter stays alive, the woman dumps him (in theory) and the asshole got laid. Everybody wins!
I thought the same thing before I started watching the show It’s Me or the Dog. Some of those animals are extremely badly behaved. Many of the dogs sleep in the bed with one spouse, and will bite the other spouse if s/he tries to get in the bed as well. There was one dog that repeatedly attacked its owner’s 12-year-old stepson. I could see getting rid of a pet for behavioral problems that are that severe. If the Neville kitties started attacking Mr. Neville, I’d try to get a behaviorist to deal with the problem first, but I’d get rid of the cat if one of us couldn’t be safe in our own home with it around.
If Mr. Neville had had guns before we got married, I would have made him get rid of them before I would have moved in with him. I have depression (I’m on medication for it now, which helps), and I think I might have killed myself at some point had I had a gun easily available. I don’t trust myself around guns, and my way of dealing with that is to not have any in my house.
As with most things context is critical. In this case there was a legitimate and good reason for you to not want to be around guns. Presumably he knew why and it would be crazy of him to insist to keep the guns in such a circumstance…particularly if he loved you and cared for your well being. Besides, perhaps he could keep them at a gun club or a friend’s house or somesuch so he could still go and enjoy them on occasion (hunting or target shooting or whatever). If it was for home defense then he needs to find another solution.
However, if it is more along the lines of being essentially jealous of the hobby taking his/her time or some screwed up way to get the SO to “prove” they care then that is messed up.
So, context is everything and each case has to be judged on its own merits rather than make some sweeping statement that it is always wrong or always ok.
I am opting along the lines of the guy in the OP giving the ultimatum as a means to bow out of the relationship by giving her an impossible decision. I mean seriously…who would ever think, “It’s me or the kid…one has to go” would ever result in the person tossing their child? In this case he misjudged the crazy to dramatic and horrific effect.
I would imagine in some cases allergies play a part in getting rid of a pet.
Not a huge problem in my relationship, but it does come up. It’s not exactly fun having the spouse come home a play video games/work on the car/etc. for the rest of the night. You want to spend time with them and they want to spend time with something else. Even if it’s something you enjoy. I’ve had to explain it to Owls before with WoW. “But we are spending time together, aren’t we?” “I want to spend time with JUST you.”
I think every relationship needs some ‘us’ time, and like everything else finding a balance between the hobby and the SO is a balancing act. Unfortunately, motorcycles have a tendency to weigh more than girls
Not kidding…my wife (now ex-wife but for other reasons) had a cat. She once thought my allergies were just a guy way of saying I did not like cats. Then she saw me on numerous occasions get all puffy-eyed and sniffly around cats and knew it was for real.
She got a cat. I had to deal with it. Luckily, over some time, my allergies subsided. No clue if it is normal to acclimate out of an allergy or I got lucky.
I don’t disagree with this paragraph, but for clarity, are you saying that the reason a person would give an ultimatum like this is similar to the reason why a woman would stay in a bad relationship?
Hmm. Interesting - so then the one giving the ultimatum can feel OK about the breakup.
Well, that’s the thing. If there is something which I ‘just can’t live with’ then it’s presumptuous of me to think that the SO should just toss that thing aside so that I can live with him. I could either live separately from him, break up with him, or move in and be peaceful with whatever-it-is.
I’d be willing to bet that in the majority of cases, “It’s the ______ or me,” really translates into, “I am not really interested you but I’m too much of a pussy to just tell you so I’ll come up with this wild rationalization to make you choose between something I know you won’t really give up and me and if you do take me seriously and kill what I’ve told you you need to get rid of then it’s just a bonus for me because you’ll be in jail and I don’t date psychos … at least not criminally indicted ones.”
In pen and paper roleplaying games, it’s not unknown to have a SO demand that a gamer give up his (and usually, it is a male who is overinvolved) games. Gamers do tend to become a bit obsessive with their games, spending lots of time and money on them, which SOs regard as taking resources away from the relationship.
Usually, this is expressed as a guy saying “My wife/girlfriend said it was her or the games. Gee, I sure miss her.”
I used to go out in the evenings up to four times a week, staying out quite late, with a bunch of guys. My husband said that he wasn’t worried that I was cheating, because first, I’d tell him all about that evening’s game, whether he wanted to know or not. And second, because given the choice between having a hot torrid affair and killing orcs, I’m NUKING those orcs.
For my own part, I’ve had girlfriends whom I wished would take up shooting, or motorcycling, or gaming, or something. I’ve noted that ultimata are more typically delivered by SO’s who have nothing but their boyfriend/girlfriend in their lives.
