My husband, after listening to me complain at length about how I felt like some of our friends were brushing me off, snapped “Oh poor Nikki. You’re such a martyr”. I felt like I’d been slapped. It stunned me into silence.
Yeah, it was true. I was bitching because I felt unappreciated, but when I thought about it, I was being a big baby. I was using all of the things I’d done for my friends like bargining chips instead of doing favors and nice things because I wanted to. I thought I was being taken advantage of because I didn’t feel like I was being “repaid” properly. Ugh, what a terrible attitude. I’m glad he said it, it really made me rethink the way I dealt with my friends. I’m much happier and healthier since I dropped that attitude. I’m sure I’m easier to be around, too.
Toss up: My mom, brother and I were having a discussion about the difficulties that she was having with stepdad and the possibility that they might split. Little Bro felt like he was getting slammed in the discussion and said “I feel like it will be my fault if you get a divorce”. Mom told him no, but I piped up and said “yeah, it probably will be, so knock it off”. I felt like mom was pussy footing around an obvious issue, that Little Bro was deliberately acting like a dick to stepdad.
The other one: I was on the phone with a male coworker when a very irritating female coworker piped up in the background. I said “oh god, someone just shoot her and put me out of my misery”. Oops, male coworker had handed the phone to female coworker and she heard exactly what I said. I still feel awful about that and it was about 4 years ago.
I heard a fair amount when I was growing up, but I put them out of my mind. I remember them for the most part when someone says something ignorant to me. I don’t think any are appropriate to share here and I really make an effort not to speak to others in such hateful ways. I have problems fitting in here but I have learned throughout my life to choose my words carefully. People think about them long after they have been uttered and can have a profound effect in some cases.
As the internet is kind of a new medium to me I have made a resolution to choose my words with more care, even here. I’ll see how that works out in the coming year.
He was hurt. He started to cry anyway. He could have just been a really good faker. Either way, his excuse for dumping me was that he still loved me, but wanted to see other women to make sure I was the one. I’m sure I could have thought up a better come back, but I was so surprised that he thought I might consider having him back after he’d slept around to be sure he should keep dating me. I’ve never been able to make up good come backs swiftly enough to actually hurt someone. I usually think of them at 4 a.m. the next day. Somehow they don’t have the same effect if you deliver them 12 hours later.
Also, when someone’s annoying me, I usually just leave or put down the phone before I say something I regret.
I was in bed with my ex-wife (um, she was my wife at the time, this was years ago) and things were getting interesting. The only contraception we were using at the time was condoms. She made the assumption that I didn’t have one to hand. Instead of simply saying “Hey, cool it, we don’t have protection” or some such thing she said, “I’m sick of you seeing women as nothing more than a collection of holes to stick your dick in!”
I stayed pretty calm and replied “Er, if you’re asking if I have a condom, the answer is yes, I do.” She then started complaining that she was aroused, and was upset that I wouldn’t continue with the deed, apparently unaware that her comment had somewhat killed the mood, for me, at least. Maybe accusing me of crass misogyny got her all hot or something, I dunno.
I do not believe I regard women in that way, but I suppose it’s a matter of opinion. I don’t think she would attempt to justify the remark if I asked her to, but it was never spoken about, and we separated not too long afterwards.
There are a few candidates, but on some level I think the cruellest things I’ve ever done have been things I haven’t said.
I’m not sure I’m willing to share the most hateful/hurtful things that came to mind, but a couple of other events also come up.
My father had a morning business meeting in the city, about 1/2 block from where I knew I’d be that morning, and I knew I’d be free all afternoon. So when I spoke to him on the phone, I suggested we could meet for a quick lunch for fun. He said no, he wanted to get back home (1.5 hours away). Later that week, my sister had a mild crisis with her then SO, and my father drove 12 hours to go help her out. I was crushed that he couldn’t spare 30 minutes with me, but could give 24 hours of driving + 2 days at my sister’s place to deal with something that, frankly, could have been handled over the phone. My parents think of me as being independent and reasonable, and it never occurs to them that once in a while, I might want even a tiny bit of attention and appreciation from them. I love them, and I don’t doubt that they love me, but… well, little things like this add up a lot over the years and are hurtful.
I don’t think I “deserved” it, but it wasn’t unreasonable either for my dad to choose to avoid traffic and go home, and it wasn’t unreasonable to go help my sister. It still hurt, though.
I have felt guilty about this for a very long time… I was maybe about 12-14 years old (I really don’t remember). I have an aunt who has had some weight issues, and although she’s at a reasonably healthy weight now, at the time she was near her heaviest (not that I was even aware of that - in my mind, she’s always been the same, and it’s through pictures that I realise how much her weight has fluctuated over the years). Anyways, this aunt picks up my cat and says something along the lines of “What a big girl!” and I said something like “Look who’s talking!” and it hurt her greatly. In my pitiful defense, I was seeing the cat struggling and looking towards the floor, and I was imagining something a person might say if they were picked up by a giant and I thought it was funny… I just failed completely at expressing that joke, and I never really apologized. I wouldn’t bring it up (she might not even remember it!), but once in a while, it still eats at me when I think about how she must have felt. I’m so sorry, H!
I’m assuming “hateful” is in the intent, not in the effect. Given that, the most hateful thing I think anyone has ever said to me was when my then-wife, as we were working through the process of me buying a house and moving out, piped up one day with, “What if I meet someone and decide I want to have children?”
Here’s the background: I’m fixed. She’s not. I assume the dig here was about her having wasted her most fertile years on me. My response cut right through that bullshit logic, though. I said to her, “first of all, you’re still capable of having children, so I hope you do and find all the fulfillment I’ve kept you from; second of all we chose not to have children together, so you can shove that implied guilt trip right up your still-functioning reproductive system.”
There’ve been a lot of things that hurt, but I think the one that was the biggest sucker-punch came from a very close, very dear friend. She told me that a girl I’d been friends with in the past but hadn’t seen around in a long time said (when asked about me) that I was very passive-aggressive at times, and then said that it was true and the one thing she hated about me too.
It sounds very weak in writing it here, but it hurt far more than my ex telling me after the better part of a year that she never liked me and she was only ever giving me a chance, or the hour-long rant from an ex-friend about how it was my fault that she was doing badly in school, that she thought I was nothing but a liar and wouldn’t listen to a word I said, etc.
After being told that, my chest just seized and I was fighting tears immediately, then made an excuse to leave for a while and just sit, thinking of everything I’d ever done trying to find why she would say that.
Yes, it was. I think that’s why it hurt more than said ex-friend’s riduculous accusations. I realized that I had been exactly the way she accused me of, and thought of so many instances when I had tried to manipulate people…it made me feel like shit, and I know I deserved it. But I’ve tried to change since. So as painful as it was, and as much as I feel terrible even now thinking about it, I don’t wish she’d kept silent about it.
“Oh sure, now she’s going to cry to make me feel terrible when I didn’t do anything” My grandmother was a very emotional person when it came to arguments. They escalated very quickly and along with a handful of other issues, I had a vicious temper as a child.
I would give anything to be able to see her even one more time, and say that I’m sorry for every time I hurt her selfishly as a kid. She was like a mother to me, and after losing her a couple of years ago I would kill to have even one more day, to apologize and learn from her all of the things she wanted to teach me that I put off, taking for granted that there would be years and years left to learn them. I’m never going to be able to forgive myself for not doing so.
A fellow faculty member: How are you?
Me: I’m okay but my folks have been having some serious health issues and I’ve had a lot to deal with.
FFM: That’s what you get for living at home.
(This does not begin to compare to much of what I’ve read here, but I couldn’t help thinking what a nasty comment it was.)
This is one of the saddest threads I have ever seen.
I don’t want to be maudlin, but everyone is important. We all a have challenges in our lives. I hope that everyone posting in this thread has been able to move on. I know that’s not true, but I wish I could help.
No, it was more terrible than that. I was fuming about an argument that had ensued earlier. We were in the process of him moving out, and so I used the question about the object (It was video game related, some kind of statue of Mario or something) to start yet another argument because I just hadn’t gotten it all out yet. It was awful of me. I have done a great deal of work on my anger issues in the past four years, and have since learned that there is such a thing as an unexpressed thought. I really won’t explode if I don’t find people to spit all my rage at.
The connection between the object and the argument was that he played to many video games and as such had no life and was pathetic.
Said by my dad to my mom when i was 16 “every problem in this house is because of that little bitch” then he turned to me, gave me the finger and said “well up yours, little girl”.
It’s not true, the problems weren’t my fault at all.
Said to me by my then husband, who I absolutely worshiped “I don’t love you, I’ve never loved you and I only married you because I felt sorry for you”.
Let’s go with hurtful. When I was eleven or twelve my mother decided that she needed to get something off her chest. “Do you know when and why I started to see Doctor [therapist’s name]? It was when you were a baby. I worried about your safety and well-being but I didn’t love you and it bothered me, so I started therapy. Don’t look like that, I started to love you when you were a few months old!”
Probably true. I’d been daddy’s little girl growing up, and that comment helped me to figure out why that had been.
I intentionally made my former friend/former roommate cry not long before we got different dorm rooms. I implied that she was a loser for wanting her family to visit us in our cramped room several times a week, and that she was jealous that I’d made other friends and she hadn’t.
I didn’t want this to go by unnoticed. Thank you for the lovely sentiment. I know in my own case I probably won’t ever completely moved past my mother’s insanity, but I continue to try and it daily gets just a little bit better.
The most hateful thing said to me was my husband’s suicide “letter”, it said “hope you are happy now”.
I wasn’t.
The most hateful thing I ever said was to him.
I had gone to my parents house, he rang every 15 mins at the very least. Just before midnight my mum declared that enough was enough.
He rang and said “I have 20 mins left to live”. I said “Stop acting like a bloody child, go to bed and I will talk to you tomorrow”
Well talking to him the next day never happened. So many years later I HATE the fact that that was his final human contact…“Stop acting like a bloody child”
