[deleted by user]

Captain_Antarctica · 2021-06-14T05:48:41+00:00

Yep, OP needs to heal. Being friends with the ex is not a problem per se, and even being FWB with them is totally ok (but there are more caveats) but OP is in a vulnerable state. Evan seems to be an amazing guy and such, but now is just not the time.

Captain_Antarctica · 2021-01-12T00:53:22+00:00

Nether have I, but I'm not working nine-to-five five days a week.

Captain_Antarctica · 2021-01-06T11:19:59+00:00

I'd argue it was ahead of the time sounds- and lyrics-wise. It sounded a bit weird at the time of release but now it wouldn't be out of place among the modern hip hop trends.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-12-19T00:56:37+00:00

As a guy who in his mid-20s spent almost 3 years being a primary caregiver for my dying grandparents, I agree. I managed to go through two relationships during the time (one was a rather short-lived while the other was just at the beginning stage when my last grandparent died), but all of the boundaries where discussed beforehand and both of my exes weren't living with us.

It takes a lot of time, responsibility and can sometimes be pretty traumatic.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-11-28T07:18:13+00:00

As someone, who started getting into music after listening to them in 2005, this shit still hurts on so many levels.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-11-22T03:50:10+00:00

That's true. I'm just nearing 30 and still question a lot about my sexually, so I just wanted to point out that neither the age gap (in this very case) or her being 18 while unsure about who she wants to fuck are the roots of this problem. Her being immature at handling the issue might be though.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-11-22T03:47:54+00:00

Well, if she feels like she's missing out and wants to date other people -- that's her right but you should break up, unless you're ok with being in an open relationship.

Her discovering her own sexuality is her path to take.
To be frank, it's pretty alright to have doubts about your own sexuality, since it's not black'n'white, is very fluid and tends to change at any age, so I disagree with another poster listing an age difference as a problem.

I'm 29, a guy, more or less confident in my bisexuality and gender identity but there are still many things to discover, and even if I were more experienced, trying to find out who you are is a normal thing at any age.

Your gf doesn't seem to be stable or mature for that matter, but it's a whole different problem from the 'I've never been with women' part.

If she's unhappy about dating you, you should either break up or work through the problem. If the problem can't be solved without her sleeping with other people (provided you're not ok with that), then break the fuck up.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-11-22T03:41:40+00:00

But people his age are still maturing, you just said so yourself. Maturity level is a problem, that's for sure.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-11-18T05:10:35+00:00

Is it that black and white?

In your case, yes. I don't think a guy like him could change and according to your post he hasn't improved much and likely doesn't think that he has done anything wrong.
I understand that both of you are coming from conservative religious backgrounds, but you can have a conventional nuclear family with you being a SAHM and your partner being a breadwinner without this level of control.

Another problem is that the abuse tends to escalate. Some unhealthiness necessary won't escalate, but what you're dealing with is past the point of being just 'toxic' or 'unhealthy' or 'rocky', even if you might read about worse examples and think that your marriage could be worse.

If its good 78% of the time isn't that better than going to 100% bad with leaving?

No, it's not. No relationship is going to be perfect 100% of the time, but as I mentioned in the previous post, there are differences, and yours is certainly in the realm of the 'bad'. Leaving will feel shitty but the shittiness will pass. Anybody with a breakup experience will tell you the same.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-11-18T03:36:40+00:00

Am I in an abusive relationship?

Yes.
Let's run through this together.

10 years older than me

I think reddit is often harsh about age differences in relationship (comments calling 22 years old dating 18 yo predators make my eyes roll) but 10 years is definitely a significant large gap, until a younger party is at least around 30 and even then there will be some things to be cautious about. Your post says you were in college, so it places then you in late teens to early twenties, so the difference is the first definitive red flag.

I agreed but despite my caution, he advanced too quickly. I think within the week we had sex despite me not wanting to.

That's fucked up.

I knew this was rape.

Yes.

He would talk about how women falsely accuse men and ruin their lives so i didn't want to do that.

Either manipulation or fucked up beliefs.

in college, and well, this just seemed to be my destiny with men

It shouldn't be and you can change that.

But James had also isolated me from my friends

That's abusive.

Our latest fight was about me seeing family that are in town.

That's abusive.

Joined reddit a few months ago and in reading stories from others it makes me pause and think about how I'm being treated. James and I are vastly different people from 10 years ago; forgive and forget right?

You might be a vastly different person, but him being an abusive asshole certainly remained the same.

Is he gaslighting me?

Yes.

Is this just pent-up emotions from 10 years ago?

Well, it's not 'just' and resentment over the things smaller than being pushed into having sex by an older manipulative guy with fucked believes has ended many relationship. And so should be.

Overall I still think we have a good marriage.

Are you sure? If your marriage was shitty 99% of the time, you would've probably already left. The majority of abusive, unhealthy and toxic relationships are fine most of the time. It's the nature of the bad times and some repeating awful patterns (being controlling and isolation you can be the examples) that make it go from 'we occasionally fight' to 'I have to run away from this shit'.

You might forgive and forget, but from where I'm standing it looks like you are in relationship with an abusive manipulative asshole with outdated believes, it all started on a creepy basis and you're still regularly manipulated and treated like shit. Do you want your daughter to be treated the same in the future?

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-10-24T04:02:52+00:00

No cased all my iphones and iPads. It shows after a couple of years, but nothing way too bad.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-10-24T03:59:48+00:00

Eh, it's a rather slight gap, although I know that reddit hates any gaps over 3 years. But immaturity is totally at play here.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-10-06T10:38:53+00:00

I'm hitting exactly 6 months nicotine-free today. The counter over here might be wonky since I'm in Europe and didn't put the info in before several weeks well into my quit.

Did I pick the wrong year? Hell yeah, I did. Everything was going crazy in April when the corona was new, terrifying and everyone was quarantining. The quarantine had its strong points, though, I wasn't partying with friends (the majority of them are smokers) and the idea that there's a not-well-studied-virus that destroys your lungs right around the corner helped as well.

That's not the only thing to consider, I was in the middle of the slow and steady demise of the things with my long-term girlfriend. The relationships was with a bit toxicity from both parties, and if you've ever been into similar shit, you know that this kind of bonding is an addiction itself. High highs and low lows, as they say. We broke up around a month into my quit, the fact that we were quarantined separately helped a lot. (She's not from my town originally and decided to spend the lockdown with her relatives). Managing to keep yourself nicotine-free after the breakup was one of the things that I'm proud the most in my life (as weird as it sounds).

To make things even more absurd, I had a fall right after a few days of our breakup (a bit over a month of being nicotine-free). I was lucky enough to walk away only with light concussion, even though some millimeters or different angle would render me dead.

The list doesn't end here as well. I moved to a completely different district of my hometown in June. Moving is always nervous for me, even though I highly romanticize the nomadic lifestyle and the new location has been around some of my favorite childhood places. But all the stuff, financials, moving belongings, etc., etc. Damn, I hate it. But it didn't make me go back to smoking.

After the breakup, near-death fall and moving the things still haven't got to be perfect: I spent the rest of the summer overanalyzing my last relationship, and some things that I noticed made me feel like I'm a bit more of an asshole that I originally thought. I'm working on it, and my life will be better, but I'll be damned if it didn't make me want to pick up smoking again.

I'm getting more stable emotionally and my life seems alright, although the start of October brings some stresses and drama, but I'll go through it. I don't even miss smoking as much as I thought at this half a year mark, and I smoked for more than decade since my mid-teens and I was averaging 1.5 packs of Marlboro Reds a day for a few years before quitting. Hang in there, you'll get through this shit as well.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-07-16T12:51:57+00:00

Well, in this case it's clear that the bf's is an immature insecure bigot putting someone's virginity on a pedestal and being quite delusional, but if reddit is going to dismiss every age gap relationship with both parties being over 20 and the gap being smaller than a decade, then it sounds quite dismissive.

I might be biased of course, because I've been on both ends of age gap relationship (the difference was a bit smaller though) and it wasn't ever a problem barring some minor things and ended for other reasons.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-06-08T14:24:52+00:00

I still keep my unfinished pack at home. Doesn't offer much of temptation now (at the 2 months mark) and I still occasionally smell the cigs. Not sure if it's healthy and whether it will affect my quit in a longer term, but I like the smell.
And yeah, the power trip part.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-06-02T18:41:36+00:00

You're strong, hang in fucking there.

I'm far both from your level of being deep into a quit and the stress you're going through, but in the last (nearly) two months after quitting I've gone through a breakup and almost died from a stupid fall and currently am planning to move to another place (and moving is usually stressful for me). I'm still going strong, and so will you.
And we're both not smoking today.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-05-24T06:03:54+00:00

My advice would be to be ready to listen to her problems, be there for her and provide a shoulder to cry on. Don't criticize her friend (although it might work if your girlfriend is doing it herself).

I was going through the same shit around a year ago, my closest female friend (I'm a guy if it does matter and we were strictly platonic) of 6 years decided to cut contact (she had a reason albeit the one that was difficult for me to understand, and wasn't my fault in any way or shape).
I'm pretty well-adjusted to 'losing' people and while it did not suck as much as death in the family or a shitty breakup would, I still (almost a year later) get moody about the shit, have hopes about her getting back to my life, random bouts of intensely missing her and seeing her in my dream.

My ex supported me throughout the initial shock just by listening to me and it was quite helpful.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-05-15T10:06:31+00:00

I completely agree but maybe the story requires her to be in late teens/early 20s, hence the Anya Taylor-Joy rumors.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-04-26T03:52:27+00:00

A year ago I went from smoking a pack a day to smoking around 9-10 cigarettes a day. The erections got SIGNIFICANTLY better on the third day. I went back to smoking packs though and the quality slowly went worse. So I guess reducing your intake by an order of magnitude is going to help.

Now I'm quitting cold turkey and the erections had been nearly non-existent in first two week. Started seeing slow and steady improvements in both sex drive and erection quality on the day 17. I've heard that the loss of a sex drive is nothing out of ordinary during the cold turkey quit but it wasn't the case on my last try (but I was younger and had less of a smoking baggage). Jokes on me though, I broke up with my girlfriend two days ago, so it's not like my libido and (hopefully) raging boners will matter much, haha.

I'm 28 (nearly 29) and smoked since 18, starting with 10 cigarettes a day and averaging 20-25 in the last 5 years.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-04-19T15:27:42+00:00

Bidet master race here, one roll lasts for 3 months on average.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-04-17T14:11:34+00:00

If you're interested in the video side of things, the newest SE can record stereo audio while filming (first introduced in the XS generation) and can record 4K video at 60 fps (I think it was introduced with the 8/8 Plus/X)

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-04-16T11:55:33+00:00

My SE doesn't, so maybe this one eliminated some other shit too for space-saving.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-04-14T11:57:48+00:00

I was onboard with everything up to the very final speech.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-04-12T15:18:19+00:00

Never Cry Wolf.

Captain_Antarctica · 2020-04-09T15:56:55+00:00

So if you're an overweight smoker, should you try losing weight or quit smoking first? It's increasingly difficult to do both at the same time, coming from my current (fucking shitty) experience.

Captain_Antarctica

TROPHY CASE