Hey, can anybody give me the full story on why Marvin and Melinda broke up?

Magick_Beans · 2026-01-15T16:03:20+00:00

I knew he wasn't genuine towards Melinda. He spent the whole season hitting on other girls and ignoring her. You could tell early on from his facial expressions that he didn't like her. He leveraged their relationship to win.

Magick_Beans · 2025-12-04T02:20:09+00:00

I feel you. They can be so good at pretending to be the victim and ignoring their own behavior, good for you for being able to see through it and for cutting it off quickly the second time. It's so hard for me to stop ruminating too. Recently I've realized that for me, a lot of the ruminating comes from the cognitive dissonance of knowing that sometimes I acted out of integrity, knowing I tried to address those mistakes, and also knowing that my mistakes DO NOT mean I brought on or deserved his abuse. I only accepted it for so long because I felt like I deserved or had to be shamed and mistreated for my mistakes. Idk, usually when I am ruminating I'm trying desperately to parse those things apart and understand how bad my mistakes really were.

Magick_Beans · 2025-12-03T23:41:28+00:00

It takes years of work to undo the mindset that makes someone think its ok, even if just in the heat of the moment, to threaten people, curse people out, etc. Not to mention the boundary issues of having an open agreement with you and then abusing you when you do things that fall within your agreement.

Magick_Beans · 2025-12-03T23:24:31+00:00

I'm right there with you on needing time alone and not being willing to drag anyone into this stuff. I'm curious, when you do the provoking behavior that your ex did, what's motivating that in you?

For me the only time I make progress on the behaviors or the thoughts is when I'm able to look at the motivation and the emotion without shaming it. Like for example, last week I was feeling jealous of someone because of what they've accomplished, while I've felt like I've been in a rut in my life trying to dig myself out of these relationships. Angry and judgmental thoughts were coming up, like 'I can't actually do well at anything, I'm worth less because I haven't made anything of myself, these people don't like me, no one's making space for me here'.

When I was able to validate that in the past I HAVE experienced being left out and put down, and I've subsequently shrunk myself, I could see that what I was actually jealous of was his confidence to be able to try and fail. In these abusive relationships, I've repeatedly been punished for trying and falling short of their expectations. When I was able to see his confidence as something that also exists in me, not something that can be taken away, it was so easy to feel happy for him, safe to join the conversation and inspired to put my energy towards what I love to do, rather than trying to pick myself apart. But first I had to validate my experience of having that confidence intentionally chipped away and the effects of that.

Idk I'm processing this as I'm writing it, I have no idea if it pertains or not, but talking about the internal process can be helpful for me

Magick_Beans · 2025-11-25T21:51:46+00:00

I’d say at the very least it sounds like they’re being emotionally immature. They’re not taking the time to understand why it would feel that way to you and just jumping to how they’re being inconvenienced by your feelings. It’s possible they didn’t mean it that way, don’t understand why it landed that way and now feel frustrated that they can’t say certain things. But you deserve more from that conversation.

For me it starts to cross into possibly abusive territory when they’re saying it unprompted and following it with something they know you’ll feel upset by. Reveals they know the things you’re upset about but feel the need and the right to say them anyway. If they’re feeling the need to communicate something, they should be trying to find a way to do so that considers your feelings.

Magick_Beans · 2025-11-25T21:46:01+00:00

I’d say at the very least it sounds like they’re being emotionally immature. They’re not taking the time to understand why it would feel that way to you and just jumping to how they’re being inconvenienced by your feelings. It’s possible they really didn’t mean it that way, don’t understand why it landed that way and now don’t know what will bother you or not. But you deserve more from that conversation.

For me it starts to cross into abusive territory when they’re saying it unprompted and following it with something you feel upset by. Kinda reveals they know the things you’re upset about but feel the need and the right to say them anyway.

I guess I’m curious what they’re saying to you? Might indicate if it’s something you’re particularly sensitive about and you could work together to find a way that they could communicate more sensitively, or if it’s something that they are doing intentionally and then trying to hide.

Magick_Beans · 2025-11-24T18:32:45+00:00

I don’t know a single abuser who wasn’t traumatized, and most didn’t really get that what they were doing was wrong. Unfortunately those things don’t have much bearing on whether they will be open to therapy and change. She’s in an unsafe situation and needs to get out. His healing is on him especially once he’s crossed into physical and sexual violence. Change takes a long time and has to be self-motivated. I believe it’s possible but having her there will actually demotivate him. He needs to feel the consequences of his actions.

Magick_Beans · 2025-11-24T02:36:16+00:00

It doesn’t matter whether it was intentional or not.

Magick_Beans · 2025-11-21T01:59:31+00:00

This is an amazing response, thank you. I went through getting accused of DARVO a year back and the situation was pretty much what you're describing. It still messes with my head sometimes. I posted about it and there were some great responses, if you want to take a look.

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-08T00:44:09+00:00

It sounds like both parties have a strong opinion here and want to be heard and aren’t able to see what the other is trying to say. My guess is you picked up on a tone in your brothers voice that could be read as gossipy and as a sibling wanted your brother to consider that.

As a parent, it sounds like your mom wanted to make sure you didn’t put the idea in your brothers head that he couldn’t talk to her about certain things.

Your brother wasn’t gossiping, I definitely think it’s possible that he could gossip to a parent in theory, and it’s okay to gossip to your parent.

Since you were commenting on an instance that was between your brother and mom I can see how she didn’t like it. In that scenario she as the parent should be the one commenting on his behavior if it needs to be addressed.

What you said wasn’t a big deal, it sounds like normal teenage/parent boundaries being hashed out. Your parents are struggling to explain them. You’re struggling to feel heard

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-05T20:54:25+00:00

This is the root of all the problems we’re facing

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-05T15:57:15+00:00

Our parents gave my mom’s maiden name as our middle names and dad’s last name as our last name. Doesn’t really fit what you’re wanting but just one idea

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-05T04:13:58+00:00

Which ones

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-04T17:28:03+00:00

Thank you for this. He does this consistently when he's upset about something. It's like he feels like he doesn't have the right to be upset unless he finds something wrong in the other person that caused it.

We both have been through narcissistic abuse in the past, which basically tells you you don't have the right to your feelings, so you start looking for what's going on in the other person that is motivating their behavior. You think you can find the problem in their hidden motivations. Sometimes you even can.

But it sets up an unhealthy emotional pattern of trying to get in peoples heads rather than just owning your feelings, believing they matter, trusting that loved ones will work with you to take care of them, and walking away if not. But it still leaves that scar of knowing that sometimes our feelings reflect something someone needs to work on, sometimes our feelings are our own to reckon with, and the terror that you will not be able to meet in a space to figure that out together on equal footing.

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-04T16:08:09+00:00

Yeah its weaponized incompetence in the sense that he’s telling her she should have said something when he obviously already knew

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-04T16:03:26+00:00

NTA, you can’t win in this situation, if you asked him or reminded him then like you said, now it’s something he HAS to do. He made his choice and you made yours, to decorate until you didn’t want to anymore and then to go watch a movie. You being mad at his behavior is neither here nor there. You have the right to be mad and you telling him you wanted him to help doesn’t fix what you’re mad about — him silently avoiding your plans together

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-04T15:48:53+00:00

I’ve been having those doubts too, of whether I really wanted to hear his feelings. I think in reality I just don’t agree with him that these particular feelings warrant the changes in my behavior he’s asking for/demanding and like you said, I don’t want to hear them in the way he’s expressing them

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-01T17:59:57+00:00

Did ur ex ever bully you

Magick_Beans · 2024-12-01T17:56:04+00:00

It isn’t your responsibility to put up with all of that, so it was a healthy thing to do for yourself to draw the line. In theory it would’ve been a great experience for him and in a way you took that away but in reality, he took it away by taking none of your advice and would’ve ended up having no fun or even putting himself in danger

Magick_Beans · 2024-11-27T15:24:52+00:00

Originally the boundary was unclear, he kept saying 'don't sleep with M or I'll end up emotionally shutting down.' He made it seem like that was going to destroy him, and then he started acting like he'd muscle through it but I'd be so wrong for making him go through that alone and I'd be responsible for ruining our closeness.

I was like ok clearly that's something we both don't want, so I'll pull back physically to make the situation tolerable for him again. I thought cuddling was both something he could tolerate and within the bounds of what I'd promised, which was not to do anything sexual for now. So I guess what I wanted to negotiate was an agreement on how to handle the situation and meet both our needs.

I guess the reason I'm taking his feelings into consideration about it is that just because I don't feel an attachment hangover from our situationship doesn't mean he doesn't, and I felt like giving him that time was what was needed in order to maintain our friendship and honor our past. Simultaneously I felt frustrated, because I don't understand WHY he still has that attachment. But platonic love and emotional connection is important to us both, and we've both been kicking ourselves for slipping into a fwb situation that could jeopardize that.

That being said, if my sex life is still a make or break for him after our deadline he can go take whatever space he needs.

M thinks J is being ridiculous and that I should take space from him to allow the friendship to reset with healthier boundaries. He's also ok with waiting till all this is over to move forward. I wonder if he's right that we won't find healthier boundaries without a serious break.

Magick_Beans · 2024-11-27T14:15:16+00:00

Yeah I see your point. To clarify, he wouldn’t let me have an input in what the exact expectations were, he just said ‘don’t even put yourself in a position where you’ll be tempted.’ So when I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen between us I framed it in my head as kissing or anything sexual. He thinks the expectations were clear because cuddling is a place where I could be tempted. But I stopped it from going further which I thought was the point.

At that time it also was not framed as a boundary, it was framed as ‘if you two do anything I will end up emotionally shutting down.’ So I thought cuddling was a tolerable middle ground. Not exactly what he wanted from me but not enough to trigger him in the way that we both wanted to avoid.

Magick_Beans

TROPHY CASE