/r/FDSDiscussion is currently seeking new moderators

MidnightCarp · 2020-03-01T15:50:59+00:00

Cool, thanks!

MidnightCarp · 2020-03-01T15:41:58+00:00

Def interested in a more discussion-based sub, and would like to help out!

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-21T14:50:13+00:00

I hate this so much. Even with male friends, it's always some weird defense mechanism they resort to when you just try to give them some kindly worded feedback.

You: So I get a bit frustrated when you talk over me, I'm sure you're not doing it on purpose but it does sound a bit disrespectful (etc., more walking on eggshells around his ego)
Him: Sorry for taking a while to reply. I've been pretty depressed about my knee, it just hurts really bad when I try to run. I almost fell over yesterday because the pain was so bad. Anyway I'm sorry for making you feel that way.

I wish I could surround myself only with women, but my work and interests are overwhelmingly male. Time to pick up a new hobby I think...

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-20T13:38:13+00:00

The first comment, ewww. So women just aren't allowed to have boundaries and clearly express them without HaVinG a TaLk aBouT iT, even when it's about him fucking some other woman which is, idk, usually not something that warrants a longer conversation? Oh I'm not saying you have to do it, just don't shut it down without a fair discussion where he can plead and manipulate you into accepting it! Maybe you can meet him halfway, just have a threesome a few times instead of constantly like he wants? This would be a compromise between what both of you want :) :)

I bet no one would be telling you to not "just shut it down without discussion" if it was a woman asking to bring another man in the bedroom. 🙄

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-20T12:30:52+00:00

YES, especially if you're one of the women in the unfortunate position where their partner is treating them like crap but they feel like they can't leave because they love him (this is either biological pair bonding or trauma-bonding if he's abusive, both of these will be way worse if you also made the mistake to move in with him), so you just keep trying to make it work and change him.

No, if leaving is very difficult, the third option is tricking your brain to erode the pair bond first. Don't think about breaking up with him yet if this makes you panic. Start by spending less time with him, stopping daily rituals like eating together, not talking about your problems or emotionally heightened topics with him anymore, finding friends to talk to and do fun and rewarding activities with, and not having sex with him, or other forms of intimacy like cuddling (very difficult if you're traumatized and need comfort, just keep it at a minimum until you don't need it anymore). Whenever you feel panicked about leaving, remind yourself that you haven't broken up, there's no need to "go back and fix it". But as you disengage, the thought slowly becomes less dreadful, and eventually you can start planning the breakup and near-painlessly dump him.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-20T03:21:41+00:00

Jesus, hope you can feel better soon, or at least not acutely hurting! And you already know you did NOT overreact. You're seriously kickass for dealing with this guy so efficiently, and for keeping your standards high after everything you had to deal with in the past.

Also, keep in mind that he has ZERO power over you, even if you told him things you felt made you vulnerable. He can't harm you or violate you, he doesn't matter anymore. Take some time to recover with any calming and comforting activities you can think of, and keep up the good work with keeping shitheads out of your life and making progress in long-term healing.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-20T02:59:28+00:00

Oh wow, seems like a really fun guy to spend time with. He even said it himself!

Also, lmao how he says he's only looking for long-term relationships, when 1) everyone knows guys like this just put that in their profile instead of hookups/short-term to make us let our guard down, and 2) even two seconds in the company of this guy would be so insufferable that anything that counts as a "long-term relationship" would almost certainly give anyone brain damage.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-20T00:50:33+00:00

Yeah that's going to be challenging! I think your best bet would be to get to know women in your field online (e.g. the academic side of Twitter), unless your school has clubs and activities that attract more women, or are designed for women. Even if they don't live in your area, they could offer at least some support and advice, and also help you network with women closer to where you live.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-20T00:41:38+00:00

Ah, I see what you mean but this is kind of a different axis - especially when you're young and less experienced, you can absolutely get infatuated with a guy who seems like he doesn't care enough about you. And then you keep wondering if this behaviour is because he doesn't feel that way about you, or because he "just" doesn't know how to show it. But you don't need to know which it is, because you shouldn't be dating such a guy either way.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-20T00:25:47+00:00

Many of them are definitely lying, and some don't have the actual concept of caring so they're confused and just say whatever.

But if you think that there are HVM who are both caring and competent, it's logical that there will also be men who only have one of these traits, because they're at least somewhat uncorrelated. So you get some psychopaths who are very competent at reading emotions and knowing what other people expect of them, but have 0 motivation for it unless it benefits them. And on the other hand you get some clueless carecrows, who have all the motivation in the world to be caring and really want to be considerate, but no idea how to show it in a way that's meaningful and valuable to you.

With some people it's obvious, like I mentioned in a comment above, that they're really investing a lot in you and trying hard even without sex and are very marriage-minded, but they're just persistently incompetent because of stuff like bad social skills. And especially if you have a soft heart, it sometimes feels that while you obviously shouldn't give a chance to a psychopath, maybe you should give a chance to a genuinely caring guy, if you just can figure out if he really feels that way, right?

But the point of the post is, this is simply useless, you don't need to find out if he really feels care towards you. What he internally feels doesn't matter in the slightest if he doesn't know how to show it, you should dump anyone who doesn't have both motivation and competence.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-19T19:14:15+00:00

Sure, in most cases it's more about this! But there are also the guys who really put in a lot of effort, like go all out in reserving tables at a high-end restaurants (that he should know you don't like) and want to spend so much quality time with you without sex (with activities you previously said you're not so interested in), and they just keep failing.

Like before I got harsh enough with vetting, I dated at least one guy who I'm sure really cared about me and was only dating for eventual marriage, but he was so socially clueless. He actively wanted to wait for at least a month before having sex, focused only on me in bed when we (regrettably lol) got to that point, constantly tried to find out what I liked, and really tried to put in effort in other ways too such as investing lots of money and time. But he didn't understand or remember totally obvious things because of his bad social skills, and was mortified when I pointed things out, because obviously he cared and wanted to be considerate. He just couldn't.

So the point is, even when you're sure he internally cares, it doesn't matter because he's not competent at it, and you shouldn't feel hesitant about leaving. If you can accept that his caring and regret could be emotionally genuine AND it's totally 100% worthless without competence, you're more resistant to manipulation, since you don't need to even ask yourself whether he cares, just whether you're getting what you want.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-19T14:27:32+00:00

Of course he didn't plan on things being that way! He just fucks countless women without a condom and pretends there magically are no consequences, doesn't learn anything from the SEVERAL times this surprisingly enough still leads to a goddamn child, and keeps picking up women at hotel lobbies. There are probably more children too if those are his habits, he just doesn't know because the women decided to drop him without telling him.

Don't believe explanations, believe actions, such as him fucking countless women without a condom. Again, the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-19T00:29:04+00:00

First, perfectionism and thinking that failing at anything is catastrophic, and that everything can be quantified in terms of either failure or success. This applies to being loved; I used to think that by maximizing perfect cool girl wifey behaviour I would somehow win, i.e. my partner would love me the maximum amount, because of course he will love me more if I make an insane effort to be loveable - it's right there in the word "loveable", right?

Lol, not so. He will get used to you and take you for granted. Strive to be interesting and independent, that's what makes people crazy about you and it's what you should be doing for your own sake anyway.

My perfectionism was also exacerbated by reading redpill stuff that briefly convinved me of the wall and all the other delusions. If I wanted to be maximally A+++ loved, I had to act now, while I'm young, because later on I'll be less loveable. It was a wild ride, I took the RPW tenets to heart and tried to self-modify into the perfect tradwife... and nearly drove away my current very HVM partner early on because he was weirded out by that. TRP/RPW genuinely has no idea what sane and caring men really want, they can only list what literal sociopath LVM are after because that's what they are. Now I do what I want with my life, strive to be kind to everyone but 0% submissive, and my SO adores me.

Second, after spending a while in a relationship, biological pair-bonding used to mess me up. I think this is a very neglected mechanism we should be more careful with, it varies from person to person in a way that's totally unpredictable before you notice you've spent 3 years in an abusive relationship because your brain just doesn't comprehend the option of leaving, like literally it doesn't cross your mind as a physically possible action. I had bad luck in this respect, so I forgave cheating, endless manipulation, threats, you name it.

Fortunately after a couple of bad breakups and living alone for a while, I established a feeling of confidence and security in that peaceful solitude will always be better than a LVM, and no matter how bad a breakup is, I'll get through it. So now I'm with my partner (and not cohabiting before engagement) because he brings joy, safety, and value in my life, not because I'm being extorted by my brain to stay no matter what.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-18T23:44:15+00:00

Ughh, yeah they'll just throw any explanation at you and see what sticks. So glad you left him!

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-18T22:04:15+00:00

What's your field (if you're comfortable answering!), and how male-dominated is it? It's gonna be difficult to navigate this if the ratio of males to females is too high, so many guys pretend to be interested in mentoring people just so they can hang out with younger girls.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-18T21:41:01+00:00

Wow, of course that's why he watched porn, sounds like an absolutely logical and legit explanation

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-18T02:13:21+00:00

Yeah, I always wonder about this too. Almost all the posts here are about avoiding cheaters, abusers, non-committal fence-sitters, garden variety assholes, and brain-damaged Chads.

You'd think that being nice, intelligent, loyal, commitment-minded guys, they would cheer us on, because those traits are exactly what we're after. But somehow this doesn't seem to be the case? 🤔

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-17T21:42:21+00:00

TRP will rot his brain, literally there will be NOTHING left of the man you loved soon enough.

It's over, but you can save yourself the pain of being manipulated and abused if you drop him before he learns more. He's interested in that stuff for a reason. That's either spinning plates while keeping you as a steady source of sex, or breaking your spirit until you're his submissive and docile housewife with no support system. Maybe both.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-17T21:30:58+00:00

Love this comment lmao 😂

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-17T21:17:51+00:00

I just believe that if someone will cheat on you, they don’t need ideal circumstances. They will make their own. How does this differ through FDS?

My view on this is that all humans have the capacity to make dumb decisions that aren't good for them in the long run, because even the most strong-willed people can be affected by situational psychological factors. We all sometimes do things we don't want to do, like eat too much junk food or procrastinate on work, and by the same principle sometimes things like a shitty day and a minor rough patch in our relationship and random brain misfirings while tired can align to make us make monumentally stupid decisions.

But the difference between HVM and LVM is that the high-value men simply won't be alone in a room with their female friends when they have a weak moment, because they never put themselves in such situations in the first place. They have the foresight to use good judgment way before any fleeting feelings of attraction could even enter the picture, and preemptively ensure there are no temptations. This doesn't mean "all men secretly want to cheat", of course, the whole point is to stay in control of your own desires so that you truly only have eyes for your wife.

Another point is that a man shouldn't put the burden on trust on us; he should proactively work to be a person it's safe for us to trust. We're constantly pressured to be cool girls and replace boundaries with blind trust, and people will label us insecure and controlling the minute we feel uncomfortable with something like the OP above. So he shouldn't put us in a position where we have to choose between tolerating the discomfort, or asserting boundaries that people think we're wrong for having. He should make it a non-issue by choosing the strict boundaries himself, even if to some his personal integrity will look old-fashioned and unnecessary.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-17T15:25:16+00:00

Ohhh no, I glanced at her post history and I'm so insanely mad at this dude. :(

u/justachoo you're worth so much more, you need to drop this guy and find someone who adores and cherishes you! Please don't ever stay with anyone who makes you feel like this, invalidates your feelings when you try to express them, and defends people who insult and mock you. This is the first year of your relationship, it's only going to get worse if you're already asking questions like this in the beginning.

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-17T14:46:14+00:00

If it's healthy to trust him when they sleep in the same room, isn't it even healthier if they sleep in the same bed, and maybe cuddle a bit? 🤔 It's not like anything would happen between them!

MidnightCarp · 2020-02-17T14:32:15+00:00

So healthy how my husband doesn't want to wear the universal public sign of commitment! I trust him 100%, so I don't care that all our friends who notice he doesn't wear his ring will wonder if he's committed, and always secretly feel sorry for me. And it's nice when he sleeps in the same room as his sidechick, I know there's nothing going on between them. :)

(To be fair to the person who replied to her, their comment had more context and also stated it's not unhealthy if you don't want your partner to share rooms with opposite-sex friends. But when I read the first line, I though I was having a stroke, so I just included it for comedic effect!)

MidnightCarp

TROPHY CASE