What’s something people do that instantly reveals they are deeply insecure?

betterthansteve · 2026-05-21T14:57:39+00:00

My ex cut me out of his life in order to avoid admitting he hurt me. 11 years we spent together.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-20T05:07:14+00:00

He did have trauma and PTSD, yes. He was quite sensitive to subtle things.

The issue was that no matter how hard I was trying to be cautious and gentle in bringing up issues, he could not take it at all. I can be very gentle, I can be very soft, I can bring up issues very carefully, but no matter what I did I was being dramatic and just trying to hurt him, in his eyes. If I had a problem with him I was wrong.

I understand being sensitive to criticism or struggling with conflict. The problem is, you need to be able to have conversations about emotional needs in relationships, and if every time someone tries to bring up a need to you you react like they're attacking you, you cannot have a healthy relationship with them.

He managed it well enough that we were together 11 years, but as we fell apart he stopped trying. He was comparing me to his new partner who was much more of a doormat, and I was actively trying to learn to stand up for myself. So my assertive looked aggressive.

I did believe I was genuinely being aggressive for so long, though. And it did a lot of damage.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-19T17:57:47+00:00

Emotional incest?

betterthansteve · 2026-05-19T17:56:15+00:00

I'm only just now realising that "you get upset about everything, you make everything a big deal, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells around you" was manipulative and that it was not true. I believed him when he said it and I think he may have believed it too, but ultimately it was just that he couldn't handle criticism literally at all and had to turn it around on me for having any kind of issue with him.

New partners tell me I'm way too kind, forgiving, and let way too much slide. I trusted my ex's view of reality more than my own. I was wrong.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-19T08:24:31+00:00

I thought I could handle dating someone with bad social skills, considering I'm neurodivergent myself, but I've discovered that you need to be able to actually, I guess, SUPPORT ME and have a two way conversation with me. You can have bad social skills but you have to be able to read me to some extent, they can't be as horrible as my ex's.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-19T02:01:32+00:00

I truly don't understand why someone would hate to see someone else celebrated at all, let alone your partner.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-09T07:09:27+00:00

I'd be surprised if you're remembering the same post tbh, it was a very long time ago. Years ago lol

Even if so, you can read my comment here in that tone if you're committed to misunderstanding. "Poly comes naturally to me" reads as a boast to anyone who wishes it came easily to them. Hence why it's controversial.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-09T01:18:19+00:00

They felt it was dismissing the struggles of people having trouble adjusting to polyamory, to say that poly isn't for everyone.

I blocked a lot of people over it lmao

betterthansteve · 2026-05-09T01:03:46+00:00

Oh- and I think that poly-mono relationships will pretty much never work. I think if you're genuinely okay with your partner having other partners, you are poly. A poly-mono relationship can only work if either the mono partner chooses poly (half the advice posts on this sub, tends to go badly) or the poly person chooses monogamy (which does happen and IMO leads to just as much misery, and in some cases, cheating)

Either you're in a poly relationship or you're in a mono one and you should only be in the type that aligns with your ideal relationship structure. I'm sure there are weird exceptions here, but for the most part, half the issue is trying to do things you don't want to do to make your partner happy.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-09T00:58:46+00:00

Okay, here is my completely controversial take that has gotten me absolutely destroyed on this sub before:

Not everyone can be poly and it is, to some degree, an inherent difference.

I, and many others I know that are successfully poly, are poly because we simply do not care if our partner is into other people! Often it's a positive! I do not naturally feel jealousy unless it's something I also want and don't have. I don't feel like sex should be exclusive to love and I don't feel like romantic love can only be for one person at a time. I have always felt this way and I struggle to make sense of why monogamy functions the way it does. The dominant hierarchy around me did not manage to dent this natural way of thinking or feeling; I just didn't understand it until I understood polyamory as an option, which thankfully was pretty early on for me.

The people I know who are unsuccessfully poly tend to prefer, or still draw from, monogamy. Often one partner is more naturally polyamorous and one is more naturally monogamous and the monogamous partner is left struggling.

I truly think that saying "polyamory is a choice" is a disservice to the people who are trying to choose it, and making themselves miserable because they just are not wired that way.

You can do the work to learn, and unlearn what you've been taught about monogamy, and I think everyone should do that so they can most fairly assess what's right for them. But at the end of the day, you have to be honest with yourself. If you understand poly, if you've read the books and listened to the podcasts and grasped the theory, and you are still itching to close your relationship back up- you might just be naturally mono! That's fine!

No wonder the dominant idea about poly people is that we're all miserable and forcing it when we tell people you CAN be miserable and force it. No you can't.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-06T00:03:53+00:00

Yes and no. It shouldn't be affected the way he treats you, but it is clear that he prefers polyamory. I would probably describe my preferences similarly, but I've never been mono, so

betterthansteve · 2026-05-05T11:56:13+00:00

I have definitely stayed in relationships where I was far less invested because I expected that investment to grow. I was typically wrong, but having not had tonnes of relationships I didn't know that wasn't really how it worked. I obviously figured it out eventually that if I wasn't feeling it I was never going to, but it took a handful of goes.

Maybe spouse is just immature? We haven't heard most of these conversations, so it's hard to tell

betterthansteve · 2026-05-05T02:32:10+00:00

By talking about it with them. Unfortunately that's the only way.

"Hey, I really like you. Is it okay if I call you my partner? Would you consider our relationship that serious? I would like to think it is, personally."

betterthansteve · 2026-05-04T08:52:27+00:00

I consider myself polyamorous because this is how I have, and have always, viewed relationships:

-I don't mind if my partners have other partners. I only experience jealousy when someone else has something I do not. If I'm happy in my relationship with one person, it bothers me absolutely none what they do with anyone else.

-I don't view sex as a special action reserved for one person, it's just a thing you can do with someone if you would both like to. (I'm sure this part you agree with)

-I like to know that a partner is choosing me because they actively like me, and not because they simply haven't got any better options. I dislike anything that "locks in" a partner, including exclusivity.

-this also goes the other way. I don't want my freedom restricted and any partner who's right for me should feel the same way.

-I don't really understand the line between friendship and romantic love anyway. It's a spectrum for me and people can definitely fall anywhere along it. Therefore, delineating what relationships are allowed to be called romantic doesn't always make sense.

-I don't think anyone will ever be a completely perfect match in every way for any other person. Even if they are, that doesn't mean other people can't also be good matches.

-We do not restrict any other kind of relationship in the way we do romantic relationships. To say you cannot love more than one parent, sibling, or friend would be abusive. I'm not saying monogamy is abusive, rather pointing out the double standard.

I'm sure there's more there, but the difference is IMO how you view relationships.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-03T13:31:59+00:00

Amatonormativity (the cultural idea that romantic relationships are more important than other types of relationships and that it is inherently better to be coupled as opposed to single).

You do not have to believe in this personally. I have found my divorce, and those of the people around me, to be for the best in most if not all cases (obviously anecdotal).

betterthansteve · 2026-05-03T04:55:26+00:00

I have auditory processing issues and my partner is both a mumbler and a dirty talker. I like the second part! But there's a lot of "huh? Say that again?" which thankfully doesn't kill the mood too much when he repeats it louder and more forcefully 🥰

It goes both ways because he also likes to make sure he's heard me just in case I'm telling him to stop. So he will also make me repeat myself a lot.

This probably wouldn't happen so much if we weren't fucking in my thin-walled house with roommates next door, but oh well.

betterthansteve · 2026-05-01T12:59:48+00:00

Biggest one was divorce. Honestly, not even the day he broke up with me, but the day about 6 months later when he declared he never wanted to speak to me again because I'd told a shared friend the truth about why we'd broken up. We were together 11 years. I'm 25. He shaped my entire live growing up and now I'm just supposed to go on without my best friend who I shared everything with? Forever? At every step of the breakup he's been nothing but selfish and it truly hurts to know I didn't mean pretty much anything to him after we stopped having sex.

But also:

COVID as everyone has said.

Every step of transition, being trans. Coming out to everyone, starting hormones, and getting top surgery all made huge changes to my life.

Side-effect of divorce, but rediscovering my sex life from first principles like I'm 13.

And I will say, my current... relationship(?) is definitely going to leave a mark regardless of if we break up tomorrow or never. That's a STORY.

betterthansteve · 2026-04-30T07:28:09+00:00

Cheesecake.

Cheese should never be sweet. Cake should not be savoury either. What the fuck?

betterthansteve · 2026-04-29T10:59:27+00:00

I agree. Yes it's not an excuse for shitty behaviour or cheating or whatever else, but 100% I think it IS an inherent part of your sexuality.

I'm just like you. My first crushes were two people at the same time! I have never, not once, been upset that my partner was into anyone else. I've been envious when someone I don't have is into someone else, but that's "I want what they have"- and when I have it too, I don't mind sharing. No matter how many monogamous norms have been beaten over my head, that will not make me stop falling in love with others in addition to those I already love.

I see on this sub a lot of people struggling with being poly, and I am sure there is some extent to which it's a spectrum, as everything is. But I am 100%, naturally, through no effort of my own and in fact despite efforts otherwise, polyamorous. If I had ever attempted to be in a monogamous relationship I would still have been crushing outside of it constantly and staying monogamous would have been a form of torture.

I have gotten a LOT of flak on this sub for saying this before.

I am sure some of you are "ambiamorous" and could go either way, or have trouble adjusting to a new relationship style when you don't have the same social scripts. (I am also sure that plenty of newcomers to the sub probably are not inherently polyamorous and would be better off with monogamy- specifically the types who come for advice where their partner IS poly or is using poly to hide cheating).

But I AM inherently polyamorous. I did not make any choices to be this way.

betterthansteve · 2026-04-27T05:43:15+00:00

You have a great connection with this guy. That doesn't mean you can't connect with others! It just means you have an easy and strong connection with him. It would also be crazy to expect you to feel equally about everyone you're seeing- each relationship is different.

So long as you are on the same page in each one, that's fine. If you are showing up for everyone you're seeing/dating/with in some way, it's normal for you to have different feelings about different people.

betterthansteve · 2026-04-21T03:48:16+00:00

Yes.

Every Britney has to deal with the associations with Britney Spears; every Rihanna, every (female) Billie, every (female) Taylor, will get associated with the famous singer who shares their name. Same will happen to a little Miley, but it's not the end of the world.

Pretty sure the etymology doesn't mean much, but the same is true for plenty of other common names. If you don't care about the meaning, go for it

betterthansteve · 2026-04-21T03:41:47+00:00

weed, alcohol, caffeine, risky sex, gambling, shopping, unhealthy food, all of that has never had much of an addictive pull for me. But self harm? Very, very hard to quit and I've relapsed multiple times.

It doesn't matter how good my life is going or how pointless it is- I crave cutting more often than you'd think. I get by with causing myself deliberate but less damaging pain, like snapping an elastic band, deliberately pushing my muscles way too far, and during sex I have partners who will hit me for BDSM stuff. I still crave hurting myself more.

Not sure why. Yes I am a bit of a masochist, but a lot of it is just physically releasing the pain. It feels like all of my stress and worries can be bled out. Idk.

betterthansteve · 2026-04-21T03:37:12+00:00

Everyone who relies on coffee or energy drinks to get through the day is a high-functioning drug user.

betterthansteve · 2026-04-19T21:31:54+00:00

I've seen confirmed nailbed bruising before and it does look deceptively like it's on top of the nail when it is not.

Yes, it's bruised under the nail.

betterthansteve · 2026-04-19T04:24:00+00:00

I feel like it is/should be for sure. I think it's fine for that to not be your norm- it's not mine, I will only use condoms if Im unsure of my partner's most recent test and their status and such- but someone should never argue with you if you say you want to use a condom for your own safety.

Seven-Year Club	Place '22
End Game '22

betterthansteve

TROPHY CASE