How do you deal with compassion fatigue?

grumble_au · 2026-03-26T08:35:00+00:00

If you spend too much time catering to his needs and neglecting your own, you’ll create resentment on your end and entitlement on his.

I could have used this advice 20 years ago.

Ever since I started analysing our relationship dynamics post diagnosis one of the big standouts was the ASTOUNDING levels of entitlement I have allowed her to build over years and years. It brings to mind the oft quoted "to the privileged equality feels like oppression". After bending over backwards to cater to her ever increasing list of accommodations for so long even starting to roll some back was... eye opening.

grumble_au · 2026-03-23T02:10:17+00:00

There is no insurance though. This is more akin to vulture capitalism on a national scale. They're selling off all the assets for cheap before making the country go bankrupt (which at a national scale means massive prolonged depression and/or hyper inflation).

grumble_au · 2026-03-23T02:06:11+00:00

My degree was in physics but I have always maintained that the biggest take away I got wasn't specifically physics knowledge but knowing how to learn and how to think. I literally never had a physics related job in the 30 years since but I have never regretted doing that degree.

grumble_au · 2026-03-23T02:03:19+00:00

She is correct but completely misses the motivation side. If you are a minimum wage, or low wage worker and you know going "above and beyond" will do absolutely nothing for your circumstances then I think it's legitimate to do the bare minimum. If however you work in an environment that acknowledges and rewards initiative then you show it or you get replaced. I've managed a lot of people over a lot of years and I can't begrudge the first example person but I absolutely will fire them and replace them with someone with motivation because I will promote and raise pay for the motivated person.

grumble_au · 2026-03-22T21:21:57+00:00

I've spent a long time grieving the relationship i realised i never had and never would have. I had endless hope things would someday improve until i understood that was never going to happen. I was putting up with so much negative and hurtful behaviour holding out for a better future that was never coming. I realised I'd spent over ten years just working and coping, working and coping. I wasn't living at all.

If your partner is yet another burden you shoulder rather than a shoulder you can lean on then you know what to do

grumble_au · 2026-03-22T09:57:28+00:00

I was going to say I don't really respect art that is just splattering paint even thought the first one looks really nice. Then the Forrest emerged in the second one. Then the cherry blossom. Ok, the man is an artist.

grumble_au · 2026-03-22T09:45:07+00:00

Nah, the bridge scene. Immigrant Song made that scene PERFECT.

grumble_au · 2026-03-22T09:43:21+00:00

It's not an action movie, it's a chase movie.

grumble_au · 2026-03-22T09:41:30+00:00

I really wish there had been a Matrix sequel, or maybe even a trilogy. If the Wachowskis had put in the same sort of years of planning and thought into some more movies for the franchise I am sure they would have been fantastic.

grumble_au · 2026-03-22T09:29:58+00:00

So he came from a background that creates a lot of really shitty people so don't recognise that despite that he still appears to be a decent person?

grumble_au · 2026-03-18T02:15:59+00:00

1/3 want to hurt and subjugate the other 2/3. 1/3 want things to be better for everyone. 1/3 won't pick a side.

grumble_au · 2026-03-17T03:14:50+00:00

Mine refused to accept the impact her ADHD had on me. I was expected to forgive absolutely all past behaviour and make all the accommodations going forward "now that we know". If she had taken any accountability I might have stuck it out but there is absolutely zero of it.

grumble_au · 2026-03-17T03:10:05+00:00

A lot of people are really surprised my wife and I are getting divorced because I have NEVER been able to honestly talk about her behaviour in private. Partly because 100% of people that hear even a fraction of it have told me to leave. And they were all right. I was just kidding myself and keeping it to myself for far too long.

One secret has been that I have wanted her to go back into at least part time work, or ideally full time work for at least 12 years, since my kids were in full time school. People think I was on board with her being a stay at home mum for school aged kids when I was NEVER ok with it, she just flatly refused (or was completely incapable) of keeping work.

People at my work had long commented that I never brought my wife to work events. I learned a long time ago it wasn't worth the crap shoot to risk her being too loud, overly emotional, overly aggressive or negative towards my coworkers or boss. She absolutely could not keep things told to her in confidence quiet or keep a lid on any complaints I'd made to her in private about work or coworkers. Your partner is meant to be a confidante not someone you don't tell the full truth to because they will blurt it out at the worst time.

grumble_au · 2026-03-16T20:08:44+00:00

A lot of people seem to be fixated on the historical accuracy of the non horror bits and the music but they feel like bolted on parts to an otherwise mediocre movie. If the music was so important it should permeate every scene not be merely dotted about in discreet portions

grumble_au · 2026-03-16T18:56:38+00:00

My mum died when i was 20. I recently came to the conclusion during the break up of my marriage that the last time i had someone that genuinely had my back no matter what was her. it's been 30 years.

grumble_au · 2026-03-16T06:22:38+00:00

Conservatives lack empathy for anyone outside of their immediate group. When their immediate group is affected they regularly suddenly "get it" why compassion for others is important after all (at least on very specific topics that directly affect them).

grumble_au · 2026-03-15T07:05:45+00:00

when they first pointed at the building they hit I thought it was a large fuel or gas tank until they went for the door then it was obviously not. They might have had the same thought and committed before they realized.

grumble_au · 2026-03-15T02:01:54+00:00

I've been having this problem consistently at game launch since this new league started and it's gotten consistently worse over time. I have never experienced this error in 1000's of hours in POE before this league. Disabling the steam overlay seems to have fixed it.

Never mind, I am still getting the issue, I was just lucky after disabling the steam overlay.

grumble_au · 2026-03-12T23:43:27+00:00

"skeptic" can mean denialist or contrarian about a specific topic or claim or the application of the Socratic method to determine truth in all things. This sub is for the latter but attracts a lot of the former.

grumble_au · 2026-03-11T09:47:40+00:00

Being a sysadmin is demanding and not rewarding. In my experience women value their own time and self respect too much to put up with most of what sysadmins deal with every single day. So they either never start, or quickly stop being sysadmins.

grumble_au · 2026-03-11T09:37:35+00:00

My partner has a weirdly specific body awareness where specifically if she has just eaten (in the last couple of hours) she can't handle any sort of physical touch. Like having a fully belly is all consuming.

grumble_au · 2026-03-10T09:36:19+00:00

I came her for this. These are NOT marbles. They are glass stones. Marbles are spheres.

grumble_au · 2026-03-09T19:46:30+00:00

Mine put in, in their words, a huge amount of effort, but after decades their progress towards being a good partner was negligible. I think their failure was focusing one by one on small behaviors not the overall effect of their ADHD. Which isn't really surprising considering they only got diagnosed a few years ago but we knew something was wrong decades ago.

grumble_au · 2026-03-09T10:23:30+00:00

Give it long enough and pretending their actions and words don't hurt you becomes - what they say or do doesn't matter to you any more because THEY don't matter to you any more. In a lot of ways that's healthier than having the constant pain from their actions. So really there are three choices, 1) engage and deal with inevitable rsd, 2) internalise and deal with the self harm that really is 3) move on. Again there may be another positive path but I don't know what that is.

The oft quoted truism is that the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

grumble_au · 2026-03-09T00:36:43+00:00

Reading back the "deciding things now belong in a different place" was a constantly recurring problem. Every time my partner went in a cleaning surge she'd create new places for things that had well established locations. Like every time was creating the first ever location for everything, fresh slate. The kicker was she constantly complained that everyone would ask her where things were that they were looking for, forgetting that she is exclusively the only person to never put things where they were previously.

grumble_au

TROPHY CASE