As a semi-but-not-actually-contrarian addition to what you have written here:
I am a guy. And I have, unfortunately, had many relationships with women that failed on something like half to all of those bullet points, these relationships did not work out.
Obviously this does not mean that all women are somehow hypocrites.
And obviously I was not perfect either, tends to be pretty uncommon at least for me personally to find someone who can withstand my often ‘too blunt to the point of sounding like I am trying to be cruel when Im not actually’ style comments that come from my autism.
It means that my autistic ass is a romantic fool who falls in love with irresponsible people for the charms they do have, and I do not see the warning signs until its too late.
There exist tons of women who meet all or most of those bullet points, obviously.
In conclusion: Your bullet points there are not even specific to women, by sex, or by gender.
They are simply basic attributes that, when enough are not present in any committed relationship between any two people, very very often lead to failure.
One could even say that, in this regard, men are victims of a patriarchal society that strongly reinforces the idea that a man should overlook such failures because it is their /job/ to provide, and that its possible for women who claim to be feminists to actually not be and just be using that as a shield.
But again, and obviously, many people are capable of being massive hypocrites in many regards.
Just because I am a romantic sap and have personally had bad luck doesnt mean /all women are hypocritical liars and bad!/.
That is not evidenced. Its just my personal experience of not seeing red flags until they are too late.
And that can happen to anyone, regardless of born sex, gender preferences, sexual preferences, etc.
As I see it, there is not really any need for men to go their own way.
What there does seem to be a need for is something like emphasis in some part of society on the gender and sex neutral elements of a personality and life that constitute being ready for a healthy committed relationship, vs the red flags that often indicate instability and duplicity.
And I mean real education, not the millions of insane TikToks vastly and dangerously misrepresenting these things.
In conclusion: Your bullet points there are not even specific to women, by sex, or by gender. They are simply basic attributes that, when enough are not present in any committed relationship between any two people, very very often lead to failure.
You’ve got it. I made those two lists to highlight that many men and women are looking for the same things because all of us are just people. Realistically, the second list has nothing to do with romantic endeavors. The second list is just aspects of being a functional adult. Which, if a person is missing those, they will have a difficult time attracting an adult mate.
One could even say that, in this regard, men are victims of a patriarchal society that strongly reinforces the idea that a man should overlook such failures because it is their /job/ to provide, and that its possible for women who claim to be feminists to actually not be and just be using that as a shield.
Woah woah woah, where the heck did THAT come from? You went completely off the rails here.
I think you’re leaning too much on this incomplete idea:
And obviously I was not perfect either, tends to be pretty uncommon at least for me personally to find someone who can withstand my often ‘too blunt to the point of sounding like I am trying to be cruel when Im not actually’ style comments that come from my autism.
…and…
But again, and obviously, many people are capable of being massive hypocrites in many regards.
Long term relationship are founded on the bedrock of putting up with each others shortcomings, and possibly eventually finding value in those shortcomings. This doesn’t mean putting up with abuse, nor being a doormat. Healthy boundaries are important. However, if anyone thinks they’re going to find the perfect mate that does everything they want, and nothing they don’t want for the entirety of their long-term committed relationship (marriage?) then they are living in a fantasy land. Here’s a secret: Your mate has to put up with you too and all of your crap. This is where the following bullet from my first list comes up:
mutual effort into maintaining the relationship
Relationships are work! Its work to continually seek understanding from your mate, and make sure you yourself are communicating. Its anticipating their needs and them doing the same for you. Its being strong when they are weak, because there will be days when you are weak and they are strong for you. Its hard. Its frustrating at times. You don’t get everything you want, but neither do they. You have to change some things about how you do things because those ways may have worked fine in a one-person household, but cause chaos in a multi-person one.
What there does seem to be a need for is something like emphasis in some part of society on the gender and sex neutral elements of a personality and life that constitute being ready for a healthy committed relationship, vs the red flags that often indicate instability and duplicity.
Here’s the thing about that. We don’t come out of the womb knowing how to be anything. It takes us about three decades to have a pretty good idea of who each of us are, and become functional adults. We learn in our early adulthood by making mistakes, realizing our actions have consequences, and deciding for ourselves what kind of a person we want to be. All of this is usually wrapped up in the phrase “mature adult”. In short, most of our 20s are a shitshow of us testing ourselves and growing up. Hopefully you’ve got your shit together by your 30s, so not only you, but your prospective mates have a much better idea of what they want out of a mate in life and are committed to getting that.
And I mean real education, not the millions of insane TikToks vastly and dangerously misrepresenting these things.
Each generation defines what is generally acceptable for themselves. So if the generation prior established a standard, it would likely be rejected by the next for being insufficient or out-of-date. You’re not going to get what you want out of a classroom and a textbook. Human beings are just so much more complex than that, and social constructs are always evolving.
The thing you are ‘where did that come from’ responding to came from my personal experiences.
In the last 5 years I have had serious, multi year long relationships with 3 women.
2 of them had serious mental disorders that led them to be massively manipulative and gaslighting, as well as abusive…
One was schizophrenic, one was split-personality (now called Dissociative Personality Disorder, i think?) and also had narcissistic personality disorder. They were both massively financially irresponsible, coming to simply expect I would solve any financial woes they faced, always from either disregarding my advice or doing something so absurd I did not even realize a person could be capable of doing such a thing.
A third woman had crippling anxiety attacks and massive depression, to the point she would often be unable to work, buy groceries, cook, do anything other than watch netflix.
Unfortunately all three of these women’s mental conditions contributed heavily to not being able to meet a large majority of your bullet points that we agree are gender/sex neutral and foundational to any healthy relationship.
I expended immense amounts of time, emotional energy, physical energy and financial resources into these relationships, and was met with dependency, and abuse if I did not continue supporting their irresponsible behaviors.
The cherry on top for all 3 of these was that they would be very very involved in the culture of feminism, always using a kind of pop-internet-feminism kinds of phrases and arguments to justify their abusive and exploitative behavior toward me.
They and their friends all made very big deals out of being socially progressive and encompassing feminist ideas of more balanced, equitable and less stereotypically patriarchal relationships, having and respecting boundaries, recognizing that men too are emotional beings who need to be able to feel safe being vulnerable.
They spent a lot of time posting and reading about such things on insta or tiktok or twitter or what have you.
This is why I call them hypocrites. They presented a front, a fake persona, that did not jive with their actual actions, which were often in direct opposition to their professed beliefs.
Anyway, with each of them I would eventually realize that when a relationship dynamic of asymmetric co dependence develops, generally speaking its not going to work out.
Given that all 3 continued exactly the kinds of manipulative, abusive amd irresponsible behaviors with their friends and later partners after our committed relationships ended, which I witnessed as I tried to remain friends with all 3 of them afterward, I feel fairly justified in the conclusion that it was right for me to no longer be involved with them.
I do not really want to be more specific than that, both because these relationships were massively traumatizing for me, and because I do not want to say anything that could possibly lead to someone figuring out their real world identities.
Generally speaking, I know I have a problem of being a doormat in relationships, and with these last 3 women, when I tried to exert boundaries, they were highly dismissive of this and all of them manipulated me into accepting not actually following them or in many cases believing they were valid. Then the co dependency loop starts, then eventually things get so absurd I do my best to disengage as politely as possible.
As such, I know that right now, due to this trauma and other reasons (mainly currently being homeless), I am far from a place of being able to be stable enough for a relationship, and am thus not actively pursuing any until I get my shit together, and hopefully am able to afford a decent therapist.
Any way, as to the other things you’ve said:
All 3 of these relationships /centered/ around communication. Centered around deep conversations and truly trying to get to know and understand a person’s goals, desires, interests, things they are passionate about.
With 2 of them, the communication grew to the point that I was often literally physically completely unable to maintain their need to be conversing with me /literally/ all of the time they were awake and not busy with something else, often messaging me and calling me while I was at work or asleep, which I had already given them my schedules for.
If I did not respond, they were justified in their own minds about being extremely upset about this.
If I ever accidentally called or texted them when they were at work or busy, it was fine for them to dismiss me or be angry I interrupted them.
The fundamental boundary of the conditions of communication itself was something all 3 of them would not respect whatsoever, even when they promised me over and over they would.
As to there being a need for actual psychologically sound relationship advice being a thing that society should receive, you seem to say that people should just figure this out naturally, if I am not misunderstanding you.
Well it seems well evidenced to me that society in general is and has been trying that approach and it often does not work. So I would again suggest something like the fundamentals of relationship dynamics being taught in standard public education.
As to your claim that essentially its fine to get your relationship psychological advice from tiktok, i generally find this laughable as tiktok is just chalk full of scammers and phonies promoting all kinds of nonsense for clout, and relationship advice is just one of the many, many genres of content where this exists.
I’m not going to respond point-by-point to your post as there is a lot to unpack there. First, I’ll say I’m sorry that this has been your experience. Second, I’ll say that my postings above are all with the understanding that both you and your prospective mates are in good physical and mental health. Without these, complications in a relationship abound!
I think you touched a number of times that the women you were in long term relationships with didn’t meet the first criteria of being fully functional adults. Its sad to say, but you can’t fix someone else if they aren’t a mature adult. Entangling yourself with them in a relationship will be a drain on you and the relationship. Also, you admit that you ignored some of these signs (like them requiring your money or to solve their problems), these are red flags that the relationship isn’t equal. You said you were a doormat and let them manipulate you. Part of being a fully formed adult is understanding you have value and enforcing healthy boundaries. When they dismissed yours, that was another sign you should exit the relationship.
As to there being a need for actual psychologically sound relationship advice being a thing that society should receive, you seem to say that people should just figure this out naturally, if I am not misunderstanding you.
You are misunderstanding me. Again, I was speaking about otherwise healthy individuals learning about growing up and valuing other people. There’s no textbook that can explain how to treat other people. Its not arbitrary rules, but instead self worth and empathy.
As to your claim that essentially its fine to get your relationship psychological advice from tiktok,
I’ve said nothing of the sort. I don’t even use tiktok. I strongly recommend getting psychological advice from a trained professional. There’s no shame in this. The world is messy and complicated and we need tools to sort it out. Professional help, helps.
As a semi-but-not-actually-contrarian addition to what you have written here:
I am a guy. And I have, unfortunately, had many relationships with women that failed on something like half to all of those bullet points, these relationships did not work out.
Obviously this does not mean that all women are somehow hypocrites.
And obviously I was not perfect either, tends to be pretty uncommon at least for me personally to find someone who can withstand my often ‘too blunt to the point of sounding like I am trying to be cruel when Im not actually’ style comments that come from my autism.
It means that my autistic ass is a romantic fool who falls in love with irresponsible people for the charms they do have, and I do not see the warning signs until its too late.
There exist tons of women who meet all or most of those bullet points, obviously.
In conclusion: Your bullet points there are not even specific to women, by sex, or by gender.
They are simply basic attributes that, when enough are not present in any committed relationship between any two people, very very often lead to failure.
One could even say that, in this regard, men are victims of a patriarchal society that strongly reinforces the idea that a man should overlook such failures because it is their /job/ to provide, and that its possible for women who claim to be feminists to actually not be and just be using that as a shield.
But again, and obviously, many people are capable of being massive hypocrites in many regards.
Just because I am a romantic sap and have personally had bad luck doesnt mean /all women are hypocritical liars and bad!/.
That is not evidenced. Its just my personal experience of not seeing red flags until they are too late.
And that can happen to anyone, regardless of born sex, gender preferences, sexual preferences, etc.
As I see it, there is not really any need for men to go their own way.
What there does seem to be a need for is something like emphasis in some part of society on the gender and sex neutral elements of a personality and life that constitute being ready for a healthy committed relationship, vs the red flags that often indicate instability and duplicity.
And I mean real education, not the millions of insane TikToks vastly and dangerously misrepresenting these things.
You’ve got it. I made those two lists to highlight that many men and women are looking for the same things because all of us are just people. Realistically, the second list has nothing to do with romantic endeavors. The second list is just aspects of being a functional adult. Which, if a person is missing those, they will have a difficult time attracting an adult mate.
Woah woah woah, where the heck did THAT come from? You went completely off the rails here.
I think you’re leaning too much on this incomplete idea:
…and…
Long term relationship are founded on the bedrock of putting up with each others shortcomings, and possibly eventually finding value in those shortcomings. This doesn’t mean putting up with abuse, nor being a doormat. Healthy boundaries are important. However, if anyone thinks they’re going to find the perfect mate that does everything they want, and nothing they don’t want for the entirety of their long-term committed relationship (marriage?) then they are living in a fantasy land. Here’s a secret: Your mate has to put up with you too and all of your crap. This is where the following bullet from my first list comes up:
Relationships are work! Its work to continually seek understanding from your mate, and make sure you yourself are communicating. Its anticipating their needs and them doing the same for you. Its being strong when they are weak, because there will be days when you are weak and they are strong for you. Its hard. Its frustrating at times. You don’t get everything you want, but neither do they. You have to change some things about how you do things because those ways may have worked fine in a one-person household, but cause chaos in a multi-person one.
Here’s the thing about that. We don’t come out of the womb knowing how to be anything. It takes us about three decades to have a pretty good idea of who each of us are, and become functional adults. We learn in our early adulthood by making mistakes, realizing our actions have consequences, and deciding for ourselves what kind of a person we want to be. All of this is usually wrapped up in the phrase “mature adult”. In short, most of our 20s are a shitshow of us testing ourselves and growing up. Hopefully you’ve got your shit together by your 30s, so not only you, but your prospective mates have a much better idea of what they want out of a mate in life and are committed to getting that.
Each generation defines what is generally acceptable for themselves. So if the generation prior established a standard, it would likely be rejected by the next for being insufficient or out-of-date. You’re not going to get what you want out of a classroom and a textbook. Human beings are just so much more complex than that, and social constructs are always evolving.
The thing you are ‘where did that come from’ responding to came from my personal experiences.
In the last 5 years I have had serious, multi year long relationships with 3 women.
2 of them had serious mental disorders that led them to be massively manipulative and gaslighting, as well as abusive…
One was schizophrenic, one was split-personality (now called Dissociative Personality Disorder, i think?) and also had narcissistic personality disorder. They were both massively financially irresponsible, coming to simply expect I would solve any financial woes they faced, always from either disregarding my advice or doing something so absurd I did not even realize a person could be capable of doing such a thing.
A third woman had crippling anxiety attacks and massive depression, to the point she would often be unable to work, buy groceries, cook, do anything other than watch netflix.
Unfortunately all three of these women’s mental conditions contributed heavily to not being able to meet a large majority of your bullet points that we agree are gender/sex neutral and foundational to any healthy relationship.
I expended immense amounts of time, emotional energy, physical energy and financial resources into these relationships, and was met with dependency, and abuse if I did not continue supporting their irresponsible behaviors.
The cherry on top for all 3 of these was that they would be very very involved in the culture of feminism, always using a kind of pop-internet-feminism kinds of phrases and arguments to justify their abusive and exploitative behavior toward me.
They and their friends all made very big deals out of being socially progressive and encompassing feminist ideas of more balanced, equitable and less stereotypically patriarchal relationships, having and respecting boundaries, recognizing that men too are emotional beings who need to be able to feel safe being vulnerable.
They spent a lot of time posting and reading about such things on insta or tiktok or twitter or what have you.
This is why I call them hypocrites. They presented a front, a fake persona, that did not jive with their actual actions, which were often in direct opposition to their professed beliefs.
Anyway, with each of them I would eventually realize that when a relationship dynamic of asymmetric co dependence develops, generally speaking its not going to work out.
Given that all 3 continued exactly the kinds of manipulative, abusive amd irresponsible behaviors with their friends and later partners after our committed relationships ended, which I witnessed as I tried to remain friends with all 3 of them afterward, I feel fairly justified in the conclusion that it was right for me to no longer be involved with them.
I do not really want to be more specific than that, both because these relationships were massively traumatizing for me, and because I do not want to say anything that could possibly lead to someone figuring out their real world identities.
Generally speaking, I know I have a problem of being a doormat in relationships, and with these last 3 women, when I tried to exert boundaries, they were highly dismissive of this and all of them manipulated me into accepting not actually following them or in many cases believing they were valid. Then the co dependency loop starts, then eventually things get so absurd I do my best to disengage as politely as possible.
As such, I know that right now, due to this trauma and other reasons (mainly currently being homeless), I am far from a place of being able to be stable enough for a relationship, and am thus not actively pursuing any until I get my shit together, and hopefully am able to afford a decent therapist.
Any way, as to the other things you’ve said:
All 3 of these relationships /centered/ around communication. Centered around deep conversations and truly trying to get to know and understand a person’s goals, desires, interests, things they are passionate about.
With 2 of them, the communication grew to the point that I was often literally physically completely unable to maintain their need to be conversing with me /literally/ all of the time they were awake and not busy with something else, often messaging me and calling me while I was at work or asleep, which I had already given them my schedules for.
If I did not respond, they were justified in their own minds about being extremely upset about this.
If I ever accidentally called or texted them when they were at work or busy, it was fine for them to dismiss me or be angry I interrupted them.
The fundamental boundary of the conditions of communication itself was something all 3 of them would not respect whatsoever, even when they promised me over and over they would.
As to there being a need for actual psychologically sound relationship advice being a thing that society should receive, you seem to say that people should just figure this out naturally, if I am not misunderstanding you.
Well it seems well evidenced to me that society in general is and has been trying that approach and it often does not work. So I would again suggest something like the fundamentals of relationship dynamics being taught in standard public education.
As to your claim that essentially its fine to get your relationship psychological advice from tiktok, i generally find this laughable as tiktok is just chalk full of scammers and phonies promoting all kinds of nonsense for clout, and relationship advice is just one of the many, many genres of content where this exists.
I’m not going to respond point-by-point to your post as there is a lot to unpack there. First, I’ll say I’m sorry that this has been your experience. Second, I’ll say that my postings above are all with the understanding that both you and your prospective mates are in good physical and mental health. Without these, complications in a relationship abound!
I think you touched a number of times that the women you were in long term relationships with didn’t meet the first criteria of being fully functional adults. Its sad to say, but you can’t fix someone else if they aren’t a mature adult. Entangling yourself with them in a relationship will be a drain on you and the relationship. Also, you admit that you ignored some of these signs (like them requiring your money or to solve their problems), these are red flags that the relationship isn’t equal. You said you were a doormat and let them manipulate you. Part of being a fully formed adult is understanding you have value and enforcing healthy boundaries. When they dismissed yours, that was another sign you should exit the relationship.
You are misunderstanding me. Again, I was speaking about otherwise healthy individuals learning about growing up and valuing other people. There’s no textbook that can explain how to treat other people. Its not arbitrary rules, but instead self worth and empathy.
I’ve said nothing of the sort. I don’t even use tiktok. I strongly recommend getting psychological advice from a trained professional. There’s no shame in this. The world is messy and complicated and we need tools to sort it out. Professional help, helps.