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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Just feel sorry for their pathetic meaningless little rubbings.
I made the choices that I made because I had physical needs. I had broken up with a boyfriend of four years, and it took my heart a bit longer to get used to the idea of being with someone emotionally than my libido would have liked. Individually, I regret the decisions I made, but I like the person who came out of it..
Damn, I’ve been there (it wasn't four years, but it was a painful/loss-of-idealism experience). You sound like a great catch. I admire your choices, and your ability to intellectually consider both sides of what is a very difficult issue. You deserve someone great. Hope you find him, in this relationship (ultimately) or another.
And I love Chasing Amy, which spoke a lot to my own experience.
If there’s a gay version of you out there, I hope I meet him.
The letter writer was absolutely in the right to tell her boyfriend the honest truth. Otherwise he'd have been tricked and lied to and manipulated into a relationship that doesn't match up with his values.
But let's talk about his values.
One has to assume that he understands that she didn't do anything criminal or unethical. Presumably, she didn't hurt anybody, lie to anybody, endanger anybody, manipulate anybody, or steal from anybody. She simply violated his sexual mores.
It's legitimate for him not to value what she did in the same way a jewish boyfriend might disapprove of my eating a bacon double-cheeseburger or celebrating Jesus as the Messiah. He'd have a right to disapprove. He'd have a right not to marry me because of it. But he'd have no right to get sick, cry, carry on like a lunatic, and condemn me to an emotionally abusive relationship.
But let's pretend for a moment that she did kill somebody.
If I was with a boyfriend who confessed such a thing to me, I'd want to know the details. What happened, was it intentional, was he jailed for it, has he sought counseling since, and so on. Was it in the course of duty? I'd want to know that he paid his debt to society, and whether or not he'd changed, but even so, I would probably feel scared and uncomfortable dating the kind of person who could kill, under almost any circumstances. So the only honest thing to do would be to break it off.
Nobody would think that they should stay with the murderer and continuously yell at them, demand apologies and shame, and withhold sex and the like. We'd all think that was nuts--we'd all tell that person to break it off and run. The fact that her boyfriend hasn't done this, and won't do this, shows how fundamentally dishonest he is.
He knows she didn't commit any fundamental crime for which she owes him or anybody else an apology, shame, or repentance. He knows that this is 100% his issue. He just hasn't been able to figure out yet what's more important to him--love or pride, love or his sexual mores.
And that's why it's time for an act of honesty from the letter writer. She needs to understand that this is not a man who loves or honors her above other things. He wants her to feel ashamed of her sexuality, he thinks of her sexuality as property that she has stolen from him. Her body belongs to him, and he's ticked off that he bought it in 'less than pristine condition'. That's a psychosis from another age.
He wants her to be the kind of woman he was fantasizing about. She wants him to be the kind of man he was pretending to be before she trusted him with her heart and her vulnerabilities. Neither of them are going to get the person they want, and it's time to be honest about it and move on.
...dead horse. So to speak.
I agree with the poster (or posters) who proposed that the BF has some serious psychological problems, beyond the normal obsessiveness that drives a lot of males when it comes to the past sex-lives of their girlfriends.
LW, this guy fucked-up, and unless you want to have to go through years of therapy with him to get him somewhat un-fucked-up, you'd be well-advised to move on to someone who has done some growing-up.
And if he won't even go to counseling with you, then it's time to start moving out, because he's a lost cause. I've been on both sides of this kind of thing, and I know whereof I speak -- even if I don't know shit about much else.
At the risk of sounding smug, find an older man who's been around. They're a lot less trouble in general, if they're real grown-ups.
Cary's first line (This guy is nuts. What's wrong with having a threesome?) makes me wonder - didn't anyone else think he's being a bit sarcastic here? I'm not convinced Cary is 100% on LW's side. And for all you BF bashers out there, remember you're only hearing one side of the story. I'm sure the BF would have plenty to say.
Anyway, I agree she's got to get out. That said, why hasn't she done so already? I know, I know, true love... but maybe that's why he hasn't left either. Maybe he's hoping he'll get over it and, like LW herself, just doesn't know that it's over. And maybe he IS being a jerk, but how many of us are angels under that sort of stress? Again, I'd like to hear HIS side.
Does it strike anyone else that the posters who are most anxious not to seem judgmental are the ones working hardest to skin the BF alive?
The truth is that none of us can really help how we feel. ...
... Science has shown that most men literally put women into Madonna/whore categories in their brains. And that this process is involuntary. That doesn't mean we have to go around judging people left and right. Just the ones we are planning to marry. It would be nice if feminist ideology stopped promoting the myth that it's every girl's divine right to kick up her heels and never be judged on it by anyone
So, don't judge the guy, but if you're a feminist, it would be nice if you judged the girl?
I am a stodgy, long-time married, middle-aged liberal prude who believes the corny saying "a condom can't protect your heart." I am an ardent feminist and am not prone to judge. I am frustrated that critics of feminism seem above all to want us to judge our sisters. I receive feminist "promotions" all the time, which are preoccupied with bread-and-butter and health issues and do not come close to mentioning anything like this thread. I also think a lot of evolutionary psychology is so much hogwash.
I'm sorry and sympathetic that lieutenant tragula feels this way, and I'm sorry for digressing...
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
