/feels/ - Advice & Venting

idc what music he's listening to, I care if he actually tries to change his behavior. for all I know he's histrionic or something

but seeing congruent behavior is generally not bad

>>126890
hes avoidant and hides his true feelings. i think his relationship to wanting attention is complicated, i think it’s more about seeking validation than attention.

i expected love songs about his new gf and the most romantic thing was “where ever we are now” which is less passion and soulmates than accepting you’re lost in life but you’ve found a stranger to cling to to be lost together with. i expected songs about crazy exes. i expected songs about how he’s a badass or a cowboy or a sailor. there ARE a lot of astronaut songs.

i didn’t expect song after song of “i was out of my mind for hurting you” “took him too long to realize he was wrong” “take me back before the night i touched you with tears in your eyes so i can undo it” “a guilty soul and worried mind can’t survive without someone else even though he doesn’t deserve it” “i’m literally evil and will be your downfall” “song about going through a trip and experiencing ego death and being sorry for any damage he’s done before being sent back into the cycle” “song about accepting he deserves where he is because of what he has done”

just the absolute complete opposite of what he expressed to me years ago about not being sorry me twisting the truth to make him sound worse than he was and me being a terrible woman for confronting him about what he did. the only song about a terrible woman with mean words is fucking cherry wine by hozier of all songs which was kind of a stab to the gut. like oh. you don’t think i’m crazy. you think you deserved it and the blood i made you bleed is fine like cherry wine. got it.

i don’t want to just start posting lyrics or details but this is the exact opposite to what i expected his mental state to be to the point i feel like someone dumped a bucket of cold water on his head. he was the most energetic person i’ve ever met and there’s a lot about substance abuse and not being able to get out of bed and already being gone.

he used to brag about not caring what he did.

>>126892
yeah it probably does reflect on his inner state, although regretting what he did doesn't necessarily mean he's still good for you. he may be! but you ultimately need someone who is able to treat you well, not just feel remorse towards you.

Fer me it's shoes, you can tell a lot about people by the type of shoes they are wearing.

>>126894
he always wears converse

>>126893
he did something so bad he killed all feelings between us so it’s not really about that. i just really want to know if the person who hurt me the most doesn’t think it’s funny anymore.

>>126900
honestly moids lie all the time to save face because in their head admitting fault = loss of masculinity and masculine status = ego injury
but he seems to still have a conscience so he just suffers in silence
classic moid behavior

well, not in silence, but alone. you know

>>126902
to be fair to him, most people can’t admit to doing something as terrible as he did. he kind of had to lie because what are men’s choices when they back themselves into corners. be a person they have shown that they are not already by virtue of committing the crime they did and be impossibly chivalric and admit to something he could go to jail for to try and help me emotionally. or lie and not risk jail time and being socially ostracized. the saddest part is what he did wasn’t even bad enough to go to prison or for people to care. people stay supporting men who beat and violently rape complete strangers. no one is going to care about a man abusing someone in a much less violent way. he could have just talked to me. i don’t understand why he didn’t at first, or what could have possibly changed that he now apparently feels guilt. i wish he would just apologize to me so the both of us could stop suffering. i don’t want him to be literally fucking suicidal over something i want an apology for. why would he rather die than apologize to someone who used to be kind to him. nothing makes sense to me.

>>126909
it kinda makes sense to me
maybe the shame is too strong to face you, seeing how strongly it affected him ("song after song")
he's only gonna be able to face it after the pain subsides

at least that's how I see it
makes sense for an avoidant personality you mentioned too

>>126913
four years ago he wrote me a letter saying that he never meant to hurt me in the ways that he did. that was as specific as he was willing to be but we both knew what he was talking about. but he also began it with “i’ve come to realize i handled things the wrong way but at the same time i don’t regret it because you’re a terrible person. at least to me.” so like. he knew what he did was bad but apparently i’m awful and deserve it because i sent him a letter saying how he affected me. after that i WAS terrible to him; pointedly. before that though i did nothing wrong. he even wrote i treated him well and we had a good relationship but he just didn’t feel “it” like okay thanks my ex from five years ago i realized we weren’t in love at this point for sure already but thanks for confirming the obvious??? i don’t know if he just can’t express himself through the written word or if he was in denial or what but almost nothing i’ve experienced has made me angrier than getting a letter like i know i hurt you but you deserved it. AFTER sending him a victim impact statement about how hurt i was by his abuse.

and yeah the avoidant thing is insane. he even said in the letter he never thinks about me and won’t ever again and told one of my friends he didn’t remember my name. yet here he is now. so i do not understand anything. he’s a taurus so maybe it’s his pride. i’ve never met a more stubborn person. but i don’t get why if he now genuinely does feel remorse he at least claimed he didn’t in the past, why he would just suffer in silence. because it isn’t noble. it’s hurting me worse than if he apologized. i literally feel better just from realizing hes sorry. it feels like an actual piece of metal was removed from my stomach two nights ago and i keep waiting for the feeling to come back. i’ve said over and over i want an apology. i want to know hes not just laughing at me for being upset at what he did, which is what everyone tells me he does. which is making this even more bewildering to me that hes listening to all this stuff and then lying about how he feels? or is the music the lie and the words the truth? maybe he just likes how the songs sound. i don’t get it.

>>126916
you know what they say, you can't reason someone out of a position they haven't reasoned themselves into. but even irrational and dumb behavior has concealed benefits to it. his songs are probably an attempt to process it, but the denial is to protect himself. I can only guess what's the benefit specifically but there's some benefit here 100%.

as for him telling he doesn't regret what he did because you were "terrible" to him. he could have genuinely believed that in the moment even if it's wrong, or it could be another mental defense. people with trauma and mental illness tend to project intentions that aren't there for example.

he seems like a very confused person that hasn't figured out his own emotions himself, so in that sense his behavior is immature but it's something you could expect.

I've gone through something similar once, a formerly close person suddenly doing the unthinkable or something that makes no sense. It makes you want to jump to the worst conclusions. It took a while for me to analyze everything too so it didn't settle immediately, felt like nothing makes sense etc… It's normal. Anyway I'm really happy you feel a weight has been lifted nona. I can only make assumptions so don't take them too seriously. You're the only one who can reach the truth on this, especially the truth that will make you feel at peace.

pic related, a perspective from some dumb VN. I think it shows what I'm trying to say

>>126918
i’m really sorry someone switched up on you suddenly. it is really shocking when you love and trust someone and they completely betray you. for me it felt like someone removing a mask and it frightened me. it also really destroyed my ability to trust i could tell when someone is lying. i think i would rather it have been a complete stranger who hurt me randomly than someone i thought i was safe with.

what he did to me was genuinely evil. i can’t lie and i can’t soften it. i think being in denial of what it was makes sense. it would be hard to accept that you had harmed someone the way that he did. i also made it difficult to apologize. for a while i was radioactive with rage and i don’t think it would have been a good idea to try and talk to me back then. i think i would have taken everything the wrong way and not believed him. to be fair his friend was also deliberately making the situation worse, probably to create the feeling of an us vs them and form some sort of false us against the world type bond. i’m sure she had some sort of reason too but it was scary for me and i thought she was going to hurt me. i guess at the end of the day he didnt/couldnt stop her from screaming at me and he didn’t say he disagreed. but he also didn’t yell at me himself or let her physically harm me. so i reacted pretty negatively to that and rubbed him calling me terrible before in his face while i lashed out and called him terrible names. i started out a perfect victim but i didn’t end up as one. i honestly would rather be a fighter than a martyr who just lays there and takes it.
maybe it’ll be easy to apologize to me now that i have things i should apologize for too. maybe i made it impossible to ever apologize. i don’t know.

i think it was just a situation where everything got out of control and i wasn’t capable of expressing my feelings or standing up for myself until i exploded. and he just wanted to pretend it never happened and bury it down. and that made me lose my shit even more. i don’t think it’s right he gets to move on with his life and be happy while i’m traumatized and struggling because of what he did. at the same time, i really don’t want him relating to songs about his life being already over and not being able to get out of bed or be saved. i also find accepting a relationship solely out of desperation to find someone who wouldn’t outright reject him for his past after years of being alone and low self esteem and not love or passion really depressing. i made the mistake of confusing love with gratitude after him too, it feels really powerful to be taken care of after going through a hard time and i got romantic and platonic love confused too im not shitting on him or calling him dumb. maybe i’m just extremely catholic but i don’t think you should get to go to heaven before you repent. but i also don’t think people should be stuck in hell forever if they’re sorry.

i’ve been pretty awful to him and i think i took him to a much lower place than i wanted out of a misguided but not like. entirely ununderstandable desire to hurt him back and stand up for myself. i don’t regret doing that but i definitely went about it the wrong way. i think the two of us really backed each other into corners.

maybe the two of us just couldn’t understand each other because we are honestly the exact opposite people. i just don’t understand how he did what he did to hurt me in the first place and why he wouldn’t apologize to someone who begged for him to if he is sorry. it’s not like it’s something i could even go to the police with at this point and he could just say the words out loud and i would have no proof he said them. he doesn’t have anything to lose from my point of view but maybe youre right and there are things i don’t know holding him back. and i think both of us definitely are mentally ill and have trauma so projecting intentions is definitely possible on both sides.

>>126938
>i think i would rather it have been a complete stranger who hurt me randomly than someone i thought i was safe with.
yup, same

>i started out a perfect victim but i didn’t end up as one. i honestly would rather be a fighter than a martyr who just lays there and takes it.
once again you're absolutely right

>to be fair his friend was also deliberately making the situation worse, probably to create the feeling of an us vs them and form some sort of false us against the world type bond. i’m sure she had some sort of reason too but it was scary for me and i thought she was going to hurt me.
Yeah that's a fucking horrible ass dynamic and it's similar to one I had, your guy is an immature dependent dumbass I'm sorry, but he was so weak he literally couldn't see the destruction he created by acting like some resource to be fought over. I know a guy like this too lol, literally what happened to my friend recently where she invited him to a group chat and the guy brought along some bitch who attached himself to him and just attacked my friend. While he did nothing lmfao literally unable to take responsibility for his actions because he's so dependent on some psycho.
So yeah he's extremely immature, even more than I assumed. He can't even take responsibility for his emotions to the point where he feels them but won't take action to solve it.

>i guess at the end of the day he didnt/couldnt stop her from screaming at me and he didn’t say he disagreed. but he also didn’t yell at me himself or let her physically harm me. so i reacted pretty negatively to that and rubbed him calling me terrible before in his face while i lashed out and called him terrible names
Seems reasonable. Honestly it is something worth to be mad about, but moreso despite these people being literal pushovers they have a great potential for harm. This happened to me too more or less.

I wouldn't be surprised if your guy lowkey waits for you to take action or someone else to solve his shit cause he's so passive at life. Anyways your reaction is completely justified from what I see I wouldn't even say you need to apologize, but it's up to you.

>>126946
unfortunately with how we left things last, he has to be the one to reach out to me. i don’t even know a way to contact him but i know he can find me if he wanted to.

>>126947
if he actually cares about what he did being wrong and me being okay, he would risk reaching out directly to give us both closure. so it makes me think he doesn’t. the music is confusing.

i’m anxious avoidant which is worse so i fucking get it like you wouldn’t believe. but staying away after harming someone because you decide it’s what you would want when you have an entirely different attachment style and emotional mindset than the type of person seeking closure or comfort during pain is selfish. different people need different things.

>>126956
avoidants tend to want to escape the emotions of people when they’re anxiously attached to them and then regret it when they come back to center and reach for the healthy part of the attachment again

>>126957
it hes unaware or hasn’t healed or doesn’t think he deserves to/is capable then nothing will ever change