She said she was terribly sorry and wanted to work to save the marriage. We went to individual counseling and then tried couples counseling. She derailed that session by lying almost right off the bat.
She promised nothing would ever happen again, but never took any steps to rebuild trust, other than to say, “Trust me Bro.”
Fast forward 2 kids and 15+ years. She cheated again and has twisted everything around to be my fault. She made me the villain, so she doesn’t have too feel guilty. But then she really believes her bullshit. Says she wants to try and work it out, but then refuses transparency and digs her heels in when I mention couples counseling.
This sucks. She has said some shit that totally took me by surprise. Like, how could she possibly believe the things she was saying. But she did it.
So now, I am 50 years old, have a 12 and 14 year old, and have to re-figure out my life.
I was so dumbfounded when she said the things she did. Like it broke my brain it was such bullshit.
Of course, she’s not toxic, I am the one with all the issues.
Hey I believe in you man. Shit like this can be hard in the moment, but youve still got yourself and your kids. There will be some hard days, but you can do it. As long as there’s life there’s hope and you’re still here.
Damn that sucks man. I’m sorry that happened to you. Just a reminder that your feelings are valid. You’ll be OK at some point but it’s absolutely normal to not be OK now.
Women filter things through their emotions and feelings.
As such, if their emotions and feelings don’t sit right, the truth must be wrong and needs to be changed to fit their feelings.
You then become the villain if you continue to debate from a position of factual truth and evidence, because that violates her internal narrative. And she becomes angry because she thinks that if only you cared about how she felt, you would change your facts to better fit her feelings.
So obviously, you are the toxic and evil one.
No amount of facts, logic, reason, or rationality can touch even the most reasonable of women to the same degree it can convince an average man. And I am saying this as a married man. I have learned this by painful experience.
The only way to ever debate or negotiate with a woman is to reframe her emotions and feelings such that facts and evidence just happen align with it; trying to argue from a position of pure facts and evidence in order to demonstrate the correct choice leads to a near-100% failure rate if her feelings do not agree.
Sure, there are some men who completely ignore facts and evidence, but that arises out of conservative/right-wing ideology - typically Christian-based - which invariably requires the rejection of reality in order to even exist. And there are also men who are led around by their noses by their own emotions and behave like women, but - again - it is an external imposition on them by way of them having been forcibly denied a father figure to learn from when they were younger. So they copied the adult women around them, instead.
Women filter things through their emotions and feelings.
Uh, that’s everyone. Its very unusual to not be doing that, and it takes a lot of practice and patience to hold space for your emotions to pass and to understand how they affect your reasonability and to compensate for that in your judgements.
Like for example, after reading this opening sentence of your comment, it is difficult for me to not disqualify the rest of what you are saying as ignorant before I actually read it. I have to observe my emotion and then take a read after that feeling begins to ebb.
And so after pausing and reading the rest of your comment, I see you as someone who rationalizes their feelings to frame a narrative.
Womanish, as referred, in your world view. Hypocritical and lacking self-awareness.
Except that I am not alone. As I mentioned, I am married. 30 years with the same woman as of this year.
What I wrote is direct, real-world experience dealing with many different women in many different capacities over the decades.
Everyone does this. Everyone. If you’re about to say you don’t, you’re lying to yourself.
Try being autistic. There are variants that experience almost no ego to speak of, where reactions are facts first regardless of how the person feels about something.
Plus, mature men have learned that operating through emotion is a negative-sum game to themselves, and that the best tactic to dealing with anything that affects them personally is via facts, evidence, logic, and reason. That involving emotions at any initial stage causes significant societal backlash because a man demonstrating any significant emotions, especially vulnerable ones, is seen as a weak and unreliable man that cannot be trusted to support others.
I won’t bother responding to the rest because it’s the world view of someone blinded by their own bitterness and anger.
Ah, nice combination of sour grapes and an ad hominem. Not exactly the most original path, seeing as how often it’s used to shame men into silence, but it’s invariably the only tool left to those who have no possible counter-argument.
My wife cheated on me.
She said she was terribly sorry and wanted to work to save the marriage. We went to individual counseling and then tried couples counseling. She derailed that session by lying almost right off the bat.
She promised nothing would ever happen again, but never took any steps to rebuild trust, other than to say, “Trust me Bro.”
Fast forward 2 kids and 15+ years. She cheated again and has twisted everything around to be my fault. She made me the villain, so she doesn’t have too feel guilty. But then she really believes her bullshit. Says she wants to try and work it out, but then refuses transparency and digs her heels in when I mention couples counseling.
This sucks. She has said some shit that totally took me by surprise. Like, how could she possibly believe the things she was saying. But she did it.
So now, I am 50 years old, have a 12 and 14 year old, and have to re-figure out my life.
I was so dumbfounded when she said the things she did. Like it broke my brain it was such bullshit.
Of course, she’s not toxic, I am the one with all the issues.
Saying this sucks doesn’t do it justice. I hope you end up on the other side of this better than you are now.
And your wife has this same view of the situation where she’s not the problem.
None of that was about her reason. How did she make it your fault?
If that’s just an excuse, a post-hoc justification, what do you think is the real reason?
Hey I believe in you man. Shit like this can be hard in the moment, but youve still got yourself and your kids. There will be some hard days, but you can do it. As long as there’s life there’s hope and you’re still here.
Damn that sucks man. I’m sorry that happened to you. Just a reminder that your feelings are valid. You’ll be OK at some point but it’s absolutely normal to not be OK now.
Women filter things through their emotions and feelings.
As such, if their emotions and feelings don’t sit right, the truth must be wrong and needs to be changed to fit their feelings.
You then become the villain if you continue to debate from a position of factual truth and evidence, because that violates her internal narrative. And she becomes angry because she thinks that if only you cared about how she felt, you would change your facts to better fit her feelings.
So obviously, you are the toxic and evil one.
No amount of facts, logic, reason, or rationality can touch even the most reasonable of women to the same degree it can convince an average man. And I am saying this as a married man. I have learned this by painful experience.
The only way to ever debate or negotiate with a woman is to reframe her emotions and feelings such that facts and evidence just happen align with it; trying to argue from a position of pure facts and evidence in order to demonstrate the correct choice leads to a near-100% failure rate if her feelings do not agree.
Sure, there are some men who completely ignore facts and evidence, but that arises out of conservative/right-wing ideology - typically Christian-based - which invariably requires the rejection of reality in order to even exist. And there are also men who are led around by their noses by their own emotions and behave like women, but - again - it is an external imposition on them by way of them having been forcibly denied a father figure to learn from when they were younger. So they copied the adult women around them, instead.
Uh, that’s everyone. Its very unusual to not be doing that, and it takes a lot of practice and patience to hold space for your emotions to pass and to understand how they affect your reasonability and to compensate for that in your judgements.
Like for example, after reading this opening sentence of your comment, it is difficult for me to not disqualify the rest of what you are saying as ignorant before I actually read it. I have to observe my emotion and then take a read after that feeling begins to ebb.
And so after pausing and reading the rest of your comment, I see you as someone who rationalizes their feelings to frame a narrative.
Womanish, as referred, in your world view. Hypocritical and lacking self-awareness.
Do you enjoy being alone?
Everyone does this. Everyone. If you’re about to say you don’t, you’re lying to yourself. Humans are emotional beings we interpret things emotionally.
I won’t bother responding to the rest because it’s the world view of someone blinded by their own bitterness and anger.
Except that I am not alone. As I mentioned, I am married. 30 years with the same woman as of this year.
What I wrote is direct, real-world experience dealing with many different women in many different capacities over the decades.
Try being autistic. There are variants that experience almost no ego to speak of, where reactions are facts first regardless of how the person feels about something.
Plus, mature men have learned that operating through emotion is a negative-sum game to themselves, and that the best tactic to dealing with anything that affects them personally is via facts, evidence, logic, and reason. That involving emotions at any initial stage causes significant societal backlash because a man demonstrating any significant emotions, especially vulnerable ones, is seen as a weak and unreliable man that cannot be trusted to support others.
Ah, nice combination of sour grapes and an ad hominem. Not exactly the most original path, seeing as how often it’s used to shame men into silence, but it’s invariably the only tool left to those who have no possible counter-argument.
Ok boomer