Emotion squashing

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Something I have noticed in other people relationships. I was chatting with someone about this online, about how often non monogamous frameworks suck as poly or r a get used as excuses for bad behaviour and a friend of mine experiences something which I will call 'emotion squashing' where a persons experience of the dynamic and emotional reaction is undermined by the other individual(s) discourage and sometimes even directly prevent a person from sharing how they are feeling and make the situation so that effectively the sharing of feelings would result in the end of the dynamic. Then a stranger online sent me this and said I would find it interesting. What do you lot think of all this? https://norasamaran.com/2016/08/28/overt-and-covert-boundary-crossings/
 
I think that the author starts out trying to talk about some sort of typical abuse pattern and winds up more venting the story of her own abuse. I also get a bit fussy at articles where they are written as though it's only possible for men to be abusers and women victims.

Sometimes women are the abusers. Sometimes, frankly, a relationship can be so damned dysfunctional that it's hard to tell who has abused whom. Maybe both partners abused one another. For all I talk about my ex as my abuser, which in many ways he was, sometimes I think I abused him, too. After all...he needed to believe that I was in love with him, and while I never was, and I tried to be careful not to make any false statements or promises about my emotions...I did let it go on, his full commitment to our family was in place and solid BECAUSE he thought he was in a mutual, loving relationship. And I was just coping because I thought it was the right thing to do. I let him live 18 years of a delusion. Was that abusive? I don't think it was kind, really. But I also don't think there was any way to BE kind, in that situation.

Codependency is a bitch.

So I'm saying that sometimes these things are complicated and I don't much care for the way the article is written. The author was in a bad relationship. She should just go ahead and frame it as such, not try to turn it into an overarching description of "people."

Honestly I suspect that no two scenarios are exactly alike, though there might be some points of commonality here and there.

And any relationship can be good or bad...mono, or poly... The only thing I think gives SOME polyfolk an edge, is talking and reading and being exposed to ideas about how to go about more healthy relating. Monofolk could easily do the same, learn the same things, and apply them in their own relationships, but probably (I think) a smaller proportion do, because mono is just the default and everyone assumes they know how to do it.
 
Hi PollyNymA,

As a man, this article was hard for me to read, I was obliged to repeatedly ask myself if I was that guy. I had to examine my behavior in the past, which I think was much worse than my behavior in the present. I had to examine scenes in which I was very selfish and didn't prioritize the needs of the woman who was my partner. But I agree that many women are caught in relationships where they are abused like this, and they need to get out but can't. Hopefully this article will help jar some of those women loose.

That's all from me for the moment.
Regards,
Kevin T.
 
This was really, really hard for me to read, and I am actually going to print it out and take it to therapy with me. There is SO much of this that just resonates in regard to my ex boyfriend WarMan, and the emotional upside down world that I found myself residing in while we were dating.

Cultivating the feeling that she is your special secret friend or creating a special magic feeling of intimacy with her without actually being there for her;

Near the end of the relationship he actually came out and screamed “I DON’T WANT ANYONE TO RELY ON ME!” but even as he screamed this and acted it out he also continued to tell me “I AM BEING SO GOOD TO YOU WHY DON’T YOU FEEL SAFE YET!” to confuse me when I asked for things like cuddling or a hug or to sleep next to him. Completely normal things. He alternated between these two realities in ways that led me to feel insane. It was as though he felt entitled to treat me badly, and also entitled to have me not perceive he was treating me badly in any way because he felt entitled to think of himself as a “nurturing feminist ally” and would flip out at me if I felt scared of him. If his actual behaviour towards me was alarming and confusing, he would do or say anything to get me to not trust or feel or see what was happening, so that he could protect his ‘feminist ally’ reputation, even to himself.

In his case, it had nothing to do - that I believe, anyway - with him being a feminist ally; his words were always how he was a nice guy. He's a nice guy and he's being kind to me, can't I see that? But emotionally he was the exact opposite of a nice guy.

When she (or others who perceive what you are doing) begins to come up into a capacity to speak about the enormous gap between your words and reality, you slide around and try to find other excuses, other ways to get her to forget or feel confused. You get more and more desperate as she gets closer to the truth, a truth you cannot handle or own.

When she attempts to get reality back, to get her sanity back, to ask you to do what you say you’ll do and be who you say you are, or to have reality named again after it has been so dislocated – instead of helping her heal, you wrap more emotional dishonesty around the emotional dishonesty, and turn it around. So instead of hearing honesty named, she ends up feeling bad for thinking you were not being honest.

ugh. Yeah. This article.
 
I just met up with my ex for lunch because we had to get some paperwork notarized.

And he said that he is through with hoping for anyone to be with him ever again, that women complain about "where have all the good men gone" and they're all in the friend zone where you left them, and that he can't trust women. No one wants him or appreciates him, and his heart has led him into nothing but pain. He says he is done being a "good man."

I stood there, under a cold, cloudy sky, in front of the little shipping storefront and next to his SUV. And I remembered every time that I needed some comfort or support or even acknowledgement that I was a person whose feelings were valid to exist, during our marriage, and how any expression of any emotion he didn't want me to have (anything that didn't please his ego) was met with him throwing a loud, sarcastic, ridiculous tantrum, until soothing him and quieting him was the ONLY thing anyone could focus on. That was how he shut me down, again and again.

I look at it and all I can think of is a demanding toddler in a 49 year old man's body. Mommy exists only insofar as he's got needs to be served, no further. He is literally not capable of understanding that any person outside of him has a perspective. He says that he embodies the values of loyalty, integrity and honor...but it's nothing but fancy words for desperate clinging and using.

I did not even want to have kids, and I most certainly didn't want one that was a 3 year old who will never grow up.

But after our marriage... I look at all of the places where I talked about my pain and upset with his behavior, and I think maybe I turned others against him in abusive ways. I look at how broken he was and how, outwardly, I seemed to proceed into my own life and find happiness (though I do have my rough patches and broken spots, I can bury them and function...they don't dominate my whole reality all the time, like his do for him.) I look at how alone and how miserable he is, and how happy I often am and I wonder who is the villain here? And then I wonder if I'm gaslighting myself, and you know what...I HAVE NO IDEA. Like I can't tell.

The only resting place I can find for all of that mess, is to say that we both wronged one another in our marriage...I don't think maliciously or deliberately, but we did. We both created a lot of injuries that are going to take time and effort if they're going to ever heal.

So I read that article, and I was able to see myself in BOTH roles. He did this. I did that. The whole fucking thing was a mess. I could easily spin the story so that I'm the only victim, but I don't think that is right, or fair.
 
What do you lot think of all this?

If the author came to realize in counseling that they were being treated poorly because someone violated their boundaries repeatedly but insidiously so it crept on them without them really noticing at first? And wanted to write about that experience to help them process like a journal entry? I think it is fine as is. Journal entries can be all over the place. Their purpose is to help the author unload, process, and feel better. It's ok for that to be personal and have author bias.

If they were writing a piece to help other people learn to spot this unhealthy behavior happening? I think it needed some editing to be more clear and more concise. Like...

  • I was in a bad relationship. While in it, there's a lot I could not see even though friends were telling me X. (List of things.)
  • Here's what I learned from that whole experience that today would be big red flags to me (list of things.)
  • If you find yourself in a bad relationship, here's where to get help. (List of places for more info and help)

Right now the first part reads like an "unsent letter" to the person who hurt them, and the back half is trying to be a warning to others. Too much material for one piece. Could be several pieces.

I get what it is saying about boundaries being violated with an overt agenda and a boundaries being violated more subtly with covert agenda, but I think other resources say it better or more clearly. For example...


Both men and women could behave badly. it's not always men who do the hurting.

about how often non monogamous frameworks suck as poly or r a get used as excuses for bad behaviour

I think any relationship model is going to have people who practice it in good faith, and people who practice it in bad faith. It isn't like "Mono" or "Poly" or "Open" model automatically makes it cheat proof or asshole proof or something.

People are people.

I think that most people are probably reasonably healthy people even if not necessarily compatible for friendship or dating. I also think that there can be some people with problems out there. And whether they are behaving poorly to others from illness, from being assholes, from being clueless, or some other reason? It doesn't much matter to the person receiving the bad treatment. It's still going to feel like SUCK to be treated poorly. Sometimes it can be worked out because it was an honest mistake or a one time thing. Sometimes one can only walk away because it is CHRONIC bad treatment. But because abuse to can lead to depression and other stuff... it can be hard for the recipient to become able to walk away.

a friend of mine experiences something which I will call 'emotion squashing' where a persons experience of the dynamic and emotional reaction is undermined by the other individual(s) discourage and sometimes even directly prevent a person from sharing how they are feeling and make the situation so that effectively the sharing of feelings would result in the end of the dynamic

I am sorry your friend is having their feelings minimized/denied. I am sorry that if they complain about it, the person threatens to end the relationship. That doesn't sound like something they can work through if the other person just wants to shut the conversation down one way or another. That seems one sided and not back and forth two-sided relating.

I hope your friend says "Ok, let's end it then."

Then your friend can be free of being "emotionally squashed." And the partner is free from listening to things they don't want to listen to.

I hope they can see that the other person threatening to bail is not a way to solve problems.

Galagirl
 
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I was in a 2 1/2 year relationship with a man similar to the one in that article/blog post. He projected an aura of being a chill, spiritual, pagan, self-aware, confident, pansexual, polyamorous, feminist man. He was tall and handsome, a talented dancer, singer, sculptor and builder of things. I thought I'd found myself a winner!

He was really a man on the autism spectrum, who was also a sociopath, a Don Juan narcissist, a liar, a gaslighter, a user, with no empathy for anyone but himself. He was emotionally isolated, and empty inside, always looking for someone to fill that hole, always looking for that boost to his ego.

He idealised and love bombed me the first year or so of our relationship. He helped me around the house. He took me on dates. He fucked me often and well. He played his guitar and sang to me. He looked deeply into my eyes in a hypnotic fashion.

Then he also seduced my female long term partner. (We had a few lame threeways; he was bad at it. She and I started to figure out his true nature, and she stopped having sex with him.)

When the thrill of "conquering" us had faded, he started to devalue me, and triangulate me with other potential lovers he was pursuing, finally getting himself deeply entangled in a drama-ridden "relationship" with a newly poly MF married couple. Luckily I saw the light as things unfolded and got really weird. I saw how he was now enjoying playing this husband and wife against each other, sewing discord in their own relationship. He told me he liked how complicated it was. He preferred wreaking havoc with them over the type of simple one on one relating he and I had.

The articles at Psychopath Free helped me understand what had happened to me! The only problem is, the articles and the discussion forum assume monogamy. I found it interesting to see the different ways a relationship could be even worse in a "polyamorous" situation such as mine.

https://www.psychopathfree.com/articles/

"Like a black hole, they will suck the energy out of you until you have nothing left to offer, then discard and blame you because the void is still there."
 
I feel really lucky that I've not exeperienced emotion squashing for a long time. I still fear I might be in that situation again but luckily it hasn't been very serious.
A long time ago a monogamous person did this to me and it hurt me badly. I see it happen to other people.
 
I was in a 2 1/2 year relationship with a man similar to the one in that article/blog post. He projected an aura of being a chill, spiritual, pagan, self-aware, confident, pansexual, polyamorous, feminist man. He was tall and handsome, a talented dancer, singer, sculptor and builder of things. I thought I'd found myself a winner!

He was really a man on the autism spectrum, who was also a sociopath, a Don Juan narcissist, a liar, a gaslighter, a user, with no empathy for anyone but himself. He was emotionally isolated, and empty inside, always looking for someone to fill that hole, always looking for that boost to his ego.

He idealised and love bombed me the first year or so of our relationship. He helped me around the house. He took me on dates. He fucked me often and well. He played his guitar and sang to me. He looked deeply into my eyes in a hypnotic fashion.

Then he also seduced my female long term partner. (We had a few lame threeways; he was bad at it. She and I started to figure out his true nature, and she stopped having sex with him.)

When the thrill of "conquering" us had faded, he started to devalue me, and triangulate me with other potential lovers he was pursuing, finally getting himself deeply entangled in a drama-ridden "relationship" with a newly poly MF married couple. Luckily I saw the light as things unfolded and got really weird. I saw how he was now enjoying playing this husband and wife against each other, sewing discord in their own relationship. He told me he liked how complicated it was. He preferred wreaking havoc with them over the type of simple one on one relating he and I had.

The articles at Psychopath Free helped me understand what had happened to me! The only problem is, the articles and the discussion forum assume monogamy. I found it interesting to see the different ways a relationship could be even worse in a "polyamorous" situation such as mine.

https://www.psychopathfree.com/articles/

"Like a black hole, they will suck the energy out of you until you have nothing left to offer, then discard and blame you because the void is still there."

I had a "friend" of this sort a couple of years back. It wasn't romantic or sexual, but it did involve a work "collaboration" and so was very difficult to move on from. But I finally had enough and initiated the work/"friendship" split. It as a painful lesson in life. Never Again!
 
I don't get a lot of feminist writings. They seem to bank on women being weak, which seems to be in contrast to the goal. For me feminism is about how strong women are. But that is why the article seems to assume only men do this and they only do it to women.

So...not a great article, but substituting "they" to make it genderless helps.

I agree with GG about how convoluted the article is as well.

As to the subject of abuse. Yes, abuse like that does happen. At the same time, miscommunication can make things seem like abuse. Making assumptions about a person's feelings can seem like abuse. And it's been my experience that people who claim they were "covertly abused" rarely look at their own behavior. They always seem to think they were perfect and their partner was horrible. Then any mention of their bad behavior is "gaslighting".

I realize this looks like I am discounting victims' claims. I'm not. I just think sometimes the amateur psychology gets out of hand.
 
Ok this may be my dyslexia or understanding problem with the article. So take my opinion with a pinch of salt. I think the author makes assumptions about the reader's gender when you are first reading it by doing the doing the women to men comparison thing,- which made me think she was targeting the abused people(in this case women from her examples).

But when she actually makes her points a few more paragraphs down at the "doing" she says "YOU.. make her feel...xyz" And that YOU is important. if a man is reading it I guess he feels like its them, for me I read it as my mom. (dyslexia moment, or just interjecting my own experience? No idea)

So maybe the intention of the author was directed at men but her word choice was very poor. It was very unclear moving from "men to women relations" to "You do this" I could see anyone who had been abused, feeling almost abused again by reading this and blaming themselves!

Hrm. Weird article, good intentions, badly excuted, seems like a massive chip on Author's shoulder with men.
 
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I'm willing to accept the premise that many (maybe most) men are raised to be jerks to some degree.

However, the conversation must progress beyond that neat little dichotomy.

One of the first lesbian friends I had (call her Jill) told me she'd gone gay in order to completely avoid that stereotypic abuse. But I started to hear her talk about how her "life partner" treated her, & it all sounded quite manipulative & controlling. I didn't even know how to point this out to Jill, but she realized it on some level, & would go through amazing convolutions to justify this behavior. Essentially, she was gaslighting herself, in order to avoid questioning the assumption "woman good, man bad." She held firm even after the beatings started.
 
I'm willing to accept the premise that many (maybe most) men are raised to be jerks to some degree.

However, the conversation must progress beyond that neat little dichotomy.

One of the first lesbian friends I had (call her Jill) told me she'd gone gay in order to completely avoid that stereotypic abuse. But I started to hear her talk about how her "life partner" treated her, & it all sounded quite manipulative & controlling. I didn't even know how to point this out to Jill, but she realized it on some level, & would go through amazing convolutions to justify this behavior. Essentially, she was gaslighting herself, in order to avoid questioning the assumption "woman good, man bad." She held firm even after the beatings started.

I knew a couple like that in Cincinnati back in the 90s, when I was in high school. The...victim...in that case, would find partners, male or female, who had a short fuse and a hot temper, and then at some point in the relationship after the NRE cooled, it was like she could absolutely not stop creating these huge dramatic fights that ended up with her being hit. Now, this sounds like victim blaming and kind of it is but mostly in the sense that this gal had issues and I think she needed some kind of therapy to break her own bad relationship patterns. Like the people who abused her, were not all monsters who went around abusing everybody or abused every partner they had. I knew one girlfriend well, and she went on and did have better relationships. But it was a combination of the partners she chose, and her own behavior with them, that ignited a damn powder keg every...single...time.

I mean if you go up to Mr. Roid Rage in a bar and start cussing him out, are you going to be completely immune to "victim blaming" if he punches you? Even though it isn't right to answer words with fists, sometimes you have to be realistic about what's going to happen... So fault or no fault, I'd say the victims choices and behaviors sometimes play a part in the construction of an abusive situation.

Also, I take some offense to a concept I have heard spoken by a number of men now in slightly different words...the whole "men are jerks" or can be or are raised to be sometimes or whatever. Dude there was a guy at a workshop, who swore up, down, left and right, he was a FEMINIST and basically said that men aren't capable of being friends with women, and are only motivated by a desire to fuck them. He had no idea what he had said or done to upset me in that statement either. The whole, "men are jerks, except for me" statement, is bull. First of all, who the hell do you think you are to speak for "men?" Secondly, if all of you say that, how can it be true? Third, it's just a line to sell yourself as better than the other guys, and so yeah it's crap. And fourth, it also excuses bad behavior as being somehow involuntary or natural to the male animal when in fact it is a conscious CHOICE to act like a jerk, and one you don't have to act on, it excuses bad behavior in the name of gender, nature, upbringing...anything, oh anything, but expecting a man to control himself and act right.

So yeah. I don't much care for that.

EDIT: I am not accusing you of anything by pointing ^ that ^ out. But it is an idea that I wanted to share. Frankly I would like to share it with "men" (generally) so that they understand how those sentiments can be taken. So...you just acted as a writing prompt with what you said, that's all.

We are ALL thinking animals and capable of good or bad things. And I have known LOTS of women who not only abuse men, but get a pass on it, because of shitty assumptions about who has more agency and who is a poor little victim. Frankly, emotional abuse is more painful by far than physical, in my opinion, I used to WISH my ex would hit me. It would have been easier. But women are just as guilty as men of emotional and psychological abuse. Easily.
 
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