oldmanofthesea
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2018
- Messages
- 1,597
- Reaction score
- 3,309
- Age
- 48
One of the biggest challenges, really the only challenge I still seem to face in LTRs, is dealing with women blaming me for their emotions. I look back at my blue-pill relationships and I had that issue back then, and I look at my recent relationships now that I am much wiser, and I still have that issue now. While I do have more knowledge, confidence, and tools to deal with the situation, I am still struggling with it.
The basic symptom/situation is: Girlfriend feels anxious, angry, insecure, or some other negative emotion. Then girlfriend claims YOU are the cause of the emotion and then begins a "dialogue" with you about it, with the intention of getting you to do or change something in hopes that will "fix" her emotional issue.
Fake example: After a great weekend together and normal dialogue, everything fine, a conversation begins where she says, "I have been feeling extremely anxious all week. I was crying in the shower today. We need to talk." Then through subsequent discussion, turns out that her claimed source of anxiety is that I was "looking at my phone too much over the course of the weekend" which means that I must not like her.
This is just ONE of potentially countless examples. The bottom line is that, from my experience and observation, she doesn't actually know WHY she is experiencing the emotions - the emotions come first, and the justification/explanation for them is then sought out and she's simply taking stabs in the dark as to what the cause could be without ever really knowing for sure, and because she is closest to her man, she immediately assumes that something he is doing is the cause of her emotions. And this is literally ALL women I have ever dated.
I'm looking for two things here:
1. Input from you on whether you've been in relationships with women who don't blame you for all their negative emotions (I'm trying to understand if the consistent pattern I'm seeing is something specific with me and the kind of women I'm choosing to date long-term or if it's just literally 99% of women)
2. If you've found any way to get them to take responsibility for their emotions and stop blaming you.
As for #2, the best and really only thing I have found that helps is to:
1. Genuinely listen to them talk about their feelings
2. Ask questions so they know you care and are listening/understanding what they are saying (even if you don't agree)
3. Don't try to fix - just listen
4. If her conversation turns to her demanding or asking you to do something you don't want to do and don't think you need to do, then you listen, acknowledge that she wants that, but then explain YOUR feelings on the matter and stand your ground. An example of this might be (and this is a fake example): She is feeling insecure because you are still friends with an ex from 10 years ago on social media, even though you never talk to her any more or comment on her posts etc, yet she demands you block her. You know that this is obviously not the cause of her insecurity because it just doesn't make sense and you know that if you block her, she's just going to make additional demands later because she can't figure out and address the true root-cause of her insecurity and you will forever be taking BS orders from her that won't resolve the situation.
In my experience, the above helps a lot, but it doesn't totally solve it. The issues keep coming up and until she resolves her anxiety/insecurity/anger/whatever issues herself (and you can SUPPORT her of course, but you can't do anything that will fix it for her - like caving to her demands that won't actually help her), it's going to be a constant struggle. Since the end of my blue pill days, my long-term relationships always ultimately end with me nexting the girl over this issue. But the more it happens, the more I wonder if there is some magic tool/technique for helping her recognize and take ownership of her own emotions without blaming you and thinking you changing a bunch of things is going to resolve her emotional problems.
The other gotcha with all this is the "Well what are YOU working on? So you think it's all ME?" argument. I've found this happens when you start having deep discussions with her about her emotions and are able to (kindly) get her to admit and recognize that her emotions are HERS and that only SHE can resolve them, but that you are willing to work with her and help understand her and support her (even if that doesn't always mean doing or changing something about yourself that you don't want to and know won't resolve anything). So she then comes back at you with that whole "well I'm doing all this work and I'm trying to change, so you're saying it's all me and you're perfect? What are YOU going to work on?" I literally have no idea how to even respond to this. I'm a mature, easy-going guy, about to hit 45, have a good social life, good job, have faced my fears, had good success with women since discovering red pill, have spent the last five years focusing on self development and self-improvement reading countless books on these subjects and also relationships, and am not a narcissist or have any other crazy tendencies (that I'm aware of haha). I'm certainly open to whatever changes someone suggests to me but when it's just stupid sh*t like her claiming I was on my phone "too much" when I can go in and look at my screen time report and prove that I was on my phone no longer than she was, or <insert any other obviously bullsh*t demand here>, I see no solution. I'm an easy going guy looking for a moderate level of peace and enjoyment and literally every single issue in the relationship comes about from the woman's constant gripes/demands. I feel like responding with, "What exactly do you want me to work on when you are the one constantly complaining?" But that obviously never works.
The basic symptom/situation is: Girlfriend feels anxious, angry, insecure, or some other negative emotion. Then girlfriend claims YOU are the cause of the emotion and then begins a "dialogue" with you about it, with the intention of getting you to do or change something in hopes that will "fix" her emotional issue.
Fake example: After a great weekend together and normal dialogue, everything fine, a conversation begins where she says, "I have been feeling extremely anxious all week. I was crying in the shower today. We need to talk." Then through subsequent discussion, turns out that her claimed source of anxiety is that I was "looking at my phone too much over the course of the weekend" which means that I must not like her.
This is just ONE of potentially countless examples. The bottom line is that, from my experience and observation, she doesn't actually know WHY she is experiencing the emotions - the emotions come first, and the justification/explanation for them is then sought out and she's simply taking stabs in the dark as to what the cause could be without ever really knowing for sure, and because she is closest to her man, she immediately assumes that something he is doing is the cause of her emotions. And this is literally ALL women I have ever dated.
I'm looking for two things here:
1. Input from you on whether you've been in relationships with women who don't blame you for all their negative emotions (I'm trying to understand if the consistent pattern I'm seeing is something specific with me and the kind of women I'm choosing to date long-term or if it's just literally 99% of women)
2. If you've found any way to get them to take responsibility for their emotions and stop blaming you.
As for #2, the best and really only thing I have found that helps is to:
1. Genuinely listen to them talk about their feelings
2. Ask questions so they know you care and are listening/understanding what they are saying (even if you don't agree)
3. Don't try to fix - just listen
4. If her conversation turns to her demanding or asking you to do something you don't want to do and don't think you need to do, then you listen, acknowledge that she wants that, but then explain YOUR feelings on the matter and stand your ground. An example of this might be (and this is a fake example): She is feeling insecure because you are still friends with an ex from 10 years ago on social media, even though you never talk to her any more or comment on her posts etc, yet she demands you block her. You know that this is obviously not the cause of her insecurity because it just doesn't make sense and you know that if you block her, she's just going to make additional demands later because she can't figure out and address the true root-cause of her insecurity and you will forever be taking BS orders from her that won't resolve the situation.
In my experience, the above helps a lot, but it doesn't totally solve it. The issues keep coming up and until she resolves her anxiety/insecurity/anger/whatever issues herself (and you can SUPPORT her of course, but you can't do anything that will fix it for her - like caving to her demands that won't actually help her), it's going to be a constant struggle. Since the end of my blue pill days, my long-term relationships always ultimately end with me nexting the girl over this issue. But the more it happens, the more I wonder if there is some magic tool/technique for helping her recognize and take ownership of her own emotions without blaming you and thinking you changing a bunch of things is going to resolve her emotional problems.
The other gotcha with all this is the "Well what are YOU working on? So you think it's all ME?" argument. I've found this happens when you start having deep discussions with her about her emotions and are able to (kindly) get her to admit and recognize that her emotions are HERS and that only SHE can resolve them, but that you are willing to work with her and help understand her and support her (even if that doesn't always mean doing or changing something about yourself that you don't want to and know won't resolve anything). So she then comes back at you with that whole "well I'm doing all this work and I'm trying to change, so you're saying it's all me and you're perfect? What are YOU going to work on?" I literally have no idea how to even respond to this. I'm a mature, easy-going guy, about to hit 45, have a good social life, good job, have faced my fears, had good success with women since discovering red pill, have spent the last five years focusing on self development and self-improvement reading countless books on these subjects and also relationships, and am not a narcissist or have any other crazy tendencies (that I'm aware of haha). I'm certainly open to whatever changes someone suggests to me but when it's just stupid sh*t like her claiming I was on my phone "too much" when I can go in and look at my screen time report and prove that I was on my phone no longer than she was, or <insert any other obviously bullsh*t demand here>, I see no solution. I'm an easy going guy looking for a moderate level of peace and enjoyment and literally every single issue in the relationship comes about from the woman's constant gripes/demands. I feel like responding with, "What exactly do you want me to work on when you are the one constantly complaining?" But that obviously never works.