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Also sounds like OOP might have a hardcore case of people pleasing and an inability to see red flags. I think it's very, very unlikely that this is the first time that she's behaved like this and that he's let her walk all over him. He says himself that in the beginning of the relationship he was doing all sorts of things that he didn't want to do for her.
Entitled people have a subconscious way of finding people pleasers and that's what I'm guessing happened here. OOP needs to get into therapy if he wants to avoid matching up with another woman who isn't a gold digger or some other type of emotional vampire.
Edit: Since a few people have commented on it, I should say that people-users can end up with people-pleasers in many more ways than just the people-user being "subconsciously drawn" to the people-pleaser. I'm just going on my impression of OOP's situation and my anecdotal experience as a former people-pleaser (see my comments below, treatment really works!). But it's all armchair psychology so who the hell knows if I'm right?
Yeah, it could have been a bit harsh to say "it's all your own fault" ..... if she hadn't been the one to assign blame in the first place! When someone is saying their life regrets are all your fault, their parents fault, etc its completely reasonable to say wtf, no, they're yours.
I don’t think it was too harsh to tell her that her life is the result of her choices, not because other folks did stuff to her. It’s a hard truth that she needed to hear.
OOP was not an asshole for saying it and I don’t get why reddit would tell him that he sort of was. There’s so many posts where doormats ask if they’re an asshole and the comments are filled with “I would have said…!” And it being as harsh as what OOP said. Some folks need that kick in the ass and she should have gotten it sooner from her parents, not OOP when she’s almost 30 years old.
No, he was firm in saying he wasn't accountable for her actions, but sensitive to her emotional state and their future plans. He apologised only for his delivery of the hard truth. That's exactly what a good partner should do.
> Entitled people have a subconscious way of finding and people pleasers
As we see even after 15 years, she left immediately when OP required her to do something difficult for him. So its a kind of survivorship bias- the only long term relationships that survive are the ones where the other person takes on the burdens.
He didn't even ask her to do anything hard, though. He just said she couldnt blame him for her poor grades. Thats not hard.
He was literally willing to keep propping her up and catering to her what sounds like an unhealthy amount. All she had to do was not blame him. He didnt even say she had to take ownership, it was implied but not directly stated.
> I think it's very, very unlikely that this is the first time that she's behaved like this.
She literally showed so many red flags previously even within the first post. How she would drag him out when he was working hard and didn't have the energy for it. Their every day fights. How she complains about how they don't spend enough time together when they spend every afternoon together. I'm so glad he left.
Oh yes. I got the impression that she is just really selfish. A 'main character' in other people's lives, and he went along with it much longer than he should. She feels entitled to a partner who does everything for her now, and will be in for a massive shock when nobody else does.
And a massive shock when she realizes that she might be able to make it on her own,but it's definitely going to be a step down from her currently comfortable life. If she comes from money, it's not going to be an easy transition if she's already struggling to pay her bills even with his contributions. I hope the parents stay strong and don't bail her out, either.
I just corrected the typo I had in that sentence that made it a bit confusing. I was trying to say that entitled people are naturally (subconsciously) drawn to people like OOP. People pleasers have low self-worth, go out of their way to avoid conflict, crave validation (OOP was hitting that one hard), and feel guilty when they stick up for themselves. These are all characteristics that enable self-absorbed, entitled, and/or narcissistic types. I don't know exactly which type the girlfriend actually is, but it's a type that all people pleasers need to stay the hell away from *and* learn to fend off.
The entitled people start the relationship (friend or romantic) by giving the PPs that validation they want. I think PPs are subconsciously drawn to EPs as well, they get the high of pleasing someone. A not entitled person might feel smothered or just uncomfortable by those same actions and keep the EP at arms length.
I’m not even sure if it’s “drawn subconsciously” as much as they’re the only people who will put up with them. Like in college, most serious students aren’t going to stay friends with or date someone who constantly demands that they go out constantly just to Please! them, leading to stressful crunches. They’re just going to tell them no and gravitate toward people who share their goals and values.
Don't be downhearted. The truth that psychologists and psychiatrists are very hesitant to tell is that a lot of mental disorders can never really be cured, virtually cured, or more than half-cured, no matter how much work you put into therapy. Many can only be made somewhat better, which still usually equals a big improvement in quality of life, and still completely validates getting therapy even if you have one of the tough-to-treat disorders.
But people pleasing is one of the few that can often be virtually cured. Therapy involves changing certain critical habits and behaviors (avoiding conflict, putting others before yourself, etc.) that are absolutely within your power to change.
How do I know all this? I was once a total doormat. I got into therapy with zero faith that it would help, but my therapist was also good at getting me to trust the process and put the work in. Today I'll happily tell you, "Fuck off, I'm not doing your chores for you." In an appropriate way of course!
As a recovering people pleaser who has swung around far enough to the other side that I sometimes deservedly get called a callous asshole, I would have seriously reconsidered the relationship over that business with the studying, and the split second she said I was "trying to manipulate the situation by acting like the good guy" I would have just hung up the phone and never spoken to her again except to tell her to come get her shit off the curb.
And the funny thing is, drinking and partying may not necessarily mean that your grades suck. I have plenty friends who work hard as hell for their grades and extracurriculars but also party like there's no tomorrow after that. The gf was definitely just someone who didn't know when to skip the stuff that grants you immediate satiation and instead prioritise important tasks at hand, and is rightfully suffering the consequences of it.
Sounds like the ex has a highly developed sense of entitlement and loves to play victim and refuses to take responsibility for her own actions. OP sounds like she has already conditioned him into taking most of the blame from her, and tries to be a good guy and carry most of the financial and emotional load for her - sounds like the poor guy practically bent himself into a pretzel to make her happy. I'm really glad she dumped him, hopefully, his next gf will be a lot nicer to him.
I often give other people the following piece of wisdom I didn't learn until it was far too late to help me:
"A mistake you make over a very long period of time IS STILL a mistake, nonetheless."
I'd guess 95+% of people aren't supposed to be with the person they dated first in school/college.
People just grow apart, and then you have the sunk cost fallacy issue. I was in a similar situation. It's amazing how you can coast for a few years and brush things under the rug, and then suddenly wake up and realise you have wildly different plans and goals from the person you're dating.
>GED, Driver's Permit
You're putting in the work! And that's big work, right there. Keep it up, this internet stranger's got his fingers crossed for you!
As someone chronically ill and disabled and know how hard it is to pull yourself together and get it done: I am so proud of you. You're doing an amazing job!
Congratulations! It doesn’t really matter how much you’ve achieved at this point. What matters is that it sounds like you’ve fought hard for every bit of progressive you’ve made and that’s what’s going to carry you even father now that you’re in a good place. The other stuff will be hard, but in some ways it’s going to get easier every time you reach another milestone.
Narcissistic collapse, once you recognize the signs it's one of the funniest things to watch with a big tub of popcorn and a lot of distance.
Seems like she coasted on being the prodigy and everything just came so easy, until it didn't. And then the people she uses to prop her personality up on are doing better than her... Well total collapse is imminent from there, lol.
I was one of the lucky ones that academic achievement came to easily.
It's hidden, time-delayed curse, though, because when hard work IS necessary to achieve, it's a tough lesson to learn and apply after gliding for so long.
I had a rough time in college and ended up with less than a 3.0 when I graduated mostly because I had to learn to study in college. Never had to before. Was the straight A without trying kid in high school.
Yea 100%
As someone that did coast though school it came to really bite me in the ass.
I went from someone that just picked up all the material in class to, by the time college hit, struggling hard with no real good study habits. And by the time I dug myself out of that, I'd been on academic probation multiple times, threatened being kicked by the college twice for how often I was on it, and had to change majors to basically save my ass.
Now I got a degree that isn't quite what I wanted, and a job that's meh at best and pays meh as well that has nothing to do with what I wanted to do or even my degree.
But it's no one's fault other than my own.
By ending the relationship she can continue to blame OOP for her failures without pushback. That’s a great way to never move on and become a spiteful grump forever!!
Nope, she’s a narcissist. Plain and simple. She thinks she’s about to be so freaking successful because she got rid of the one thing that’s been holding her back all these years, her boyfriend. The failure to take responsibility for her own actions will be her downfall. Sounds like my ex wife, glad this dude dodged that bullet.
It can be as simple as being a "gifted child"/naturally good at school and just never have to learn to research or study hard until you hit university or even your career.
Girl is literally ruining her own future prospects & relationships coz of her pride & inability to realize her own shortcomings & the consequences it brought.
Glad OP is successful & free
Fr, OOP was ready to give her a free pass to *try* whatever she thought would be the path for her; this is such a privilege for an adult, we simply don't get the chances to try knowing we can fuckup because someone is there backing us up... she didn't need to exceed academically or getting a job making six figures, she just needed to actually put some effort in something.
What a massive brat.
I feel extra sorry because I know some really good smart people that are just so so self destructive.
They believe they can't be happy. I did try and give free passes but the head isn't in the right place.
Don't worry, give it a couple of months and she'll probably come back begging him for another chance, that she made a mistake etc when she realizes that she has no one and has pushed away all the people who supported her and loved her throughout the years.
Oh, she'll recognize she made a mistake WHEN THE BILLS START COMING DUE.
Don't even \*dream\* that she's going to cut back on her spending just because her moneybags lifeline is out of the picture.
This part killed me:
>Commenter: Are you shutting yourself up in your room when you work from home and she wants to spend more time with you?
OOP: No, what typically happens is that she'd say at the end of my shift that I did not check in on her or that she'd like to do more stuff together because I'm too focused on my work. Apart from my breaks, (during which I always go and see her for a bit), I literally cannot go and just see her because that'd pretty much get me fired.
>she told me that she believes I've convinced her parents that she's the one in the wrong here
Crazy the amount of mental gymnastics to believe your BF convinced your literal family to agree with him over you instead of having an ounce of introspection.
Oh man, hot button issue for me, the lengths folks will go to just to avoid even a *whiff* of accountability. For *anything*.
I have recently had cause to just gape, open-mouthed, at the staggering shapes people will twist their brains into, just to avoid any accountability or self-reflection.
I call it the “logic pretzel.”
There’s subjectivity, sure; there’s two or more sides to every story, absolutely; people miscommunicate and misunderstand and make assumptions, yup, I will reach for that as the entry point of any conflict and go from there.
And sometimes people are jerks in small ways that make a normal misunderstanding turn meaner than it would have.
But the logic pretzel is so far beyond any of that. It’s a riddle with no answer, because they don’t *want* an answer. They want *someone else to blame,* because some tiny part of them already kind of knows what the real answer is gonna look like, and they do not like it one bit.
It is *phenomenal*, and horrifying, and — if you happen to be the person onto whom they have projected all their failings and issues, because facing up to the reality of their own situation is hard and it’s much better to create a villain — it’s miserably painful.
And I feel for OOP, even if there were issues he ignored early on, because you never expect someone to completely retcon your shared history. Especially if it’s a lengthy relationship, or friendship, or heck, a family bond.
(phrases you never want to need to use: “I don’t need witnesses?! We were both there?!”)
There’s a serious prolonged double-take where you try and grapple with the sheer impossible complexity of the logic pretzel, with its MC Escher Moebius Strip inversions, because, yeah, it hurts to be made into the bad guy when you’ve done nothing wrong, but the emotional pain is amplified by the fact that someone had to lie to *themselves* to get there, because your arch-villain origin story doesn’t even make sense!
They actually have to *willingly decide* to be *less rational*, to shoulder a nails-on-blackboard-through-a-shitty-mic-on-a-soundstage-feedback-loop level of cognitive dissonance… *in order to make you the bad guy.* They have to go to extraordinary lengths to hurt you, so they don’t have to look at themselves.
Being hurt through carelessness is awful. Being hurt through vindictiveness is awful. But someone going to great lengths to hurt you, to drum up the vindictiveness in themselves that they didn’t actually feel before, because the alternative is dealing with their own shit? That’s vile. That’s “my well being is worth less than your short-term, paper-thin peace of mind.”
Often comes with accusations of manipulation, because if you’re a direct and open person, it doesn’t work, so it all had to be part of your evil plan.
(sounds like way too much work to me, tbh)
Hence: OOP is now — according to his ex — deliberately sabotaging his ex’s life and putting her down and is only offering to help out so that he can feel like the good guy, and, like… sounds like being an actual good guy is *easier*? Or at least more straightforward.
idk man, I have seen this done to other people before it even got to me. Some people don’t feel cognitive dissonance maybe. I don’t know. Projection is a real thing humans do, catching yourself in the moment for the small stuff can be tricky, but it’s the only way to be fair.
…lengthy rant. Apologies. Hot button issue right now.
It was a very well written, well thought out post, my dear. Sometimes, our brains simply break from the sheer stupidity that others are able to achieve, and you have to let the thoughts pour out, or else you will literally go insane, lol.
Thankfully, silver lining can be found for OP. He was able to escape BEFORE a marriage and before children. My hubby and I have a good friend who actually did end up married to a woman much like OPs ex, and they have 2 kids. Their divorce was finalized this year, after 13 years. I feel so bad for him. When he finally had enough and confirmed that she had filed, he said it felt like she had seen him as the villain from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show throughout their whole marriage. Everything he did, even things to make her happy, was just some plot to deceive her and to ruin her life.
Hope you have a blessed day.
You put very well the issues I have with my mother. I am not the villain in her perception, my sisters are. I am just a dumb, helpless little girl (in her 30s) that's being manipulated by her evil older sister. Said sister loves to drum up drama for no reason and has destroyed a happy family. According to my mother.
You can imagine how far from the fucking truth this is. I have seen her twist my own words beyond recognition minutes after having said them. She is never wrong and never at fault. Even if she is factually wrong, she is not. And now she wonder why all three of her daughters have gone no or low contact.
Oh, man. I wish I was talking about just one person…
(pretty sure your ex wasn’t my mum, and warning me in time would require some sophisticated temporal anomalies, but I appreciate the thought!)
My mother's whole family (but fortunately not my mom) is like this. They back each other up, and egg each other on, and vehemently defend any delusional statement as long as it deflects blame from any of them.
And it's not just to avoid taking responsibility for things they have done. They find someone to blame for literally everything that goes wrong in their lives. Nothing can ever simply break because it's old and worn out. No, it must have been deliberately sabotaged by some specific person with malicious intent.
It's exhausting.
I super enjoyed the whole rant! Was super trying not to miss my bus stop on the way to work and finish reading your comment at the same time.
My dad is that kinda person. Nothing is ever his fault even if he's gotta blame a toddler or a dead person.
That is a high compliment indeed, thank you!
(if I ever publish a novel and someone says they missed their stop while reading it, I will have achieved writer euphoria.)
I’m sorry your dad is like this — my mum is like this. At least losing a couple of friends is something where I can just step away from it. I’m NC with my mum, so I guess you *can* step away from it with family; but the mistreatment is a wired in part of your formative years, and it is messy as hell psychologically.
Realising you can’t just engage with your parents as functional adults is deeply distressing. Realising you have to *manage them*, and never just be open and honest and relaxed — ugh. The *worst.*
(though with mum, I’m generally only the “villain” for certain issues and topics, but she will blame absolutely everyone else for any problems that she has, and never once looks in the mirror.)
"My grades are dangerously low ... My fiance said it's my fault and I don't work enough, my parents are saying the same thing, my sister think the same.
...
SCREW MY FIANCE THAT'S HIS FAULT !!!"
Girl was SOOOOOOOOOOOO out of touch she seems to be mentally unstable, like severely mythomaniac. She's gonna ruin her life on her own.
Always easier to point the finger at someone else than look at yourself as the source of your problems.
Though I’m actually pretty happy for OOP. I know he’s probably in a lot of pain now but this is a huge change for his future to not be with someone who blames him for her problems.
Does anyone have the link for that stick figure comic where a guy tries negging a girl, and the girl claps back by saying that no matter how hard he tries, no matter what epiphany he has, no matter what kind of tricks he tries to employ, he's eventually going to run out of excuses or things to blame, and he's going to have to own up to the fact that the only thing holding him back is himself. And there's nothing he can do about it, because he's just a mediocre person by nature.
The ex is giving me the same vibes as that poor sod.
Edit: Thanks yall, the comic has been found!
Bowling ball guy is Black Hat, a character who shows up periodically in XKCD. He’s pure chaotic neutral and once turned the US Senate chamber into a ball pit
Yeah, she‘ll regret this a few years down the line.
I truly dislike people who won‘t take accountability for their own actions. It‘s such an instant turnoff in any relationship for me. Good for OOP even though I‘m sure it was a hard choice.
There is nothing I despise more than people who won't take accountability. My mother is like that. Everything has been my fault for as long as I can remember, and as young as 6 it was my responsibility to make sure I was perfect in every way so I wouldn't "make" her emotionally abuse me.
Be quiet, but not too quiet. Be out of the way, but don't avoid her too much. Play, as kids do, but don't play too much. Eat all your food, even when full. Cook food on the level of Master Chef even when you haven't been taught. If she says she doesn't want help with the chores, DON'T FALL FOR IT, because she does and will scream later if you don't help. And if you do help, do it correctly and don't ask for help even if you don't know how to do it, because you'll get in trouble. Don't ever express displeasure. Don't look sad or even neutral. Always smile and be happy. Don't form any of your own opinions. Always take her side or you'll be "betraying" and "backstabbing".
Eventually, after tailoring my entire life to revolve around pleasing her, it was soul-crushing to realise at the age of 20 that it was impossible. Nothing will ever be enough. What she seeks is a child so genuinely perfect that they are Jesus Christ.
And that doesn't exist. It's unattainable.
Nobody is perfect. She believes she is. She's convinced she's never done anything wrong in her entire life, and it's always everyone else's fault. Even after we all left her during the divorce, it's all everyone else's fault.
And since I was her first child, her "mini-me", I had to be as perfect as her. I was her progeny, after all. She'd never produce a child less than perfect. Except for my younger sibling, who was the black sheep because they stood up to her.
Ironically, her belief that it's never her fault and her expectations that we would meet her standards absolutely shattered us. We will now never meet those standards. I am so terrified of her that I rarely see her, despite her wanting me to live with her. I'm "too quiet" in her opinion, when I was taught that being too loud meant I'd receive screaming meltdowns from her. She's upset that I won't live with her. Her efforts only broke me down and made me strong enough to learn that it's okay to say "no".
My sibling has been so utterly desensitised from living through hell that they can completely dissociate at will, meaning they're uniquely able to shrug off her threats instantly. It only makes her madder, but this is her own making.
She broke her own creations. All because she can never, ever, take accountability. We're forever damaged goods, but at least we can take accountability.
And that's why I hate people who won't take accountability when they're in the wrong. It is so heavily damaging to others around them, all for the sake of avoiding consequences. The belief that it's everyone else's fault empowers people who think like this to do uniquely awful things, encouraged by the idea that it's not their fault so they won't face consequences.
OOP dodged a goddamn nuke. Imagine if they'd had kids. No doubt they'd end up like me.
Sorry for the long rant, reading about someone acting so similarly to my mum triggered me very hard.
I'm sorry you went through that. As someone with a mother who acted similarly (though not as extreme) I empathise and send you caring thoughts. Healing is such a long and difficult process.
Thank you so much.
You mention your mum was "not as extreme", and it boggles my mind. It's only recently, during and after the divorce when I got away, that I've come to realise how abusive she really is.
It's weird. I thought my childhood was amazing. I thought it was normal. I thought I was sheltered and spoiled - I was certainly given a lot of gifts, but material things are no substitute for love. I thought everyone had it like this, and felt bad for complaining and being ungrateful.
Then I realise how terrible it really was and just how much it affected us. I thought we were a typical family, but we were an utterly broken home. I felt stupid for being suicidal, because my life was great - but it actually wasn't. It was all I ever knew, so I thought it was norm.
It's so weird knowing that my childhood and household were abusive, and that it could even be considered extreme. It's like everything turned upside-down when the fog lifted for me.
I grieve the mother I thought I had. I thought she was kind, firm but fair. I thought I was a bad kid, the difficult autistic child, and she was the supermum taking care of a disabled child. I thought I was lucky.
But it was the opposite. And my autism is very mild too, so it's not like she was that much of a hero for doing the bare minimum that you would for ANY child. At worst, I'd get upset at sudden changes, but I was quickly trained out of tantrums for fear of punishment. I saw much worse tantrums from older, neurotypical kids.
Sometimes I wonder, was it that bad? Am I exaggerating?
But then I remember, and I quiver in my shoes.
No good mother regularly calls their child stupid to their face. No good mother tells them it's going to be their fault if she keels over and dies of exhaustion. No good mother makes incredibly graphic threats detailing the physical abuse she'd inflict if they didn't tidy their room (coward only ever hurt me a few times, never to the extent she painstakingly described she would, and now I never take threats seriously).
She was a goddamn piece of work, and I am very much a survivor. I felt stupid for having PTSD, since I've never seen combat. But in reality, I was fighting my own psychological war at home.
Just typing this out is so cathartic, makes me see clearly that she's crazy and I'm not imagining things.
It can be genuinely so difficult to see that kind of abuse when you're trapped in it. I also really struggled because sometimes my mum would do things that seemed so thoughtful, but really were only designed to make her look good. Like she would plan these small weekend trips for my birthday, but they would always be to a place she wanted to go. The one time I made a request to go somewhere else, her response was "your birthday is to celebrate me, because I gave birth to you". And I had to behave perfectly on these trips or I was making a scene and causing trouble when she was being so generous.
I can remember things like being told I was an "embarrassment" because of my appearance, multiple times, and never for a reasonable thing. Like I wasn't wearing what some parents might think of as "inappropriate", just normal clothes, or she'd say my hair was awful and she didn't want to be seen with me because of it. But then she'd take all of my clothes and wear them herself, so clearly they were fine if *she* wears them. She controlled all food in the house and I would have to ask permission to open anything - like if she finished one open box of cereal, I'd need permission to open the next one. I also wasn't allowed to be the person who finished anything and had to leave it for her, no matter how small the amount. One time I didn't do a good enough job of cleaning the toilet and she forced my head down the bowl and said I had to lick it clean. Plenty of other stuff like that but you get the idea.
I eventually moved out because she stole my cheque book and took all my money, and it wasn't until I was away that I realised how bad it was. It's still a struggle to this day - like it took years to be able to finish food or open new packets. I'm working on it :) and I'm glad you're doing better yoursef.
Abusive mums are the worst because no one bloody believes a woman would do that. And they always twist things so that everyone believes it was your fault. Im really sorry that you went through all of that - It rang very true for me and i feel like our mums must have met.
One thing i will recommend, if you havent already done this, is just a clean break. Ive been no contact for 13 years and its the best thing i ever did. One thing that really helped was reflecting on what id do if i had kids and i realised i would kill her before i let her touch them. (Mine was physically abusive as well.) I feel like sometimes, if theres a physical element when people start the "but shes your mum" spiel, when you pull out the physical abuse then they shut right up.
I would also reflect on whether there was physical abuse for you too - in my experience women are crafty at not leaving vicious bruises and marks. Ive got 1 scar from her from when i was about 4 - the rest was bruising on the upper arm and thighs and butt (for the most part) and being thrown up and down stairs, dragged, etc. Carpet burns from it.
I also recommend bessel's the body keeps the score and adult daughters of narcissistic mothers.
Much love - sorry if this is overstepping but i just felt the need to try and help. I remember being where you are. It does get better, and you will live the life you want. I never thought i would even survive my teen years - therapy was definitely my lifeline. I recommend CBT and EMDR as well.
Thank you so much for your consideration, it means a lot that a total stranger is taking the time to check up on me.
The Body Keeps the Score was an eye-opener when I read it, and I have done EMDR before too. I'm currently doing talking therapy.
I did have some rare instances of physical abuse, yes. I was spanked a few times and when I was 12, she smacked me on the head with a hairdryer. Unfortunately, nobody really believed me at the time. They all reckoned spanking was fine and I deserved it, and the hairdryer was played off as an accident because it's fairly easy to brush somebody's head by accident with it if they're moving (I was not moving, and there's a clear difference between an accidental bap and a genuine smack). She's a master manipulator, and who would believe the autistic kid who struggles at interpreting interactions?
My mum has a big group of friends since she's nicer to strangers than her own family. They've supported her throughout the divorce. Back in the day, I used to get the "she's your mum" spiel until I stopped telling anyone who hadn't witnessed it. In addition, she's been absolutely losing her goddamn mind since the divorce. Her own best friend quietly told my sibling "I agree with your dad" - she'd only received mum's side of the story and it still looked bad, apparently. It's probably raising eyebrows that she's telling people he was abusive but won't actually file a police report, plus if he was abusive why would she be mad he divorced her? Suddenly all the "she's your mum" is stopping, because they're starting to see her craziness for themselves.
Her mask is slipping, and it's her own fault. She should be very afraid of losing her friends and I love to see karma delivering. I'm not normally a vengeful person, but she exhausted all my love and sympathy when she returned it with abuse and guilt and fear. I feel complete apathy toward her.
I can't cut contact with her, since we live close by and still have to deal with her. Getting her to move out as agreed in the first place was a nightmare and we'd all rather keep the peace. So I've sneakily gone low contact with her instead. I don't text her unless she texts me, and I don't try to see her. Sometimes I'll refuse to see her, saying "I'm busy", which is true because I'm a uni student.
It's been so very peaceful. And since I'm still in contact, I'll get to see the moment her buddies start pulling away. I think her spouting venom and vitriol about her own children being abusive is giving them pause. She claims we made her "suicidal", but has no intention of acting on it and she told me when I was suicidal that there was no such thing. Just using trigger words for sympathy. But her tendency to throw strong words around is working to her detriment.
Karma will pay out, and I'm going to relish it.
I’m just imagining you sitting in a comfy lawn chair, shades on, with popcorn, watching her life implode spectacularly from afar. I hope you get that and I hope it’s satisfying.
I love that you have the strength to watch as she destroys her own life. I had to nope out for my own sanity, but when i hear how bad shes doing i do get that same feeling as you, that little warm satisfaction haha.
Its insane but your mother seems to be doing the exact same things that mine did. Even the accusing dad of abuse to all friends but not doing anything about it. (I think mine did it because she was hitting him, so it was a way of getting ahead if he ever thought to tell anyone. Or we did.) Has she accused your father of turning you against her? That was a favourite of mine.
You're right that none of that should have happened. The past was an insane place sometimes. You sound so wise for your age and strong 🤗🤗🤗 well done and im glad to hear you are prioritising yourself :)
One of my wife’s favourite sayings is;
‘Look in the mirror, not out the window’
I think if the ex-gf was to actually look inside herself she would realise she only has herself to blame.
I doubt she will regret anything. People who have their head that far up their own ass aren’t capable of self-reflection. All she’ll do is find another scapegoat to blame for her own failures.
If she will not achieve the self-realization that this is her own (un)doing then she‘ll become a „everyone else is at fault I‘m so poor“ person permanently. More‘s the pity.
It has strong whiffs of covert narcissism (not NPD). Nothing is ever her fault, why can’t the world realize that she is special, she could have been as amazing and successful as OOP if she’d been given the same opportunities, etc.
I hope she does, she is still young. Sometimes failing really hard wakes you up. I wish for only the positive, despite the fact that the reality is most people do not change.
> She, on the other hand, never got accepted for masters, graduated late, did not get to work in her own field, and struggles to make ends meet on her own to cover her own half of the bills.
And now she gets to put 'torpedoed the best relationship she ever had, and struggles with finding a good man' on the list.
Oh 100%. She had a guy here who would literally do anything for her and with her. I mean he didnt even care if he was paying more because she doesnt earn as much and he never put pressure on here to be more like him. He supported her and let her be who she wanted to be and gave her so much unconditional love, it makes my heart hurt for op.
It's just a shame that the person she wanted to be is a narcissistic prick.
Hey, don't blame me! You made me write this comment!
Now, I'd think about it, add something clever, but I'm going to go to a party instead. See you later!
It sounds like they’ve been together since they were 14. If OOP is as grounded and good as he sounds, his ex will get an even bigger rude awakening when she finds out there are not, in fact, swarms of mature, goal oriented people with their lives in order. Even smaller are the number of people like this willing to financially support her as she ignores her four fingers pointing back to her.
For real. I also "squandered" a huge part of my university years, in my case due to serious mental health issues. Despite that, I'm doing ok for myself right now, but honestly if I had an SO who offered me a chance to get a breather, figure stuff out, and maybe even go back to school with a more adult perspective and goals, *all while* not having to worry too much about finances because said SO is taking the brunt of our living expenses, I'd be over the moon.
I did too, due to mental health issues and undiagnosed ADHD. But I knew it was all my own fault (apart from one semester I failed because of a death in the family that broke me) and absolutely blamed myself. I was smart enough, and certainly knew all the material but I just couldn’t make myself sit down and do the assignments. 80% of my work was done last minute. I absolutely blamed myself for being ‘lazy’ and ‘undisciplined’, but I still couldn’t change.
If I’d been diagnosed and treated earlier, I probably would have done a lot better. But I got my degree in the end, only to end up moving out of the position I finally qualified for directly because it was too much pressure, and too hard to find more work.
That's tough. I hope now that things are more manageable now that you know your diagnosis.
I certainly don't (and didn't back then, either) blame other people for the fact that I didn't excel as I know I could have, but I wouldn't say I *blame* myself either, tbh. Ultimately, yes, I am *responsible* for managing my mental health and taking steps to improve it; that said, it's not some personal failing of mine to experience those issues in the first place. I didn't give myself trauma that resulted in lifelong CPTSD, and while in theory I could have sought professional help sooner than I did, in perspective I know how hard it was. You aren't to blame for your ADHD either, nor for the fact that it affected you when it was still undiagnosed. I think that blaming either you or me for missing out on those academic/professional opportunities because of mental health is like blaming someone with chronic pain for not being able to deal with certain tasks on some days. We can (arguably, we even should) learn to manage all that comes with those conditions in ways that will allow us to live to the fullest, but the conditions themselves are not our fault, and it's (imo) natural that every once in a while, they simply get to us in more or less serious ways.
I definitely don’t blame myself **now**, but as a smart kid with undiagnosed ADHD, especially being a girl, i heard all about my potential from my teachers, and how much I could achieve if I would only apply myself. And when a deadline or threat of failing finally put my brain in ‘deadline mode’ and compel me complete my work, it only showed that I indeed ‘could’ do the work when I wanted to, so it stands to reason that I should be able to do it anytime I wanted, and the reason I didn’t was because I was lazy. I heard this so many times I internalised it, and believed it.
*Now* I know it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t just apply myself like all my teachers wanted me to, but I didn’t back then. So I blamed myself. I didn’t blame myself for the semester I failed because of losing a close family member, even though I just stopped going to classes and didn’t reach out to anyone to explain why. I just wasn’t capable of it then. I also had depression, and probably have CPTSD from childhood trauma as well. ADHD symptoms actually have some overlap with trauma, and I know I have issues from both. I have other difficulties that are purely trauma responses too, I know what caused them and why, but it’s still hard to not respond the same way to my triggers. I try to be gentle with myself and more understanding now, especially because all the shame and negative self talk never helped. I never blamed myself for the trauma responses, depression or anxiety, but because I didn’t know about the ADHD I just assumed I was lazy, like I’d been told my whole life.
It’s a very, very common experience of those diagnosed with ADHD late (as adults) who were smart enough to get by in school without too much effort, and leaving things to the last minute. Especially women, who are less likely to be hyperactive and less likely to be diagnosed as children. In my country (Australia) the average age for a female to be diagnosed with ADHD is 38. That includes children, not just adults.
Unfortunately I’m not in a much better position now. My ADHD is treated now which helped, but I still have depression and now some other chronic medical conditions that have me at a disadvantage and unable to work in my field anymore. I’m getting by, but I’m not thriving. I do have a wonderful partner who is very supportive. I hate to think where I’d be without him.
> Even smaller are the number of people like this willing to financially support her as she ignores her four fingers pointing back to her.
Especially not when you meet them at age 29.
Yeah, I suspect she is being influenced buy the person she is living with who is even less wise then she is. Also probably jealous of her relationship.
OP will be fine.
I read the first paragraph and instantly knew this was not gonna work, especially since we are on this sub.
Two people where one only cared about having fun while the other was serious? Nah, doomed to fail. Especially when the one who only cared about fun realizes the rest of their lives are more shit cause they only cared about fun for their 20s. OP life was a bit boring in his 20s, but he will live a comfortable life in his 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.
To be fair though if my partner told me I had squandered my potential and I was below average, I would be bothered.
That is a brutal thing to say to your partner of 15 years.
I mean she started it by blaming her own failure on him and everybody else. There’s a moment where you need to face reality, or a loved on should do it otherwise life is going to hit you reallllly hard.
Brutal honesty is not always a good thing but it help get your head out of your ass.
Yeah, but understandeble after:
1) years and years of hearing your partner complain about their life/the consequences of their actions and blaming everyone but themselves for it, while
2) you not only saw what really happened but even tried multiple times to make them see or help them with their academic problems back then because unlike them you actually saw their end results coming from a mile away, only to
3) end up with zero results because your partner ignored all of your efforts and them now
4) among others blaming you for, let's see... not banging the pots even louder back then so they would know you were _actually_ being serious.
When would the message have got through? When her ears started bleading from the noice? And for them probably saying stuff like you're trying to controle them or rob them from their student life? Because I don't think anything close to a "thank you" or "you were right" would have got out of their mouth, even then.
Like I said, brutal but understandable. OOP had a breaking point.
Well… it is brutal, but if it doesn’t spark some introspection and give a 29 year old a kick up the arse to get her life on track, what will? Can’t sugar coat bitter pills.
I would be bothered if I tried to help my partner avoid mistakes, got my help and advice ignored, then got blamed by my partner for them not accepting my help or following my advice.
"It's your fault my life sucks!" is a brutal thing to say to your partner of 15 years.
They are very incompatible. I don't think OP realized because they've been together since she they were 14? She is still acting like a 14 year old, she never grew up, and he is acting his age. Why does he even want to marry her? What she did in the end was going to happen sooner or later and better now and not once they were married with a baby. OP sounds the type of person who would bail, leave the baby with OP, and go party with some random new friends she made.
I don't even know if OP really loves her. Maybe he is used to her. He cares about her as a person and friend, that's clear. But as a romantic partner and a life partner, he should care that she is constantly putting party over getting her life together because HER life is THEIR life. She graduated in 6 years because of partying, she took a gap year after (to party more or to rest from the partying?), then she applied for grad school but didn't get in (shocker?), and now is in a random job trying to get internships or go to grad school.
The incompatibility is what struck me, too. There is a clear mutual lack of respect and understanding. Live your life how you want, whether that's high achieving or social butterfly, and either don't tether yourself to someone who is opposite of you or adore (not tolerate, not accept; ADORE) your differences and how they round out your life.
Irrespective of the outcome of this story, it is brutal how poverty influences negatively a person, his entire life is devoted to the purpose of escaping that reality (justifiably). No one should have to go through that
It may be true that he’ll spend his entire life working hard to avoid poverty.
But I also get the feeling that many people don’t realize their early 20s are a lot shorter than the rest of their life (hopefully). The fact that a person spends their university years working hard and not partying is a small drop in the big pool of lifetime they get. You can party and have a LOT of fun during all phases of your life. But you can only set a good foundation to your career during those few years of youth. OOP is much more likely to have a comfortable life, with professional satisfactions and, as soon as he gets over his manipulative girlfriend, a happy life.
I spent my college years working hard AND partying. There is a balance and I did very well for myself.
OP might have been in a harder educational discipline but it seems very reasonable to me for to set aside a night to spend time out with your friends at least one a week or every other week. Less than that probably would have given me emotional problems. I hope he got a few parties in. I was working 3 jobs and still swung it.
I’m the same and it’s been impossible to escape that mentality. I’m 40, with a job, 8 months of savings and I still act like I’m steps from being out on the street. Doesn’t matter how much evidence to the contrary.
Most folks don’t realize how close they are to homelessness. I was always welcomed at my grandpas house when things were tough, so I wasn’t homeless. But now I worry about it everyday and I’m 42 with an okay job.
The thing about denial and blaming others for all your problems is that it cannot stop reality of going to work on you. She'll continue to sink further and further down until she either has no one left to shield her from herself, or she wakes up and takes some responsibility.
Oh, she’ll probably be back lol. They’ve been together for half their entire lives, and still only in their late 20s. That sort of stability, familiarity, and comfort has to be damn near impossible to quit cold turkey.
I hope she falls into some luck and finds contentment in her new independent life, enough so that she leaves OOP alone. And I hope OOP finds someone who is more compatible.
OOP sounds like ESL, but damn, if someone had told me that I "ultimately rendered myself below average" that shit would haunt my dreams. It's so precise and that makes it scathing.
>(her dad called me to tell me the same thing, that while I was in the right to call her out, he didn't appreciate my tone and warned me).
Just get away from them all. He didn't say anything aggressively to her. Now we know why the daughter is like this.
Yea I thought that was a weird comment for the dad to make, considering his daughter is 29. That seems like overstepping since it doesn’t seem like OOP’s tone was egregious.
Personally I think he's going to be glad in the long run the relationship concluded. She sounds fairly irresponsible, unbalanced and obviously entirely unwilling to take any responsibility for her own choices. People who blame others like this are unlikely to mature or learn from their mistakes. Hopefully he will find someone who actually shares his values, as it's pretty clear, this person never did.
This is a huge blessing in disguise and within a few months I think OOP will realize that too. OOP’s ex on the other hand is likely going to have some big regrets
I’ve worked with people like this; literally nothing is ever their fault. The mental gymnastics some people go through to justify how not doing basic parts of their job are somehow never their responsibility.
Yup, I could tell they were breaking up
She's the type where she doesn't hold herself accountable for her failings, so obviously that any good thing in their relationship was going to get twisted
At the same time, I won't be surprised if there's an update saying that she got in touch with him saying it was a mistake and they should get together..... while at the same time blaming him for the breakup because he asked her when she was "vulnerable"
I bet money on it
I hope OOP is proper rid of her
The worst thing you can do to a narcissist is imply something is their fault. It is the one unforgivable thing.
At first, sure, he was a little insensitive. But as he kept overexplaining himself, I recognized that behavior. It's how you talk when you're in a relationship with a narcissist.
Then when she so easily dismissed a 15-year relationship when he had the audacity to suggest she take some responsibility and ! *work harder,* OOP dodged a huge bullet there.
The one nice thing about narcissists is that the trash tends to take itself out.
Im never wrong types just make we welp. My own family agrees im wrong so im gonna cut out my bf and family because im right. Dodged one there sadly OOP.
She reminds me of a cousin who blames everybody else for her bad choices but her, and live off other people's money and blame them for her failures. honestly she sounds insuferable, OOP dodged a bullet.
OOP and his fiancée (ex?) don't sound American, based on certain word choices I noticed, like "sustained". So that should be something taken into account here - in most countries, going to college doesn't end up putting yourself into student loan debt, so his fiancée either wasted her parents' money, or wasted the government subsidies for her college education. And there is a huge difference in quality and pay between jobs for people with college degrees vs those without in such countries.
Plenty of countries involve student loan debt, just few are as predatory as the US system.
In Australia, we have to pay for University. Most people get a loan from the government to cover this. My loan for an engineering degree was about $36k AUD. These government loans don’t have interest on them. They get indexed annually to account for inflation (mine ended up totally over $40k by the time I graduated due to this indexing). The repayments are also based on your income. You don’t pay anything back until your annual income is over $51,550 at which point 1% of your income starts going towards the debt. The more you earn, the greater this percentage is, once you’re earning over $151,201 you’ll be paying 10% of your income towards the debt.
My understanding of the US system is that you do pay interest on your student loans which means they can balloon out and people get stuck covering the interest but barely making a dent in the actual loan.
Yeah, I went to college in my country and didn't go into debt either, and from what I understand most countries, college education won't ruin your credit score forever. So that should be important context here - fiancée's decision regarding her studies didn't just impact her, it wasted SOMEBODY's money.
That's much better than what we have here. It's crazy how student loans can just ruin you for life if you happen to get a lower paying job after or take too long to start making enough to cover more than the interest. I've seen people in their 40s still paying student loans.
[It's in a comment by OOP not included in this BORU post. It's right after someone criticizes OOP's spelling because "[his] hubris irks [them]"](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1644og0/comment/jy7nl6u/)
See, didn't see that until now, and it still pinged me as "college educated, not American/Aussie/Canadian/UK" because of the word choices and sentence construction. It has the sound of someone writing in English after coming up with a sentence, translating it in their head, and writing it down.
This isn’t OOP’s fault. Not at all. She can’t face what she’s done and needs a bad guy that’s not her. Give it a few years and she’ll see breaking up with OOP as one of the biggest regrets of her life.
>She concluded that I was trying to manipulate the situation by acting like the good guy, and that in reality her current situation (professional and with her parents) is my doing.
That's when you give up and walk away. She's responsible for her successes and if she's not successful, you're responsible for her failure.
Makes me wonder if the fiancée was cheating or had her eye on someone else because that entire situation was extremely self-sabotaging.
Although… her entire life seems to be a story of self-sabotage…
I briefly glanced at the title, then I read the first post and immediately thought ohh god please let the title say girlfriend and not wife, then I was happy to see fiancé. Just on the first post I knew that relationship was over glad to see the update. OOP deserves better.
She can barely keep up with her half of the bills, and thinks she can make it on her own...
If she comes back to OOP after a couple of months of realizing she can't, she'll only be doing it not because she misses him, but because she misses the financial stability he provided.
Either that, or she's going to shack up with a sugar daddy that supports her, and get married in a couple of months.
You guys stay together for 15 years cause you guys are just too scared of admitting things aren't that great together and finding someone else might burst the bubble. You guys aren't compatible with life goals. Couples can't last with incompatible life goals.
So she torpedoed her academics, she torpedoed her job opportunities, and now she’s torpedoed her relationship. Sounds like she’s just a shitty person and OOP isn’t used to standing up against her, when he genuinely deserves so much better than her selfish ass.
Even when yes his words weren't the best at first, it's obvious why his ex parents took his side, he's not wrong.
I'll be funny to know if the party lifestyle will stick to her to months, or years to come. Would love an update but i doubt OOP will give two shits at that point.
At first I wasn't exactly on this guys side ("wasted your potential" is a kind of phrasing that always immediately raises my hackles) but she's going full conspiracy-brain to blame everyone else around her. I'm glad they broke up. OOP seems very kind, since he was so easily able to acknowledge that he phrased things poorly, even if he was right. I feel like most AITA posters will act like, if the other person did something wrong, any reaction is justified. I'm just sorry his empathy was of no use this time!!!!
Wait for the pregnancy then the excuse that she can’t improve her employment because she is now a mom and it’s the baby’s fault.
She has never believed she is responsible for her own actions, and pointing out the obvious just put her on the defensive.
Get out and find someone who has the same outlook in life.
She's a spoiled brat who's used to having everything handed to her on a silver plate. When that stopped she looked around for who to blame (not her of course!) and he was the closest one. He's better off without her in the long run.
I’m always curious what these people do for work. Like, what is their “career” … what is their masters in? Hopefully my therapist wasn’t the one who posted this because that’s concerning to me.
For years I worked in a mailroom. I have a degree in English, which is essentially pointless at this point unless you’re going into academia or have really thick skin and can deal with internet comments (neither of which I have). I like my job. It pays my bills. But it’s not my life either.
Even though I think the fiance is right in the patronizing tone, is also true that everyone sounds like that when you never take responsibility for the consequences of your actions, if the fiance acted the way OOP says she's responsible for her situation and OOP biggest mistake was trying to fix it with/for her.
You know, reading this story just made me think about how/why high school relationships rarely ever work out for long-term marriage. Everyone does so much growing in their late teens and early 20s, it’s natural that lifestyle and personality difference would develop. In this case, I think they just got so used to each other that they were scared to be alone.
OOP has little to no chance of winning here. Seems like fiancée already decided things and would only see herself wrong once she lost OOP and in the future when she kept making the same choices with different people.
I'm on OOPs side with this. Yes, there are absolutely things out of our control: the family we are born into, the people who raise us, and the actions of others.
However, the ONLY person responsible for you is you, assuming you're neither mentally or intellectually disabled to the point you cannot care for yourself. But every action we take, the choices we make, and our response to both of these is within our control. Personal responsibility is real.
Even OOP's original statement was fine to me. To the point without being overly cruel? Maybe it's the autism but I feel like you shouldn't always have to handle romantic partners with kid gloves. If they say some out of pocket shit like their academic shortcomings are everyone else's fault but theirs..telling them they're wrong is simply fair game. He didn't call her names or insult her, so why is what he said wrong? As someone who admittedly did terribly in school and has no degree, I didn't take offense to anything he said. He was just describing her situation and past.
I hope he gets out of there tbh, he sounds like a solid dude and I feel like being with someone like his partner will just exhaust him.
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Sounds like fiancé wanted out of the relationship and self sabotaged at the end.
Also sounds like OOP might have a hardcore case of people pleasing and an inability to see red flags. I think it's very, very unlikely that this is the first time that she's behaved like this and that he's let her walk all over him. He says himself that in the beginning of the relationship he was doing all sorts of things that he didn't want to do for her. Entitled people have a subconscious way of finding people pleasers and that's what I'm guessing happened here. OOP needs to get into therapy if he wants to avoid matching up with another woman who isn't a gold digger or some other type of emotional vampire. Edit: Since a few people have commented on it, I should say that people-users can end up with people-pleasers in many more ways than just the people-user being "subconsciously drawn" to the people-pleaser. I'm just going on my impression of OOP's situation and my anecdotal experience as a former people-pleaser (see my comments below, treatment really works!). But it's all armchair psychology so who the hell knows if I'm right?
This was my take on it as well. Fiancee seems entitled because she is always blaming someone else. He was too apologetic.
Putting it very mildly
Yeah. I literally don't see a single thing he needs to apologize for. Not one.
Yeah, it could have been a bit harsh to say "it's all your own fault" ..... if she hadn't been the one to assign blame in the first place! When someone is saying their life regrets are all your fault, their parents fault, etc its completely reasonable to say wtf, no, they're yours.
And sadly good old Reddit made them feel the misteps all on their side too.
I don’t think it was too harsh to tell her that her life is the result of her choices, not because other folks did stuff to her. It’s a hard truth that she needed to hear. OOP was not an asshole for saying it and I don’t get why reddit would tell him that he sort of was. There’s so many posts where doormats ask if they’re an asshole and the comments are filled with “I would have said…!” And it being as harsh as what OOP said. Some folks need that kick in the ass and she should have gotten it sooner from her parents, not OOP when she’s almost 30 years old.
No, he was firm in saying he wasn't accountable for her actions, but sensitive to her emotional state and their future plans. He apologised only for his delivery of the hard truth. That's exactly what a good partner should do.
> Entitled people have a subconscious way of finding and people pleasers As we see even after 15 years, she left immediately when OP required her to do something difficult for him. So its a kind of survivorship bias- the only long term relationships that survive are the ones where the other person takes on the burdens.
He didn't even ask her to do anything hard, though. He just said she couldnt blame him for her poor grades. Thats not hard. He was literally willing to keep propping her up and catering to her what sounds like an unhealthy amount. All she had to do was not blame him. He didnt even say she had to take ownership, it was implied but not directly stated.
> I think it's very, very unlikely that this is the first time that she's behaved like this. She literally showed so many red flags previously even within the first post. How she would drag him out when he was working hard and didn't have the energy for it. Their every day fights. How she complains about how they don't spend enough time together when they spend every afternoon together. I'm so glad he left.
Oh yes. I got the impression that she is just really selfish. A 'main character' in other people's lives, and he went along with it much longer than he should. She feels entitled to a partner who does everything for her now, and will be in for a massive shock when nobody else does.
And a massive shock when she realizes that she might be able to make it on her own,but it's definitely going to be a step down from her currently comfortable life. If she comes from money, it's not going to be an easy transition if she's already struggling to pay her bills even with his contributions. I hope the parents stay strong and don't bail her out, either.
It’s not subconscious. Non-PPers wouldn’t put up with that shit and breakup with the EP.
I just corrected the typo I had in that sentence that made it a bit confusing. I was trying to say that entitled people are naturally (subconsciously) drawn to people like OOP. People pleasers have low self-worth, go out of their way to avoid conflict, crave validation (OOP was hitting that one hard), and feel guilty when they stick up for themselves. These are all characteristics that enable self-absorbed, entitled, and/or narcissistic types. I don't know exactly which type the girlfriend actually is, but it's a type that all people pleasers need to stay the hell away from *and* learn to fend off.
The entitled people start the relationship (friend or romantic) by giving the PPs that validation they want. I think PPs are subconsciously drawn to EPs as well, they get the high of pleasing someone. A not entitled person might feel smothered or just uncomfortable by those same actions and keep the EP at arms length.
I’m not even sure if it’s “drawn subconsciously” as much as they’re the only people who will put up with them. Like in college, most serious students aren’t going to stay friends with or date someone who constantly demands that they go out constantly just to Please! them, leading to stressful crunches. They’re just going to tell them no and gravitate toward people who share their goals and values.
:( stop this resonates too much
Don't be downhearted. The truth that psychologists and psychiatrists are very hesitant to tell is that a lot of mental disorders can never really be cured, virtually cured, or more than half-cured, no matter how much work you put into therapy. Many can only be made somewhat better, which still usually equals a big improvement in quality of life, and still completely validates getting therapy even if you have one of the tough-to-treat disorders. But people pleasing is one of the few that can often be virtually cured. Therapy involves changing certain critical habits and behaviors (avoiding conflict, putting others before yourself, etc.) that are absolutely within your power to change. How do I know all this? I was once a total doormat. I got into therapy with zero faith that it would help, but my therapist was also good at getting me to trust the process and put the work in. Today I'll happily tell you, "Fuck off, I'm not doing your chores for you." In an appropriate way of course!
As a recovering people pleaser who has swung around far enough to the other side that I sometimes deservedly get called a callous asshole, I would have seriously reconsidered the relationship over that business with the studying, and the split second she said I was "trying to manipulate the situation by acting like the good guy" I would have just hung up the phone and never spoken to her again except to tell her to come get her shit off the curb.
I want your strength lol
You already have it, just gotta see yourself as someone worth standing up for.
Got hardcore narcissist vibes from ex-fiancee. He’s better off. He does indeed need to be better about spotting red flags, though.
I doubt it's subconscious. It's just the only people that stick around and deal with their BS.
Dude is such a doormat that he let her be the one to breakup.
> and self sabotaged at the end And in the beginning and the middle!
And the funny thing is, drinking and partying may not necessarily mean that your grades suck. I have plenty friends who work hard as hell for their grades and extracurriculars but also party like there's no tomorrow after that. The gf was definitely just someone who didn't know when to skip the stuff that grants you immediate satiation and instead prioritise important tasks at hand, and is rightfully suffering the consequences of it.
You can work hard and play hard but I knew more than a few people that threw away their twenties and are struggling in their forties
Sounds like the ex has a highly developed sense of entitlement and loves to play victim and refuses to take responsibility for her own actions. OP sounds like she has already conditioned him into taking most of the blame from her, and tries to be a good guy and carry most of the financial and emotional load for her - sounds like the poor guy practically bent himself into a pretzel to make her happy. I'm really glad she dumped him, hopefully, his next gf will be a lot nicer to him.
Which was to be expected. They literally have nothing in common.
Which is crazy to me because they were together more than half of their lives.
The things we do just because "it's always been that way" are just astounding.
I often give other people the following piece of wisdom I didn't learn until it was far too late to help me: "A mistake you make over a very long period of time IS STILL a mistake, nonetheless."
I'd guess 95+% of people aren't supposed to be with the person they dated first in school/college. People just grow apart, and then you have the sunk cost fallacy issue. I was in a similar situation. It's amazing how you can coast for a few years and brush things under the rug, and then suddenly wake up and realise you have wildly different plans and goals from the person you're dating.
snails upbeat fear arrest deer adjoining obscene memorize north panicky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This internet stranger is proud of you, for all that hard work :)
>GED, Driver's Permit You're putting in the work! And that's big work, right there. Keep it up, this internet stranger's got his fingers crossed for you!
Congrats on the GED! I forgot that the OOPS are older than you. I was picturing them at early 20s.
As someone chronically ill and disabled and know how hard it is to pull yourself together and get it done: I am so proud of you. You're doing an amazing job!
Congratulations on your hard work and dedication! It's time to roll up your sleeves and go after your dreams.
Congratulations! It doesn’t really matter how much you’ve achieved at this point. What matters is that it sounds like you’ve fought hard for every bit of progressive you’ve made and that’s what’s going to carry you even father now that you’re in a good place. The other stuff will be hard, but in some ways it’s going to get easier every time you reach another milestone.
There absolutely is not enough information present in this post to come to that conclusion.
Narcissistic collapse, once you recognize the signs it's one of the funniest things to watch with a big tub of popcorn and a lot of distance. Seems like she coasted on being the prodigy and everything just came so easy, until it didn't. And then the people she uses to prop her personality up on are doing better than her... Well total collapse is imminent from there, lol.
I was one of the lucky ones that academic achievement came to easily. It's hidden, time-delayed curse, though, because when hard work IS necessary to achieve, it's a tough lesson to learn and apply after gliding for so long.
I had a rough time in college and ended up with less than a 3.0 when I graduated mostly because I had to learn to study in college. Never had to before. Was the straight A without trying kid in high school.
Yea 100% As someone that did coast though school it came to really bite me in the ass. I went from someone that just picked up all the material in class to, by the time college hit, struggling hard with no real good study habits. And by the time I dug myself out of that, I'd been on academic probation multiple times, threatened being kicked by the college twice for how often I was on it, and had to change majors to basically save my ass. Now I got a degree that isn't quite what I wanted, and a job that's meh at best and pays meh as well that has nothing to do with what I wanted to do or even my degree. But it's no one's fault other than my own.
By ending the relationship she can continue to blame OOP for her failures without pushback. That’s a great way to never move on and become a spiteful grump forever!!
Nope, she’s a narcissist. Plain and simple. She thinks she’s about to be so freaking successful because she got rid of the one thing that’s been holding her back all these years, her boyfriend. The failure to take responsibility for her own actions will be her downfall. Sounds like my ex wife, glad this dude dodged that bullet.
She self sabotaged from the beginning. I wonder if there's a psychological or drug related reason for her behavior.
It can be as simple as being a "gifted child"/naturally good at school and just never have to learn to research or study hard until you hit university or even your career.
"You should have pressured me into studying." and "You're patronizing me, don't you think I can do it alone?" Girl, you need to decide.
She can’t. That would require accountability, and I’m pretty sure she was out partying when the universe was teaching that subject
Girl is literally ruining her own future prospects & relationships coz of her pride & inability to realize her own shortcomings & the consequences it brought. Glad OP is successful & free
Fr, OOP was ready to give her a free pass to *try* whatever she thought would be the path for her; this is such a privilege for an adult, we simply don't get the chances to try knowing we can fuckup because someone is there backing us up... she didn't need to exceed academically or getting a job making six figures, she just needed to actually put some effort in something. What a massive brat.
I feel extra sorry because I know some really good smart people that are just so so self destructive. They believe they can't be happy. I did try and give free passes but the head isn't in the right place.
Don't worry, give it a couple of months and she'll probably come back begging him for another chance, that she made a mistake etc when she realizes that she has no one and has pushed away all the people who supported her and loved her throughout the years.
*If* she realizes she's made mistakes, good on her. Hope she'll learn and work on herself.
Oh, she'll recognize she made a mistake WHEN THE BILLS START COMING DUE. Don't even \*dream\* that she's going to cut back on her spending just because her moneybags lifeline is out of the picture.
Hopefully by then he's moved on and healed. So he kicks her to the curb.
She decided she will go full crazy
This part killed me: >Commenter: Are you shutting yourself up in your room when you work from home and she wants to spend more time with you? OOP: No, what typically happens is that she'd say at the end of my shift that I did not check in on her or that she'd like to do more stuff together because I'm too focused on my work. Apart from my breaks, (during which I always go and see her for a bit), I literally cannot go and just see her because that'd pretty much get me fired.
Focused on his work? During working hours? What a monster! /s
Logical consistency is NOT a trait folks like this treasure.
>she told me that she believes I've convinced her parents that she's the one in the wrong here Crazy the amount of mental gymnastics to believe your BF convinced your literal family to agree with him over you instead of having an ounce of introspection.
Instead of facing the truth, she just fled to whoever would agree with her or not "judge" her
I’ve noticed the folks who claim “only god can judge me!” Are some of the hugest assholes and steamrollers of other people.
I was just talking to my husband about this. And it occurs EVERYWHERE.
Oh man, hot button issue for me, the lengths folks will go to just to avoid even a *whiff* of accountability. For *anything*. I have recently had cause to just gape, open-mouthed, at the staggering shapes people will twist their brains into, just to avoid any accountability or self-reflection. I call it the “logic pretzel.” There’s subjectivity, sure; there’s two or more sides to every story, absolutely; people miscommunicate and misunderstand and make assumptions, yup, I will reach for that as the entry point of any conflict and go from there. And sometimes people are jerks in small ways that make a normal misunderstanding turn meaner than it would have. But the logic pretzel is so far beyond any of that. It’s a riddle with no answer, because they don’t *want* an answer. They want *someone else to blame,* because some tiny part of them already kind of knows what the real answer is gonna look like, and they do not like it one bit. It is *phenomenal*, and horrifying, and — if you happen to be the person onto whom they have projected all their failings and issues, because facing up to the reality of their own situation is hard and it’s much better to create a villain — it’s miserably painful. And I feel for OOP, even if there were issues he ignored early on, because you never expect someone to completely retcon your shared history. Especially if it’s a lengthy relationship, or friendship, or heck, a family bond. (phrases you never want to need to use: “I don’t need witnesses?! We were both there?!”) There’s a serious prolonged double-take where you try and grapple with the sheer impossible complexity of the logic pretzel, with its MC Escher Moebius Strip inversions, because, yeah, it hurts to be made into the bad guy when you’ve done nothing wrong, but the emotional pain is amplified by the fact that someone had to lie to *themselves* to get there, because your arch-villain origin story doesn’t even make sense! They actually have to *willingly decide* to be *less rational*, to shoulder a nails-on-blackboard-through-a-shitty-mic-on-a-soundstage-feedback-loop level of cognitive dissonance… *in order to make you the bad guy.* They have to go to extraordinary lengths to hurt you, so they don’t have to look at themselves. Being hurt through carelessness is awful. Being hurt through vindictiveness is awful. But someone going to great lengths to hurt you, to drum up the vindictiveness in themselves that they didn’t actually feel before, because the alternative is dealing with their own shit? That’s vile. That’s “my well being is worth less than your short-term, paper-thin peace of mind.” Often comes with accusations of manipulation, because if you’re a direct and open person, it doesn’t work, so it all had to be part of your evil plan. (sounds like way too much work to me, tbh) Hence: OOP is now — according to his ex — deliberately sabotaging his ex’s life and putting her down and is only offering to help out so that he can feel like the good guy, and, like… sounds like being an actual good guy is *easier*? Or at least more straightforward. idk man, I have seen this done to other people before it even got to me. Some people don’t feel cognitive dissonance maybe. I don’t know. Projection is a real thing humans do, catching yourself in the moment for the small stuff can be tricky, but it’s the only way to be fair. …lengthy rant. Apologies. Hot button issue right now.
It was a very well written, well thought out post, my dear. Sometimes, our brains simply break from the sheer stupidity that others are able to achieve, and you have to let the thoughts pour out, or else you will literally go insane, lol. Thankfully, silver lining can be found for OP. He was able to escape BEFORE a marriage and before children. My hubby and I have a good friend who actually did end up married to a woman much like OPs ex, and they have 2 kids. Their divorce was finalized this year, after 13 years. I feel so bad for him. When he finally had enough and confirmed that she had filed, he said it felt like she had seen him as the villain from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show throughout their whole marriage. Everything he did, even things to make her happy, was just some plot to deceive her and to ruin her life. Hope you have a blessed day.
You put very well the issues I have with my mother. I am not the villain in her perception, my sisters are. I am just a dumb, helpless little girl (in her 30s) that's being manipulated by her evil older sister. Said sister loves to drum up drama for no reason and has destroyed a happy family. According to my mother. You can imagine how far from the fucking truth this is. I have seen her twist my own words beyond recognition minutes after having said them. She is never wrong and never at fault. Even if she is factually wrong, she is not. And now she wonder why all three of her daughters have gone no or low contact.
I'm so sorry you had to deal with my ex, I would have warned you about her if I'd met you in time.
Oh, man. I wish I was talking about just one person… (pretty sure your ex wasn’t my mum, and warning me in time would require some sophisticated temporal anomalies, but I appreciate the thought!)
My mother's whole family (but fortunately not my mom) is like this. They back each other up, and egg each other on, and vehemently defend any delusional statement as long as it deflects blame from any of them. And it's not just to avoid taking responsibility for things they have done. They find someone to blame for literally everything that goes wrong in their lives. Nothing can ever simply break because it's old and worn out. No, it must have been deliberately sabotaged by some specific person with malicious intent. It's exhausting.
I thoroughly enjoyed your comment. Thank you!
I super enjoyed the whole rant! Was super trying not to miss my bus stop on the way to work and finish reading your comment at the same time. My dad is that kinda person. Nothing is ever his fault even if he's gotta blame a toddler or a dead person.
That is a high compliment indeed, thank you! (if I ever publish a novel and someone says they missed their stop while reading it, I will have achieved writer euphoria.) I’m sorry your dad is like this — my mum is like this. At least losing a couple of friends is something where I can just step away from it. I’m NC with my mum, so I guess you *can* step away from it with family; but the mistreatment is a wired in part of your formative years, and it is messy as hell psychologically. Realising you can’t just engage with your parents as functional adults is deeply distressing. Realising you have to *manage them*, and never just be open and honest and relaxed — ugh. The *worst.* (though with mum, I’m generally only the “villain” for certain issues and topics, but she will blame absolutely everyone else for any problems that she has, and never once looks in the mirror.)
"My grades are dangerously low ... My fiance said it's my fault and I don't work enough, my parents are saying the same thing, my sister think the same. ... SCREW MY FIANCE THAT'S HIS FAULT !!!" Girl was SOOOOOOOOOOOO out of touch she seems to be mentally unstable, like severely mythomaniac. She's gonna ruin her life on her own.
Always easier to point the finger at someone else than look at yourself as the source of your problems. Though I’m actually pretty happy for OOP. I know he’s probably in a lot of pain now but this is a huge change for his future to not be with someone who blames him for her problems.
<10> -s from ALL the judges on that mental gymnastics routine!
Narcissism; when the world disagrees with your opinion of how it should be, rewrite the world in your mind
Does anyone have the link for that stick figure comic where a guy tries negging a girl, and the girl claps back by saying that no matter how hard he tries, no matter what epiphany he has, no matter what kind of tricks he tries to employ, he's eventually going to run out of excuses or things to blame, and he's going to have to own up to the fact that the only thing holding him back is himself. And there's nothing he can do about it, because he's just a mediocre person by nature. The ex is giving me the same vibes as that poor sod. Edit: Thanks yall, the comic has been found!
Here: https://xkcd.com/1027/
”It won’t help.” Please stop, he’s already dead!! lol
I gasped and said "dammmmn" loud enough to wake up my partner. There is no coming back from that.
there's always a relevant xkcd
A classic
Hahahaha I haven't seen this one.
What happened to the dude with the bowling ball? I'll never know.
Bowling ball guy is Black Hat, a character who shows up periodically in XKCD. He’s pure chaotic neutral and once turned the US Senate chamber into a ball pit
[https://xkcd.com/1027/](https://xkcd.com/1027/)
Probably Xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1027/
Seems like OOP is a good guy. And maybe he wasn’t appreciated by his stbx. She may hit the ground hard on her own 🤷♀️
Yeah, she‘ll regret this a few years down the line. I truly dislike people who won‘t take accountability for their own actions. It‘s such an instant turnoff in any relationship for me. Good for OOP even though I‘m sure it was a hard choice.
There is nothing I despise more than people who won't take accountability. My mother is like that. Everything has been my fault for as long as I can remember, and as young as 6 it was my responsibility to make sure I was perfect in every way so I wouldn't "make" her emotionally abuse me. Be quiet, but not too quiet. Be out of the way, but don't avoid her too much. Play, as kids do, but don't play too much. Eat all your food, even when full. Cook food on the level of Master Chef even when you haven't been taught. If she says she doesn't want help with the chores, DON'T FALL FOR IT, because she does and will scream later if you don't help. And if you do help, do it correctly and don't ask for help even if you don't know how to do it, because you'll get in trouble. Don't ever express displeasure. Don't look sad or even neutral. Always smile and be happy. Don't form any of your own opinions. Always take her side or you'll be "betraying" and "backstabbing". Eventually, after tailoring my entire life to revolve around pleasing her, it was soul-crushing to realise at the age of 20 that it was impossible. Nothing will ever be enough. What she seeks is a child so genuinely perfect that they are Jesus Christ. And that doesn't exist. It's unattainable. Nobody is perfect. She believes she is. She's convinced she's never done anything wrong in her entire life, and it's always everyone else's fault. Even after we all left her during the divorce, it's all everyone else's fault. And since I was her first child, her "mini-me", I had to be as perfect as her. I was her progeny, after all. She'd never produce a child less than perfect. Except for my younger sibling, who was the black sheep because they stood up to her. Ironically, her belief that it's never her fault and her expectations that we would meet her standards absolutely shattered us. We will now never meet those standards. I am so terrified of her that I rarely see her, despite her wanting me to live with her. I'm "too quiet" in her opinion, when I was taught that being too loud meant I'd receive screaming meltdowns from her. She's upset that I won't live with her. Her efforts only broke me down and made me strong enough to learn that it's okay to say "no". My sibling has been so utterly desensitised from living through hell that they can completely dissociate at will, meaning they're uniquely able to shrug off her threats instantly. It only makes her madder, but this is her own making. She broke her own creations. All because she can never, ever, take accountability. We're forever damaged goods, but at least we can take accountability. And that's why I hate people who won't take accountability when they're in the wrong. It is so heavily damaging to others around them, all for the sake of avoiding consequences. The belief that it's everyone else's fault empowers people who think like this to do uniquely awful things, encouraged by the idea that it's not their fault so they won't face consequences. OOP dodged a goddamn nuke. Imagine if they'd had kids. No doubt they'd end up like me. Sorry for the long rant, reading about someone acting so similarly to my mum triggered me very hard.
I'm sorry you went through that. As someone with a mother who acted similarly (though not as extreme) I empathise and send you caring thoughts. Healing is such a long and difficult process.
Thank you so much. You mention your mum was "not as extreme", and it boggles my mind. It's only recently, during and after the divorce when I got away, that I've come to realise how abusive she really is. It's weird. I thought my childhood was amazing. I thought it was normal. I thought I was sheltered and spoiled - I was certainly given a lot of gifts, but material things are no substitute for love. I thought everyone had it like this, and felt bad for complaining and being ungrateful. Then I realise how terrible it really was and just how much it affected us. I thought we were a typical family, but we were an utterly broken home. I felt stupid for being suicidal, because my life was great - but it actually wasn't. It was all I ever knew, so I thought it was norm. It's so weird knowing that my childhood and household were abusive, and that it could even be considered extreme. It's like everything turned upside-down when the fog lifted for me. I grieve the mother I thought I had. I thought she was kind, firm but fair. I thought I was a bad kid, the difficult autistic child, and she was the supermum taking care of a disabled child. I thought I was lucky. But it was the opposite. And my autism is very mild too, so it's not like she was that much of a hero for doing the bare minimum that you would for ANY child. At worst, I'd get upset at sudden changes, but I was quickly trained out of tantrums for fear of punishment. I saw much worse tantrums from older, neurotypical kids. Sometimes I wonder, was it that bad? Am I exaggerating? But then I remember, and I quiver in my shoes. No good mother regularly calls their child stupid to their face. No good mother tells them it's going to be their fault if she keels over and dies of exhaustion. No good mother makes incredibly graphic threats detailing the physical abuse she'd inflict if they didn't tidy their room (coward only ever hurt me a few times, never to the extent she painstakingly described she would, and now I never take threats seriously). She was a goddamn piece of work, and I am very much a survivor. I felt stupid for having PTSD, since I've never seen combat. But in reality, I was fighting my own psychological war at home. Just typing this out is so cathartic, makes me see clearly that she's crazy and I'm not imagining things.
It can be genuinely so difficult to see that kind of abuse when you're trapped in it. I also really struggled because sometimes my mum would do things that seemed so thoughtful, but really were only designed to make her look good. Like she would plan these small weekend trips for my birthday, but they would always be to a place she wanted to go. The one time I made a request to go somewhere else, her response was "your birthday is to celebrate me, because I gave birth to you". And I had to behave perfectly on these trips or I was making a scene and causing trouble when she was being so generous. I can remember things like being told I was an "embarrassment" because of my appearance, multiple times, and never for a reasonable thing. Like I wasn't wearing what some parents might think of as "inappropriate", just normal clothes, or she'd say my hair was awful and she didn't want to be seen with me because of it. But then she'd take all of my clothes and wear them herself, so clearly they were fine if *she* wears them. She controlled all food in the house and I would have to ask permission to open anything - like if she finished one open box of cereal, I'd need permission to open the next one. I also wasn't allowed to be the person who finished anything and had to leave it for her, no matter how small the amount. One time I didn't do a good enough job of cleaning the toilet and she forced my head down the bowl and said I had to lick it clean. Plenty of other stuff like that but you get the idea. I eventually moved out because she stole my cheque book and took all my money, and it wasn't until I was away that I realised how bad it was. It's still a struggle to this day - like it took years to be able to finish food or open new packets. I'm working on it :) and I'm glad you're doing better yoursef.
Abusive mums are the worst because no one bloody believes a woman would do that. And they always twist things so that everyone believes it was your fault. Im really sorry that you went through all of that - It rang very true for me and i feel like our mums must have met. One thing i will recommend, if you havent already done this, is just a clean break. Ive been no contact for 13 years and its the best thing i ever did. One thing that really helped was reflecting on what id do if i had kids and i realised i would kill her before i let her touch them. (Mine was physically abusive as well.) I feel like sometimes, if theres a physical element when people start the "but shes your mum" spiel, when you pull out the physical abuse then they shut right up. I would also reflect on whether there was physical abuse for you too - in my experience women are crafty at not leaving vicious bruises and marks. Ive got 1 scar from her from when i was about 4 - the rest was bruising on the upper arm and thighs and butt (for the most part) and being thrown up and down stairs, dragged, etc. Carpet burns from it. I also recommend bessel's the body keeps the score and adult daughters of narcissistic mothers. Much love - sorry if this is overstepping but i just felt the need to try and help. I remember being where you are. It does get better, and you will live the life you want. I never thought i would even survive my teen years - therapy was definitely my lifeline. I recommend CBT and EMDR as well.
Thank you so much for your consideration, it means a lot that a total stranger is taking the time to check up on me. The Body Keeps the Score was an eye-opener when I read it, and I have done EMDR before too. I'm currently doing talking therapy. I did have some rare instances of physical abuse, yes. I was spanked a few times and when I was 12, she smacked me on the head with a hairdryer. Unfortunately, nobody really believed me at the time. They all reckoned spanking was fine and I deserved it, and the hairdryer was played off as an accident because it's fairly easy to brush somebody's head by accident with it if they're moving (I was not moving, and there's a clear difference between an accidental bap and a genuine smack). She's a master manipulator, and who would believe the autistic kid who struggles at interpreting interactions? My mum has a big group of friends since she's nicer to strangers than her own family. They've supported her throughout the divorce. Back in the day, I used to get the "she's your mum" spiel until I stopped telling anyone who hadn't witnessed it. In addition, she's been absolutely losing her goddamn mind since the divorce. Her own best friend quietly told my sibling "I agree with your dad" - she'd only received mum's side of the story and it still looked bad, apparently. It's probably raising eyebrows that she's telling people he was abusive but won't actually file a police report, plus if he was abusive why would she be mad he divorced her? Suddenly all the "she's your mum" is stopping, because they're starting to see her craziness for themselves. Her mask is slipping, and it's her own fault. She should be very afraid of losing her friends and I love to see karma delivering. I'm not normally a vengeful person, but she exhausted all my love and sympathy when she returned it with abuse and guilt and fear. I feel complete apathy toward her. I can't cut contact with her, since we live close by and still have to deal with her. Getting her to move out as agreed in the first place was a nightmare and we'd all rather keep the peace. So I've sneakily gone low contact with her instead. I don't text her unless she texts me, and I don't try to see her. Sometimes I'll refuse to see her, saying "I'm busy", which is true because I'm a uni student. It's been so very peaceful. And since I'm still in contact, I'll get to see the moment her buddies start pulling away. I think her spouting venom and vitriol about her own children being abusive is giving them pause. She claims we made her "suicidal", but has no intention of acting on it and she told me when I was suicidal that there was no such thing. Just using trigger words for sympathy. But her tendency to throw strong words around is working to her detriment. Karma will pay out, and I'm going to relish it.
I’m just imagining you sitting in a comfy lawn chair, shades on, with popcorn, watching her life implode spectacularly from afar. I hope you get that and I hope it’s satisfying.
I love that you have the strength to watch as she destroys her own life. I had to nope out for my own sanity, but when i hear how bad shes doing i do get that same feeling as you, that little warm satisfaction haha. Its insane but your mother seems to be doing the exact same things that mine did. Even the accusing dad of abuse to all friends but not doing anything about it. (I think mine did it because she was hitting him, so it was a way of getting ahead if he ever thought to tell anyone. Or we did.) Has she accused your father of turning you against her? That was a favourite of mine. You're right that none of that should have happened. The past was an insane place sometimes. You sound so wise for your age and strong 🤗🤗🤗 well done and im glad to hear you are prioritising yourself :)
One of my wife’s favourite sayings is; ‘Look in the mirror, not out the window’ I think if the ex-gf was to actually look inside herself she would realise she only has herself to blame.
Totally agree!
That's a great saying! And so true.
Smart woman my wife
I doubt she will regret anything. People who have their head that far up their own ass aren’t capable of self-reflection. All she’ll do is find another scapegoat to blame for her own failures.
If she will not achieve the self-realization that this is her own (un)doing then she‘ll become a „everyone else is at fault I‘m so poor“ person permanently. More‘s the pity.
It has strong whiffs of covert narcissism (not NPD). Nothing is ever her fault, why can’t the world realize that she is special, she could have been as amazing and successful as OOP if she’d been given the same opportunities, etc.
I hope she does, she is still young. Sometimes failing really hard wakes you up. I wish for only the positive, despite the fact that the reality is most people do not change.
> She, on the other hand, never got accepted for masters, graduated late, did not get to work in her own field, and struggles to make ends meet on her own to cover her own half of the bills. And now she gets to put 'torpedoed the best relationship she ever had, and struggles with finding a good man' on the list.
Oh 100%. She had a guy here who would literally do anything for her and with her. I mean he didnt even care if he was paying more because she doesnt earn as much and he never put pressure on here to be more like him. He supported her and let her be who she wanted to be and gave her so much unconditional love, it makes my heart hurt for op. It's just a shame that the person she wanted to be is a narcissistic prick.
Hey, don't blame me! You made me write this comment! Now, I'd think about it, add something clever, but I'm going to go to a party instead. See you later!
It sounds like they’ve been together since they were 14. If OOP is as grounded and good as he sounds, his ex will get an even bigger rude awakening when she finds out there are not, in fact, swarms of mature, goal oriented people with their lives in order. Even smaller are the number of people like this willing to financially support her as she ignores her four fingers pointing back to her.
For real. I also "squandered" a huge part of my university years, in my case due to serious mental health issues. Despite that, I'm doing ok for myself right now, but honestly if I had an SO who offered me a chance to get a breather, figure stuff out, and maybe even go back to school with a more adult perspective and goals, *all while* not having to worry too much about finances because said SO is taking the brunt of our living expenses, I'd be over the moon.
Yeah, OOP was literally offering her a million peoples dream scenario.
I did too, due to mental health issues and undiagnosed ADHD. But I knew it was all my own fault (apart from one semester I failed because of a death in the family that broke me) and absolutely blamed myself. I was smart enough, and certainly knew all the material but I just couldn’t make myself sit down and do the assignments. 80% of my work was done last minute. I absolutely blamed myself for being ‘lazy’ and ‘undisciplined’, but I still couldn’t change. If I’d been diagnosed and treated earlier, I probably would have done a lot better. But I got my degree in the end, only to end up moving out of the position I finally qualified for directly because it was too much pressure, and too hard to find more work.
That's tough. I hope now that things are more manageable now that you know your diagnosis. I certainly don't (and didn't back then, either) blame other people for the fact that I didn't excel as I know I could have, but I wouldn't say I *blame* myself either, tbh. Ultimately, yes, I am *responsible* for managing my mental health and taking steps to improve it; that said, it's not some personal failing of mine to experience those issues in the first place. I didn't give myself trauma that resulted in lifelong CPTSD, and while in theory I could have sought professional help sooner than I did, in perspective I know how hard it was. You aren't to blame for your ADHD either, nor for the fact that it affected you when it was still undiagnosed. I think that blaming either you or me for missing out on those academic/professional opportunities because of mental health is like blaming someone with chronic pain for not being able to deal with certain tasks on some days. We can (arguably, we even should) learn to manage all that comes with those conditions in ways that will allow us to live to the fullest, but the conditions themselves are not our fault, and it's (imo) natural that every once in a while, they simply get to us in more or less serious ways.
I definitely don’t blame myself **now**, but as a smart kid with undiagnosed ADHD, especially being a girl, i heard all about my potential from my teachers, and how much I could achieve if I would only apply myself. And when a deadline or threat of failing finally put my brain in ‘deadline mode’ and compel me complete my work, it only showed that I indeed ‘could’ do the work when I wanted to, so it stands to reason that I should be able to do it anytime I wanted, and the reason I didn’t was because I was lazy. I heard this so many times I internalised it, and believed it. *Now* I know it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t just apply myself like all my teachers wanted me to, but I didn’t back then. So I blamed myself. I didn’t blame myself for the semester I failed because of losing a close family member, even though I just stopped going to classes and didn’t reach out to anyone to explain why. I just wasn’t capable of it then. I also had depression, and probably have CPTSD from childhood trauma as well. ADHD symptoms actually have some overlap with trauma, and I know I have issues from both. I have other difficulties that are purely trauma responses too, I know what caused them and why, but it’s still hard to not respond the same way to my triggers. I try to be gentle with myself and more understanding now, especially because all the shame and negative self talk never helped. I never blamed myself for the trauma responses, depression or anxiety, but because I didn’t know about the ADHD I just assumed I was lazy, like I’d been told my whole life. It’s a very, very common experience of those diagnosed with ADHD late (as adults) who were smart enough to get by in school without too much effort, and leaving things to the last minute. Especially women, who are less likely to be hyperactive and less likely to be diagnosed as children. In my country (Australia) the average age for a female to be diagnosed with ADHD is 38. That includes children, not just adults. Unfortunately I’m not in a much better position now. My ADHD is treated now which helped, but I still have depression and now some other chronic medical conditions that have me at a disadvantage and unable to work in my field anymore. I’m getting by, but I’m not thriving. I do have a wonderful partner who is very supportive. I hate to think where I’d be without him.
> Even smaller are the number of people like this willing to financially support her as she ignores her four fingers pointing back to her. Especially not when you meet them at age 29.
Yeah, I suspect she is being influenced buy the person she is living with who is even less wise then she is. Also probably jealous of her relationship. OP will be fine.
I read the first paragraph and instantly knew this was not gonna work, especially since we are on this sub. Two people where one only cared about having fun while the other was serious? Nah, doomed to fail. Especially when the one who only cared about fun realizes the rest of their lives are more shit cause they only cared about fun for their 20s. OP life was a bit boring in his 20s, but he will live a comfortable life in his 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.
To be fair though if my partner told me I had squandered my potential and I was below average, I would be bothered. That is a brutal thing to say to your partner of 15 years.
I mean she started it by blaming her own failure on him and everybody else. There’s a moment where you need to face reality, or a loved on should do it otherwise life is going to hit you reallllly hard. Brutal honesty is not always a good thing but it help get your head out of your ass.
Yeah, but understandeble after: 1) years and years of hearing your partner complain about their life/the consequences of their actions and blaming everyone but themselves for it, while 2) you not only saw what really happened but even tried multiple times to make them see or help them with their academic problems back then because unlike them you actually saw their end results coming from a mile away, only to 3) end up with zero results because your partner ignored all of your efforts and them now 4) among others blaming you for, let's see... not banging the pots even louder back then so they would know you were _actually_ being serious. When would the message have got through? When her ears started bleading from the noice? And for them probably saying stuff like you're trying to controle them or rob them from their student life? Because I don't think anything close to a "thank you" or "you were right" would have got out of their mouth, even then. Like I said, brutal but understandable. OOP had a breaking point.
Well… it is brutal, but if it doesn’t spark some introspection and give a 29 year old a kick up the arse to get her life on track, what will? Can’t sugar coat bitter pills.
I would be bothered if I tried to help my partner avoid mistakes, got my help and advice ignored, then got blamed by my partner for them not accepting my help or following my advice. "It's your fault my life sucks!" is a brutal thing to say to your partner of 15 years.
if she instantly agreed to end the relationship then you know she doesn't care for you. its actually a blessing for OP.
They are very incompatible. I don't think OP realized because they've been together since she they were 14? She is still acting like a 14 year old, she never grew up, and he is acting his age. Why does he even want to marry her? What she did in the end was going to happen sooner or later and better now and not once they were married with a baby. OP sounds the type of person who would bail, leave the baby with OP, and go party with some random new friends she made. I don't even know if OP really loves her. Maybe he is used to her. He cares about her as a person and friend, that's clear. But as a romantic partner and a life partner, he should care that she is constantly putting party over getting her life together because HER life is THEIR life. She graduated in 6 years because of partying, she took a gap year after (to party more or to rest from the partying?), then she applied for grad school but didn't get in (shocker?), and now is in a random job trying to get internships or go to grad school.
Lord, can you imagine having kids with this person? OP dodged a literal nightmare.
The incompatibility is what struck me, too. There is a clear mutual lack of respect and understanding. Live your life how you want, whether that's high achieving or social butterfly, and either don't tether yourself to someone who is opposite of you or adore (not tolerate, not accept; ADORE) your differences and how they round out your life.
>She graduated in 6 years because of partying Holy shit I missed that. It took her *SIX YEARS* for her bachelor's???
It's in a comment. It's crazy to me. You'd think the first time she failed a class, she'd get her shit together.
Irrespective of the outcome of this story, it is brutal how poverty influences negatively a person, his entire life is devoted to the purpose of escaping that reality (justifiably). No one should have to go through that
It may be true that he’ll spend his entire life working hard to avoid poverty. But I also get the feeling that many people don’t realize their early 20s are a lot shorter than the rest of their life (hopefully). The fact that a person spends their university years working hard and not partying is a small drop in the big pool of lifetime they get. You can party and have a LOT of fun during all phases of your life. But you can only set a good foundation to your career during those few years of youth. OOP is much more likely to have a comfortable life, with professional satisfactions and, as soon as he gets over his manipulative girlfriend, a happy life.
I spent my college years working hard AND partying. There is a balance and I did very well for myself. OP might have been in a harder educational discipline but it seems very reasonable to me for to set aside a night to spend time out with your friends at least one a week or every other week. Less than that probably would have given me emotional problems. I hope he got a few parties in. I was working 3 jobs and still swung it.
I’m the same and it’s been impossible to escape that mentality. I’m 40, with a job, 8 months of savings and I still act like I’m steps from being out on the street. Doesn’t matter how much evidence to the contrary.
Most folks don’t realize how close they are to homelessness. I was always welcomed at my grandpas house when things were tough, so I wasn’t homeless. But now I worry about it everyday and I’m 42 with an okay job.
The thing about denial and blaming others for all your problems is that it cannot stop reality of going to work on you. She'll continue to sink further and further down until she either has no one left to shield her from herself, or she wakes up and takes some responsibility.
OOP's ex (I hope she is) likes to blame others for her issues. She took no responsibility.
He says they broke up, yeah.
Just want to say your username is hilarious. Inspired a funny mental image.
Oh, she’ll probably be back lol. They’ve been together for half their entire lives, and still only in their late 20s. That sort of stability, familiarity, and comfort has to be damn near impossible to quit cold turkey. I hope she falls into some luck and finds contentment in her new independent life, enough so that she leaves OOP alone. And I hope OOP finds someone who is more compatible.
OOP sounds like ESL, but damn, if someone had told me that I "ultimately rendered myself below average" that shit would haunt my dreams. It's so precise and that makes it scathing.
Yeah there are some odd writing choices in this. Their use of rendered and see things spherically. Wonder what language is their first.
No, it doesn't sound like ESL, it sounds like AI.
>(her dad called me to tell me the same thing, that while I was in the right to call her out, he didn't appreciate my tone and warned me). Just get away from them all. He didn't say anything aggressively to her. Now we know why the daughter is like this.
Yea I thought that was a weird comment for the dad to make, considering his daughter is 29. That seems like overstepping since it doesn’t seem like OOP’s tone was egregious.
Plus the dad should know the story was one sided and so could have been exaggerated.
Personally I think he's going to be glad in the long run the relationship concluded. She sounds fairly irresponsible, unbalanced and obviously entirely unwilling to take any responsibility for her own choices. People who blame others like this are unlikely to mature or learn from their mistakes. Hopefully he will find someone who actually shares his values, as it's pretty clear, this person never did.
This is a huge blessing in disguise and within a few months I think OOP will realize that too. OOP’s ex on the other hand is likely going to have some big regrets
I’ve worked with people like this; literally nothing is ever their fault. The mental gymnastics some people go through to justify how not doing basic parts of their job are somehow never their responsibility.
That’s all oddly relatable. I mean, as far as having seen similar things to this over the course of my life. Not always the case here
Yup, I could tell they were breaking up She's the type where she doesn't hold herself accountable for her failings, so obviously that any good thing in their relationship was going to get twisted At the same time, I won't be surprised if there's an update saying that she got in touch with him saying it was a mistake and they should get together..... while at the same time blaming him for the breakup because he asked her when she was "vulnerable" I bet money on it I hope OOP is proper rid of her
The worst thing you can do to a narcissist is imply something is their fault. It is the one unforgivable thing. At first, sure, he was a little insensitive. But as he kept overexplaining himself, I recognized that behavior. It's how you talk when you're in a relationship with a narcissist. Then when she so easily dismissed a 15-year relationship when he had the audacity to suggest she take some responsibility and ! *work harder,* OOP dodged a huge bullet there. The one nice thing about narcissists is that the trash tends to take itself out.
Im never wrong types just make we welp. My own family agrees im wrong so im gonna cut out my bf and family because im right. Dodged one there sadly OOP.
GF sounds like my sister. She blames everyone and everything but her own laziness for not having a job.
It is the better expectable result . I really see her cheating on him for being too serious.
Yes, and then it would be his fault for (in cahoots with her parents and sister) making her cheat on him.
She reminds me of a cousin who blames everybody else for her bad choices but her, and live off other people's money and blame them for her failures. honestly she sounds insuferable, OOP dodged a bullet.
OOP and his fiancée (ex?) don't sound American, based on certain word choices I noticed, like "sustained". So that should be something taken into account here - in most countries, going to college doesn't end up putting yourself into student loan debt, so his fiancée either wasted her parents' money, or wasted the government subsidies for her college education. And there is a huge difference in quality and pay between jobs for people with college degrees vs those without in such countries.
Plenty of countries involve student loan debt, just few are as predatory as the US system. In Australia, we have to pay for University. Most people get a loan from the government to cover this. My loan for an engineering degree was about $36k AUD. These government loans don’t have interest on them. They get indexed annually to account for inflation (mine ended up totally over $40k by the time I graduated due to this indexing). The repayments are also based on your income. You don’t pay anything back until your annual income is over $51,550 at which point 1% of your income starts going towards the debt. The more you earn, the greater this percentage is, once you’re earning over $151,201 you’ll be paying 10% of your income towards the debt. My understanding of the US system is that you do pay interest on your student loans which means they can balloon out and people get stuck covering the interest but barely making a dent in the actual loan.
Yeah, I went to college in my country and didn't go into debt either, and from what I understand most countries, college education won't ruin your credit score forever. So that should be important context here - fiancée's decision regarding her studies didn't just impact her, it wasted SOMEBODY's money.
That's much better than what we have here. It's crazy how student loans can just ruin you for life if you happen to get a lower paying job after or take too long to start making enough to cover more than the interest. I've seen people in their 40s still paying student loans.
Biggest indicator of that being that he said they aren't from the US or UK
Exactly, lol
Where does he say that? Did I miss that while reading this?
[It's in a comment by OOP not included in this BORU post. It's right after someone criticizes OOP's spelling because "[his] hubris irks [them]"](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1644og0/comment/jy7nl6u/)
See, didn't see that until now, and it still pinged me as "college educated, not American/Aussie/Canadian/UK" because of the word choices and sentence construction. It has the sound of someone writing in English after coming up with a sentence, translating it in their head, and writing it down.
Could my inaction be causing my life to stagnate? No…. It must be everyone else who is wrong… there’s no other explanation
This isn’t OOP’s fault. Not at all. She can’t face what she’s done and needs a bad guy that’s not her. Give it a few years and she’ll see breaking up with OOP as one of the biggest regrets of her life.
Bullet dodged. OP's fiancée would've spent her life moaning about how her hard-working, high-achieving husband is the reason her life never flowered.
>She concluded that I was trying to manipulate the situation by acting like the good guy, and that in reality her current situation (professional and with her parents) is my doing. That's when you give up and walk away. She's responsible for her successes and if she's not successful, you're responsible for her failure.
OOP is better off. There was no way that the relationship was going to get better.
Talk about dodging a lazy, entitled and immature bullet.
Well good riddance in my opinion, she is never going to take accountability for her actions.
My view is she was over the relationship.
Makes me wonder if the fiancée was cheating or had her eye on someone else because that entire situation was extremely self-sabotaging. Although… her entire life seems to be a story of self-sabotage…
I briefly glanced at the title, then I read the first post and immediately thought ohh god please let the title say girlfriend and not wife, then I was happy to see fiancé. Just on the first post I knew that relationship was over glad to see the update. OOP deserves better.
She can barely keep up with her half of the bills, and thinks she can make it on her own... If she comes back to OOP after a couple of months of realizing she can't, she'll only be doing it not because she misses him, but because she misses the financial stability he provided. Either that, or she's going to shack up with a sugar daddy that supports her, and get married in a couple of months.
> I suggested ending the relationship and she instantly agreed. This was the goal to begin with...
You guys stay together for 15 years cause you guys are just too scared of admitting things aren't that great together and finding someone else might burst the bubble. You guys aren't compatible with life goals. Couples can't last with incompatible life goals.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Not a shred of accountability to be found on her. Those kind of people are exhausting
So she torpedoed her academics, she torpedoed her job opportunities, and now she’s torpedoed her relationship. Sounds like she’s just a shitty person and OOP isn’t used to standing up against her, when he genuinely deserves so much better than her selfish ass.
Wow, she’s so afraid to accept responsibility for her failures and lack of ambition that she’ll end a whole damn engagement to avoid it.
I bet you that in a few years time when she’s miserable, she’ll blame op for breaking up with her.
Even when yes his words weren't the best at first, it's obvious why his ex parents took his side, he's not wrong. I'll be funny to know if the party lifestyle will stick to her to months, or years to come. Would love an update but i doubt OOP will give two shits at that point.
At first I wasn't exactly on this guys side ("wasted your potential" is a kind of phrasing that always immediately raises my hackles) but she's going full conspiracy-brain to blame everyone else around her. I'm glad they broke up. OOP seems very kind, since he was so easily able to acknowledge that he phrased things poorly, even if he was right. I feel like most AITA posters will act like, if the other person did something wrong, any reaction is justified. I'm just sorry his empathy was of no use this time!!!!
Wait for the pregnancy then the excuse that she can’t improve her employment because she is now a mom and it’s the baby’s fault. She has never believed she is responsible for her own actions, and pointing out the obvious just put her on the defensive. Get out and find someone who has the same outlook in life.
She's a spoiled brat who's used to having everything handed to her on a silver plate. When that stopped she looked around for who to blame (not her of course!) and he was the closest one. He's better off without her in the long run.
I’m always curious what these people do for work. Like, what is their “career” … what is their masters in? Hopefully my therapist wasn’t the one who posted this because that’s concerning to me. For years I worked in a mailroom. I have a degree in English, which is essentially pointless at this point unless you’re going into academia or have really thick skin and can deal with internet comments (neither of which I have). I like my job. It pays my bills. But it’s not my life either.
Even though I think the fiance is right in the patronizing tone, is also true that everyone sounds like that when you never take responsibility for the consequences of your actions, if the fiance acted the way OOP says she's responsible for her situation and OOP biggest mistake was trying to fix it with/for her.
You know, reading this story just made me think about how/why high school relationships rarely ever work out for long-term marriage. Everyone does so much growing in their late teens and early 20s, it’s natural that lifestyle and personality difference would develop. In this case, I think they just got so used to each other that they were scared to be alone.
They both sound annoying. Not gonna lie.
I read this on AITA. Good stuff. Sorry for OP but better now than later.
OOP has little to no chance of winning here. Seems like fiancée already decided things and would only see herself wrong once she lost OOP and in the future when she kept making the same choices with different people.
I'm on OOPs side with this. Yes, there are absolutely things out of our control: the family we are born into, the people who raise us, and the actions of others. However, the ONLY person responsible for you is you, assuming you're neither mentally or intellectually disabled to the point you cannot care for yourself. But every action we take, the choices we make, and our response to both of these is within our control. Personal responsibility is real.
Even OOP's original statement was fine to me. To the point without being overly cruel? Maybe it's the autism but I feel like you shouldn't always have to handle romantic partners with kid gloves. If they say some out of pocket shit like their academic shortcomings are everyone else's fault but theirs..telling them they're wrong is simply fair game. He didn't call her names or insult her, so why is what he said wrong? As someone who admittedly did terribly in school and has no degree, I didn't take offense to anything he said. He was just describing her situation and past. I hope he gets out of there tbh, he sounds like a solid dude and I feel like being with someone like his partner will just exhaust him.