As always, quality stop from Doc. I’m lucky in that I’m in a happy stable relationship, so I always hope for these folks success.

Trust or go. This advice is spot on. Read every damn word of this advice and take it to heart. speak, talk, be hurt and COMMUNICATE those things in a non threatening manner.

Those toxic-masculinity MRA-neckbeard cases upthread (srsly who let those morons in here? we’re tryina have a nice discussion) are exactly part of the problem. I don’t consider these idiots to be humans, because they don’t consider women humans, and they don’t even treat their fellow men as humans, and they certainly…

Oh god. I’m sorry I’m so so sorry

I do remember that.

Absolutely, when someone learns how to manipulate you and they know the triggers and the words and actions that they can say to string you along. Making your forgo your own sense of what Should and Should not be, all to fulfill whatever they need.

Exactly, even I look back on my relationship and am like “What the FUCK was I thinking?” I can actually remember thinking that when I was IN it.

Testify! I have been in similar circumstances and yeah, not all of us were so fortunate or lucky and the outside view is like hindsight. It’s 20/20.

Yup, unless you’ve had the experience of being with someone with a personality disorder it is nearly impossible to understand why he would no just walk the fuck away.

At least he has family that are willing to help him unfuck and extract himself. Not every abused person has that luxury - most abusers work really hard to cut family and friends out.

Yep. It’s emotional abuse. It’s very possible she’s been in genuinely emotionally abusive situations herself, but she’s turning that behavior right around onto the letter-writer.

And yes, it’s very hard to realize you’ve fallen into that situation.

Re: The “C” situation. Holy shit. I lived this. From the “she had just broken up with someone she described as emotionally abusive” to feeling I was in love with the person alarmingly quickly. Except as soon as the ex came back in, instead of continuing to give things a go, we had a weird, on-and-off emotionally…

Yeah he is being gaslit in a BIG way. It’s probably worse even than it seems from the letter, ‘cause he won’t see the whole of it clearly until he’s been out of it for a while.

This. After four years of my ex telling me various versions of “the reason you don’t agree with me that you’re dysfunctional is that your dysfunction is so deeply embedded you can’t even see it”, I started to think she was right. It’s been nine years since she abandoned me in a foreign country and then divorced me…

I was in an abusive relationship, too. Threats and ‘love bombs’ as the good doctor said. Did I let her get to me? Yeah, but did I deserve it because I couldn’t sort out what had happened to the girl I’d known? No.

A+ on the Transmetropolitan reference.

ALL FEMALES CHEAT. That’s a FACT.