for real though
I’m getting a divorce on the surface because she cheated on me.
but the reality is she isn’t ok with me sharing emotions, or being vulnerable.
fuck toxic masculinity, and it’s pervasive grip that has strangled so much
Good for you man (no sarcasm or anything, I’m being serious). My last relationship was toxic, she would intentionally piss me off, to the point that she would tell me to hit her, and when I’d get pissed off and rage or just break down she would tell me I had anger issues.
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The social norm of men suppressing their emotions is a trait of toxic masculinity. His wife is propagating toxic masculinity by making him suppress his emotions.
I feel like people are doing a disservice by using the phrase “toxic masculinity”
You can’t use that phrase without implying masculinity in general is a bad thing. Trying to draw a distinction between “masculinity” and “toxic masculinity” is using the same logic as the people that say “but you’re one of the good ones” when they’re talking to someone of [insert race, gender, religion, etc].
They’re toxic people that cause these problems. There’s nothing wrong with masculinity.
Mfer doesn’t understand how adjectives work
I don’t know what an adjective is but it doesn’t sound manly so I won’t do it.
Big Ben Shapiro vibes
You can’t use the phrase “bad egg” without implying all eggs are bad, except the “good ones”
well you know what they say a bad apple spoils the batch
You’re making an incorrect comparison here.
Race, gender, etc. are: 1)Immutable 2)Not harmful, they just are
Toxic masculinity is behavior, it: 1)Causes measurable harm 2)Can be changed
It’s not okay to put those things into the same bin. While I appreciate and somewhat applaud your effort to stand up for masculinity that many say is in crisis, this can be approached in a plethora of ways besides promoting objectively harmful behaviors.
And yet we never hear about toxic femininity, it sure feels pretty biased, especially when in this case it’s literally a woman that’s making a guys life miserable… And yet toxic masculinity 🤷♂️
Toxic feminity would be rather shaming other women for not being feminine enough, or something along these lines. Restricting even healthy aggression in women, forcing certain visual styles etc.
But what you’re seemingly talking about - women propagating toxic masculinity again - is very real, and something we should talk about (and I do here and there). After all, it’s in the interest of everyone. Men can finally take a breather and be themselves, freed up from harmful expectations, and women will have to deal with much less dangerous aggression from men, alcoholic husbands etc.
We just generally need to build a more compassionate society. And that absolutely entails being compassionate to men.
There’s ABSOLUTELY toxic femininity. The idea that you have to be airbrush perfection. That real women don’t pay on their dates. That yu should play games and be unavailable because no one likes a whore. That’s all toxic femininity. Why doesn’t it get much air compared to toxic masculinity? Probably because we’re coming off a MASSIVE patriarchy and toxic masculinity is fucking SWAMPED in our culture, but both absolutely exist.
I get what you’re saying but you’re wrong. Toxic masculinity is a societal expectations thing. It’s the background noise that’s ever-present in society saying “masculinity is anger.” “Masculinity is never crying.” “Masculinity is shoving those emotions deep down in the man place, where they’ll never be seen again.”
Healthy masculinity is ideas such as taking care of your shit. Owning responsibility for the things you can effect. Shit like that. When someone says someone has issues because of toxic masculinity, they’re not saying that masculinity itself is bad. Of course it isn’t. The thing that’s bad is our, society’s, views on what masculinity is. That’s the toxic masculinity.
Toxic Masculinity is taking masculinity to the extreme, acting like the only masculine traits are those that are cold and lack emotion. It’s possible to be masculine but to also have emotions.
Yeah bruh, I hate toxic people and I’m trying to cut them out of my life. That of course means exactly the same as saying I hate all people.
I had a girlfriend once (briefly) who legit got mad at me for crying. Like, “stop that fucking shit” and walked out of the room mad.
She also believed that a guy resting their head on the girl’s shoulder or lap or whatever made them look weak.
Anyway, she’s gone and, last I knew, absolutely miserable.
My wife? Amazing and completely the opposite of the above. I don’t know wtf I was thinking before.
My nephew blames others when he has emotions. I’ll prolly end up killing him.
WTF does that have to do with what you responded to?
He’s got some serious issues with blaming other people for him having emotions.
Edit: doesn’t even need a gal to blame him.
Blaming others for your actions. It’s gaslighting.
But what does that have anything to do with the guy’s ex GF or current wife? Or anything to do with one being negligent and the other being supportive?
It has to do with reinforcing the idea that men should bo ashamed for crying. Bad news bears my dude.
You should have made that connection in your first comment
Maybe so. I thought it was more clear than it is. It happens.
I’ll prolly end up…
When autocorrect gets you added to a list
I’m already on plenty of lists.
Been single a loooong, long time. 99% of women I talk to / been on dates with find bi / pan men disgusting. It got to the point after one date, when she’d told me she’s bi, then literally recoiled in disgust when I said I’m pan, I just gave up.
Moved to a new area, been on one date, she is bi and doesn’t understand why so many women think that way. She’s awesome, we had an amazing time so I hope it grows into something special! Good luck with your relationship :)
I recently came to accept that I am bi. I was puzzled how most of my life I only ever had luck with bi/pan women as I had refused to acknowledge that side of me due to rampant homophobia where I grew up. Something about us just repels cis women in my experience. My wife even had gay friends insisting she was a smokescreen and that I was forcing myself to be with her. Part of my trauma growing up was hearing people have the stereotype that bi people are just horny sluts and that it wasn’t just how they were born.
There seems to be a stigma against bi men in general just as bad as gay men in my experience (I’ve even heard tales of gay men hating bi men). Any straight woman I dated, or tried to, always seemed to be repulsed by me. My guess is that it is in the body language, since her gay friends insisted I was too. Society as a whole is getting better at accepting people but it is still fucked.
Sorry to hear about your experiences. It does provide some small feeling of solidarity to know we’re not alone!
Well done for accepting yourself. I do have the privelege in some sense that if I wanted, I could pretend to be straight. Maybe that’s an aspect that riles some gay people up. I can confirm I don’t repulse women :) until that is, they figure out or find out that I’m not straight. Then it’s almost always the instant evaporation of attraction.
As far as I understand it, for some women, their idea of attraction to a man is still (despite the clamouring for equal rights) tied to how macho the man is. Sex with men, or trans people, destroys that machoness. Then you’ve got the insecure ones who assume because you also find another gender attractive, they can never be enough for you, or that you will cheat. I’ve never, ever cheated on a partner. Finally you have the ones who assume that not being straight, you’re highly promiscuous and therefore riddled with STIs. I can’t speak for other guys but before I realised I was pan I used to joke I’m not bi, I’m bi myself. Very much not promiscuous, and very much take the necessary precautions whenever I sleep with someone (which is rare).
Notice how just speaking about my experience caused someone to downvote my comment. We can’t even exist without offending some people.
I seemed to pass as straight to cis gendered people, but like you said they are looking for that macho man vibe and despite my trying they could always see through it. Only gay and bi people ever showed signs of or did question it. I think much of what makes people uncomfortable about LGBTQ+ is because they see things that they see in themselves they don’t like. Society forces people to conform when things are far from black and white.
For example, despite saying that I am bi I have a strong preference towards women. I only crushed hard on a guy once, but never mentioned a word of it and was just best friends with him until we went our separate ways, due to the aforementioned homophobia around us. I wonder now, at this point, how different my life would have been if society was more open. I strongly suspect he wasn’t strictly het either as his wife is pan as well among other things.
You know, having a preference is completely normal. I don’t think many bi people have their preference split 50/50! Not sure if you’re familiar with Kinsey Scale, worth looking into.
Interestingly, my ‘type’ for women is almost completely the inverse for guys. Similar to you, I have a preference towards women / trans women, though I sometimes wonder if that’s still some inbuilt shame from society.
Never knew this might be a common issue, interesting.
Bi girls I dated were rather constantly questioning how can I be strictly hetero lol
It’s sadly extremely common. Women who say they are allies imo are often just accessorising, they’ll go to pride and ‘have a gay friend’ but vomit at the thought of dating someone pan / bi.
I made myself more than a little sad the other day, reading the comments under an article about this issue written by a bi man who married a woman. Just an absolute reel of angry, ‘personally attacked’ women completely confirmimg the articles points.
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I think the left person got scammed
For real - is that a new car for ants?
Been there, did that. Now we’re ten days into this Parenthood thing and will raise our boy to be as connected to his feelings as I can be.
Happy for you OP!
I hit the same jackpot. I salute you, brother.
Me too, I think. I mean she keeps telling me that and acting like it, but I guess I have PTSD or something because we’re a year in and on the inside I can’t convince myself of it.
I feel like she’s either lying or doesn’t understand herself well enough to know how she’ll react if I really show all my feelings. Especially since there are conflicting signals. For example she says she likes that I make her feel safe. Well, will she still feel safe if she knows how vulnerable I am? I just can’t bring myself to really believe it, after so many relationships teaching me the opposite.
I had the exact same problem at the beginning and I solved it by accident. A couple of months ago we went to the movies and watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (stupid movie, do not recommend). So I started crying when
Spoiler
that fucking cyborg rabbit died.
The dam broke and it went on for like 15 minutes. I already thought to myself that this is it. This is the beginning of the end for this relationship. But instead of getting punished for any sign of vulnerability, she took my hand when she noticed and squeezed it. She whispered that it’s ok. Our relationship completely changed over night, I changed over night, I found out what mutual love actually means, that every single relationship before that was anything BUT normal and kind of a toxic waste of my time. In my mid fucking 30s.
I understand that this is kind of a all-in situation. Eighter wreck your shit forever or change your life for the better forever. So thats horrifying. But at least you have the chance to finally quell your fears?
Edit: I love how the spoiler tag does not work on Memmy.
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As a woman dating an amazing woman after dating a bunch of duds, both male and female… I feel seen. Sometimes I really don’t know how to react when she doesn’t get mad, mercilessly tease me, or take advantage of me when I am vulnerable. And we’ve been together for several years.
Yeah this is exactly what a world where toxic masculinity is empowered looks like. We really just expect half the population to never display emotion and that’s robbed the world of so much richness and color.
… and other fairy tales
I have found one like that. 16 years (so far) of happiness, trust, and mental health.
Wow! You rock!
Sincerely hope it’ll go on like that forever - and it probably will, 16 years is a loooong time
I’ve hit that same jackpot. All my previous relationships were toxic AF and now I’m with my 2 girlfriends who I trust more than myself. I even have a history of lying to prevent pain and I just can’t lie to them even if I try. They are truly the best things to ever happen to me and I would do anything for them especially since I don’t even have to change a thing about myself to make them happy
To be clear - it’s a polyamorous relationship, right?
Yes, I wouldn’t have two families. One is enough.
I just like a big one
Nice!
Does it have to? What’s wrong with them sharing him without liking each other?
Nothing wrong with that, it’s just that cheating came to my mind first, but it’s obviously not the case :)
I will admit, I cheated once in my life on one person, and though I feel bad about it I felt justified in doing so as well. It was an extremely toxic relationship where I feared going home and learned to block punches and thrown objects. It was almost a decade ago now, but even all my other relationships I’ve had wouldn’t have felt justification to cheat.
I know I don’t have to say that, but I’d rather people learn from my mistakes and I own up to all my mistakes, justified or not.
My take? Don’t cheat, just find a way, literally any way, to get out. It’s more dangerous to antagonize your abuser than to just escape.
Golden words.
Escape.
In abusive relationships you may sometimes feel that living without them is even worse - either due to attachment or financial issues or anything else.
No, it isn’t. Any problem can and will be solved - transition will hurt, but, as just about 100% of people who escaped such relationships will tell you - it is worth it.
Your safety, dignity and mental health are worth way more than what you get in any abusive relationship.
Also, bonus points for owning up to your past mistakes. You’re doing great!
Feelings of a almost human nature? Congrats!
Is it possible to learn this power?
Witch?
Hoping to find a woman like that, we both love each other for who we are, and that’s it. That’s life
