Vitriol

[greenstorm]

Of course you're doing really well. You're off work with the person you said touches you in a way that you feel emotionally close and communicative with and gives you what you need, and you don't have the burden of listening to my feelings anymore. I'm going through a breakup with someone who hasn't felt emotionally close or communicative for a long time and is glad to be rid of that communication. Maybe try expressing even an empty platitude about hoping I'm doing well, or sorry this is probably hard for me?

Especially when you just stood me up for a chat this evening?

What the fuck, dude? Do you not have any compassion or empathy at all?

Oh, that's right. That sort of thing is too draining, and it wastes time when you're on a multi-day date.

Sorry about that.

It's kind of rubbing salt in the wound to say you're looking forward to talking to me, though. You explicitly don't want to hear how I'm doing, so what are you looking forward to, a performance? I don't owe you that anymore. You're no longer bothering to perform for me.

I wish I'd taken your previous relationship breakup as a bigger red flag. Who knows why she didn't feel like she could talk to you about her emotions? What a mystery.

Edited the next morning to add: oh, you're sorry, you were busy having an intense emotional experience with S, you didn't have enough energy to shut me out, so you just stood me up. Given that this breakup is because you aren't into sharing with me emotionally, that's... well.

Greenie, every moment is a sign. The way you feel now means something. It's information. Use it.


Right. Anger. It illuminates boundaries and gives the energy to enforce them.

Comments

[yarrowkat]

it's information. terrible, unwanted information that feels like shit. but it's information

i'm so sorry you're going through all this. what a jerk he is turning out to be, now that things have fallen this far apart.

[greenstorm]

It's... the situation is such a trainwreck. Since he started poking at the concept of autism and introduced me to it I've been joking that if autism is basically defined by having a number of traits either extra strongly or extra weakly, he and I are basically on opposite ends of all the ones in which we're divergent from the norm. We definitely have such different base philosophies and I think a very different concept of other people.

Other folks' actions and words can be interpreted so differently. I know he tried harder than he should have to make me happy and comfortable; the things he did just weren't what I needed. In turn I did the same, and with the same result.

Another frame on this is: I personally know what it's like to get caught up in an emotional thing and be unable to do what I'd promised. I learned through some really rough experiences to never promise something I couldn't do, but someone missing a thing isn't, in itself, a dealbreaker or unforgiveable. It also took me a long, long time to stop making those bad promises because there isn't a model for it: the world doesn't have stories in which you actually don't have the ability to notice time passing, or to make words , in order to meet a deadline for connection with a partner. Your partner is always supposed to be the center of your being. So if we're late for something and say "oh, I got into a car crash" that's acceptable, but if we're late for something and say "I was emotionally overwhelmed and lost track of time" that's seen as having a terrible character and not really caring. So Tucker and I have very similar experiences here!

Except that he comes from a place where telling someone about the whys is dangerous, and listening to someone say why it hurt them is their rubbing salt in the wound of his failure. He comes from a place where no one gets their nose rubbed in how they hurt other people, and as soon as they know they have they just... amputate that part of themselves so they can't do the same thing, hurt people in the same way, again. I come from a place where telling someone why I did something helps them understand that it's not about them personally, and listening to someone say why it hurt them is a way of comforting them and making it better through helping them feel seen and validated. I come from a place where information is exchanged and we understand, commiserate, and try to find a way for both folks' needs to coexist better in the future.

He probably needs to not promise times to talk to me when he's away unless he's willing to set an actual factual phone alarm or something. And he probably needs to be more careful with telling me he'll do a thing even kind of casually when he's away. In turn, right now because I have so little trust in him I'm feeling ultra rigid; when in the normal course of trust with a partner I could ride the waves right now I need him to perform extra reliably. Which, of course, he's been pushing himself past his ability to do for the past couple years. For me the trust could be restored by talking about it and being seen; for him the trust could be restored by my not picking at (talking about) every little thing.

So basically I don't think he's a jerk. He works differently than me, he has basically the least helpful internal model of other people possible for being in a relationship with me, and what feeds me drains him and vice versa so we're both running on empty. Plus he does these infrequent mega-vacations which are high stakes for both of us; working with a local partner where there were shorter, more frequent absences would be so much easier for many reasons, not least of which is that we could do clean iterations where nothing went wrong.

Then again, I don't think he'd put in the work I just put in during this comment, analyzing how I think and how he does, making sure he's thought through several narratives, chosen one compassionate to all parties, and coming into conversation with that level of analytical empathy and structural analysis. Unfortunately if that makes him a jerk I know a whole lot of jerks.

[greenstorm]

Ha, it's like the sick thing with you and Terra, but with emotions.

[yarrowkat]

ooof, that sounds so challenging.

[yarrowkat]

i realize i did a really unhelpful NT thing there ("that guy hurt you therefore he's a jerk" reductive thinking) and i apologize. the work you did in putting this comment together is very kind & thoughtful - to me and to Tucker and i hope to yourself. i have certainly observed over the years that people have varying ability & interest in analyzing their own thinking patterns, relational patterns/styles, and so on. i feel like i come at it from a gestalt awareness more than analysis usually, but at the same time, i put a lot of time into thinking & talking about relationships, which very much informs the gestalt. (i just am more of a "closed loop with sudden flashes of insight" thinker than a methodical thinker; i often blame this on being a Taurus with mercury in Taurus.) ;)

i very much also am the kind of person who wants to speak about and know what i/they did wrong, so that we can understand and do better. if i hurt you and i don't understand why, i have no solid ground with you anymore and it erodes trust. if you tell me why i hurt you, i can work to change whatever in my thinking & behavior led to that, and we retain trust and can grow. and vice versa. so i have a lot of empathy for you around how hard it is that Tucker isn't able to participate in that process. that's rough.

even when your partner isn't the center of your being, we don't have a supportive framework around "stopped being able to notice time; missed our phone date" and the absence of that framework is one reason that would feel hard for a partner. it sounds like that is a framework that would need to be built with each new person, which also sounds tiring. i can also see phone alarms being really helpful if they work for you. (my housemate Jenny, who has adhd, sets three or so phone reminders for anything important, so that she can't just keep ignoring it; this comes from knowing her own brain & behavior patterns and not wanting to not come through on something she said she'd do. a while ago she was hunting for a reminder app that would take over the screen so you couldn't do anything else on your phone until marking it complete; she might have found that).

[greenstorm]

I keep trying to phrase "sadly, NTs are not the only ones who do this" and "hard agree/hard agree" for this one and failing, so I'll just leave them here like this.