Like most children, when I got into trouble as a child or I thought that I’d ‘influenced’ something, I would take the blame. Sometimes this happened outwardly such as expressing remorse for jumping between two walls and falling between the two and then saying someone else knocked me off because I was scared of getting into trouble, and then a lot of the time it was inwardly, and so blaming myself for events that in retrospect have got nothing to do with me, such as my parents not being together, or my father flaking on us for visits, or my mother seeming angry all the time, or even for ‘everyone’ not being happy.
I think, OK I know, that I was supposed to mature out of this and get a better perspective about responsibility and where I fit into the picture of Other People’s Behaviour or external factors and situations, but the truth is, to some extent I kept up this line of thinking until I was 28 when it was pointed out to me that it was pretty outrageous for me to still be thinking, albeit unconsciously, that a three year old was responsible for her parents not being together. I had a One False Move & It’s All My Fault Mentality and every day I come across people who insist on taking the blame for Other People’s Behaviour and entire situations, when what they should be doing is a mix of being realistic and looking beyond their own perspective as well as where appropriate, taking responsibility for their own actions.
The One False Move Mentality is when you have an inclination to make things that aren’t about you about you and you work off this idea that if you hadn’t done this or you hadn’t been that, or you’d said this or that, or you’d just been a ‘worthy’ ‘enough’ person then X wouldn’t have happened – X is the other person’s behaviour or a situation.
That’s why I’ve actually heard from people who genuinely believe that if they’d answered the phone on three rings instead of seven, or they’d text back quicker, or they’d been more patient and understanding of the fact that the person they’re with was attached/married, or they hadn’t got upset, or they hadn’t been honest, or they had bigger breasts, a smaller nose, were less black, the ‘right’ religion, were better at sex, were always happy, never argued, never had needs, never expressed concerns, kept still while they were having the crap kicked out of them, gave a 50th chance, or had ‘qualities’ that stop someone who is already addicted to drugs/sex/alcohol/gambling to stop being addicted, that they would have a experienced a different outcome.
The question you have to ask when you are blame inclined is, Exactly how powerful do you think you are?
I can say it now that I have the benefit of the 20:20 vision of hindsight but this whole blaming myself for everything is the inverted ego issues I spoke about last year.
Some people have delusions of grandeur and those of us who have low self-esteem have delusions of being grandiosely responsible for Other People’s Behaviour and even for situations that have jack all to do with us.
We see life through a low self-esteem lens and it’s like its mocking us and sending us messages that we’re not good enough and that we shouldn’t bother trying, when really as self-esteem is about the self it’s actually about how we see ourselves.
Life keeps throwing you the same lessons until you heed them. Trust me, if the lesson was supposed to be that you’re at fault for everything and that you’re not good enough, the lessons wouldn’t keep coming.
We also don’t realise that when we run around taking the blame for everything, it’s actually victimising ourselves, agreeing with other people’s dodgy behaviour, opinions or judgements, and giving ourselves the opportunity to make further judgements about ourselves that can have far reaching consequences.
When you want to find a reason to blame yourself, you’ll find a reason no matter how ridiculous it might be in the cold light of day.
Blame is very much about taking other people’s inadequacies and then equating this to you being inadequate as if you’re provoking it. The whole One False Move Mentality gives you this almighty power born of your ‘worth’ that causes a chain reaction of catastrophic events. Then you say “I’m not good enough. This all happened because of me.” Really?
In the Showtime series Homeland, which if you haven’t watched it, is about a CIA agent (Claire Danes) who doesn’t believe a prisoner of war’s story after he returns to America. She in fact believes that he’s been turned by Al Qaeda and she also blames herself for 9/11. Driven by the desire to avoid another terrorist attack, she genuinely believes that if she hadn’t “missed something” that she could have prevented it. Her boss tells her “Everyone missed something that day.”
And this is where you can learn something else about blame and this whole One False Move Mentality – blame is about thinking about, in fact often ruminating over what you feel that you could have prevented if you had acted differently, been different, or said something else. It’s clutching at straws.
The prevention comes when you take responsibility for the thing you can control (you) and you use the insights gained to apply them into your subsequent actions and mentality. Positively.
Living in the past and reliving hurts and rejections because you’re hanging yourself on one false move serves you no purpose, not least because you fail to see the wood for the trees. Yeah, maybe you could have said/done something different, but that would only affect you and in a relationship that wasn’t working for you anyway, it might have meant you wouldn’t have been it in the first place. People work off their own motivations and agendas and so whatever and whoever they are is based on what they’re already inclined to do.
Blame is like a magic eraser that removes all other parties and absolves them of the blame while you’re at it, taking you out of reality. Responsibility and reality not only paints them back into the picture and let’s you own your own stuff without seeing yourself as being intrinsically linked to them, but it lets you move on instead of remaining stuck on the one thing that really wasn’t the one thing.
Forgive you for where you have erred (you’re only human after all) but also for the things you cannot control and let go of this idea that ‘everything’ rests on you doing the right moves and stop persecuting yourself.
Thoughts?
The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship is now available from my bookshop along with with Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. You can also check out my ecourses.
About the Author:
Natalie Lue is the founder and writer of Baggage Reclaim and author of the books Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship and more. Learn more about her here and you can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter - @baggagereclaim .
Natalie (NML) – who has written 1083 posts on Baggage Reclaim by Natalie Lue.
• 
• 
• 
• 
Related Posts
199 Responses to Do You Have a One False Move (& It’s All Your Fault) Mentality?
Get Notified When There’s A New Post
Natalie’s Books
I'm also on Google+.
Really good post. I’ve had the “one false move” mentality all or most of my life.
1. I was too young to remember if I blamed myself for my parents’ divorce, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if I did. (I was only 2 or 3. Damn shame to do that to myself.)
2. I sometimes blamed myself for my mother & ex-stepfather’s divorce. I figured that if I mediated between them or made them laugh or got good grades in school or (insert anything here), they’d stay together. (This was from age 10 until my teens. Damn shame to do that to myself.)
3. My maternal grandmother died over 17 years ago. I blamed myself because I cut school one day for the 1st time ever (I was the good kid), asked a higher power to “PLEASE forgive me for cutting school JUST THIS ONE TIME; I’ll never do it again. Just don’t let Grandma die (she was quite ill).”, and was convinced that a higher power punished me by making her die exactly 2 weeks later. It took me 15 years, on the 15th anniversary of her death, to release that heavy burden. It was painful & induced a bad headache that day, but it was so cathartic. I’m agnostic, but I’m sure that if she could hear me, it’d tear her apart to know that I blamed myself.
4. I definitely did this with friendships and romantic relationships sometimes, even in recent years. I’ve been able to deal with it much quicker now, though.
The “one false move” mentality is such a heavy burden to carry. I think that it’s natural to feel that way every once in a while, but it’s important to realize the truth sooner rather than later and, like Natalie said, “what they should be doing is a mix of being realistic and looking beyond their own perspective as well as where appropriate, taking responsibility for their own actions.”
Narcissistic parents, who’ve resigned to go through the motions until they die. As a teen my mother had said, you can’t go out b/c I don’t want your father to force himself on me.
I used to get hit/yelled at anytime I did anything ‘wrong’, yep get a cold, speak up, talk to the opposite sex. I was so introverted and shy, I saw abuse in my friends’ homes too (thought it was the norm). Mother would say ‘disappear’ and then I had to pretend I didn’t exist.
My sister has been eating her feelings and her appearance is a source of shame for them. It makes me so angry, she’s 17 and I’m 27.
EllyB – I still catch myself saying “I feel so stupid!” when I get sick. Like intelligence has anything to do with it! Lol! I stop the thought and move on.
readers of BR who are daughters of narcissistic mothers-
i so seriously want to take care of all of you in one big chicked soup-ed love fest. ignored abuses, criticized illnesses, fear, blame, ridicule …. its so awful. i don’t know why i feel your pain so fellingly, one would think it would be worse if you all had narcissistic fathers like i did, but my heart goes out to you especially. maybe that’s my mothering florence nightingale complex…
anyway, here’s what i can do, repeat my past reference to the book i read on the subject. please get it and read it. some of the exercises will scare the holy bejebus out of you because they go so deep – you’ll know when you get to that section, and if you have to stop and put the book in the freezer or temporarily delete it off your ipad, its ok, its perfectly understandable.
anyway, here it is. i seriously recommend it for every one of you:
Will I Ever Be Good Enough?
Healing the Daughers of Narcissistic Mothers
Karyl McBride, PhD
http://www.amazon.com/Will-Ever-Good-Enough-Narcissistic/dp/1439129436
…oh, wait, that’s amazon US and many of you are UK, etc. well, you get the idea.
I also recommend the following blog by a narcissistic mother’s daughter: http://narcissists-suck.blogspot.de/
She’s not only very insightful, but also ANGRY. I think that’s very helpful especially if you’re struggling with acknowledging your own anger. For me it was the first real eye-opener regarding momster’s true nature.
Yep, I have the book and it shocked me at how accurate it is about my experience. (I’ve mentioned my mother on here a few times.) I still haven’t finished it; I wasn’t “ready” yet but now I think that I am. This definitely contributes to the “one false move” mentality & does LOTS of damage, some irreparable.
Thank you Natalie! I needed this at exactly this moment…
Been a while since I posted – (formerly Aimee).
This post hit home!! As so many of Nat’s posts do. I needed this one bad!! Been doing good, but every so often my low self-esteem rears it’s ugly little head! Uggghhhh!
My wake up was when the AC, on our date night, had three women show up in his backyard he planned on partying with, with his buddies. I got angry, left and called and made mean comments. Then I blamed myself for him screwing one of them that night (cause I got mad – huh??), although he denied it for 3 yrs until last summer when he called and told me “He loved, missed me, and effed up” and finally fessed up.
It took me a while to get it – and like I told him last year when I told him there was no going back, that I realized it didn’t matter what I did or did not do that night – he was still going to screw her. That was his plan, that is who he is, and sure that is who he still is.
I learnd that crapola, that everything is my “fault” growing up in my lovely family. Which is BS, but still struggle with it. See – if it’s all my fault – THEN I CAN FIX IT!! Than I will live happily ever after in my fantasy land. Sounds as if I am stuck in the narcissitic phase of development??!!
Thanks for the wonderful posts Nat and everyone elses comments!! They help me get my head screwed on right when I need it!!
AHM-
brilliant. yes, if its our fault, we can fix it and make things perfect. except its not our fault, we only have control over ourselves, and nothing is perfect.
thank you for that insight – it is VERY difficult for us to understand that we can only control ourselves – this feels lonely because we aren’t good at it and we haven’t gotten good results from it, so we’ve empirically learned that, in some sense, we are ineffectual. so we try harder to control others.
but we should be trying harder to both release ourselves (not think of it as “control”) and make better choices for ourselves, both in what we accept and in how we behave. we need to learn to be more effectual in these ways. we’ll stop chasing after what is bad for us and be able to lead happier lives.
so, if you were stuck, you’re not anymore. you had this FLASH. well done, you. thank you again.
EllyB — again, you are looking for external sources for your peace, validation, compassion. (Your therapist.) You are trying to control the world by saying, “Treat me how I need to me treated, treat me in a way that I always feel good and I have less anxiety, fear, hurt, blah blah blah” (paraphrasing of course) and I come from compassion and care cause I get you, I do. But here’s the deal as I beat this dead donkey, you have control of only you and only you. When we expect others to right the wrongs of our world, we are being just like our parents. It was almost like a surrender for me. I had to say, This ain’t working. My thought processes are out of whack. And yes, I saw how my parents were screwed up, but I saw I was. Not to beat myself up or to feel worse about myself but to find the areas I, ME, that needed to change. I know you have made progress, I am not being mean, just not sure you get it?
Lo J: You’re right, but I think it’s also okay to be angry at my therapist. She clearly acted as if I had no right to question her authority, as if I was in no position to object to anything she wanted because I was so “messed up”.
I think a therapist shouldn’t act that way. I’ve read somewhere that in a successfull trauma therapy, you are going to get angry at your therapist at some point (she was supposed to be an expert in treating childhood trauma). You learn to act as if your therapist was your abusive parent, and you get angry. And that’s okay. A good therapist should be able to stand that.
I always wondered why we never got to that point. Now I know. She made it clear from the outset that it wasn’t okay for me to get angry with her. It was inacceptable. She was the boss and I had to act accordingly.
And no, I don’t believe I “became like my parents” by expecting a therapist to treat me with respect and compassion. She was a therapist, not a vulnerable little child. Sorry, but that’s a huge difference. After all, I was paying her. A lot of money. Out of my own pocket, because my health insurance didn’t cover counselling back then.
I should have opted out earlier, that’s the only mistake I made. Unfortunately, I was so vulnerable back then that I didn’t. Isn’t that the time when we need a therapist the most? I think if they exploit those vulnerabilities, that’s pretty wicked.
No, I’m not after revenge or anything. But I’ve just realized how she has increased the amount of “baggage” I’m hauling around instead of helping me get rid of it.
Sorry, me again. Lo J – no, I cannot force anybody to treat me the way I want. That’s true. However, if you’re dealing with horrible abuse memories, you sometimes need somebody who is compassionate with you, who gives you some of the “mirroring” you didn’t get as a child. That’s not “sense of entitlement”, it’s human. That’s what trauma therapists are (supposed to be) for. They can’t “fix” us (we need to do that ourselves), but they can help set the process in motion.
If a therapist is incapable of providing that kind of compassion, it’s his/her fault, not mine (and my expectations weren’t too high). It’s like dating somebody who doesn’t treat us with love, care and respect. That’s not our fault either, but in both cases we need to opt out.
The problem with therapists is that we often see them at a point in our life when we’re way too vulnerable to enforce boundaries.
I agree with you, EllyB. A therapist should be understanding. In my example I had just found out what dynamics was going on with my mother and the therapist started screaming at me:”So, do you want to play victim? Let’s get on with the real work!” – which was supposed to be tapping. Well, I thought she would be able to listen what my issue was before “the work”. It was only my second or third session with her.
Also, I had asked one of my friends, who used to be a psychiatric nurse and had gone to counselling herself if it was wrong to seek support and validation from external sources (i.e, friends, therapists…) She said we did not live in vacuum and of course we needed support and validation.
You are not alone.
EllyB
This is the question, perhaps – what exactly is “the baggage”?
To me baggage is the unhealthy patterns, thoughts and beliefs we carry round with us. It isn’t the things that happen to us or were done to us, it is how we have processed those events. Nelson Mandela doesn’t have any “baggage” I would guess because however cruelly he was treated he did not let it affect his beliefs and his behaviour and his sense of purpose. No one can give you baggage.
Your therapist may not have behaved well – may not have given you the help you needed – but now you recognise that and realise that it wasn’t right for you, for whatever reasons (I honestly dont think many people really are malicious) you can make a conscious decision to let it go.
That said, however, I accept completely that how we are treated and what we observe as children is likely to impact on adult behaviours; and cause baggage that can be difficult and painful to unpack. In some cases maybe *cannot* be unpacked.
I ruminate on this a lot myself and where my *genetic* makeup ends (strong history of alcoholism, mental illness, bipolar, and suicide on both sides) and nurture (alcoholism, abandonment) begins, or how much is me making excuses for crappy behaviour that I could well have avoided?
Mymble: Thanks! I haven’t seen that therapist for a year, but she had made me second-guess myself ever since. Only now have I realized that this might be an unhealthy pattern in itself, even if it had been caused by an “authority” (a therapist).
She wasn’t empathetic with me when I shared my worst memory of childhood abuse (all that happened during our first counselling session). Now, one year later, I feel capable of giving that empathy to MYSELF. That involves being angry at my therapist. Back then I believed I deserved empathy, she made me believe I didn’t, but I was right all along. Anyway, my anger won’t harm her, right? She’s far away.
Mymble – my family has a strong history of personality disorders (especially narcissism), alcoholism, abuse of prescription drugs and sexual abuse (I think) on both sides. Does that make me “tainted” in any way? No. I think most of it is somehow related to personality disorders. People with personality disorders as well as their victims (except those who seriously try to overcome their trauma) seem to be addiction-prone. Same with suicide. About bipolar I don’t know.
I think if you’re working on your trauma, you’re already on your way to overcome all this. And yeah, stop making excuses for crappy behaviors (if you’re still doing that) – not making excuses anymore for other people’s crap is the way to healing.
EllyB, I clearly don’t know the details but as I see it, your therapist treated you with compassion … but not necessarily on YOUR terms. You did get angry with her after all. But you left. Granted, I do agree that some therapists aren’t gonna jive wth all patients, but sometimes that mirror they hold up to us reflects back things we don’t want, or are not ready to see. I absolutely speak from personal experience.
And I am happy and so are my boys. Sigh. What a concept.
Mymble … love what you said! My family too has that history. It is what it is, not sure what came first, but am so grateful for medication and the wisdom of therapists and examples of “normal” people and now can function amongst without them hardly knowing the difference!
Lo J: I’ve dug fairly deply into medical information on anti-anxiety drugs, and due to the possibly serious side effects, I had come to the conclusion that I wanted to try to heal without drugs first.
After all, my ecounter with this therapist a little more than a year ago was my first attempt at therapy (and this discussion took part during the first 15 minutes of our very first session). I think I met (still meet) many important requirements for healing without any “fast” intervention via drugs. I’m aware of the roots of my trauma and willing to question my parents (I have been NC with them for half a decade). When I saw this therapist, I had already gone NC with a predatorial guy whom I had been “friends” with for 6 weeks. I had also cut off other toxic people in my life, was on a strict dating hiatus, had no addictions and was functioning well in everyday life. I’ve stuck to all of this ever since. This doesn’t sound like failure to me.
I think I have a right to choose what kind of treatment I want to try first. Even if I might be traumatized, I am still an adult. She made me feel bad about my “no” to immediate medication, but I think (as with any doctors) it is our right to question their recommendations, gather information on our own and then make a well-informed decision. We are not obliged to give in to their pressure.
Ladies, this is venturing into off topic territory. You’ve both made your points – neither of you need to validate the others perspective or defend your own position. I didn’t do medication but it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been appropriate to some people’s situations nor does it mean that it’s appropriate for every person who has ever experienced trauma. Neither of you are ‘wrong’ so move it along.
EllyB, I suggest that you get behind your own decision to not try medication. You are each partly responsible for what happened in that situation – even if she did ‘make’ you feel bad in that situation, it was your own feelings about medication why you felt bad otherwise you wouldn’t still be talking about a 15 minute discussion that took place a year ago. You need to validate yourself and get behind your choice. The healing is not going to come from raking over that decision or perspective – if you have chosen to heal without medical intervention which is a more than valid decision, go and do the work to heal. That woman is just one therapist. She is not the gospel according to therapy or life, just like your parents aren’t very important people. They’re only important in their own deluded world and have no authority elsewhere.
If you continue down this line, you actually continue to victimise yourself. You are a victim of your parents abominable behaviour, but you are an adult now and you have been NC for over 5 years so why undo a very good decision by playing into that dynamic? You can create any life you want with work. You are very clearly affected by what happened to you as a child and that is 150% understandable, but and there is a big but, at some point you have to make a choice to stop trying to figure out or change your parents (even if it is from afar) and to stop trying to make up for lost time with people in your work environment who are clearly numpties, and start managing the responsibility of your own life. You do have to do work to get past the conditioning of the systematic abuse that your parents did but you can do it. You cannot erase your past – you can create your own present and future. It takes work and repetition of new habits to overtake the old habits. You have to try and keep trying day after day after day and it’s likely going to take professional help.
When you see any therapist, that first discussion should start with getting some clarification on your expectations. If you have ideas about what you would like (or wouldn’t like) to happen in sessions, what you think that this type of therapy does, you discuss it with the therapist at the outset, not assume it. There is no person that you can book to do work with that you can assume what they’re going to do. Be absolutely clear and this ensures you’re both on the same page and that you are in the appropriate environment for what you are expecting. Even if she did specialise in trauma, she had a different way of doing things and if she doesn’t want to sit there and take on a role of your parent, that is her prerogative. Could she have handled the situation better so that you didn’t come out of the room being even more stressed out? Yes of course but you also need to practice the empathy that you say she is missing, not to agree with her behaviour but to see where she might be coming from.
NML: Thank you for your honest words! As so often, you are spot on when we’ve gotten ourselves stuck in an unhealthy pattern again. I’ve spent almost an entire year secretly blaming myself for the “failure” of this therapy relationship, only to get angry at the therapist recently.
I was also scared about looking for a new therapist. I thought: “What if the new therapist has a different agenda from mine too? What if he/she wants me to break NC and reconcile with my parents, for example? What if I have to try, say, five more therapists, and no one is right for me? What if it takes me a year or longer to find a decent therapist because there are so few and they all have long waiting lists? Wouldn’t that be my fault? Wouldn’t that mean I’m a hopeless case?”.
This, again, is a thought pattern that had been established in my childhood. It has nothing to do with reality.
Sorry for posting again, but I think it’s not completely OT. To me, my old reasoning sounds an awful lot like “there a no good men (no good therapists) to date”. It almost makes me laugh now.
Thank you.
EllyB
I disagreed with my therapist on a no. of issues. They key one was major. He thought it was all right to have an affair with a MM if that’s what my heart wanted. I said no way, it goes against everything I believe in.
Back to topic – there’s no need to be afraid of making “one false move” in therapy either. And it cuts both ways, I think the therapist should be allowed to make a wrong move too (no dodgy stuff) provided you can both get back on track. It’s a relationship, albeit a professional one, and you should be able to navigate points of difference together. You don’t have to agree with them or they with you on all points. Otherwise you may as well be talking to yourself. I’ve had therapists who didn’t challenge me at all – looking back it did help somewhat but it was a very expensive way to just vent.
As for finding a therapist, it’s a bit of a crapshoot. The best one I had was male, in his 60s and specialised in eating disorders especially overeating. I’m female, in my 40s, don’t have an eating disorder and never been overweight. But we just fit. I was very specific, though,that I required explicit intervention and could take on board challenges. This was my fourth or fifth therapist and, while I don’t blame those previous ones, I was still stuck and needed a boot up the backside to progress. If you feel that what you need is a shoulder to lean on and someone who will just listen, then point that out. With the caveat that change is uncomfortable and if your therapy is too softyou may not not be getting as much out of it as you could.
Now don’t run off with persecuting yourself about the “failed” therapy. It didn’t work out,there is no “good and bad” in these situations, and there are other therapists!
By the way, I saw a comment of mine from two years ago from a link, where I wasn’t in a relationship and at that time had no intention of being in a relationship. And now I am in one. The most peaceful one I have been in for about twenty years. And the only one where our values chime. A lot can improve in a relatively short time (I’m not just talking about dating). Your fate isn’t sealed despite what you’ve been lumbered with.
“By the way, I saw a comment of mine from two years ago from a link, where I wasn’t in a relationship and at that time had no intention of being in a relationship. And now I am in one. The most peaceful one I have been in for about twenty years. And the only one where our values chime.”
If I may comment on this topic once again… There is an FAQ about finding a good therapist, written by the great author Alice Miller: http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?force=faq
Unfortunately, I didn’t stick to this list when choosing my first therapist (she would have “failed” the question test because she didn’t like me to ask her questions), but I’m going to do it in the future. Finding a therapist who meets those requirements won’t be easy, but I believe it would be worth it.
As to therapists challenging our beliefs: Yes, that’s part of their job, but there are both healthy and unhealthy challenges. I think my gut instinct is capable of telling me the difference (if I’m willing to listen). For example, NML is challenging unhealthy beliefs in us as well, but for me, it usually feels right when she does it. The same is true for the authors of several good books I’ve read.
Absolutely! What all said. I had several therapists, not sure if it was me, them, the combo the timing or what. And we are still a work in progress which is life. Yeah!! We’re doing the best we can. Find what’s right for you just don’t give up. And I said the wrong thing and it was all my fault. Not really. Just wanted to stay on topic. Thanks everybody!
in regards to seeing a therapist. i had my first session today …had a previous therapist which i left after a few sessions as she went on a hate campaign against the muslim man i was seeing. telling me such things ‘well its typical of a muslim man to be this way etc’. i didnt like her judgmental views. anyway i feel comfortable with my new therapist. he’s very much about not about playing the ‘victim’ role. next week we’re looking at how my being bullied as a child has influenced the way i conduct relationships. i find his stance quite powering actually. for me, i don’t want a sympathetic therapist. i want someone honest and upfront.
grace you say “I’ve had therapists who didn’t challenge me at all” this therapist challenges me..makes me look at things from another perspective. makes me feel normal. for example he says stuff like “instead of looking at things this way, see it this way etc”
so i’ve had a lot of “ohhhh” moments. i also feel less crazy as i told him about my facebook stalking tendencies. he told me that as i seem to be competent in using the computer, why dont i put it into better use and read stuff on being mindful etc.
i guess its just the way he’s talking makes me feel less depressed and more better actually.
Everyone has to take responsibility for their actions. But even if you did something wrong and it affects how you get on, well that’s a problem for the relationship and not just that person.
In my last relationship, I had a need for sexual attention (or any kind of loving attention) which my boyfriend refused to give me even though I would keep asking and told him that it upset me. This was over a 6-8 month period. In the end he blamed me. But it was a problem for our relationship and he thought it was all about him. Now I cannot believe he tried to make it out to be my fault. He said he was too busy to show me affection. He had plenty of time for porn. In fact I think he preferred porn because he could get the job done quickly for the same result and not have to pay attention to me, which would take up his valuable time.
So now I don’t say to myself that I should have been more accommodating or that I’m selfish for caring about sex (which he convinced me of). It didn’t matter about the hurt words I said when I got angry with him about it. You have to get 100% from both sides.