gneiss81

I received a phone call from a friend in 2005. We had met on a meditation course a year or so before and had stayed in loose contact since. (I've since stopped meditation). When when she called I was pleased to hear from her. She asked about my life etc for a while then chatted about hers. Then she told me about the Landmark forum and how it was changing her life, she felt amazing and finally had clarity about what she wanted. Something inside me though was saying 'this is not right'. There was something odd about the way she was raving about the course. So I asked her, 'Did you call me on your own or have you been asked to call and recruit people?' Turned out it was a recruiting call. That turned me off the whole thing. If she had been honest from the start then that would have been acceptable with me. So it may be good material on the Landmark course, but it is marketed in a bullying way which I don't like.

I have had two people contact me about further more proactive therapy, thanks. One person gave me a link to a therapist, the other was a therapist contacting me directly. What are the ethics of therapists directly contacting people writing on the boards? Is this ethically OK? I feel quite vulnerable and in a position to more easily open my wallet, am I being taken advantage of? Of is this simply a service being offer free of coercion? I would certainly like to make more progress on my post break up healing. I've become completely detached lately. I'm tuning out by watching a lot of comedy shows on TV, I feel very detached in my job and am dropping the ball a lot. I've been on about 8 dates (coffee dates and similar) but I just don't feel read to date really. Some of the dates ask me 'what happened to your last relationship?' I say, 'he thought I was a liar'. They ask 'were you?' I say, 'I don't know'. It's not a good situation. I feel like I'm detaching from myself. I've not felt this confused in a long time. I don't know if I'm good anymore. I'm also giving the men a really really hard time and grilling them on their pasts the way Steph said his wife grilled him on his first date. I can tell these men are scared a bit by this, and perhaps I am purposely being rough in order to force them away. It's bad because one of my major complaints about my ex was how rough and sharp he was with questioning. Now I have turned into a cynical judge, always expecting the worst.

Hi SonOfPhilo, are you a kiwi also? I don't know any FDR listeners in Queenstown but would love to grab a coffee with you if you come up to Christchurch. What are your interests at the moment with the Freedomain Radio Content?

Virtue of selfishness by ayn rand explains value hierarchy a bit more I think with atlas shrugged being a big novel that covers it as well I read Atlas Shrugged, I thought it was awesome. It was definitely an awesome example of the value of excellence and productivity and yes, selfishness. I'll have to look into the Virtue of Selfishness book too. We (me and the ex) actually both read Atlas Shrugged and also watched Ayn Rand interviews together. Seems as if he was not on the same page for working to keep the relationship thriving and working through his issues with people. He said that it was me who was not working to fix the relationship, that I was resistant to change. In his opinion, the conversations he had with me were his real attemps to figure out what was wrong and to fix it. With Scheduling times for digestion for such discussions working so you don't get flooded and shut down, were there signals or other communication signs designed for when you needed that space to digest? I had a conversation about this with him, that I may need to leave the room it it got too heated, and I did once or twice. But when I came back to talk again, he seemed angry. If I left the conversation he thought it was avoidant. I sometimes left it for a few days before bringing up the conversation again. And after a few years I just stopped returning to the conversation at all. That was definitely avoidant. I just felt like I couldn't make any progress. I sort of checked out in order to find some mind space to think of a solution. I remember just having nothing come to mind and feeling constantly blank. What connection between thoughts and feelings did you make, he make? How much introspection was done as to why you felt what you felt, and how much did he introspect his own feelings? He believed that feelings often lead people astray because they are often based on past events and not the present situation. So for example, if I was scared of him it could be because I was afraid of my father and he reminded my of my father. Wheras thoughts were more analytical and based on evidence. So I could listen to what he said rather than how I felt about what he said. The questions in that case were often quite straightforward like: "why do you do this?" That is a straightforward question however I would take it to be accusational sometimes because of his tone or because of feeling afraid. I had a huge amount of concern about the statement that ''feelings don't matter''. In my childhood my feelings were often ignored and I was so afraid of that happening again. I place a lot of weight on my feelings, and if I don't feel good it can often be linked to some good information hidden within the feelings. He had an overly emotional mother who placed no weight on rationality and who was quite detached from her children and mean. It was frightening for him to consider me put weight upon my feelings and to not always act according to pure rationality. I know that I need to put less emphasis on my feelings because sometimes I do things that I have not thought deeply enough about. Meaning sometimes I act rashly and should think things though more. For example I can rely on instinct rather than investing time into research and practice sometimes. I don't do this often, but when I do it can be a disaster, like recently I did not put enough energy into thinking about how I would handle a work issue, and the issue blew up in my face before I had properly thought it through. I was still 'feeling it out' but that was not professional enough or quick enough. I should have 'thought it out'. How much of a social network have you built or gotten connected with to model what you want to model? I am making great progress here. There are three groups that I have created online that have similar interests to me in my home town. I have joined two other groups on economics and investing. I go to a business course to meet and network with people. I am making choices to connect and spent time with people in good relationships/people who are happily married. I am choosing to spend more time with kids. I am currently modeling the kind of social interaction that I would be happy to model to my kids (if I ever have any). The next step might be to mentor a child, form a Christchurch FDR group, join a peaceful parenting group, or a homeschooling group, or permaculture or something like this. I am really enjoying this area of growth. I am also really enjoying this particular conversation with you. Sounds like there were very different visions and values for what your lives would look like with you wanting to teach gardening and him wanting to live far from society, if this was discussed early, would that have helped break things off quicker with such differences in what kind of life you each wanted? In the beginning I agreed that a rural life would be good but I stipulated that I would like to get to know our neighbours and have people over for dinners and BBQs for the social interaction. I said I could travel to town on weekends to teach. As the relationship progressed I observed that he began more and more to dislike having people over for dinner/BBQs. Initially these events went well, we had a good time, we even hosted a very successful BBQ for my workmates which was much enjoyed. Over time this changed. although he would do it, and actually be a very charming host, he began to dislike it more and more and would have preferred these events did not happen. I began to feel more and more scared that we were in for a very isolated life together. I felt a bit duped. How much reading of stephans books went on such as universal preferable behavior and real time relationships? I read Real Time Relationships. I thought it was a bit rambling and imprecise. I don't think I got out of it what I was meant to get out of it. I have not read UPB. Maybe I should try again for I may not have been in a good mindframe to understand these books. When he said it was what you ( people) did that mattered, were there discrepancies between what you thought, felt, did? Yes. I felt scared, but I acted or tried to act calm, however my actions gave away my fear. For example I would drop or break things and they would nine times out of ten be his things. He called me passive aggressive. I agree with this assessment, I was passive aggressive. He said I was intentionally ruining his things. I never set out with the intention to break his things, but I think unconsciously I was sabotaging things. He called me a saboteur. I think that this is fair call, and it was a result of not being assertive. What happened to me?? I pretty much disappeared for five years. I'm still trying to get back my assertiveness, at work, with my friends, my parents. I feel like I am building myself back up from the ground again and that for a long time have been spineless and a victim. With his refusal to work on any therapy for the relationship, that seems like a dead end. What kept you from changing your behavior with him to be more assertive or leave earlier? I thought that if I was more assertive then he would get angry. I also had a worry that perhaps I was always wrong after all and didn't have the confidence to stand up for myself. I came to not trust myself, thinking that perhaps I was just too emotionally driven to recognise the truth. I was afraid to leave because I was worried I'd never find anyone else like him out there. I had never met anyone so smart about history, philosophy, IT, with such a similar sense of humour to me. Someone who reads, who is very literate and a great thinker, who knew me so well and who had helped me tirelessly with my career and helped me to recognise the truth about socialism, and about productivity. I have been dating and just don't find the same depth of character in these men as I found in my ex. I suppose I thought I could help him with the mean streak and with the socialising - typical woman thinking "I can change him". It took me ages to figure out that he didn't think he was mean and he didn't want to socialise. I was also afraid to leave because of sunk costs. I'm 35 and I wanted to have kids, we had talked about it on and off. I am now in the position of being single and maybe never having kids which is scary, but a fact. Also I think I had become dependant on him as my advisor and as counsel. I felt/still feel a bit adrift without a boyfriend. I am working on being content with myself and not 'needing a man' so that if a nice man comes into the picture I don't need him so to speak, but choose him because I enjoy who he is. For models on functional family, saying you haven't seen any, where do you think you can look? Between readings and podcasts and videos , if there was a place that had a good model would you move to that place or are you looking or create something where you already live? I'm asking happily married people that I meet what tips they use to make their marriages work, these people include neighbours, people at quiz nights, friends. I suppose I could actually use the FDR platform too. What old views did you have that you feel caused problems you want solved for the next relationship and what new views do you think can replace the old views to prevent the problems and enable a functional family or let you know to leave if that is not a clear path? Old views: I need a man to feel happy It doesn't matter that we have value differences because we are bonded enough to work through everything We will figure this out if we just hang in there, some kind of magic will happen Isolated men are OK, it's not them that are wrong, the world is wrong It's OK to live in an unhappy relationship It's OK to accept name calling if there is some truth in it It's OK to live in a state of stress You can't walk away from a deep, magnetic connection Pick a man who has serious issues that you think you can help with New views: Have a fulfilling life on my own with richness and depth My partner and I share the same core values We have a plan for when things go wrong - a mediator, a process of some kind My partner has a network of friends/family that he enjoys and who offer him counsel and connection It's not ok to live an unhappy life. I value my happiness Name calling is never ever OK Long term stress is destructive. Address and fix causes of ongoing stress Always walk away from dysfunction even if it feels very attractive due to past issues Do not try and change your man, accept and love who he is

I’d say at the moment happily single. By value hierarchy I mean something like this http://aynrandlexico...easurement.html One idea is to take the list and write examples of how you and how a partner can communicate with you to help realize those values. I read that page a few times but I can't make sense of it. I will do more research on it. I would like to understand what you mean, it sounds important. In saying you were afraid to share your values because he tore them down and tore down your cherished beliefs, how much building up was there during different stages of the relationship? How would you self evaluate yourself on your values during the different stages of the relationship? In the beginning there was lots of support and building from my ex and also lots of challenge. So I felt that the criticism was balanced somewhat by the praise and support and encouragement. Towards the end the good stuff ceased and I was just left with criticism. I kept praising my ex for things I liked throughout the relationship hoping to lead by example, but that didn't work. In what way do you think a partner could talk to you so that you feel calm, safe, and secure in sharing your values and supported in striving to reach those values both when you live up to them and when you evaluate yourself and feel like you could improve? In the beginning this is what happened quite a bit. My ex would talk calmly and sit close and sometimes hold my hand while talking about tough things which made the challenging work easier. He never knew when to stop and give me a break though, it was a bit like 'flooding' when someone feels overwhelmed by a flood of tough information. At that point I would shut down and I would like at that time, some space to digest and mull over the material. I would like to be given time to think information through on my own without feeling pressured to believe something immediately. How many of your most cherished beliefs differed from his most cherished beliefs during the relationship, and was it about you being criticized if you did not adapt his beliefs or what kinds of discussion went on about why you each hold those cherished beliefs and their validity? He believed in honesty at all costs, whilst I believed in being kind with the honesty. If your partner is overweight then be kind about bringing up the subject, be sensitive, have a light touch. He believed that delivery, tone and approach were irrelevant as long as the truth was spoken and correct information passed over. He was not concerned about hurting my feelings. He said several times that my feelings didn't matter. I agree to a point, that I have been over emotional,but that my feelings do matter and sometimes have important information contained within them. I believed in connections and building a social network around us in order that we have friends to mingle with and if we had kids, so the kids could watch and learn from the adults socialising. He did not believe in creating friendships, that most people were unintelligent and corrupt. I believed in helping society, in becoming a mentor for young people, taking gifts to friends in need, writing landscape design tips and suggestions for people online, I have plans to teach gardening to kids. He did not believe in giving back to society in this way but dreamed of living far away from society. I believe in the goodness of people, that deep down most people are good. Yes I know there are many bad people out there but most people go to work, go home, don't harm anyone. He believed that most people were immoral. The discussions around these differing beliefs centered around why he thought what I believed was wrong and the reasons for it. I felt no give in the discussions, no openness to move a little my way. He is very black and white and did not make allowances in his system of values. I was in the end called an immoral person, unintelligent, with no boundaries. He said he never saw me make a stand about anything. Were you able to talk about what stressed you and ways to de-stress yourself so that the blanking out and detachment is prevented and you feel free to be the person that you value being? I tried to talk with him about approaching me in a less critical manner but we always came back to the tone or approach doesn't matter, and my feelings were irrelevant, it was the truth that should win. I failed to get on top of my fear and also failed to convince him to approach me more softly. He said at one time that the softly softly approach had not worked with me and the only way to get through to me was to be harsh. We never figured this out, I just shut down more and more and he escalated more and more until things became very nasty in terms of name calling on his part. The criticism bucket is a good visual , less filling that bucket and more filling the love bucket ( looking this up on urban dictionary as well as the metaphor, in more ways than 1). Did he ask what you were feeling as to become what he perceived as cold and uncaring and ways to communicate with you that would confirm whether or not the coldness and uncaring was apathy or other causes? No he didn't ask that I can remember, except one time I told him I felt scared and he said that my feelings didn't matter. What I felt was irrelevant it was what I did that mattered. At one point right at the end, he said "I apologise for anything I ever did to make you scared". I just sort of laughed inside, I should have left the first time he called me a name. Away from conflict , such as writing a message instead of face to face, is that a way for you to talk about being afraid of someone to that someone? What was being done on either side to work on conflict prevention and solutions, or was there a lack of willingness to work on concerns from either one or both parties? I wrote a few letters to him.. He said that they were not genuine and they made him more angry. I was reading Nathaniel Branden to try and improve my communication, I was listening to Molyneux podcasts on relationships, I brought Dr Phil's relationship rescue and started to work through it, I suggested a mediator or counseling which he rejected. The thing I didn't do was talk to my friends because he told me not to share our relationship issues with anyone. However I would not say that I changed my behavior to be more assertive with him, which I think would have been the only thing that could have worked. What does your vision of a functional family look like where you can bond well with the father and the children? How do you see conflicts being handled as to not have anyone shutting down or filling criticizing buckets too much as love buckets not enough? Functional family to be would be where everyone can be heard and respected, no namecalling or abuse, calm, no shouting, a place where people can be open about talking about their feelings and what bothers them. I haven't ever really seen a functional family.

I am in Seattle. We are going into spring here. I am currently single. I’ve been doing some of my own research lately and reading books and discussions with friends. I do have a couple close friends that I can confide in and internet forums. My own level of happiness is exploring myself and finding out how I respond to experiences I think I will enjoy before hand, I think I have found that I enjoy language a lot and thinking of questions and creative writing and comedy, as well as video creating and editing. Hi Cab 21, Are you happily single or single and dating? If you created a value hierarchy for your happiness, what would it look like? I'm not sure what a value hierarchy for happiness means? For me to feel happy I probably need to feel: calm, safe, secure useful, competent healthy appreciated known and understood supported If after being proactive, no solution or reconciliation seems likely, that gives information to consider choices. One journal entry method I have seen is to write the problem, come up with a few solutions of actions or thoughts that are in ones control, then pick the one that seems to fit ones values and preferences the most, then plan to take that action step, then reflect afterword’s. You mentioned the ex felt better about his ability to fix mechanical things than his social ability, and I think people making philosophy switches have a time period where it takes work to fix previous premises and assumptions and integrate the new philosophy in different areas of life, bringing value to oneself and others can be made in progress and truth and listening are two ways to get there. Zero sum game wise, I think socialists can make that fallacy in places there is not a zero sum game, and it can take some work when switching to remove that premise. I'm not sure I understand this comment. With being more honest about your ups and downs in life in a romantic relationship than with friends, are you getting the most of the ups or does the lack of downs make the ups with friendships not as up as it could be? I'm not sure. I haven't considered this before. Are you saying that sharing the downs with friends makes the up times more enjoyable due to contrast? What changed from the beginning of the relationship in terms of the values you were seeing in each other, was there any big event where things were different? What was done in the relationship where you would each share the values the other one was attracted to? What were the reasons for there being physical intimacy in the beginning, but a lack of afterwords? I don't know how to answer this question, I'm sorry I'm just drawing blanks. I can't think of any big event, just lots of little ones. My ex used to ask me constantly what my values were and I never answered him because I felt like it was a set up. As if he would one by one start to tear apart my values and where I was falling short, I had experience with him challenging some of my most cherished beliefs (like people are good), and I felt like if I exposed my values, and he cut them all down, I thought that there would be nothing left of me, that everything I was when we first met was gone and changed. I remember in one of our last arguments he said that he despised me and he asked me, 'what happened to you?'. I felt like a shell. I still feel this way a bit but I'm slowly coming back to myself. When rating your morality, it looks like ones you can control are telling the truth, being generous to people, keeping your word, not stealing, and if you think rationally and feel you provided more value than you took. Parts that you can’t control are how happy friends and family are after seeing you, and what your romantic partner thinks of you. When your ex said he thought you were being not empathetic, detached, and cold, were there facts supporting this, were there facts the countered that feeling? I don't know if there were facts supporting this. Oh yes, at a family BBQ we were spending time chatting to my uncle who had cancer at that time, recently diagnosed. After we left the party my ex asked my how my uncle's health was. I stared blankly at him for a moment, and then said, "oh that's right I forgot to ask!" I had completely forgotten about it. That is an example of detached. I have reasons I suppose, like it was very stressful for me being with my ex around my family, because my ex used to hate it, I used to feel like I was being watched and monitored for what I said and did. ie.. was I getting in anyone's way? Were my manners OK? And when I am stressed I can blank out and detach. In the beginning I was very connected and close to my ex. He appreciated my empathy, I cried when he told me some of the things he experienced as a child. He said that I was cold and uncaring during the last year of our relationship because I watched him get more and more depressed and didn't do anything or ask him what was going on. This is true. I didn't ask because I knew I would be accused of al kinds of things and I just couldn't take anymore criticism. My criticism bucket was full. I shut down over that last year and stopped bringing my concerns to my ex. What, if any communication rituals were there that could be in line with being generous and keeping your word and telling the truth? I got groceries when I said I would. I told him if I damaged any of his possessions and offered to replace. I asked him how his day was and how he was feeling. After a while he said he didn't want me to ask about his day anymore. I used to feel scared when he drove down to visit me in my home (we did long distance for while). I would feel frightened when I saw him pull up, thinking oh please don't let us fight this weekend, I just want peace. I told him that I feel scared sometimes when I see him and the result of that conversation was bad. It escalated and my fear levels got so high I couldn't really think, just went blank. It's hard to have a conversation about being afraid of someone to that someone. I don't have great skills with communication during conflict, I just get so frightened that I can't think properly. From 2 years and up, so would that put in the possibility of adoption or fostering, so that the biological clock is not a issue like it seemed in the first post, or do you think that biological bond , with the risk of any of it’s complications, fits better into your family vision? One idea that family activities could fit into would be developing a teaching curriculum for2 year old and up and their families about creating gardens and horticulture and humanity’s ability to create with plants. I would prefer to have my own child in order to bond better. Children in foster care in this country often come from extremely dysfunctional families with regular drug use and the children have associated behavioral disorders.

Hello, I'm from Christchurch, Nz. At least it's the same country!

Dear Cab21, Welcome, I am USA Based, I do not work in this field professionally, but I find this interesting. What part? We are going into autumn where I live. Are you in a marriage/relationship? How is it going? Did you learn these skills from therapy, parents or friends or your own research? Do you have close friends that you can confide in? Where is your own level of happiness? With the experience of finding the consequences worse if you speak your mind than if you don’t speak your mind with your parents, what if you let go of that assumption with other people until proved otherwise or find ways to test people so they earn your trust that you can speak your mind with consequences that are not worse than speaking your mind, some of this seems to be how you rank unhappiness above other consequences, so how could you rank your happiness as the highest in the rankings and unhappiness as the lowest? I think that this may be the key to improving my circumstances. If I rank my happiness higher than I am not likely to stand for poor treatment. I am more likely to speak out against conditions that I do not like which means that it is a test of people. Will they respond well to my requests and change their behavior or help to address my concerns or will they push back and shut me down? If they shut me down then I know to get away from them in order to thrive. This may mean leaving a job or a relationship. This means that over time I will find myself around people and employers that listen to me and respect me and who I respect in return. As it stands, because I accept poor treatment, people can see that I am a pushover and will not stand up for myself, so they continue the bad behaviour unopposed. Voicing your concerns, potential consequences include more than being let go, they also include you deciding to leave, or your concerns being addressed, do you think that any of these would be able to free you from a culture that is taking away from your happiness? This is true. We have terrible working conditions in this new job and I could say something to the manager about what I think would improve life for the workers . Then I could watch what happens, do things change or can we create a pathway to change? Or if not, then I can decide to leave because the position and conditions do not meet my standards. If you write down thoughts and feelings before and after events, that could be one way to rate if you feel like the event was supporting the values of enjoying and thriving in life, and check if the after is confirms the before or shows the before to have been wrong. Do you mean that if something bad happens, and I decide to bring it up as a concern, to write about what I think and feel before talking about it, and then after talking about it. Then I can see whether being proactive has positive implications for my happiness or negative. If negative, then I guess that's not really a place that I want to stay. In your current writing and journaling what are you measuring? I don't write with any particular goal in mind, or quality measured. I just write about my day, the week, what I'm thinking about or worried about. I would like to have a more structured journalling process where I can make progress and solve conundrums. The premise of benevolent universe and win win trades are two important features of capitalism, so it’s interesting that the socialist friends would have a positive view of human nature and your ex had a negative view, as I think that socialism has premises in a negative view while capitalism works from a view that humanity has the free will to choose and achieve their values. the premise of value to society, what does that mean to you? Mutual trade, such as a profession, offers value to other humans that value the trade, so the value of trading values with other individuals that is capitalistic, though whether or not that means society depends on viewpoints. Yes it is interesting, and I don't really understand the situation. My ex used to talk about zero sum games and how we needed to be a team. He encouraged me to leave my government job and get back into the free market. This is part of the reason why I feel so bad, he introduced me to capitalism , freedom, Molyneaux, Peter Schiff etc... Value to society to me means bring truth and support to those around me. So for parents who hit their children I mention other options, for people with kids in daycare I talk about the value of hands on parenting to the development of kids, I create landscape plans as a side business and I create beautiful gardens for my clients, I hope to bring listening, care and humour to my friends and colleagues. Yes for me adding value to society includes acting in my work role. What do you think are the natural boundaries of friendship? How does that affect your interactions and assumptions with friends? I think that I need to be careful with how much information that I bring to my friends, I don't want to overload them. I will play down anything bad happening in my life with my friends. With romantic partners, I am more honest. A few things that seemed to appear from the reasons you thought it did not work. Work on high self esteem, work on judging objectively not faking reality. What was he looking to get out the relationship that he considered added value, what were you looking to get from the relationship that you considered added value? He said in the beginning that he liked my wit and humour and kindness. He liked the fact that I had kept my dreams and goals alive, that I had passions and interests, that I liked learning, that I was a good listener, that I was empathetic. I liked his strength, his intelligence, humour, his independence, his analysis and wisdom, his ability to live his own way in the face of social ostracism. I particularly liked his counsel and his cheerleading of me and my business ideas and career aspirations. Also in the beginning I thought that he could be a good dad, that we could make a family together. Independence wise, one thing I think a person can’t get by themselves is the romantic relationship and sexual relations and intimacy, so how did each of you think that a romantic relationship could add values that independence can’t solve. I think that your question answers itself. A romantic relationship provides the opportunity for physical intimacy. This part was very nice for the first few years. We were close and would sit side by side, hold hands etc.. There is also the relationship with children to consider if you want children as children are naturally dependent on parents in so many ways till they grow up and gain their independence in areas. As for his lack of friends, I’m not sure what he did value in friendships and romantic relationships, his negative views don’t seem compatible with fostering either, he could have been looking to you to keep yourself accountable, though I don’t know how accountable he was to himself, but it seems you said he was and valued self accountability. How are you evaluating your goodness and morality? What are some examples were you doubt your morality, and what are some examples where you lived up to , or worked on living up to your morality? I evaluate my morality based on how often I tell the truth versus lie. How often I am generous to people. I make sure to keep my word. I am careful not to steal even small things like pens etc.. from my work , or use my flatmates' stuff. I try to provide more value than I take. I measure how happy my friends and family are after spending time with me. I measure my goodness also based on what my romantic partner thinks of me. At one point me ex said he'd not felt so depressed for years and I hadn't asked him why or noticed or attempted to help. He said I was not empathetic, that I was detached and cold. These judgements have got into my head and I don't know if I am good anymore. How are you defining selfish and sacrifice? Say sacrifice is giving up a greater value for a lessor value, and selfishness is looking after your rational self, would you be having children because you are a happy person and want to share that happiness with others, ( children aren’t exactly predictable) and it would be giving up lessor values for greater values? Selfish to me means that I am concerned most of the time with my own life, my issues, my future. Unselfish means for me to direct more of my energy to other people. Sacrifice means to me putting someone else's needs before my own. how would you define a need when you say you want to be needed, as children do get less needy as they grow and it becomes more of a “want to want” situation? Is there a age of child that you feel most fits your interest or is it the whole range of growing up from dependence to independence? I want to be necessary to someone, or even just useful. Apart from my job, as a single person no one really needs me. No one phones me for advice or needs anything from me. I feel kind of irrelevant. In my romantic relationships I feel more useful, I can be helpful. I think I would find it difficult to be a mother of babies up to about 2 years of age when they just need things all the time and give nothing back. I think maybe I'm a little bit selfish. I think that I would enjoy watching their intellect develop from age 2 years until late teens and onwards, I think I would find that fascinating.

Cab21 how is it that you are this much knowledge in the area of relationships? Do you work in this field professionally?

This is a really good talk. Just wanted to point out something I noticed. You said he called you a "taker" or something like that. Like an emotional vampire? Correct me if I'm mistaken. Thanks Live Free, he called me a parasite. Interesting, though, how he isolated himself from others except for you. Do you think it's right that he should demand all of his socialization from you? No I didn't think it was right, I felt as if I had to be so perfect because I was his only chosen friend. I must admit that in the beginning I found it flattering, that he chose me only in the world to bond with. It was a boost to my ego. Now I know that it was a huge red flag. I set about discussing with him how it would be good to be social if we had kids, that I would like it if we had dinner parties or things like that in the future. He was on board with this at the beginning but over the years nothing major happened towards this goal apart from BBQs and parties that I organised. I realised that it was just never going to happen. Right at the very end in one of our last arguments he said that I could have taught him how to be social, helped him rather than just be critical. I felt so sad to hear this, I possibly could have helped him with this. In fact that was one of the things I thought I could offer him when we first met. At one point early on he apologised for being overly critical with me and for picking on all my tiny flaws, he said that he was used to fixing things, machines and computers etc.. but that his skills with people were not well developed. Did you get anything out of him being that dependent on you? Yes it was a bit of an ego boost. I felt special. Hello Cab21, thanks for your help with this and all the time you have spent questioning me. I feel like I have an insightful advisor from the other side of the world. Are you U.S. based? In what ways to you find it secure to be in a job you don’t like or a relationship that has gone bad? I think that known unhappiness sometimes feels safer to me than an unknown future. How sad is that?! I have developed coping mechanisms for unhappiness and bad situations. I read, do long walks, write, catch up with friends. I can 'manage' unhappiness. I fear that after I speak up for myself, the consequences could be worse than unhappiness ( which I have a lot of experience with). I fear that if I stand up for myself I will be alone, frightened, vulnerable, poor, maybe in a worse paying job or alone in a flat with strangers rather than in a home with a romantic partner, even though it may be a pissed off and angry partner. I have experiences of being very vulnerable with my parents over important issues and being dismissed. The consequences for me of sharing my thoughts with my parents were worse than wondering what would happen if I shared my thoughts. If you are proactive and talk through your issues, being fired or a relationship ending because it was not a good fit seem like it would free you to pursue a job and relationship where you could talk through issues and be proactive and the relationships will get stronger. Facing the consequences wise seems to fall within open, honest, courage, so in what ways do you think you can work on your values while facing your fears of facing consequences if you are proactive? This is something I am considering very hard at the moment because I find myself 3 weeks into a job with a very toxic culture. I need to decide now if I will stay and manage it, (and/or try to change it), or whether I will leave and try to pursue a job in a healthy workplace culture. I need to decide if I will sit down with my manager and voice my concerns about the culture and my expectations of change or buckle down and try and get through and learn what I can. My manager has said that she intends to change the culture. But she has been there for over twenty years, she hires and fires, the culture that exists I feel rests very heavily on her shoulders. On the other hand she is implementing new management structures and KPIs for staff so I do see change. What I could do, to be brave is to voice my concerns about culture and face the consequences. Which could be being let go from this middle management role and possibly having to temp for a while until I get a new position. What ways can you think of that open you up to making sure the crucial conversations happen where you feel like you can be open and honest in the conversation to come to solutions or resolutions? I could notice when I start to change from happy, cheerful me, into 'grit my teeth and survive me'. I could at that point decide that I don't want to survive my life, but that I want to enjoy it and thrive. Then I could hold this as a value and a standard to pursue the important conversations. What are you getting out the friendships with the old friends as your values may have changed while theirs stayed the same? I wonder why he started the relationship with you if you were more socialist and became capitalist during the relationship instead of before it started, and he is against you even having friends with socialists and he does not want to meet people currently socialist. Your change from socialist to capitalist shows the change can be done. I don't agree politically with them, but I value their insights into human nature, their intellect and their humour. Also, although they are socialists, they have an optimistic view of the future of humanity and are going about trying to get there in their own way. To me this way is anti-freedom (local government environmental regulation) but I appreciate the goal and the underlying quest to help people. I also want to help people in my own way. My ex-partner had a very negative view of human nature overall which I don't share. He tried to convince me that people are evil, I just don't feel this way. I have met a lot of kind people in my life. He had no desire to offer anything to society, but to just isolate. What makes it such a different experience for you to confide in a romantic relationship but be afraid to confide in friends? what have you experienced with friends when you have confided in them and were vulnerable, was it empathetic or what kind of results came when that happened? When I confide in a lover I feel exposed but in an intimate and loving way. When I confide to a friend I feel exposed in a scary way, as if the natural boundaries of friendship have fallen and I don't know what to do. I feel freaked out. What are your thoughts currently on what caused the relationship to fail? I have a few theories: 1) I chose him to boost my low self esteem because in the beginning he was extremely flattering to me. This was choosing him based on what he could offer ME rather than who he was. I also wanted him to be the right man for me so badly, that I was not looking at the man who he really was. 2) I chose a man with a sharper and faster intellect than me because like my father he is well read and intellectual and I value having intellectual conversations. That is how my dad and I bond and how I 'know' how to bond. But he is my intellectual superior and so I was always at at disadvantage in discussions and felt like a student rather than a partner at times. 3) I chose him because he is strong and a survivor. He has fended for himself against the world with no help for so long that I knew he was independent and I could rely on him to provide. However he is so independent that he doesn't really need me or anyone in his life, I felt like I had nothing to offer him towards the end. He confirmed that he didn't feel that I brought anything to the relationship. 4) He had no close family or friends to vet me, so possibly I could get away with some of my poorer standard behavior because noone around him would tell him that it wasn't on. This is possible? What are you confused about? I am confused in my head. I feel blank, startled, my analytical processes have slowed right down. I don't understand how I could go from ' the perfect mixture of kindness and intellect' who he would 'live in a gulag with' if he had to...........to a parasite, a peabrained idiot, a bitch and a liar over the space of 5 years. I feel blank, betrayed and foolish. I also feel confused as to my own goodness. I doubt my goodness, I doubt my morality. What are your reasons for wanting a family and what does having a family mean to you? I want a family because I like domestic life. I like homeliness and calm and I like children and all of the day to day family things like story time and dinnertime. I felt safe in a family. I want to be needed, no one needs me at all right now in my flat. I want a family because I m getting sick of selfishly looking after myself all the time, I would like to have someone else to care for, to sacrifice for. I have also read that people are happier in old age if they have had children.

How much have you explored your fear and where you let fear get in the way of honesty, openness, and courage? I have not really worked with my fear, and so it is a good idea to do so. I've worked with low confidence and self esteem issues, but not fear specifically. I think that sometimes I cling to security (a job I don't like, a relationship that has gone bad) rather than face my fear of talking through issues directly and facing the confidences. I have a fear of being alone and destitute, or not being able to support myself, so I'm not proactive at work or in relationships about things that I'm concerned about because I feel too vulnerable. I feel afraid that I will be fired or left alone. When he was angry, what was that like for you, was there thoughts that he would get violent or just leave? What was the thinking behind appeasing him so that he would not leave, vs being honest with him and if he left he left, or leaving him because he was not willing to work with you? Did he try and learn ways to interact with you so that he could be honest without getting angry? When he was angry I had a flush of adrenaline down my body into my arms, my brain slowed down and I felt foggy. I stopped talking and only replies in short sentences. Or my other response was to 'word salad' in order to get out of the situation, to appease or somehow try to calm things down. When he was angry I felt as if I had entered into a nightmare. The idea behind appeasing was to stop him from being angry, just to calm him down, to end the conversation with the idea of picking it back up when things were calm. But I would never pick it back up. Yes I was afraid that if I was honest about how I felt, so afraid etc.. that he would leave me. I felt like I couldn't leave him because no one has ever known me as deeply as he had, it felt like too much of a gift to leave. I felt like a thirsty person in a desert that had found water, I was in denial that actually it wasn't water after all. He worked with me for the first couple of years as I said by being very kind and gentle, sitting close to me and being understanding. When he did not see change he escalated to name calling, angry voice and not looking at me. Why was he saying you were still a socialist and entitled? He said that I still had friendships with my government friends from my previous job and that they were takers, not producers. He said that I get in people's way when we were out socialising, blocking people from getting through a room, and that I didn't notice. That I expected people to move around me because I was entitled. In confiding bad days, how do you feel after confiding, does that free you up for more mutually enjoyable activities and intimacy( if with romantic partner)? What about confiding makes you feel like you are being a burden or that you could only trust a romantic partner to confide in? I feel embarrassed after confiding to friends, as if I should 'man up' and handle my issues myself, not dump my problems on other people. I feel weak. I don't want to wear people out or bring them down. After confiding to a romantic partner and receiving empathy and advice I feel strong and connected and cared for. It's such a different experience for me. What would you like to achieve out of counseling? Sounds like the taking control strategy has been working, and you have been willing to answer questions I want to know why I attracted this man, what ultimately caused the relationship to fail, what my role was in it, what his role was, and how I can stop it ever happening again. I want to know what I need to do in order to attract a good man and to have a family if that is possible. It's been such a hard few years and I feel that I at least need to walk away with some learnings instead of just confusion and pain.

Hello, thank you again. These are some tough questions and I am completely fogging out here. I cannot think of an example that indicates he was irrational for calling me a liar. I can only think of another example of myself being inconsistent. This is petty, but he said I lied when I told him that I would rotate vegetables in the fridge. Occasionally I did not do this, and he accused me of lying and breaking my word. This is technically true. My excuse was there wasn't enough room in the fridge, but in fact he was correct, I did not keep my word. I accused him of being irrational, but really he was just being consistent. What reason would you say you had to tell him that you wanted privacy more than you wanted it, was it to please him? It was to try and avoid conflict. I could tell that he was angry and I felt afraid. I then tried to placate him by pretending that I valued privacy as much as he did. I was trying to appease him rather than be honest. Why is it that you did not go to him to share values and work on settling disputes? I sat down to write my values up about ten times over the five years. I got things like honesty, calmness, kindness, courage, openness, humour, fun, connection, empathy. I did not share them with him because I was afraid of him telling me where I fell short in all of these areas. I felt like a fraud, that I was clearly not moral enough in these fields. I thought that he would leave me. I thought that I was opening myself up for attack. In terms of settling disputes, I realised that I was shutting down and stonewalling during arguments and getting defensive. I had several conversations with him. I told him that I felt afraid to bring things up with him sometimes and that I started to shut down when I thought he was getting angry. He told me that my fear was just an excuse, that it is important to be honest despite fear. That if I really cared I would be honest with him anyway. What does kindness mean to you and what did it mean to him where his honesty could come across as critical and harsh? Kindness to me means to talk with your partner gently when bringing things to their attention that you do not like. To avoid name calling. To think the best of your partner initially until proven wrong. To have understanding of your partner's imperfections sometimes. This is not what it meant to him. To him kindness is honesty- pure and direct, doesn't matter the tone or the way it is phrased. Just say it. He said that he tried gentleness with me for several years but it did not work, so he changed to harshness because it was the only thing that seemed to get through to him. He was frustrated. I remember thinking that over the years I had changed from a socialist to a capitalist, from being a complete people-pleaser to my parents, to finally laying down some boundaries. I changed from being frightened professionally to being brave. I saw the change in me, incremental change due to his kind encouragement. He said that I hadn't changed, that I was still a socialist and entitled. The swap to harshness came as a shock to me, I couldn't really accept it, that it had changed. I just wanted him to go back to being soft and kind. I just shut down at some point and hoped that he would revert back. This made it so much worse. When you became defensive and shut down, how did that effect the communication between the two of your and yourself, or what were the consequences of defensiveness and being shut down. Just thinking about gottmans 4 horsemen of relationships here and 3 of them being criticizing, defensiveness, and stonewalling (shutting down). The consequences were that the arguments and appeasing on my part escalated. Except for one night, he called me a horrible name. Instead of taking it, I told him that he was not to speak to me like that, that I was going to a BBQ without him until he could apologise to me for the name. Unfortunately I caved and came back that night and said I was sorry, that he could come. As you can see I became just a husk of a woman by the end of it all. His lack of optimism feels like determinism rather than free will,perhaps thinking the baby would have a life more based on determinism than free will, did he seem deterministic in other areas? I'm not sure exactly what determinism is, but this may be an example: He said that he could not make friends after 40 because people already had their friends and that no one out there liked talking about the things he did, that everyone in this country is socialist, is mean to their kids. He said he would rather be alone than meet these kind of people. I said we could join a peaceful parenting group, join an investing group, that we could find people out there. He disagreed. Was there a way you were measuring the progress of your relationship goals so that there is active communication rather than waiting? No. I didn't even think of doing this. He did say that we were just going around and around in circles without achieving anything. I was noticing that we were fighting more and more regularly. I suggested we go to counseling but this did not appeal to him. In what ways do you think you can emotionally support yourself first, and what does emotionally support mean to you and in what ways did you find it draining or celebratory if you also found it to be that way when the partner had victories? I don't really know how to do this. I can see a counselor again, I've been reading Nathaniel Brandon and doing sentence completion. I've been journalling but that gets very dark when I don't feel good. I've been calling friends more, but I don't really call when things are bad because they are busy with young kids. When I say emotionally support, I guess I mean that I confide my bad days with my romantic partner and that's it. Don't really trust anyone else or want to be a burden. When I said that it's draining, I meant that my romantic partners find me draining when I'm regularly looking for support, counsel and guidance. This particular man called me a parasite. I felt excited when my previous partner did well in his job, when he extended his social and professional skills by earning recognition at work. Accountable to plans and promises , what techniques do you have to help you not feel week and lost by yourself? I have decided on an approach that runs like this: If I feel out of control and lost, then I TAKE CONTROL. So I make sure that I am plugged in, I write down strategies, read up on the subject, ask questions, talk to friends. This approach is working so far this year, with only the occasional head in the sand periods of denial/avoidance. Thank you for these hard questions, I'm completely exhausted from them but they are questions I have not really forced myself to address.

Thanks for your response Cab 21 What evidence was he using to support his claims that you were lying or had a hidden agenda? Well I can think of one example of an argument we had. I had the lights on in the house and it was getting dark outside, I was working on the computer and hadn't really noticed or was bothered about the fact that I hadn't pulled he curtains. In fact I often like to watch the light dimming on the plants outside and watch the colours fade. He came into the room and asked me if privacy was important to me. I said that it was and that I didn't think that our neighbours could see into our house because we can't see any windows from our house, just fences. He said that the whole house was illuminated from the outside and that anyone could see in if they wanted. I don't really care too much if people can be bothered to look in and see me on my computer, yet I told him that I did care. After a long discussion it came out that I don't really care. I don't care so much about privacy, at least not as much as he did. So I had lied to him initially about thinking that privacy was important. That is one example of my lying. When you told him about your want to have children and build a life together, what did he say about what he wanted and what he was willing to work torwards together? He said that maybe he would like to also but that we needed to figure out our shared values first and resolve our disputes. He asked me to come to him with my values, but I never did. I did once have a discussion about how I valued kindness and honesty at the same time. He said that honesty is more important than kindness and that the truth hurts, which I suppose is what Molyneux says also. I always found his approach to me so harsh and critical that I just became defensive and shut down. He said that he does not feel optimistic about the future and for society and did not really want to bring kids into such a world. I was/am a rose tinted glasses person saying well we can create our own little house of happiness amidst the chaos. I guess I just didn't want to hear the truth, he didn't want kids with me. I just always held onto a comment he made when we first met about me being the one, and that we might have a little baby together in the future. When I reminded him of this conversation he just dismissed it absent-mindedly, I was crushed. I can see now that I was foolish to wait around, what was I thinking? What it it you think you have not examined about yourself and what you want that could give you valuable insights in knowing what you want? Great question. I have not looked at how I choose men to be emotionally supportive and how that can be draining, and how I need to support myself first. I have not really addressed the fact that I look for strength in my male partner to help me navigate the world, that I feel weak and a bit lost without a strong male person in my life to support me and also keep me accountable to my plans and promises.

Thanks Cab 21, These are great questions, yet again I am impressed my members on this forum. I am being asked questions that my friends and parents do not ask. he was a rationalist in many respects, seeks the facts before taking a stand on any issue (climate change, 911, how my parents treated me, on very tough things that I find hard to look at, he accepts the facts and the conclusions drawn from them quite easily) He acted irrational when he thought I was lying to him, or when he thought I had a hidden agenda. I told him that my agenda was not hidden, I wanted to have a family and kids. I wanted to build a life together. If I did have a hidden agenda, then it was hidden even to me and may have been a subconscious agenda. This is the sort of thing I want to uncover. He was always honest and direct to me about what he thought about me, my friends, his feelings, what he wanted. He told me that he couldn't stand liars, that that was a part of his childhood that he couldn't stand. He was/is respected in his job. He is independent in that he has always supported himself and not needed anyone to do anything for him. Outside of work he does not make contact with anyone. He was completely reliable to do what he said he would do. He always kept his word. Then when he would call me a name, I would be stunned because I didn't think that someone so smart would do such a thing, that I could have made him so angry.

Hello William, those are some tough choices. You are young and seemingly quite transient at the moment. It could be your chance to check Melbourne out and have a go at earning some more money. Fixing your teeth sounds important too. If you are away from your friends and family it will be important to make good friends in Melbourne, could you search out some friendship links ahead of time? - put out feelers for a Melbourne FDR group, look on meetup for peaceful parenting groups etc.. I have been told to make a decision and then 'wear it' for a few days. See how it feels and go from there. Good luck