[Therapy] No sympathy for assholes

[sorcyress]

Therapy Filter post! But not filtered, because I've grown long since bored of those. Anyways, allusions to rape and sexual/emotional abuse.

I wonder when I stopped giving him any credit. When I stopped feeling guilty that I had ~hurt him~ or wistful about how much ~he loved me~

I'm reading through the TherapyFilter, and some of the much older posts say things like "I broke his heart into a million pieces" and you know what? I absolutely do not take fault for that anymore, and haven't in a long time, but I'm not totally sure when it shifted.

Somewhere in my developing actual adulthood, I would think. Because I'm still not as old as he was when we started dating (or even as old as he was when we met), but I look at the idea of finding an eighteen year old sexually or romantically attractive and holy fuck, no⁰.

And the idea of finding someone who is Actually Inexperienced¹ attractive? Absolutely fuck no and in fact actively a turn-off².

Because here's the thing: He was a thirtysix year old man, divorced once, who wanted to have True Love Everlasting with a seventeen year old who'd had one offline relationship (sexual progress: we kissed a few times) and one online relationship (sexual progress: some digital⁴ exploration, solely online). He wanted to fuck someone who had never been fucked, hell, who had never kissed with tongues.

And somehow that was supposed to be _my_ problem? Absolutely not, and I'm thrilled that it's not and hasn't been for a long time, even as I'm still slightly discombobulated as to when exactly all the sympathy finally drained.

Because yes, he did have a fucking horrible abusive childhood and was Damaged Goods tm. But do you know what adults do when they recognize they have these things in their past? They _process their fucking trauma_. They go to therapy, and if that therapist is no good, try someone else. They develop coping mechanisms. They talk to their friends. They write a few (hundred) thousand words. They communicate sanely and politely and using actual assertive words and not passive aggressive whining. They embrace hobbies and friendships and a universe broader and fuller and more lovely than a single star.

They do not attempt to set an inexperienced seventeen year old on (metaphorical) fire just to keep themself warm at night. And it's not my problem he did so, and I don't feel any guilt that I couldn't (wouldn't) burn to a crisp for him. If he had wanted a partnership with someone who would support him, he needed to start by finding someone who he was on equal footing with in terms of experience. Manipulating a literal child into thinking she was responsible for his background trauma and pain was Actively Gross and I can't have any feelings towards it except anger.

Anyways. Fuck off and all that. Time for me to go do other useful things with my day.

~Sor
MOOP!

0: In no small part because this is literally the population I work with and hahahaaha oh god no, every high schooler ever is _such_ a disaster human in their own beautiful ways, and I care for my students very much so but it will never _ever_ be like that because wow no.

1: There's a weird thread here where I do like wide-eyed innocence and rocking the world of some sweet never-been-kissed geek, but that's all a merely theoretical kink at this point, it's too exhausting and unpleasant in the reality.

2: I'm dating a 24 year old right now, and that's occasionally weird³, but the reason we can do what we're doing is because while I may be relatively early in their non-platonic history, I am decidedly not their First. They know what sex is and how to have emotional boundaries and are able to communicate, and that's all very good.

3: For me. It is weird for me to cope with and it is my responsibility to cope with and not make it their problem that I think it's weird sometimes (although I will absolutely tease them about ~being young~ when it's funny)

4: I am proud of this pun.

PostScript: "Hey Sor, didn't you start to get involved with another dude who was only a year younger than kSatyr like three months after you broke up with him? How is that any different?!"

Because that partner (who is still my partner) a) looked at the situ and said "this is flattering, but go take some time (several years) to live before we actually get into something serious" which means I got to do a bunch of other relationship-and-self development in the intervene and wasn't going into that relationship completely naive.

And b) that partner never wanted me to be his Single True Love Everlasting and never tried to break me into a position I wasn't suited for. That partner *does* have hobbies and friendships and a broader universe. They have always been upfront about the fact that I am a part of their life, not their whole life, and they've never expected me to somehow fix things that happened in their past. Which is great --it's a relationship that works well *because* it's constrained to only ever be certain things.

Oh and c) that partner has never raped me, so like, huge win right there too. :P

Content warnings go both ways, allusions to rape and emotional abuse

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Ugh, yes. I'm glad you are processing this.

Also also SO MUCH AGREEMENT WITH #0. I love my high-schoolers so much and I'm somewhat blown away by their level of self-actualization compared to, say, me at that age. But high school is such a clueless disaster time.

[asrabkin]

There's a great many sex things that are hot at a high level of abstraction, but creepy, alarming, or immoral if made concrete and real. I rarely hear this pointed out, but I wish people understood it and acted accordingly.

[sorcyress]

I don't really understand your point here?

[asrabkin]

It was just "the thing you describe in your footnote 1 applies in many contexts and I wish other people recognized it as clearly as you do." I should have been clearer what I was responding to; sorry about that. I didn't mean to be cryptic.

[sorcyress]

Ah yes -- I forgot that I had that footnote in there (and missed it in my quick re-skim). Your comment does make a lot more sense with the context of that being what you're responding to.

and yeah, I'm into some _weird fucking stuff_ but the more abstract and unreal it can be, the more it's hot and not horrific. (see also like, bodyswap, which is probably incredibly unpleasant and jarring were it actually a possible thing to do)

~Sor

[armaina]

Geeze only hearing the brief explanation alone and thank goodness you no longer feel responsible or guilty about it, because good riddance.

I am happy to see this growth u_u

[chamaenerion]

This is unrelated to the content — did you put the second content warning there for people scrolling upwards (or who never read anything in order)? I don't think I've seen anyone do that before, and it makes sense on a medium where people really do start from both directions.