serious question for men who’ve been in relationships with women, not gonna elaborate on context for the time being but might later: how do you hold women responsible / accountable for ways they’ve hurt you? (in your own sensemaking at least, not necessarily confronting them)
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okay this was a little too vague so in a bit more detail: i have a lot of trouble getting angry at women for hurting me, generally speaking i take on all the blame myself, there’s something wonky here about treating women as perfect blameless angels or as like moral children
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and i am wondering if other men here have struggled with *that* and what they did about it? this is sort of pre- angrily confronting them because the problem is i mostly don’t feel angry but i… worry the lack of anger reflects a distorted view of the situation
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and the genders are specific in the situation b/c i feel like for me this goes back to deeply internalizing feminist memes as a kid about how men are the ones hurting women all the time and we should all feel very bad about it
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“QC doesn’t this probably have something to do with your mom too” oh you best BELIEVE it does, she’s the only woman i really know how to be angry at but i still don’t expect her to ever take responsibility for anything she did to me
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alright so i gotta say i’m frustrated by a lot of the responses here and here are some snippets from a convo with a friend (who actually inspired this thread) that get at why. this is sharp trenchant analysis, get it while it’s hot
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okay i also want to be clearer about this - when i talk about "responsibility" and "accountability" i am explicitly *not* talking about "blame" or "fault," that's why i used the words i used and not those words
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan
i do this by holding everyone to the same standard (none). there is no blame, there is no fault, everything happened exactly the way it had to. i've still cut certain people off even after forgiving them because i can't ask them to be other than who they are
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when i reflect on *my own* mistakes, i don't blame or fault myself, i try to see the ways in which i could not possibly have done anything else given who i was and what i had access to at the time, *and* i hold myself responsible and accountable for doing better *anyway*
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i believe that i have a responsibility to the people around me to become a better person, own up to my mistakes, try to clean up my messes if i can. the question i am trying to ask you guys is: do you hold women to that same responsibility? how? if not, why not?
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i think my key has been deeply, deeply internalizing that it isn't my place to judge others, but God's. so it's like, I just modulate how i spend my time, and i try to be an excellent cooperator, rewarding good stuff and taking first steps towards mutual delight, but that's it.
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we are all moral children in the eyes of each other, i guess is my thinking. or rather, i'm not the moral adult in the room. something like that.
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it's a tightrope walk. usually just repress it, occasionally blow up. but there's a correct amount of anger, enough that lets you say Hey It Hurt When You Did That, you're allowed to feel however, but fyi I was hurt
don't k ow how to reliably find the balance
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