18 tweets · April 2024 · 184 likes · 5 retweets · read on Twitter
"My wife refuses to get rid of old sex videos she made with her ex" redditors are like "who is wrong in this situation, me for wanting this or her for wanting that" — wrong question. you each want what you want. what do you want together? comments are closed so here's a thread
people keep turning to the social world to answer questions, trying to get support for their viewpoint based on what's normal or normative normies, maybe
this seeking normalcy or normativity is a distraction from what will actually produce a resolution in this situation, which is: understanding your partner and helping them understand you
if you really got what the vids mean to her and she really got what the vids mean to you then it'd be clear what to do how could it be any other way?
but first you may have to allow the shock of discovering you're in a different world than you thought you were in and grieve the loss of that world you thought you were in
(she may also have to grieve that she's not in the world where it's not a big deal to you! she may have been assuming it wouldn't be, because it wouldn't be for her if she were in your position. turns out you're differenter than you thought!)
anyway, having grieved that, you're left with a puzzle: we care about this a lot. we also both like our relationship. what do we do? what you need is humility: we don't actually know how much the other person cares, or why, and how it would change our own sense if we took it in
there's a good chance* that when you dig into what's going on for the other person, you'll find something you also care about and want to honor, even if just because they do (*if the relationship is otherwise pretty good and you're not already looking for an excuse to end it)
"Maybe I'm the delusional one. She was so passionate that I now sit here wondering if I'm missing something." You are ABSOLUTELY missing something. And so is she, if she can't understand why you're upset about it. But the thing you are missing cannot be found on the internet!
what you're missing is: - why what she's doing and saying actually makes sense to her - why it DOESN'T feel to her to be at odds with the marriage she has with you - what she means by "unfair" - ...undoubtedly more. only she can tell you this. but you have to listen
listening will be hard while you feel not understood about how upset you are. while she doesn't get you, everything she says will probably have a vibe of "and this is reasonable/appropriate" even as it sure doesn't feel that way to you! —doesn't mean she doesn't care about that!
in general, with listening, someone has to go first. this can create a paradox given how hard it is to listen while you feel like it's smashing against what you know the solution is to first fortify what you know by listening to yourself:
in this case, that looks like really being like "this matters to me! I'm not just gonna be 'whatever!' while I feel that she isn't holding her sexuality as being solely for me" (however it feels to you, which may not have that at its core!)
it might even involve talking to some close friends, who can empathize with how you feel about it without making her wrong. I wouldn't recommend reddit tho hey wait...
and then once you feel secure in your own view, that you're not going to lose touch with it if you take her point of view, you can turn to her and say "tell me about why this matters to you, and I'll do my best to listen"
and if it becomes hard again, you can say "hang on, I need a moment to affirm my own viewpoint better so that I can take in yours" and then do that until you can listen again
one key element of listening to yourself can be to say to yourself (and mean) "I'm not just going to suck it up and put up with this feeling of upset forever. I'm going to find a way to resolve this one way or another." which hopefully will mean being heard by her/the marriage
oh man turns out the original thread IS open, so I went and left a comment there: reddit.com/r/amiwrong/com… it begins: