Dear Paradoxy,

I know that I am behaving like I don’t learn from my mistakes Tee please forgive me.

I am sorry you are suffering so much, and I am not judging you at all. I know how it is to do things that are self-destructive, or against our best interests, but to keep doing them still, to not be able to stop. It’s like an addiction, it’s stronger than us.

The thing is I know better but I have a lot of pride and I can’t seem to let go of it. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of believing that she was right all along.

It is like the saying “Imagine being bitten by a snake and instead of trying to help yourself heal and recover from the poison, you’re trying to catch the snake to find out the reason it bit you and prove to it that you didn’t deserve that.” I can’t seem to be able to get myself out of that mindset.

Okay, so you are aware that she is like a snake, but you still have the urge to prove it to her that you didn’t deserve to be bitten – that you are a good person, right?

Because she is portraying you as a bad person, as an abuser, and you want to prove it to her that she is wrong. So I guess you want to prove it to her that you are a good, loving person. That your intentions are pure, right?

EVEN IF I WAS LYING, THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE MY INTENTIONS. That is what I hate the most.

Okay, so you want to prove it – to her – that your intentions are pure. I see a theme, the main striving of yours: to prove that you are a good person and that your intentions are pure. Would that be true?

Even though she is so wrong, she hit my ego really really hard and I don’t like it. She has successfully hit me where I am most vulnerable.

But she is hitting me hard where it hurts the most and idk how to deal with it. The way she describes everything just makes me question my reality and doubt everything I have done and it is driving me further into depression cause everything I did and trying to do seems pointless.

It seems to me that the place you are most vulnerable is believing (at least a part of you believes it) that you are bad. That you are an abuser. That you cause other people pain. And that’s exactly one of your false core beliefs, which we’ve identified before: “I am the source of pain for others.”

So the dynamic is: one part of you (your inner child) believes he is a source of pain for others. And he is trying to prove that he isn’t. He is trying to prove that he is a good, loving boy, with pure intentions, and that he doesn’t want to hurt anybody.

The problem is that he is trying to prove that to people who lack empathy and understanding. People who are unable to understand. People who refuse to listen. People who are accusing him, instead of seeing how hurtful their behavior is.

And who are these people? B. And your parents.

So that’s what you are dealing with, Paradoxy. A childhood wound that you are trying to heal with the wrong means.

As you said, you have been wounded (by a snake), and instead of tending to the wound, you are trying to catch the snake and prove it to her that you didn’t deserve to be bitten. That you are a good guy, with pure intentions, who doesn’t want to cause her pain.

Does the snake listen, is she trying to understand? No, she bites you once again… and again… finding more and more “proofs” how bad and insincere you are.

And so, by engaging with the snake, your inner child gets wounded more and more. With each interaction, he gets a confirmation of his false belief: that he causes pain to others.

That’s why this is happening:

The way she describes everything just makes me question my reality and doubt everything I have done and it is driving me further into depression cause everything I did and trying to do seems pointless.

Exactly. Because in the interaction with the snake, the wound of your inner child gets deeper. And it causes you to feel even more helpless and depressed.

So what’s the way out? You need to tend to the wound of your inner child, properly. Which means: you need to stop interacting with the snake. Stop wanting any kind of validation from her. Get away from her. There is nothing she can give you except injuring you even more.

Can you see that?

And then you need to start healing your inner child. Which means: start loving yourself. Start having empathy and compassion for yourself – something that neither your parents or B had.

You need to give yourself empathy, rather than seek empathy from people who are unable to give it.

How does this sound?

Dear Paradoxy,

I’d like to comment on some of your thoughts, because it seems you believe that your lying and deception about her ex is the same as you lying about having received a message from you high school crush.

She is referring to my high school crush incident that I shared with you which unfortunately looks like I lied, from her perspective.

Let’s see: you received a message from your high school crush and family friend (a girl named Pryanka, right?), practically flirting with you because she asked you if you cook, and when you said only pasta and noodles, she said you should cook for her some day. You declined the offer and deleted the entire conversation because you didn’t want to be unfaithful to B:

one of my crushes from high school (who is a family friend so we still talk) asked me about how college life was and whether I cook and stuff and I told her that I cook simple meals like pasta and noodles and she told me that I should cook for her one day. I obviously declined that offer. B saw those messages and couple days later asked me about what I would do if a female asked me to cook for her. And my stupid self completely forgot about the conversation with the girl as I had decided to keep her out of my life by deleting everything related to her (including that conversation).

So by deleting that conversation, your intention was to remove even the slightest possibility that you would get tempted by this girl. Your intention was to be 100% faithful to B, with no distractions and no temptations. You lied to B about it because you didn’t even want to make it a topic of discussion, since you in your mind and heart were resolute not to engage in it and to nip in the bud. Would you agree with that?

B on the other hand lied to you about being in a situation where cheating with her ex was highly likely, because they both had feelings for each other, and they were living under the same roof. So her lying was to hide the ongoing cheating, or a possibility for cheating – her lying was to hide a potential foul play. Whereas your lying was to not even start the entire topic, because it was a non-issue for you, and you didn’t have the slightest intention to cheat.

Can you see the difference in those two cases of lying? She lied with the intention to hide a potential foul play, while you lied because you wanted to spare her of jealousy and worry, since you knew that there would have been no basis for her jealousy and worry (because you were 100% faithful). And perhaps you lied also to spare yourself of her false accusations.

So those were two totally different categories of lying, with a different intent.

But she made them equal. She equated her foul intention (to possibly cheat) with your pure intention (not to upset her about something that is a non-issue).

There was another situation, where she too unfairly accused you of lying and possibly cheating, just because you confided in your close friend about fighting with her:

She had told me not to tell my only other close friend that we broke up, but in a weak emotional moment, I told him that we were fighting. She found out and she told me that I lied to her and made her look like a fool. She also said that if I am able to hide her from my parents for two years, then I can also hide a “bitch” from her too (implying that I would cheat).

This is another such outrageous twisting of the truth, where she equated your inability to hide the truth from your friend with deceptive lying (which she was a master of). And then she had the audacity to further escalate it and accuse you of potential cheating as well.

You see? She equated your inability to hide the truth with her lying and twisting of the truth – as if those were the same categories.

Where they are completely opposite. In fact, according to the Bible (and common ethics), the former is not a sin, whereas the latter is a sin.

She was equating your non-sinful lying (which would be equal to saying a white lie) with her sinful, deceptive lying. And then saying “we both lied”, “we are equal”. Whereas this cannot be further from the truth.

Dear Paradoxy,

I’d like to comment on something else she said in her letter:

You don’t tell me I’m beautiful, but you will let a stranger on the internet know that. You don’t make me feel wanted. … You may have been my boyfriend, but there were certain areas of me that needed you, and you ignored those.

It seems like she didn’t feel wanted by you, while she has the need to feel wanted. So she fulfilled that need by being in the company of men who desired her, who lusted after her. Right there she admitted what I told you earlier in my analysis.

So she wanted to be desired by you. But you said you didn’t want to have sex with her after you found out that she prostituted herself. Around that same time you also found out that the guy in the half-naked photo was her ex, who was living as her housemate.

After she dropped those two “bombshell” news on you, no wonder you didn’t want to have sex with her anymore:

But ever since finding out what happened, the pain and sorrow never left me. The inner turmoil I felt was eating me up from the inside. I no longer wanted to have sex with her. I feel disgusted. I hated myself. I hated the pain. I wish I could just die. Though we continued to date, nothing was ever normal again despite trying my best to.

Your reaction was normal. How can you appreciate and be intimate with a woman who sold herself for money, and who was lying to you about her involvement with her ex. You cannot. But she was blaming you for that – as if you suddenly and for no reason at all stopped desiring her. She saw herself as the victim, completely disregarding the causes of you turning cold towards her.

I just wanted to mention this, because I think it showcases how she was blaming you for your reactions, without acknowledging her own actions – her own bad behavior, which led you to react the way you did.

But it is extremely difficult for me to knock some sense into her, as she does not have the patience to listen and arguing with her is a waste of my energy.

A person who doesn’t want to admit their own mistakes and be accountable for their actions behaves like she does. You can’t reach them. And they turn everything around: they blame you for being upset about their bad behavior. That’s what she has been doing to you.

Why does it seem like she is not even aware though? Like even in the long message she sent, she appears to not even be aware that she is the one acting like a victim and blaming me.

She doesn’t want to be aware. There are people who always blame others and never take responsibility for their own actions. She seems to be one of them.

There is no point in arguing with such people. The only way is to let them go.

In some languages, there is a saying “The smarter one gives up first” (as in, gives up fighting, gives up arguing). That’s what you should do with her – give up trying to make her understand. Give up arguing. Let her go.

And refrain from replying to her letter, because it will be futile, and you’ll risk getting entangled in another round of pointless, exhausting arguments (that are aimed at blaming you and portraying you as the bad guy).

Dear Dafne,

If I was sad, I had to get over it & stop being so sensitive about it. My only coping mechanism was to shut down & find solace in my solitude.

I am sorry, Dafne, it is very hard when you have no one to confide in, no one to understand how you are feeling.

I stayed for too long. I felt frozen. I felt that there was no way out & that there is nothing better out there in this scarry world. And fear was my only companion.

You concluded those things based on your childhood experience: an abusive and neglectful father, and a mother who is pushing you to love him. No wonder world seemed like a scary place, because you didn’t have anyone to protect you and to understand you. You were lacking a basic sense of safety, which is one of our existential needs. Perhaps you didn’t lack physical safety as much as emotional  safety – to have someone to understand you and empathize with you and validate your feelings.

The same old fear comes back to me when I think that I ruined my chances with the man I’ve met at the church outing.

This fear would then be the fear of staying alone and left to struggle with your emotions alone, never be seen for who you are as a person, never be soothed that things will be okay and that someone has your back. It seems like both the need for physical and emotional safety, right? Which you are looking for in a man, in a romantic partner.

Those are all our basic childhood needs, which if we don’t have met, do cause us a great deal of fear and anxiety in our adult life. We believe we need a partner to meet those needs, when in fact we need ourselves and a good therapist to help us along the way.

Somehow I still keep thinking of what did go wrong and if not contacting him first, contributed to his decision?

You actually did contact him and sent him a video, if I remember well, but he never responded to that. So it wasn’t the lack of your initiative that made him pull away, but probably he wasn’t “feeling it” with you, which he felt with that other woman. It’s not about you not doing enough, you can be sure about that.

But I understand how the fear of staying alone is making you believe that you didn’t do enough, that if only you had written a few more messages, he would have shown interest in you. That’s not true – it’s your fear speaking. Fear of staying alone and not having those basic needs met.

Yes, Tee, most of my relatives passed away, and unfortunately, there is no one now to really listen.

This holiday felt quite lonely. I’m still taking care of my elderly and feel guilty leaving them. Talking to my mother seems pointless at this stage. It always ends up in some kind of argument and pointing all my past mistakes. I also realised that she feels quite comfortable with my current situation.

I am sorry, Dafne, that none of your living relatives can really understand and support you. I am not surprised your mother is unable to do that. She is in fact invalidating your feelings and forcing you to go against them – forcing you to be kind to your mean father. So don’t even aspect any kind of empathy from her.

And yeah, I can imagine it suits her to have you stay single and take care of her (if that’s what you are doing for her?). And who are the other elderly, that you need to take care of, if I may ask?

So it looks like I am on a good path to healing, I am aware and I know that I need to work on my self worth more. But at the same time I feel stuck again and can’t find an exit.

It’s great that you are aware that you need to work on your self-esteem. But what is also important is to be aware of those basic childhood emotional needs (the need to be seen, appreciated, your emotions validated, also the need to be seen as special and important), that you need to meet, at least to a certain extent, before you can actually have a healthy relationship.

Basically, you would need to meet the needs of your inner child. Perhaps till now, you have been identifying with your inner child – the part of you which is scared, feels helpless and needs others to save her. And you were looking for a partner, who would fulfill the role of the loving, caring parent – whom you didn’t have as a child.

But now, the goal would be to stop identifying with the inner child, but to strengthen the adult part of you, who isn’t so helpless but can actually do something to help yourself. The more you feel capable of changing your life, the more chance you have to be happy and even find a healthy partner in the future.

But the focus right now should not be on finding a partner, but on strengthening your adult self and soothing your inner child. In other words, on meeting some of your basic needs.

For example, if you feel that you are stuck in the caretaker role for others ( I’m still taking care of my elderly and feel guilty leaving them.), and that you are neglecting your own needs, the goal would be to start paying more attention to your own needs and reject some of those requests if they take a toll on you.

The goal would be to learn how to set boundaries and say “I can do this for you, but I won’t be able to do that.” Basically, learning to set boundaries, the same as you are learning in the relationship with your father.

Setting boundaries and respecting your own needs (both physical and emotional) is a way to become more anchored in the adult self, and less in the helpless child self.

So I would suggest learning about childhood emotional needs, and then trying to meet those needs, either by yourself, or with a help of a therapist. I can provide you with some resources (youtube videos and such) if you’d like to start learning about childhood emotional needs and how to meet them.

Dear Dafne, you have the capacity to help yourself, please know that. Start small, with tiny steps, and you won’t feel so paralyzed any more. It’s great that you are helping in the animal shelter – but that’s again helping others, focusing on others and their needs.

I think it would be super important to start focusing more on your own needs (e.g. to simply become more aware of them throughout the day) and how you can actually meet them – be it by simply taking a nice bath, or going for a refreshing walk, or doing something else that fills you with energy and inspiration.

Thank you for your kind words, and your empathy and encouragement on my healing journey. I wish you healing too, and want to ensure you that healing is indeed possible! <3

Dear Paradoxy,

She apologized for saying that it was not my business to know about what happened in January but she could still be manipulating the truth.

It was also very recently that she was still claiming that you didn’t need to know about it, because you were not together in that week:

We are already broken up, but we still kept in contact since she owes me a lot of stuff but she cut out the last part of me that cared for her when she told me that what happened to her in January was none of my business because it happened right after our break up and that she shouldn’t have even told me because we were not dating when it happened

So I wouldn’t trust any of her apologies. Because it seems that’s her modus operandi: first she tries to find an excuse, then she blames you, and then if you’re still insisting that what she did was wrong, only then does she apologize. Her goal is take the responsibility off of herself, at all costs. No matter what she does, she isn’t to blame. Everybody else is, including you, but not her.

In her letter, her 3rd sentence is already a lie and twisting of truth:

The fights and lies were a lot to deal with for both of us.

She doesn’t say “I lied to you”, but she makes it seem as if you both lied to each other. Which isn’t true because she was lying and hiding the truth about her ex. You did nothing of the kind. She was lying to you, but she makes it seem as if you both lied.

because I was your first relationship, you had expectations, and when those weren’t met, I was crucified but made excuses for it at the same time.

She blames you for having expectations, and says that you had those expectations only because it was your first relationship. As if having expectations is wrong. Well, your expectation that your partner shouldn’t lie, hide the truth from you, or deceive you are totally legitimate expectations. But she feels “crucified” for not having met those basic expectations.

She was shamelessly lying to you, and when found out, she feels “crucified”. That’s victim blaming. She blames you for calling you out on her dishonesty and deceitfulness. She presents herself as the victim, as the “crucified one”. Whereas you – the real victim of her lying – she views as the perpetrator. She is not only twisting the truth with this one, but turning it upside down!

Because I know I am being held to a certain standard, I have always told you that I felt like you were pure, and I didn’t like that I had sex with you.

As if the biggest problem is that she had sex with you. A much bigger problem is that she had sex with other people, while being in and out of the relationship with you.

I felt terrible because I knew that I had so many things to deal with that I could never tell you.

Well,  she did tell you (very early in your relationship) about her aunt’s plan for prostitution.

Though I was your girlfriend, it felt like I was your protector,

Protecting you by hiding crucial information from you, such as that her ex (whom she still had feelings for) is her housemate? How “thoughtful” of her…

You think I didn’t wish I could just run to you and lay everything at your feet? You think I didn’t want to just tell you everything and know that I was safe and secure? You don’t think I would love the feeling of me feeling like I don’t have to worry because my man got me?

If you were “her man”, why was she secretly living with her ex?

Godwin, you had broken up with me while I was going through the inhumane things I was experiencing, and then the things your parents said about me that had you upset and coming to me, which then turned into a fight later, made me feel like I really needed to handle things on my own. I did not feel safe telling you any of that.

Your parents labeled me as a gold digger, a girl trying to secure her future by dating you; they said I was taking advantage of you; I would cheat on you, etc., all because I am black and from the west.

I had already never felt safe. I love you, and I felt like over time we would reach that level of security in our relationship, but I was not feeling it, and with the fight and what your parents said added on top of it, I decided to deal with it on my own.

Let’s see: she was hurt by your insensitive question (whether she was a gold-digger) and by your parents’ (alleged) racist comments, where they warned you that she would cheat on you and that she is a gold-digger, only because of her skin color? (is this true btw?).

She felt they labelled her unjustly. She presumably felt alone and abandoned by everyone, and then…. she decided to deal with it on her own? So her way of dealing with an offer for prostitution is to accept it?

And then to blame you (and your parents) for “forcing” her into it?

See how insidious it is? She is again playing the victim: this time she is the victim of your “racist” parents (and of you, who is upholding their beliefs), and she had “no choice” but to accept the offer for prostitution. But why? That’s a very twisted logic. Actually I think I know why she accepted it, but it has nothing to do with you or your parents offending her. You are not to blame. But she is still blaming you.

Even though in the very next sentence she says she is not blaming you:

I do not blame you or anyone else for anything. I was a grown 21-year-old who was dumb in my ways. I take responsibility for my actions.

Yeah right. The whole previous paragraph was about blaming you and your parents for her prostitution.

Okay, I’ll stop here because it’s hard to read all those lies and manipulations. I might continue analyzing her letter later.

B keeps saying that she is not trying to justify her actions. She says that she is only explaining how she felt.

But you see that she IS trying to justify her actions and blame you in process, don’t you?

But reading her messages make me feel like maybe she is right, maybe I am the problem overall. Maybe women are just better off without me.

No, she is manipulating you because she doesn’t want to take responsibility for her actions, even if she claims she does. She is still blaming you, while claiming she is not. Pretty insidious!

I understand my mistakes and I want to correct them.

Good to hear that. But you shouldn’t take advice from her on what to change, because she is a very manipulative and abusive person. Please don’t believe her words, don’t believe her judgment of you.

Dear Helcat,

those are all great affirmations for improving body positivity! Yes, we often focus on our imperfections and what is lacking, while forgetting and taking for granted what we have.

Very long ago I was very unhappy with my own body, but as I got older, I realized that health is the most important. And I was grateful to my body for serving me so well. Nowadays, with my health (i.e. movement) limitations, it is harder, but I am not blaming my body. I know it’s not my body’s fault that things turned out the way they are, and so I am trying to work on my mind, to help my body too.

I am glad that you are finding more and more acceptance of your body every day, loving it, and taking care of it. Also it’s wonderful to hear that your husband is a great support, both in taking care of your baby, and in every other aspect of your life.

And congratulations on finishing your exam!

Dear Paradoxy,

here are my thoughts on suppressing emotions…

We’ve already talked about your father and how he believes that emotions are bad and should be suppressed. Since women aren’t able to disregard their emotions so easily, and are more prone to be lead by emotions, I think he believes it makes them less rational, less smart, and therefore, more stupid. He believes that “succumbing” to emotions causes them trouble.

As we have established, your father doesn’t want to get in touch with his emotions, and so he accepts a worldview where emotions are bad and inferior, and where he, with his “pure logic”, is superior. Consequently, women too (as more prone to be governed by emotions) are inferior to men, who are (or should be) governed by “pure logic”.

Unfortunately, you have experienced on your own skin how logic can be twisted. Because B was twisting logic: she was claiming that sleeping around isn’t cheating, as long as on the day of cheating she is officially not in a relationship with you. Even if she was with you a week before and a week after having “gone astray.”

This logic was unfair to you, it was hurtful, but you couldn’t find a way to dispute it (“I don’t know how to argue with the technicality”), because indeed, she wasn’t with you on the days she slept with another man.

You couldn’t dispute this “logic”, which is focused on “technicalities”, without taking into account the emotions: your emotions, to be more precise, and your pain. You were being treated unfairly, you were emotionally abused, but the logic said: “she hasn’t cheated”. But your heart knew the truth: that she hurt you. And that you were in pain, because of her.

Your father used logic too, without considering your emotions. He could shut you down, using pure logic:
<p style=”margin-left: .5in;”>my father is a pro at psychology, and he is so rigid that everyone, whether it be his own boss, his friends, or our own relatives, knows that he should not be messed with because he always speaks the truth and can put anyone in their place by using pure logic.</p>
And it seems B too could shut you down too, with her twisted logic. She could disable you and you didn’t know how to fight against it.

Because your father taught you not to fight against it – he taught you that emotions are not important. So you couldn’t just say “she is hurting me, I am leaving.” Because that’s not an “argument” for your father. Emotions are simply not an argument.

So this is my take on how suppressing emotions can lead to a twisted, heartless logic. It’s not even logic, but a kind of reasoning that excludes the heart and emotions. It’s a false reasoning… technical reasoning, perhaps, which disregards the heart of the problem (pun intended).