I don’t necessarily think people can be evil.

I know of some of my abusers that they were abused themselves. They knew what they were doing to me wasn’t right but it gave them feelings of power in a world where they otherwise felt powerless.

For others, bullying me was a social sport, just something you did to “belong” to a certain group.

I think what they did was evil, but I don’t think they were evil people. They were normal people with inadequate upbringing put into painful situations that resulted in bullying/abusing me being the only perceived “good” outcome for them. For almost all people who do evil things, this is the case.

I think we all possess the ability to do evil acts in response to certain stimuli, many are just lucky enough never to receive the set of stimuli that causes them to be evil, so they can allow themselves to think they are different, i.e. “good”, and start labeling other people a certain way, i.e. “evil”.

Conversely, I also think all the people who do evil acts are also able to do good acts in certain situations.

What we then call a “good” or an “evil person” is just a person where we perceive a larger share of behaviors attributed to that adjective. But are they evil or good people, is that a quality inherent to them? Or is the environment they grew up in evil or good? Or are humans in general evil or good? Is our perception of the share of each set of behaviors even right?

I think no one deserves for their whole self to be called evil. I think you can call actions evil, and some people may have a lot of these actions, and they’re worthy of being avoided because of that, but I believe they’re the same kind of person than everyone else, just put into terrible situations. So no, I don’t think people can be evil.

What’s stopping you? No money? :D

I’m 35 and when I grow up I want to be psychotherapist. However, I hate university. Fun!

Makes me think the same. I personally believe that no, the concept in the sense that “anything can change and could theoretically happen” doesn’t exist, but… I also believe it doesn’t really matter either. If there is free will, then anything can happen, if there is no free will, then not anything can happen and it is determined, but since we currently can’t predict the future and determine what’s going to happen, both situations have the exact same outcomes.

For me, most of these philosophical questions that are (currently) not definitively answerable I liked to ponder for a bit, but dismiss relatively quickly. I don’t really care if there is a free will or not, if there is any meaning to anything or not, basically whatever. What I care about is the current situation as far as I can discern it, and my actions that I want to take in the current moment based on that. My biology determines that and I just let it happen.

I’ve never said that anyone should have that much control. In fact I literally said almost no one can do it. The controversial thing is me even suggesting that it is possible.

Yeah but you can not suffer and still act to get out of the situation is what I’m saying.

See :D told ya it’s unpopular. Yeah, it’s “victim blaming” essentially. You might not believe me, but I have been a victim most of my life in many situations. I also have or have had mental disorders.

In the end, you can only control yourself. And so while it is of course not my fault if I am being abused or whatever (it’s the fault of the abuser) it is actually very much my fault if I don’t find ways to remove myself from that situation. Of course, every situation is different. The difficulty of “fixing” it, and how to do it, massively differs. But in almost all situations, “suffering” only makes it less likely you’ll get out of it. If you feel too bad, most people are more likely to feel powerless, to not think clearly, to be defeatist and so on.

Life literally always has challenges, things that make you feel bad. No matter how good of a situation someone has, you’ll always find people that are miserable in that situation. I’m saying you can actually be fine with your situation, whatever it is.

Obviously, yep. We are all victims of our circumstances and if you never get in contact with this concept or are not in a mental situation to want to believe it to be true, you’re pretty much out of luck.

You can change your (psychological) reaction to everything. All psychological suffering is chosen by yourself and can be stopped if you choose not to suffer.

Of course this is simple, not easy. Almost no one can do it.

Most people I meet don’t believe this and hate that I’m saying this.

If you shit your pants, do you keep going with your week or is your week over?

If you shit your pants, do you keep going with your month or is your month over?

If you shit your pants, do you keep going with your life or is your life over?

I clean up and do whatever I still feel like. The arbitrary border of “day” means nothing to me, same as any other arbitrary border.

As long as it is clearly communicated by him what he’s doing and why, any approach is fine really. So as long as he tells her his exact purpose of the break and what he needs to stop it, all good.

If that is not done, and it’s just a one-sided decision of his to stop talking, not even explaining anything, then it is very bad. It’d basically be like a parent punishing their child and not telling them what for, mentally very problematic. Of course it should be able to be implied by her in some way, but it’s very easy to come to the wrong conclusions.

Second question, you simply don’t let them. You calmly keep repeating your question, pointing out their intentional ignoring, stating that you will only talk with them about anything else after this question is answered, until they either get so mad as to run away, or they respond to it. But you have to actually stay strong, and not allow them to do it. Depending on other things that need to be communicated, and how stubborn they are, that will hurt yourself as well as them since other important stuff for you might not get communicated. But that is something that needs to be tolerated, because breaking from the original intention is worse for the future, it shows that ignoring the question works, and they’ll repeat it.

he was sort of always pushing her daily.

This is exactly what it sounded like. Glad you’ve got this information, now I’ve got more things to say.

What he’s doing comes from a perfectly nice and helpful place. He actually sees her behavior hurt herself and wants to help her hurt less.

But you should never “help” someone in this way. It’s the worst thing he can possibly do, it actually only makes things worse.

The only way you can help people is by being there for them and assisting them on their own path. In other words, the only way you can be a positive force is by letting them do whatever the fuck they want, and helping them with that. If “whatever the fuck they want” does not include “getting out of the depression” and “getting rid of anxiety”, then there’s literally nothing you can do. If you try to get them to do actions that you think might be good for them, even if they actually were good for them if they wanted to do them, if they don’t want to do them by themselves all you’re doing is just making them feel worse for “being wrong”.

It might even be the case that she wants to get out of depression or get rid of her anxiety, but she’s taking the wrong actions for it. And he may be trying to get her to do “better actions”, that actually accomplish what was set out to do. Even that doesn’t work. She has to get to the “better actions” herself. You can maybe ask questions, or point out that the “current action” doesn’t seem to be working, but the idea to change her actions has to come from herself.

That is the only way people change. People change by their own will, or they don’t. As another person, you can basically just be with them and watch. Anything much more and you’re starting to fuck things up more instead of help.

but told me she won’t do anything if he doesn’t stay on about it until it’s done

Then she should be doing nothing. He should be doing his own thing. She either comes out of it by herself, or doesn’t. “Staying on about it” gets things done, but it also makes them both more miserable.

I see, makes sense :) interesting and lovely to hear.

How was your day?

Where am I “grilling them”? I’m just asking about their motivation. Is that wrong?

I definitely don’t believe that last statement. People don’t just randomly do things without getting something out of it.

But you actually answered me, what you’re getting out of it is the possibility of making other people feel good/better, the thought of which makes you feel good. That is what you’re getting out of it. You said “it feels a bit nice yknow”.

Why do you say you’re getting something out of it (“feels a bit nice”) and then at the same time say “I’m not gaining anything”? This is a direct contradiction.

If it was my friend, I would ask him what he would do if he was absolutely sure that his wife will never change. And then tell him that this is what he should do, because 1. in my opinion it is toxic to be in a relationship and expect the other person to change and 2. her not changing is the most likely outcome, people do change, but they always resist it very much, and often that resistance is too great.

Very good, played Terraria the whole day with my main partner, had good sex, and ate well.

Why are you asking? Like what does it give you? You don’t know me or mostly anyone here personally, right? Why are you invested/interested in the minutiae of our day-to-day lives? (I’m not saying it’s bad, just very unusual, which is why I’m asking)

There is 2 ways really: your friend needs to leave, or he needs to be fine with the imbalance, winding down as much as is necessary.

She’s not going to change unless things stop working for her. It’s a simple reality of the human mind. That doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed she will change, she might not.

Option 1, the real threat of him leaving will cause huge issues within her. She will either change to keep him, or fall into more misery. Both are very possible.

Option 2, him stopping to care, and (likely) toning down his involvement is the harder option for him. With toning down I mean, maybe just cook for himself, maybe just clean whatever is absolutely important to him and his own dirt, masturbate more, do less “relationship thinking”. Do everything necessary down to a level that he is actually comfortable with. You can actually be completely fine in an uneven relationship, it’s mostly a mindset thing. Of course being with someone else might be better, which is leaving again. I’m poly, so I’ve got that covered anyway, they seem monogamous, so no other people to fill the gaps without leaving, in my relationships everyone does just as much as they want and gets everything else they need from other people, which works perfectly. But that is likely not an option here.
So yeah, him toning down his involvement will also result in missing comfort for her (like leaving would, option 1), which will either cause her to change to more even involvement, or feel even more bad and lead to option 1 again.

Your friend can’t control what his wife does. He can only control what he does and get comfortable with how his wife is. In my opinion, this whole situation from what you said is pretty much his fault, and not hers, as you’ve said this inequality has been like this from the beginning. He knew what he was getting into, she doesn’t seem to have misled him or changed majorly. He should’ve either never entered/deepened this relationship or have been truly fine with the inequality, if he was, there would be no problems now.

For someone saying karma doesn’t mean anything you’re sure farming lots of it! Making good comments and shit worthy of upvotes! You’re quite a terrible hypocrite!

Only one way to find out! YOLO!