How do people, relationships, experiences, and movements shape ... - Resilience

How do people, relationships, experiences, and movements shape ...  Resilience

* This article was originally published here

I (27f) am thinking about messaging an ex-best friend (26f) who I haven't spoken to in years and would like some advice

Let me preface this with a bit of background info: this is about my ex-best friend (let's refer to them as EBF going forward) who I've known since middle school and who I ended up living with all 4 years during college. EBF and I were great friends all throughout middle and high school, but once we started living together, our friendship started becoming a bit toxic. I started feeling like I was constantly walking on eggshells around her and like I couldn't ever express my true self, and I began to notice that being around her more often than not left me feeling confused, down on myself, lesser than, like I was an inconvenience, etc. Eventually it got to the point where being around her started to become extremely uncomfortable and was impacting my self esteem and overall mental health, and as a result I started actively avoiding her as much as possible.

I'm not sure if living with her and dealing with all this toxicity perhaps left me with some sort of trauma/ptsd, because even in the years after we stopped living together, I'd still get uneasy and have this sort of negative gut reaction whenever we'd hang out. Even just seeing her posts pop up on my social media feed would make me feel really uncomfortable and sometimes give me flashbacks of that time. Over time, I sort of started distancing myself from her, and then eventually once covid happened I took advantage of the situation and finally cut her off for good.

It's been probably 3 years since we last talked, and I was fully convinced I'd never speak to her again. However, today I was listening to an old band we both used to like, and in doing so it brought back a lot of the good memories I have with her. For the first time in a while I found myself smiling while thinking back on our friendship, and for some reason this thought popped into my mind that I should reach out to her to see how she's doing. It was actually kind of surprising because I realized I no longer seem to have that same uneasy feeling when I think about her, like I have somehow healed over these past few years and no longer hold the same resentment towards her about what happened. At first I thought maybe it was just the nostalgia getting to me, but idk for some reason I really do think that my feelings and perspective on this situation has shifted, if that's even possible?

One thing I also want to mention is that another one of our mutual best friends who I am still in frequent contact with has told me before how she also feels that EBF can be kinda condescending to her too sometimes, and how she's considered living with her before but doesn't think she'd ever be able to actually do it because of how draining EBF is to be around. My brain is telling me this is a red flag and that I would be better off not re-opening that line of contact with EBF, but the forgiving/optimistic part of me wants to believe we could be friends again, even if we only talk occasionally.

I guess the reason I made this post is because I'm not quite sure what this means or what I should do moving forward. I do still have love for EBF and care about her and hope that she's happy and doing well. I do want to text her, but I'm just not sure if it's the best/smartest idea because I think I've finally healed and I don't want to potentially re-ignite those bad feelings and/or subject myself to any further trauma. It's like on the one hand I'm open to giving our friendship another chance, but at the same time I don't want to unnecessarily bring someone back into my life who might potentially do the same hurtful things as before. So I don't really know what to do.

What do y'all think I should do? Has anyone here been in a similar situation before? Any tips/advice would be very much appreciated.

Tldr; I've been thinking about getting back in touch with my ex-best friend who I was in a toxic friendship with (which ended up significantly impacting my self-esteem and mental health for many years). Reason being is that today I happened to listen to an old band we both used to enjoy and it brought back a lot of my good memories of us together and made me realize I no longer hold resentment or any negative feelings towards her or the situation anymore. I do still love and care about her despite everything and would like to get back in touch with her, but I also don't want to potentially re-ignite the issue or cause any further trauma. What should I do?

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My bf (25M) hurt my feelings and he apologized but I (24F) still feel hurt

For context we have been dating for about 6 months and have been serious for 3 and haven’t had any spats until now.

I recently got my wisdom teeth out so I can hardly open my jaw. My boyfriend looks at me and goes “I need you to recover”. I said “It’s because I look like a chipmunk, huh?” he replied with “No, so you can brush your teeth better”…. I instantly had tears in my eyes and brushed my teeth a second time in a row.

He kept saying sorry and hugging me and eventually I told him to just think before he speaks next time and that it’s fine but honestly? That messed me up. I am in so much pain and I have my boyfriend basically telling me my breath stinks.

I’ve already told him how that made me feel, etc but I am still so bothered by it. I hate to rehash things after I said it was fine but I feel so embarrassed and gross now.

TL;DR - I got my wisdom teeth out and my boyfriend told me he wants me to recover soon so I can “brush my teeth better”.

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* This article was originally published here

Am I (F26) wrong for wanting my bf (M26) to text me.

Story here is really simple. My boyfriend has never been a guy who's been good at texting me . That hasn't been a problem for me until recently, because he moved country. He calls me maybe once a week, and will give an occasional text, if I text him first, that said not always that he even answers, and sometimes he can spend 1-2 days to answer. Our plan is that I will move with him, but I'm feel a bit left in the dark. I tried to tell him last time we spoke that he's a dry texter, but he just said that that's just who he is. I'm I wrong for wanting him to communicate more? I'd just like a text a day asking how I am or a good night text.

TL;DR long distant boyfriend is horrible at texting or communicating with me. Am I wrong for being upset by this?

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* This article was originally published here

My (34m) boyfriend has a low libido, and I (28f) am sexually frustrated.

As the title says, it's becoming an issue and I feel horrible about it. We've been dating for about a year. He's wonderful in literally every other aspect, the perfect boyfriend, but he's got an extremely low libido. We have sex maybe once every month, if I'm lucky, and when it does happen it's usually initiated by me, which makes me a little bit frustrated because I really want him to initiate.

I know this isn't fair to him. I live in Japan, work at an American company, but he's Japanese. His work environment is more strenuous. He works a tough job, with extremely long hours, and it's harder for him. If he can't get it up he can't get it up. I never want to force him into sex, because that's not pleasurable for me or him. I'd never want to pressure him. I've conveyed that to him and told him that I understand, and that I don't love him any less. I've Googled solutions. I've tried buying sex toys, masturbating on my own to help with my sexual urges, and hoping he'll get involved. However, last night, something happened that really hurt me.

I was in bed, touching myself, and he didn't offer to help or didn't seem interested at all. That's fine, I'm not expecting him to. But when I glance over, he's looking at a pornographic web comic instead. That really hurt me. I thought, "I'm over here touching myself, but that's more interesting?"

We got in an argument and he apologized profusely, saying he thought I wanted to be left alone, that he thinks I'm sexy and its his problem, but it's still bothering me. I don't know what to do. I know he's being completely sincere. He loves me, and I love him, but my needs aren't being met in this aspect.

If I'm being honest, I'm fairly attractive. I'm not worried about how I look being a factor in this, but this situation is making me doubt myself. I really don't want to break up with him. That's not even on my mind. No one has understood me as well as he has, but this is making me frustrated... I feel horrible. I just want to see if anyone else has experienced this and has any insight.

Tl;dr: my boyfriend has a low libido and it's driving me crazy.

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* This article was originally published here

I’m (28) confused by this gamer girl (24)

I’m not really much of a gamer. Recently I played an online game just for a few months and met a girl on the game who has a personality just like mine and is from the same area as me.

As we played together she would make flirty jokes. I didn’t really think much of it. Then, unfortunately, her friend in real life died. I spent a lot of quality time with her that night after that to make her feel better.

Over the next few weeks, she started telling me about how lonely she is, how she’s not happy anywhere. She would also complain about the boyfriend on occasion. I didn’t cross any lines and only offered encouraging words as a friend (didn’t respond to comments about the boyfriend). Then she started saying things that confused me — for example, how she sometimes thinks about her brother and I being good friends.

From what she told me about the boyfriend, it sounded like a toxic relationship with an unhealthy power-dynamic. She also told me she might break up with the boyfriend and move back to my area.

I quit the game and didn’t think we’d talk much after. I figured if she became single and lived in my area, I’d ask her out. She started to hit me up for small talk — how I’m doing, how my day went, etc. When girls do this to me on a regular basis, it’s always been because they have a thing for me.

She told me she’ll be back in my area soon to take care of her family, and that she might not be going back — I took that to mean the breakup was coming.

We kept talking on the regular, but now without me playing the game at all. I don’t really keep up with gamer friends outside of games, so this was new to me.

Then in one of our conversations she tells me she’s living her dream (playing video games while the boyfriend works). Then she posts in a massive server about how her boyfriend keeps the relationship interesting and how she’s going to marry him. She also told me she “visits” my area often — so it doesn’t seem like she’ll be “permanently” back anymore.

I got her a nice birthday gift and after that, I essentially told her we can’t talk much anymore. I’m trying to start my own business and need to focus, and the connections I make with people I want to be IRL.

This seems to have upset her, she totally shunned me when I tried explaining things further. I also got kicked from a small server she maintains, so seems like there’s some bad blood here. In my experience, if a girl is shunning you — she thinks you’re a creep or she’s gossiping about you to others.

We haven’t had a conversation in weeks now, so it seems like maybe the friendship is over?

I’ve never been into a girl online, ever. I even tried multiple times during the friendship to push this girl away but she kept wanting to hang alone with just me on the game (she would ditch her friends for me and I never asked her to).

My therapist and IRL friends have told me I made the right decision to distance myself, but why do I feel so guilty then?

I’m pretty sure I did the right thing — I didn’t try to ruin my friend’s relationship, I didn’t try to end the friendship I was just trying to say I need space to focus on my business and IRL friends, and I even got a nice birthday gift to make sure it was clear that we are indeed still friends.

tl;dr: I felt uncomfortable doing small talk with a girl in a relationship who seemed interested in me, and that upsets her.

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Struggling with the intentions of my BF's (27M) female co-worker (30F)

Hey guys!
Two questions for you as I’d love to get opinions from other people on this. It’s not really a problem in our relationship as we talk about all this openly and reassure each other a lot. But I’d love some opinions as I personally am struggling (silently) a bit with her actions/her (unclear) intentions. Something is bugging me a bit.

1) What do you think about one-on-ones between a female co-worker (not single but unstable relationship) and a male co-worker (been in a relationship for over 10 years) after work, meaning going for drinks, for example? My BF's colleague asked him to go for a coffee or drink after work sometime. I know from my BF for him it would only be to keep up friendships at the office as he didn't have that in his previous job and I love that he gets on with people there. But who knows if it's platonic for her?

2) If the female co-worker really enjoys my bf’s company at work, likes chatting to him, is open when it comes to talking about sex, asks what he likes in a woman, invites him to her parties (with other work colleagues though) and texts him every now and then outside of work (most recent being a text in the morning about her looking forward to seeing him after she’s been off for a few days or also asking for advice about her relationship), do you think that this alone could mean she’s interested in him?

She's Spanish and did also apparently mention to my BF in a conversation that Spanish people tend to be a lot more open to stuff and also having close friends of the same sex is less of a problem for them. So maybe she does just see him as a friend?

TL;DR: I'm not sure what my BF's female co-worker's intentions are.

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* This article was originally published here