The Bingo Card
Classic.
Criminal record for aggression ~age 18–22: Check
Resents his Mom: Check
Use of sisters as reason he can’t possibly despise women: Check
Hateful/Resentful/Abuseive actions by Father: Check
Still admires Father: Check
Stories of being a victim of every ex-girlfriend: Check
Cutting down comments excused as jokes: Check
Material/money obsession: Check
The first time you try to leave and he brings up “abandonment issues”: Check
Anti-women leaning social media: Check
Desire to argue based on social media topics: Check
Reliance on career field as “proof” of good character: Check
Repeatedly says he has good character or is a good person (if you have to say it...): Check
Reduced self-regulation to hold back hateful comments based on social media: Check
Refusal to talk to professional, watch Youtube videos by professional, or share deeper issues with anyone other than romantic partner → isolating partner & doesn’t want to be seen: Check
Avoidance of meeting friends/colleagues who might see through him: Check
Steadily growing bad reactions as you grow in confidence/success: Check
YAHTZEE.
I feel like the whole “women with daddy issues” thing is made up. In these personality/behavior types, it appears there are a number of men with “daddy issues” who are holding the real demons and refusing to face them. Can’t handle feeling and healing their own pain.
It’s so classic, looking back, so obvious. Hindsight bias, I trusted the explanations, I trusted the person too quickly and ignored my own observations. It revealed itself slowly and I let the emotional bond progress too quickly...the feeling of connection more important than the facts, too much trust of the other. Now, I have the full bingo card though…This stuff is more prevalent that I knew. Can’t claim I don’t know anymore…Time to become as soft as a dove, as wise as a serpent.
And what if a person of this type says, ‘You don’t see the pain of men,’ when we do. When we may see the pain of a man at a local coffee shop who was drafted into Vietnam and had to return and rebuild his life. The pain he chose to heal, enough to say, “You were in the Coast Guard for five years? As a woman? I don’t know how you managed that.” When we see him, and he sees us. Seeing each other isn’t a zero sum game.
There’s the pain of a friend who suffered an abusive relationship before she was 18 and was nearly killed. The anger, resentment, broken trust, and the healing she did with her own learning and therapy. The rebuilding of herself. The book she shared about healing mother wounds. She took accountability to stop the pain that others brought to her and to not give it further. She chose to learn to replace blame and victimhood with confidence and understanding.
What to call the people who refuse to heal. The ones who hold the resentment and continue to give it to others. The ones we give space to and expect are healing, but are continuing on their tirade? The ones who want to be seen, yet hide from real support, like creatures scattering to avoid human footsteps. To call them snakes or monsters is dehumanizing. Parasites or leeches would be a more accurate metaphor for the energy exchange, but still not human. Troubled souls, narcissists, psychopaths? The human form overcome with negative human emotions. Perhaps here to be a lesson for others of what happens when we don’t face our hurt and pain to heal it.
Some people exist as tortured souls when they don’t have to be. When they have resources, the potential to be great partners, experiences to understand wounds and pain and help others heal. But their attraction to resentment brings them more resentment, holds them back, tarnishes their potential. Back under their rock until a kind and hopeful person sees them and offers support, not out of pity, but that kind and hopeful person’s naïve projection of their own healing and potential.