Victim Mentality

[Nohbody]

I'm not going to say that the pain you are feeling isn't very real. I'm not going to say that feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and emptiness are unjustified. What I am going to say is that when crisis occurs in life we can deal with the situation as it arises, or we can retreat into self-pity and loathing and wonder 'Why did this happen to me, I don't deserve this?'. I've done this plenty over the last month, but it hasn't helped.

 

Are you a victim? Has your ex victimized you by leaving you? Certainly you feel pain, certainly you feel lonely and isolated and stressed and miserable... but are you a victim? The victim mentality ultimately boils down to blaming your problems (unhappiness, loneliness, etc) on someone else and giving them the power to determine your level of happiness or unhappiness. The victim mentality is the abandonment of choice and power in favor of righteous indignation (HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO ME?!?!). How your ex conducted the breakup is not a reflection of you. He or she made their choices and unfortunately you have to live with that... but you can live with it. You can thrive if you want to.

 

Unless your ex was abusive to you, you are not a victim. You have agency, the power to change the things you do not like in your life and in yourself. You will find someone who will appreciate you one day (there are 7 billion people in the world - you'd be hard pressed not to) and hopefully you will appreciate them just as much. Learn what lessons you can from this. If you reconcile eventually you will be stronger. If you find someone new you can be a better partner than you were. Be the person you want to be, and don't allow yourself to be victimized.

[carhill]

If I'm walking down the sidewalk and a car plows into me, I'm a victim. I had a reasonable expectation of safety and that drivers would be competent to operate their vehicles in a safe and responsible manner.

 

Short of fraud, abuse or undisclosed infidelity, I see little in relationships which describe 'victim' in the classic sense. Generally, we enter them voluntarily (relationships aren't forced servitude at gunpoint) and we all have freedom of will while in them. We all make choices.

 

To extrapolate, say I was walking on the sidewalk and I saw the car coming. I analyzed the potential risks, assessed the kind of car and how that portended to a settlement I might get from the driver's insurance company and figured out a way to be hit but survive relatively intact with the goal of bettering my financial position, since I'm kind of greedy. I might even look down at the sidewalk to find any cracks or heaves to bring the municipality into the dynamic to further my goal. It's all a risk, I know. I'm balancing the risks with the benefits. Am I a victim? You betcha. And I'll stick to that story until I'm dead

[marqueemoon4]

Not sure I agree with everything posted here.. if someone wants to leave, obviously thats their decision. If you're married, have a child, have never once worked on your marriage that was having problems, and you have another guy lined up-- I think thats pretty f-ed up. Then you lie about it over and over, string your spouse on so they'll pay for all your bills while you are seeing this OM? Then you suggest MC knowing you have absolutely no interest in fixing anything? You then proceed to blame everything on your spouse (and some of it is true), rewrite history to assuage your guilt, continue to lie, and treat your spouse as horribly as possible (to get them to go away?). Your spouse loses his **** and does something stupid and you try to take his child away for 2 YEARS after you swore you would never use you child against them? You have to be cold, calculating and just not give a f*ck to behave in this manner.

[flitzanu]

marquee, that sounds more like a rant rather than victimization.

 

i think the other point not addressed is the dumper taking the role of victim and blameshifting every problem in their life onto the dumpee.

 

playing the victim brings compassion and pity, that's why people do it. it helps alleviate them of ever feeling any blame or guilt.

[radiodarcy]

Unless your ex was abusive to you, you are not a victim. You have agency, the power to change the things you do not like in your life and in yourself. You will find someone who will appreciate you one day (there are 7 billion people in the world - you'd be hard pressed not to) and hopefully you will appreciate them just as much. Learn what lessons you can from this. If you reconcile eventually you will be stronger. If you find someone new you can be a better partner than you were. Be the person you want to be, and don't allow yourself to be victimized.

 

thank you -- i need to remind myself of this. as much as i gripe about how much my ex has hurt and upset me; it was my choice to stay in the situation as long as i did.

 

i think i am on my way to learning this. whenever i contemplate breaking NC i remind myself of how miserable i had been those last two years. and i ask myself: do i really want to put MYSELF through that? i have the power to stop myself from being a victim to what is essentially my own misery.and i choose to utilize it. contacting my ex would only be handing that power over to him.

[GreenPolicy]

If I'm walking down the sidewalk and a car plows into me, I'm a victim. I had a reasonable expectation of safety and that drivers would be competent to operate their vehicles in a safe and responsible manner.

 

Short of fraud, abuse or undisclosed infidelity, I see little in relationships which describe 'victim' in the classic sense. Generally, we enter them voluntarily (relationships aren't forced servitude at gunpoint) and we all have freedom of will while in them. We all make choices.

 

To extrapolate, say I was walking on the sidewalk and I saw the car coming. I analyzed the potential risks, assessed the kind of car and how that portended to a settlement I might get from the driver's insurance company and figured out a way to be hit but survive relatively intact with the goal of bettering my financial position, since I'm kind of greedy. I might even look down at the sidewalk to find any cracks or heaves to bring the municipality into the dynamic to further my goal. It's all a risk, I know. I'm balancing the risks with the benefits. Am I a victim? You betcha. And I'll stick to that story until I'm dead

 

I agree that we are not victims. And there is a difference between physical/verbal abuse/infidelity and garden-variety cruelty. In my case my ex ultimately overpromised and underdelivered on her commitments, never communicated dissatisfaction with me or the relationship, and up until five days before she dumped me she was talking about engagement rings, the two sets of parents meeting each other, potential wedding venues, etc. The breakup "conversation," if you can call it that, was vague word salad on her part. She never hit me, never raged at me, no infidelity that I am aware of. But I felt the rug was pulled out from under me and what she did was heartless and cruel. So while I think I was victimized, I try to think of myself as a survivor.

[PelicanPete]

It's natural to have the victim mentality when the wrong is still fresh, it's hard wired in our culture. We are programmed from youth to value justice and equality and things being fair. However the reality of it is how would we grow and advance as people if things were always fair?

 

#1 of the Four Noble Truths: "Life means suffering". Things aren't always going to be fair in life, and if you cling to the victim mentality about things having to be fair you'll never grow. The sooner you realize everything has purpose and reason, the sooner you can accept what has happened and choose to turn it into something positive.

[Exit]

I've come to realize that if you feel like a victim after someone left it's because you feel like they took your happiness with them, but you have to realize you are to blame for ever handing over the responsibility to your happiness to someone else in the first place. A significant other coming or going from your life should involve nothing other than that person. Your happiness shouldn't walk away with them, every dream for the future shouldn't have been attached to them, etc. So if someone leaves you and you feel like you just got mugged and had everything taken from you, you have to realize you were foolish for letting that person "Hold on to those things for you" in the first place. Of course the time spent with the other person, talking to them and sharing experiences, provides some happiness that you are not the sole owner of, and when they leave, that does disappear with them. But the entire outlook and overall happiness of your life shouldn't depend that much on another person. I'm learning....

[Pikachu]

I've come to realize that if you feel like a victim after someone left it's because you feel like they took your happiness with them, but you have to realize you are to blame for ever handing over the responsibility to your happiness to someone else in the first place. A significant other coming or going from your life should involve nothing other than that person. Your happiness shouldn't walk away with them, every dream for the future shouldn't have been attached to them, etc. So if someone leaves you and you feel like you just got mugged and had everything taken from you, you have to realize you were foolish for letting that person "Hold on to those things for you" in the first place. Of course the time spent with the other person, talking to them and sharing experiences, provides some happiness that you are not the sole owner of, and when they leave, that does disappear with them. But the entire outlook and overall happiness of your life shouldn't depend that much on another person. I'm learning....

 

I somewhat agree but in alot of cases you build a life around the other person. I wouldnt blame someone who lost his house and kids to his wife for handing her his happiness. While I know he will still be able to see his kids, feeling like a victim cause he lost the ability to be around them on an everyday basis isnt wrong. At least in my mind. In my case I invested my whole life into someone. My job, house, dogs and of course love were all gone in a day because she took it upon herself to cheat on me. And while I hate to sound like a jaded person, I feel like a victim. Should I have put all my eggs into one basket, probably not. Do I feel like I learned a lesson....yes. But like my father told me when I showed up on his doorstep looking for a place to stay. "Son, when you love someone for that long its hard not to invest your whole life into them." Maybe feeling like a victim is strange if you havent been together for long but I feel its different for the people that started families and lives with their exes. Losing that (especially with no warning) can easily cause you to feel like a victim.

[bentnotbroken]

I was a victim. A victim of him and his wandering d*ck. They exposed me to diseases that I had to be tested for though I didn't open my legs to anyone other than the person I promised to open them to when I said "I do". If he had stabbed me with a needle of fluid, without knowing what the fluid was but only that the fluid belonged to someone else..he would have been arrested in my state. But he can't be arrested for sticking his d*ck in someone else(serial cheat by the way) and then sticking that same d*ck in me. Alas, I am no longer a victim because these legs are no longer open to liars.