Comment part 1 (part 2 reply). Hey Karolina, very thought provoking video. I heard this on my drive home but re-listened again as I wanted to attempt to add my own two cents to many of your points. Your point of view makes sense to me and I appreciate you sharing it. Though, it sounds to me like you're trying to take 100% of the responsibility for the relationships issues. I'm willing to challenge this idea that things were also not as healthy on the other side. Your videos show me just how different everyone can be and how although I do resonate with a lot of your issues from your side, I also was on the receiving end of some of these behaviours. Always wanting to spend time together - Agree with your point - I understand space is important, I do also think some people can also have incompatibilities in terms of their needs. Doing everything together definitely sounds like there was some enmeshment going on for sure. We definitely can't change people and the best act of love is accepting someone for who they are while respecting our own needs and boundaries too. I struggle with this a lot. Also, I am just wording these things how I understand it to help me learn more about myself too. I do have one question, Were you also being as clingy to the new person? When two people get clingy I think that's the ultimate enmeshment and both people will lose their sense of self. Also just because you felt a certain way to that behaviour doesn't mean your previous ex felt that way. I feel it might be appropriate to assert this statement that I tell myself very often "Nobody makes anyone feel anything". In other words; you could say something horrible to 100 people, and they're all going to feel different things (perhaps it won't affect some of them at all); hence the idea that our emotions and how we feel is almost like a loaded gun and what they said is the catalyst (the trigger) just waiting to be pulled by the behaviour needed to get that response from us. If we learn to not be affected by that behaviour with getting to know ourselves and having healthy compassion for self and other; with the appropriate boundaries, we can manage the situations much better. Always complaining - This makes me think about projection a lot. Telling him to do things and him doing them might suggest a lack of boundaries on his part. Just because someone communicates their boundaries; doesn't make them healthy if they don't actually follow through with them. Projecting our expectations due to likely having your parent pushing those same standards onto you; without considering how they impacted you or made you feel not heard or seen, or not good enough if you don't. "This is how I was raised" - One thing I've had to learn to do is take accountability for my past - which means I don't make excuses for how I was (explanations are fine, as long as we own the behaviours as ours) and forgive ourselves to not do the same again. This is where self-trust is so important too. My mum is obsessed with cleanliness too; yet for whatever reason I haven't adopted this trait from her. I used to mock people a little bit, a bit like how my dad mocked me though. My mum has some co-dependent behaviours too, and I've definitely picked up a few things from her; due to her co-dependent thinking; she unconsciously put that same thinking onto me and I've had to learn to individuate and take responsibility for my behaviour - no longer blaming my mum for any of my behaviour. I don't blame her either, as we are very fortunate to have the internet to break away from this, I agree with you there. Thinking there was something wrong with me - I understand this to a certain level, I've definitely got some kind of feeling of inadequacy, despite all of my attempts to do external things to improve myself (it unfortunately doesn't resolve the internal problem). In my relationship I felt good enough to not mention anything as I was bombarded with "love" a lot. Eventually, my ex had a breakdown and ended it because she "lost herself" and didn't feel good enough. She would push this idea onto me a lot. I told her I didn't think that, and she would just twist it as if I didn't care. I felt very uncared for because of this and it was very upsetting at the time. Here's a small segment of my previous relationship last year. I've said to my partner I felt unlovable, she never reassured me; meanwhile I would always assure her I loved her (Despite my best efforts, after discovering her betrayal and feeling numb, I got angry after we already broke it off, which wasn't an easy ride either. I told her at the end of the relationship what I thought of how she treated me and that I do not love her). This just resorted to her using that all against me and I felt toxic guilt for months. I believed her again, confused out of my mind. She continued gaslighting me while I was again; trying to reassure her that I did love her and being in denial about her deception. Eventually she discarded me and blocked me on everything after my best efforts to show empathy to her for how messed up she was (this was her story). To begin with, she was absolutely obsessed with me and it got to the point where I was grateful to just breathe without her texting me. It was beginning to wear me down, but I wasn't aware at the time, I thought I was doing a good job handling it and being there for her whenever she needed it. Before all the pain and the breakup, I was struggling to get much time to see her (1 day every 2 weeks for maybe 3-4 hours at best) I simply tried to assert myself and say "when can I see you next?" and she just said "i'll let you know" and I said "How about Sunday, if you change your mind before then that's okay, I understand you're busy" and she said "Okay" and then a few days later, after she was being very quiet; blew up out of control at me because I looked annoyed as my eyebrows looked like they frowned a tiny bit when we were talking on facetime. It's impossible to explain without writing a book, but basically, not long after that, her brain suddenly "went weird" (her words) and after many confusing conversations and many concerning statements from her, she essentially said she didn't want love and didn't think she deserved anything good. Pushed me away while pulling me back continuously, I felt like a puppet on a string. She did all sorts of self-destructive things to herself and sabotaged everything, and I was essentially just there; taking an absolute beating and taking responsibility for her emotions. I was told she cheated on me, which created a hell of a lot of pain considering she could never own up to it and gaslighted me to hell. We were still talking while I had knowledge of this as I wanted to understand what was even happening. I'm glad i'm out of that, and I learned I need to look after myself much better. Too good to be true - Just because someone is acting loving, doesn't mean their internal emotional landscape was perfect. I obviously don't know the nuances here but I would argue that we never truly know how the other person feels. He might have never voiced all of his problems, despite how much we may think we know someone. If he won't say "no" that's a sign right there. It sounds like he may have enabled you to do those toxic behaviours sometimes and his boundaries in some areas weren't firm enough perhaps. My point is, I don't think healthy people will give a "toxic" person the time of day; so he must have had some of his own issues to be in that relationship with you. I'm not demonising anyone here. I never wanted my ex to have therapy as I didn't believe in it at the time. Now I am in my own therapy; funny that ain't it. Changing others - Control needs! Externalising control onto others by trying to change them. I was genuinely trying to "help" my ex quit her vaping and drug issues, but she concealed a lot of this from me. She would say she wanted to quit and I said "you'll do them in your own time". I tried to be supportive in that. Lenience - I suppose I'm a little stuck in a lot of my habits, which were always focused on perfectionism, but in my relationship I needed to be more strict and firm with boundaries.. I was very lenient, put up with a lot of neediness, for not a lot in return. Being lenient on ourselves is important too, as I gave myself a hard time for doing one thing wrong, while I let my ex get away with a lot of little things and never had those conversations. Lenience is tricky, much like everything in a relationship. Building a healthy relationship with ourselves teaches us our limits and lets us be who we are, while being able to simply communicate when we feel we should. If it were as easy as stating that then I'd already be healed and perfect, so embodying that takes a long time to work through.
@@joshy2joshy Thank you Josh for sharing your story, I really appreciate you becoming vulnerable on here. It's always nice to hear someone else's story, and that is my goal on here; to hear people out. I do agree with you that perhaps I was being too harsh on myself for saying that my ex was an angel and only I displayed toxic traits. I know that that wasn't totally true; he did have his own issues (perhaps not as big as mine). But I do believe I also treated him a little like a puppet, expecting him to do everything where I could have given a lot more. I'm not blaming it all on me, but at the same time I know I was at fault. With the new person, it was very clingy at first (he seems to also be a little bit anxiously attached, and is very loving, which I love). He always tells me how warm and affectionate I am, and that he loves that. I love being close and being affectionate, but no I have come to realise that I also need my own space to be with myself. Perhaps he sees this change in me, I'm afraid I could lose myself in this relationship, and it's a really tough one because there is a lot of love, I just know that love isn't enough (I know this sounds very cryptic, but I will get into this in my future videos). I'm so sorry you went through all that with your ex girlfriend, you sound like a really good guy, but you clearly need to look after yourself more. I'm so sorry she put you through all that, but I can see how much wisdom you gained from that experience. I know that we don't always want to lear from and experiences, but it tends to be the bad ones that teach us the most. I'm glad to hear you're in therapy, I'sure you're learning a lot about yourself. I've done therapy over a year ago for a year, but I do feel like I need to get back to it again. Thanks for sharing again.
@@KarolinaWrites I appreciate that a lot Karolina, I genuinely had to listen to about 9 audiobooks and learn a lot about my own co-dependency and also what was happening for my ex to untangle it all and get myself free. I am doing my best to take care of my emotional well-being more. Yeah I've learned all of the patterns and behaviours to watch out for so I don't get hooked into another one of those relationships. I can't see it happening again, I've done way too much homework. lol. I wish I could just hand over my experience in a condensed video file but it would be terabytes in size, so much information that doesn't make sense and still to this day does not, it was very traumatic, but I've let go of most of it at this point. I can totally relate to this idea that we have issues but the other person is even worse. Also, my apologies, I thought you were not in a relationship at the moment, correct me if I'm wrong here again haha. It feels weird just knowing all of this stuff as I feel like I shouldn't have to know anything to this extent. I'm pretty passionate about the topics perhaps out of my own needs but I am studying psychology and most likely will go into counselling or something of the like, so that's probably the other reason.
@@KarolinaWrites Another thing I'd like to add, I've removed all other toxic people from my life. For those that I can't, I've been much more firm and standing my ground. I ain't being pushed about.
@@joshy2joshy that's exciting, I've thought about going back to school to study psychology too, it's all super interesting especially when you've had certain experiences. Yes, I am in a relationship, it's a very different relationship to the one I was in before and that really scares me (I'm not sure if it's my daddy issues coming out). Not to say there is no love, because I would say we match a lot better with this person in terms of chemistry and attraction, but in a lot of other things we are so different and from completely different generations. And because I was in my old relationship for 5.5 years, and I had never dated before, I kind of assumed that what I want from life is what this new person will want as well, but the reality is a lot different. I had no clue that people just date to date, and they don't make future plans. But I will talk about this in the future.
Comment part 1 (part 2 reply).
Hey Karolina, very thought provoking video. I heard this on my drive home but re-listened again as I wanted to attempt to add my own two cents to many of your points. Your point of view makes sense to me and I appreciate you sharing it. Though, it sounds to me like you're trying to take 100% of the responsibility for the relationships issues. I'm willing to challenge this idea that things were also not as healthy on the other side. Your videos show me just how different everyone can be and how although I do resonate with a lot of your issues from your side, I also was on the receiving end of some of these behaviours.
Always wanting to spend time together - Agree with your point - I understand space is important, I do also think some people can also have incompatibilities in terms of their needs. Doing everything together definitely sounds like there was some enmeshment going on for sure. We definitely can't change people and the best act of love is accepting someone for who they are while respecting our own needs and boundaries too. I struggle with this a lot. Also, I am just wording these things how I understand it to help me learn more about myself too.
I do have one question, Were you also being as clingy to the new person?
When two people get clingy I think that's the ultimate enmeshment and both people will lose their sense of self. Also just because you felt a certain way to that behaviour doesn't mean your previous ex felt that way. I feel it might be appropriate to assert this statement that I tell myself very often "Nobody makes anyone feel anything". In other words; you could say something horrible to 100 people, and they're all going to feel different things (perhaps it won't affect some of them at all); hence the idea that our emotions and how we feel is almost like a loaded gun and what they said is the catalyst (the trigger) just waiting to be pulled by the behaviour needed to get that response from us. If we learn to not be affected by that behaviour with getting to know ourselves and having healthy compassion for self and other; with the appropriate boundaries, we can manage the situations much better.
Always complaining - This makes me think about projection a lot. Telling him to do things and him doing them might suggest a lack of boundaries on his part. Just because someone communicates their boundaries; doesn't make them healthy if they don't actually follow through with them. Projecting our expectations due to likely having your parent pushing those same standards onto you; without considering how they impacted you or made you feel not heard or seen, or not good enough if you don't.
"This is how I was raised" - One thing I've had to learn to do is take accountability for my past - which means I don't make excuses for how I was (explanations are fine, as long as we own the behaviours as ours) and forgive ourselves to not do the same again. This is where self-trust is so important too. My mum is obsessed with cleanliness too; yet for whatever reason I haven't adopted this trait from her. I used to mock people a little bit, a bit like how my dad mocked me though. My mum has some co-dependent behaviours too, and I've definitely picked up a few things from her; due to her co-dependent thinking; she unconsciously put that same thinking onto me and I've had to learn to individuate and take responsibility for my behaviour - no longer blaming my mum for any of my behaviour. I don't blame her either, as we are very fortunate to have the internet to break away from this, I agree with you there.
Thinking there was something wrong with me - I understand this to a certain level, I've definitely got some kind of feeling of inadequacy, despite all of my attempts to do external things to improve myself (it unfortunately doesn't resolve the internal problem). In my relationship I felt good enough to not mention anything as I was bombarded with "love" a lot. Eventually, my ex had a breakdown and ended it because she "lost herself" and didn't feel good enough. She would push this idea onto me a lot. I told her I didn't think that, and she would just twist it as if I didn't care. I felt very uncared for because of this and it was very upsetting at the time.
Here's a small segment of my previous relationship last year. I've said to my partner I felt unlovable, she never reassured me; meanwhile I would always assure her I loved her (Despite my best efforts, after discovering her betrayal and feeling numb, I got angry after we already broke it off, which wasn't an easy ride either. I told her at the end of the relationship what I thought of how she treated me and that I do not love her). This just resorted to her using that all against me and I felt toxic guilt for months. I believed her again, confused out of my mind. She continued gaslighting me while I was again; trying to reassure her that I did love her and being in denial about her deception. Eventually she discarded me and blocked me on everything after my best efforts to show empathy to her for how messed up she was (this was her story). To begin with, she was absolutely obsessed with me and it got to the point where I was grateful to just breathe without her texting me. It was beginning to wear me down, but I wasn't aware at the time, I thought I was doing a good job handling it and being there for her whenever she needed it. Before all the pain and the breakup, I was struggling to get much time to see her (1 day every 2 weeks for maybe 3-4 hours at best) I simply tried to assert myself and say "when can I see you next?" and she just said "i'll let you know" and I said "How about Sunday, if you change your mind before then that's okay, I understand you're busy" and she said "Okay" and then a few days later, after she was being very quiet; blew up out of control at me because I looked annoyed as my eyebrows looked like they frowned a tiny bit when we were talking on facetime. It's impossible to explain without writing a book, but basically, not long after that, her brain suddenly "went weird" (her words) and after many confusing conversations and many concerning statements from her, she essentially said she didn't want love and didn't think she deserved anything good. Pushed me away while pulling me back continuously, I felt like a puppet on a string. She did all sorts of self-destructive things to herself and sabotaged everything, and I was essentially just there; taking an absolute beating and taking responsibility for her emotions. I was told she cheated on me, which created a hell of a lot of pain considering she could never own up to it and gaslighted me to hell. We were still talking while I had knowledge of this as I wanted to understand what was even happening. I'm glad i'm out of that, and I learned I need to look after myself much better.
Too good to be true - Just because someone is acting loving, doesn't mean their internal emotional landscape was perfect. I obviously don't know the nuances here but I would argue that we never truly know how the other person feels. He might have never voiced all of his problems, despite how much we may think we know someone. If he won't say "no" that's a sign right there. It sounds like he may have enabled you to do those toxic behaviours sometimes and his boundaries in some areas weren't firm enough perhaps. My point is, I don't think healthy people will give a "toxic" person the time of day; so he must have had some of his own issues to be in that relationship with you. I'm not demonising anyone here. I never wanted my ex to have therapy as I didn't believe in it at the time. Now I am in my own therapy; funny that ain't it.
Changing others - Control needs! Externalising control onto others by trying to change them. I was genuinely trying to "help" my ex quit her vaping and drug issues, but she concealed a lot of this from me. She would say she wanted to quit and I said "you'll do them in your own time". I tried to be supportive in that.
Lenience - I suppose I'm a little stuck in a lot of my habits, which were always focused on perfectionism, but in my relationship I needed to be more strict and firm with boundaries.. I was very lenient, put up with a lot of neediness, for not a lot in return. Being lenient on ourselves is important too, as I gave myself a hard time for doing one thing wrong, while I let my ex get away with a lot of little things and never had those conversations. Lenience is tricky, much like everything in a relationship. Building a healthy relationship with ourselves teaches us our limits and lets us be who we are, while being able to simply communicate when we feel we should. If it were as easy as stating that then I'd already be healed and perfect, so embodying that takes a long time to work through.
@@joshy2joshy Thank you Josh for sharing your story, I really appreciate you becoming vulnerable on here. It's always nice to hear someone else's story, and that is my goal on here; to hear people out.
I do agree with you that perhaps I was being too harsh on myself for saying that my ex was an angel and only I displayed toxic traits. I know that that wasn't totally true; he did have his own issues (perhaps not as big as mine). But I do believe I also treated him a little like a puppet, expecting him to do everything where I could have given a lot more.
I'm not blaming it all on me, but at the same time I know I was at fault.
With the new person, it was very clingy at first (he seems to also be a little bit anxiously attached, and is very loving, which I love). He always tells me how warm and affectionate I am, and that he loves that. I love being close and being affectionate, but no I have come to realise that I also need my own space to be with myself. Perhaps he sees this change in me, I'm afraid I could lose myself in this relationship, and it's a really tough one because there is a lot of love, I just know that love isn't enough (I know this sounds very cryptic, but I will get into this in my future videos).
I'm so sorry you went through all that with your ex girlfriend, you sound like a really good guy, but you clearly need to look after yourself more. I'm so sorry she put you through all that, but I can see how much wisdom you gained from that experience. I know that we don't always want to lear from and experiences, but it tends to be the bad ones that teach us the most.
I'm glad to hear you're in therapy, I'sure you're learning a lot about yourself. I've done therapy over a year ago for a year, but I do feel like I need to get back to it again.
Thanks for sharing again.
@@KarolinaWrites I appreciate that a lot Karolina, I genuinely had to listen to about 9 audiobooks and learn a lot about my own co-dependency and also what was happening for my ex to untangle it all and get myself free. I am doing my best to take care of my emotional well-being more.
Yeah I've learned all of the patterns and behaviours to watch out for so I don't get hooked into another one of those relationships. I can't see it happening again, I've done way too much homework. lol.
I wish I could just hand over my experience in a condensed video file but it would be terabytes in size, so much information that doesn't make sense and still to this day does not, it was very traumatic, but I've let go of most of it at this point. I can totally relate to this idea that we have issues but the other person is even worse.
Also, my apologies, I thought you were not in a relationship at the moment, correct me if I'm wrong here again haha.
It feels weird just knowing all of this stuff as I feel like I shouldn't have to know anything to this extent. I'm pretty passionate about the topics perhaps out of my own needs but I am studying psychology and most likely will go into counselling or something of the like, so that's probably the other reason.
@@KarolinaWrites Another thing I'd like to add, I've removed all other toxic people from my life. For those that I can't, I've been much more firm and standing my ground. I ain't being pushed about.
@@joshy2joshy that's exciting, I've thought about going back to school to study psychology too, it's all super interesting especially when you've had certain experiences.
Yes, I am in a relationship, it's a very different relationship to the one I was in before and that really scares me (I'm not sure if it's my daddy issues coming out). Not to say there is no love, because I would say we match a lot better with this person in terms of chemistry and attraction, but in a lot of other things we are so different and from completely different generations.
And because I was in my old relationship for 5.5 years, and I had never dated before, I kind of assumed that what I want from life is what this new person will want as well, but the reality is a lot different. I had no clue that people just date to date, and they don't make future plans. But I will talk about this in the future.
@@joshy2joshy that's how it should be.