Is this a normal reaction?

10 Comments

So before covid kicked off I was dating this guy, he's 24, I'm 20, we both attend university together. In Feb he went out on a night out, but I stayed in because I had an essay due, anyway the next morning he came over really upset. He broke down and told me he'd cheated on me the previous night. To which I told him that's fine because we'd only been together since December and hadn't actually talked about whether we are exclusive or not. To this he kicked off majorly, started shouting at me, accusing me of cheating and ranted on about how I didn't love him. Which of course I didn't, I maybe young but I'm not a naive school girl that thinks love develops overnight, it'd been 3 months and a month of that we were both apart anyway.

Anyway, so he broke up with me for not being mad at him for cheating on me essentially. Which was fine, I figured he was just looking for an excuse and was hoping to take the cowards way out and get me to be the dumper. But then a month later he sent me a text asking if we could meet at Costa, which was fine, we met it was nice and then we were talking and he said, and I quote "I've done a lot of thinking and I'm ready to forgive you" I nearly choked on my drink. He's forgiving me! I don't actually understand what I did wrong here other then not being mad at him for sleeping with someone else.

Was his reaction to my lack of reaction normal?

Am I the one in the wrong for not being angry at him? Obviously he's a scumbag dont worry he's been blocked but I'm still confused about the whole situation. Advice please.

You reacted normally 1
You should have been mad 1
You're both crazy. 3
He was totally irrational 13
He had a normal reaction 0
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Comments ( 10 )
  • Boojum
    3 years ago

    Damn, the world sure is full of narcissists these days.

    Narcissists generally lack self-awareness and their sense of self-esteem and self-worth depends on how others perceive them. They tend to deny flaws in themselves and blame others for the mistakes they make, since in their twisted parallel universe, they're perfect.

    What the guy did - "cheating" on you (as he saw it) and then immediately afterwards accusing you of cheating - is a hilariously blatant example of projection, and narcissists are really keen on projecting. The thing about him graciously offering to forgive you is him adopting the role of victim, which is another classic narcissistic manoeuvre that's about trying to make their victim feel guilt so they'll feel obliged to do what the narcissist wants. Unfortunately for narcissists, they don't feel shame and they know the emotion only an intellectual sense, so they need lots of practice before they can figure out how to reliably induce it in others. Also, the guy is quite young, so he'll still be working on refining his manipulation techniques. Therefore, it's not surprising that he rather comically misjudged his intended victim and didn't slip in the guilt stiletto with as much finesse as he'll doubtless have in a few years.

    I guarantee that your life will be better without him in it, and I hope the experience will improve your narcissist early-warning radar.

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    • KataraPadfoot
      3 years ago

      Thank you for this it does make a lot of sense, the entire thing has been rather confusing.

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  • itaita
    3 years ago

    your reaction is definitely uncommon among most people, but ultimately fine. you recognize that real relationships take time and mutual effort. this wasn't at the point of "getting serious" yet and kudos to you for keeping a level head.

    so it's not common, but it's not bad. actually pretty damn good and more people could probably benefit from that way of thinking.

    that guy on the other hand doesn't sound like someone i'd trust. him trying so strongly to make it seem like you're at fault is a yikes from me. glad you blocked him!

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  • COVID-19
    3 years ago

    You dodged a bullet. The dude sounds emotionally unstable.

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  • litelander8
    3 years ago

    You’re fine. He’s irrational.

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  • scblsorta
    3 years ago

    This guy is wack lmao you’re fine. He clearly just can’t handle being wrong and needed to reassure himself by trying to pin the problem on you.

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  • Tommythecaty
    3 years ago

    “To which I told him that's fine because we'd only been together since December”

    This was not written by a human woman 😂

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    • KataraPadfoot
      3 years ago

      Haha I'm definitely a woman born and bred hahaha. Technically we were together a week then had Christmas break which lasted 6 weeks because neither of us had exams, then back together in person from the last week of Jan until the third week of Feb so it wasn't exactly a long relationship physically and like I said we hadn't discussed monogamy or even what we were to each other.

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      • Tommythecaty
        3 years ago

        Most women would be royally pissed off regardless. I also have a feeling it doesn’t bode well in regards to his future behaviour if you were in a serious thing.

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        • KataraPadfoot
          3 years ago

          Oh...well I guess I'm not most women, I don't see the point in being angry at something like that, if we were married or had been together a long time sure but we weren't and it was just sex...

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