Eph75

Who are you trying to be, and why? It seems that you are playing a game that you can't win, where there is prestige in how you should or shouldn't be. Where you have preconceived ideas on how things should turn out, and when things don't go as you expect or want then to, then you derail. Truth is that you derailed yourself long before and the only way to win is not to join in on playing games on someone else's terms. Maybe you are "innocent", is that bad? Maybe they said "how cute", is that bad? Maybe you aren't Alpha, is that bad? Why even bother wanting to be labeled Alpha, and disappoint yourself with labels like Beta when things don't go as you desire? The only thing that matters is to be authentic and not to be ashamed or guilty for being who we are, and owning that. If you are doing things that goes against your values and morale, then you're not authentic, and you need to return to authenticity. These games, are they authentic would you say? Authenticity is where we can be confident, it's us playing no other game than the infinite game of being, where there is no crowning of winners and losers. Confidence is radiating, what's stopping you from finding your confidence? It's in you, but you've just lost it, clouded by all those ideas of how things should be. Innocent can be confidently owned. Being laughed at for mistakes or whatever can be confidently owned. It only becomes awkward when we make it awkward in our thoughts. It's only not good enough when we don't accept ourselves and embrace our authentic selves. Stop playing games. This means nothing. There can be a false sense of development by consuming information related to development, but development doesn't happen by hoarding information. Getting too deep into the information hoarding results in building conceptual ideas of what development, or spirituality is, until such a point that it feels like second nature, and creates a false sense of feeling developed, yet without embodiment into deeper understanding and wisdom. These are the kind of things that development entails. Wanting to be alpha is just chasing some ideas of feeling successful, or being seen as successful. Real success is detaching form such limiting ideas of the ego.

@Preety_India @RickyFitts is essentially saying the same thing as me, he just uses less words and a condensed concept in that communication, yet carries the same message. It does leave a lot of implicit assumptions of previous understanding of self-development and much room for interpretation. One of the reasons why I write so long answers, in order to a greater extent eliminate misinterpretation based in such implicities. In essence, it's the complexity of one's sense-making that allows for seeing a deeper and more complex meaning in something that was communicated, and a higher ability to apply the abstractness of what is being said, onto ourselves, so that we see the pragmatic interconnections. It is your needs that dictate you wants and pursuits. There is a difference between needing a relationship, wanting a relationship and having the freedom to allow for relationships to happen. To allow for relationships to happen isn't about making zero effort, and instead it's about the emotional detachment of needing relationship to be. It leaves room for relationships to happen out of a playful approach to life and being itself. People who appear care-free, easy-going, non-needy and so on attract others. We ourselves are attracted towards such qualities and people who appear free in such ways. We want to feel good so, we are drawn toward others that radiate such qualities. Paradoxically, radiant as freedom is, letting go of our emotional needs, it works as a great attractor, and seemingly effortlessly attracts relationships. More for less.. People who try hard based on needs on the other hand, exhibit that need, and act as a repellent, or attracts individuals who are exersicing toxic behaviors, in a way, looking for prey. I think it's very important to distinguish between building deeper relationships and getting sexual needs met. Someone with great ability to have sexual connections can have great struggles with building deeper connections and lasting relationships. The dynamic play between two people creates an intricate dance around one and another's qualities and deficiency needs. So knowing yourself and working on yourself becomes a central part of building healthy relationships with others. To be able to make this happen, we do have to switch how we're making sense of the current reality, so that we can focus on "fixing" ourselves, so that we can become free in that sense.

@Preety_India They are inseparably intertwined by such complexity, that we need to develop ourselves in order to see clearly and to be able to respond to it in a healthy way And yes, everyone have their suffering minimized/reduced in a relationship that is emotionally stable. We can all appreciate that. Some end up there by chance. Others end up there by exercising unconscious competencies, such capabilites that we don't consciously use to create our world, it happens autonomously based on our inherent values. An example on use of such an unconscious competency would be someone that has grown up building a healthy self-esteem and self-worth. This individual will unconsciously pickup on and take action upon that which threatens ones own autonomy. It happening as a natural process. This person might end up with healthy relationships without doing anything that is perceived out of the ordinary to that person. By just being and doing what is known as default behavior. Others might see this as "luck" but it's really a gift. On the other hand, someone struggling with self-esteem and self-worth is unconsciously downplaying self against others, will miss out on signs on boundaries being overstepped, not respond in healthy ways towards that which threatens our autonomy, and won't be able to maintain healthy boundaries. The result is often unhealthy relationships. This is why people with problems inside themselves that they need to solve, often end up in similar pattern situations and relationships that are clearly toxic seen from the perspective of others, but they the themselves don't see it in the same way, and they themselves also, don't see that their way of being attracts a certain type of situations or relationship dynamics, such as co-dependeny and narsisictic partners, along with all other pattern behaviors. Only when seeing the underlying need to relieve oneself from the suffering, and seeing that we use this pathology in ourselves to meet that need though others, we can see the correlation between our pathology and the toxicity in the partners we attract or are attracted to. So, instead of looking for the causes and effects "out there", where we become the victim to circumstances and where we can assign such justification and blame, we need to introspect and free ourselves from the hold that we have on ourselves, the hold our ego had on our h authentic self. By doing this, we change who we are, and we free ourselves from escaping attributes we've collected throughout our lives, and we can be more free in the way we approach, relate and make sebse of the process life, relationships included. It's in a sense going back to the source, rewriting the source rather than betting stuck navigating the bugs in the program.

@Preety_India You're very welcome, I'm glad it resonates with you. This still leaves you with focus towards self-developement, to become deliberate about developing your own sense-making capabilities, to become able to take in more sensory stimulation, and to make sense with increased complexity. Better relationships is just a side-effect of that development, along with better and more enjoyable results in every other area of life. You might want look into Ego Development Theory to become deliberate about that sense-making development along side this relationship stuff, as it all intertwines into one psychology. @RickyFitts @Preety_India His question is important, there is more depth and a lot of complexity hidden underneath it that warrants exploration. Our needs usually don't come from as a good place as we want to think, and that we are able to accept about ourselves. Those needs are deeply linked to you as a being, reflecting the difficulties you've experienced and is experiencing in your life, and how you relate to yourself. Deep and sensitive area and we really need to drop our inward [ego] defences to be able to explore that in a constructive way.

@Preety_India As you say, there are no guarantees, there is no safe side, but you can approach it in a healthy way that help you to assess that authenticity and intention of other, and that will, save you from some pitfalls. Much in the same spirit, there is no easy answer, no template that ensures suceess, it's a process. You've mentioned you've been interested in financial investments, so we can compare this with investing in some company. To be successful you have to increase your own abilities to assess companies, to do fundamental analysis: Does all the numbers and indicators make sense, is it a market that I understand, what is the risk, are there dividends, is the company currently making profit or loss, are losses due to heavy reinvesting that are likely to increase the company value over time, and so on, and so on. Only when it makes sense for you to invest, you enter with investment and financial commitment. You can enter that relationship with a certain limited amount, which increases your engagement and creates a bond and relationship with that company, which allows you to pick up on more signals and gain deeper understanding through greater engagement in that process. Only when you see that it makes sense, you invest more fully. With companies you never invest more than you can afford to loose, but you do invest with trust in those fundamentals you have learned, and with hope of success. The opposite, to continue the stock market analogy, would be to get enfatuated by the promise of getting rich fast, and you get enfatuated by those promises, as you yourself are so invested into your internal needs/desires to get rich, successful or escape suffering, that you neglect the risk assessment and any signs of toxicity. You fully and blindly go all in, investing all you have, and find yourself in a game of chance, but really you did set yourself up for failure as you were looking for such great promises for richness and suceess, and in that process also entered relationships with companies that carry the highest risk of losing all of your money in that process. There are no guarantees, but doing the fundamental analysis and being aware of the psychology at play increases the chance of making more better choices than not. Also staying attune to signals and knowing your own strategies, knowing when to exist a bad investment and cutting your losses short. Back to relationships.. with people, it's much the same. You invest a certain amount, you are aware and respect the risk of getting enfatuates, and you deliberately explore who the other person is under the surface, as much as possible, what their values are, how they behave towards you and towards others, how they speak to you and how they speak with others, what dreams, ambitions and aspirations they have and so on, and so on. Fundamental analysis. With increased knowledge and understanding it's easier to assess if the response is authentic and if they match, not your needy self, but your authentic self. In that process, not only will you be able to separate out weeds, but you also build a deeper connection with the ones that respond well and you can increase your investment as the process progresses in a healthy way. It's still a game of risk, and chance, and you do have to invest to win. Going through that process more wisely, not investing foolishly, not ignoring tell-tale signs, based on you own ever increasing awareness and increasing complexity of your sense-making, this will make the process less risky, less costly financially and emotionally, and much more enjoyable. I hope that makes sense In this process you also do have to get to learn your own unfavorable attributes and limitations, and work on reducing or freeing yourself from them. Making the process more free from the needs and desires that are coming from your own feeling if deficiency, self-esteem, self-worth, self-efficacy, confidence in self and so on.

By not being carried away by enfatuation, being able to have some self-distance and observe your own enfatuation also allows you to observe the relationship from a healthier perspective. As said before, working on yourself, increasing your awareness, awareness of own thought processes and behaviors, and of what is happening around you, and you working on increasing your cognitive skills/complexity of meaning making will allow you to better identify, interpret and understand what is happening in the relationship as well as read you partner. This is a lot connected to understanding toxicity in self, others and in relationships. On top of this, people actually behave differently when enfatuated, due to hormones in the brain making us more caring, loving, accepting, accommodating and all of this can be interpreted as love. The same goes for drive for sex, that drive manipulates our mind to get our needs met. Seeing and understanding enfatuation (and sex drive) at play, the behaviors related to it, and knowing that enfatuation eventually declines as it's a chemical bonding process happening, it's easier not to blindly get swept away with that process. And, seeing enfatuation and sex drive in self and other. This does allows you to see more clearly, assess more clearly, pickup on toxicity more clearly and also to shift conversation into a deeper mode, pressing past this hormonal game, better seeing the authentic other. Still all of this is fully dependent on your own development, as lack of self-development means lack of abilities to make sense of what is happening in and around you.

@Lubomir Ultimatums are difficult, and desires are powerful. Ultimatums usually work as quick but short term/temporary shift in behaviors. The desires usually kicks back in as the the ripple effects slowly fade away, and those autonomous drives that created problems gets back into control. Change has to come from within, not from external motivators and ultimatums which essentially threats. Of course that doesn't mean that change can't happen, but I do think that ultimatums should be used, with care, as such short term fuel needed to drive long term change in both of you. It also can mark a shared milestone where active work is agreed upon, creating the change needed as a mutual endeavor. The typical thing that happens after an ultimatum has been presented, is that the one giving the ultimatum continues doing what they did before the ultimatum, possibly with increased levels of mistrust, suspiciousness, worry, and even resentment, and the one being presented the ultimatum switches into a submissive and accommodating behavior. That submissiveness is often confused with being apologetic, which it's not, it's just a natural reaction when being under attack and not having the moral or strength to "win" an altercation. In that sense very animalistic in nature. Apologies aren't words and such submissiveness acting as an impact cushion. Genuine apologies are permanent changes in behaviors based on the realization that one was doing something that goes against how you are or how you want to be/become. It's easy to say that the one person did something wrong and that person needs to change, but reality and relationship dynamics are much more complex than that. The dynamics between you guys have ended you up where you did, so there's still something in that dynamics that needs to change. A relationship needs to be actively invested into equally by both. Lack of such shared investment, even without obvious dysfunctions, results in a slow decline in relationship quality that becomes harder and harder to save.

It's all a matter of perspective and the lack of a more holistic perspective. There is not one single being that does not deserve being loved, and a lot of the manifestation of toxicity in people are based on lack thereof, the craving for, and the lack of feeling loved. You don't have to love the actions and expressions. Behind that facade, beneath that self-constructed protective shell, there is a being deserving love. They might not be able to receive love, but that's just that hard shelf protecting the inner being from being hurt. Of course this isn't romantic love, and without the expectations of that love being received, or responded to, it is unconditional in nature.

@Gianna I think the sources and the reasons matter, whether it's genuine joy or our internal reward systems being played from aspects that not fully resonate with our values or doesn't feel authentic. The sources contains the clues needed to explore in depth, and carries the links between the feeling and what circumstances trigger that feeling, causing the emotion. I interpret the sensation of anxiety as unease in that moment where there should only be joy. Anxiety is the calling out to us to become aware of something that has been lost to us. Staying with that anxiety in the very moment as it arises and trying to peel off the outer undefined layer to see what lies beneath is important, so that we have a chance to act in some way upon the underlying need. It could be literally anything, as associations made in the past can be rather unintuitive. Do you have contradicting feelings of not allowing yourself to fully experience excitement, such as shame or guilt from excessive indulgence in the positivity of the experience in that moment? The reversal sound unlikely that anxiety would give a false sense of excitement, and then fall back to being experienced as anxiety again. Anxiety induces cortisol that turns positive experiences off, not on.

There is a difference between self-actualized and successful but these two are sometimes, as you point out, conflated. What does an extraordinary life really mean? It's very subjective and based on your current development and values. Self-actualization being the realization of one's inner potentiality. Someone wanting status and materialistic gains, self-actualization inevitably translates into transforming inner potentiality to mastery that you can use to fulfill your desire for money, status, career and other needs. This drive is coming from deficiency needs and is not to be confused with what self-actualization point towards. This is "traditionally successful". Someone who has worked through ones deficiency needs and is working on self-actualization is working on becoming or being needs. It's the release of that potentiality that translates into such things that could be what the previous example is looking for. The difference is that what the previous example desired could be the result here, that potentiality realizes into success, that may translate into money, status, career, and so on. But the desire and attachment isn't to these things, it is coming from a deeper and truer place of need. In that sense the self-actualized individual may live an extraordinary life experientially speaking, without the need for any of those things, being only OK monetary-wise, not distracted by what others think or what status they apply to you, not striving to make a career, and so on. This can appear as "traditionally successful" but is something different altogether. This is the place where freedom, enthusiasm, passion fuels us, and result is often great and without limitations, where ideas and opportunities appear seemingly everywhere, as our radiating inner light shines through and drives us, that potentiality realized.

@Onecirrus Everything that spirituality is, is the acceptance of what is, acceptance of life as it is, acceptance and deeper understanding of what isnss is or isn't, and the gaining of understanding that what we see as problems in life is inherent to the biases of our own mind, and it adding the labels that make life "arduous, empty, infuriating, unfulfilling" , all based on our desire for life to meet certain requirements of the thought, and the inevitable discrepancy created between that thought and what reality objevtively is. Adding spirituality as a layer, as a bandaid covering up our pathological approach to life isn't a solution, the solution is the deconstruction and the removal of limiting views we've unconsciously adopted, by acceptance of that which we try to avoid. Spirituality is that which will emerge from within, and that which will prevail throughout that process. This calls for redefining what failure is. Acceptance of life is the deep acceptance of failure. "Failure" as a label is negative, bad, undesirable. "Failure" on the other hand is something that is an inevitable part of life. How can failure be "bad" if it's a part of being? Failure is the negative label that exacerbates the experience and make us obsess around the lacking of something in that natural process, rather than celebrating the learning and wisdom there is to find in every moment previously seen and failure and waste, and in the shifting of definition of this process from failure to success in and of itself. There is no such thing as failure, failure only lives in our imagination, as expectations and the resentments that inevitably follow. Failure is really part of the process of leaning, development and growth. If we want to develop as human beings, failure is one of the first phenomena that we need to redefine within ourselves. Pradoxically we have a desire to growth, but we at the same time have a desire to never "fail" or have "setbacks" on that journey. Suffering in mere being is the result. By practicing acceptance of what is, and the detachment of preconceived ideas related to that which causes us suffering, we become free. To be able to do so we have to identify what limitations we have inside us, that hold our inner self back from emerging. Those "limitations" lives in our mind, in our thoughts, and to expect that the physical or external manifestation of something should go away won't help us, as we cannot control what is. The only thing that we can control the mening we attach to something, and that meaning attaches such labels that creates our suffering. A simple example, which just happens to be biblical, could be: If I were to slap you in your face, it will hurt, and you will suffer that slap as pain. The physical pain, induced by "slapping" is far less intense than the suffering the mind adds onto this. The isness of that slap carry no meaning at all, it is a slap, it gives a physical stinging sensation that lasts for a few short moments, and then transitions into a numbness and a warmness in the area of impact. Then the suffering fades away. It's not the slap that you need to remove, the slap is, and indeed life will slap you time and again. It is the detachment from any meaning you attach to the slap. It is that meaning that moves the suffering from the objective physical plane, and into the subjective psychological plane. Why was I slapped? I didn't deserve that! I was wronged! That person has slapped me before. Many people slap me. Why do I always get slapped? There must be something wrong with me! People don't like me! No one likes me! I could never be loved. I don't even love myself. And so on.. Turn the other cheek. With removal of the emotional attachment to the slapping, or rather to the expectation of no slaps, and the removal of added context and meaning, it becomes possible to flux and flow with what is, with the isness of life, with life itself, and as a side-effect the frequency of "slaps" is will reduce. The slap is metaphorical, and it's been you slapping yourself, for no particular reason, for all this time. There is something very fundamental and simple in this. Yet sometimes the simplest of things are the hardest to see, and harder to change, as that simplicity adds frustration. Take care of yourself. Darkness inevitably falls before dawning.

@benny I'd say that anyone can self-actualize, everyone have the inner potentiality, and really, self-actualization has a gravitational pull, it wanting to happen. Circumstances happens that is calling out to us to take make steps towards self-actualization, increasingly so with age, characteristically experienced as increasing suffering, but it needs some key shifts in the mind in order to get over some essential thresholds that hold us back. It's not so much in how much effort you put in, you can try really hard and essentially get nowhere. It's more about the quality and the direction of that effort, and the counterintuitiveness of the efforts needed. Spending that effort to more efficiently facilitate those shifts. Gains by removal, and the shifting of focus from outwards focus to inward focus is a good start. But usually not the route taken, as we desire more, that which we lack and we're not as interested in the removal of unbeneficial internal phenomena. We're so distracted by that which we see as undesirable, and the desire being to change or remove such undesirable external phenomena. Looking for fixes external to us. With external distraction, our energy is consumed by mere coping, and without need to cope that energy will spend itself on gravitating towards self-actualization. It just happens, and with time that gravitational pull grows so strong that it becomes self-serving and greatly accelerated by the effort we add. What those shifts are can't really be communicated, the words can be communicated but it needs to be experienced first-hand as milestones on the self-actualization journey. You can't tell anyone how to self-actualize. You have to figure it out yourself, and grow increasingly able to facilitate those shifts in your own sense-making that are needed to reach "the next milestone". The counterintuitiveness makes this hard, as gaining knowledge and understanding tend to strengthen the ego, and deconstruction and disidentification of the ego being the path forward. All justification or blame strengthen the ego, and takes us further away from where need to get. "Push" someone towards self-actualization and you are met with just that, resistence, justification, blame, shifting away from responsibility, and so on, and the ego strengthen in that process. The only way is to attract interest, and allow that gravitational pull to happen, when the time is right, if that time should present itself.

Essentially, raise you awareness and keep your desires in check. This has so many benefits besides the OP concern. Consciousness prevents the buying happiness trap. The materialistic aspect is just noise, the real trap is your brain chemicals/hormones and how they are abused by the modern materialistic society. The best thing to do is gain deep understanding how these factors work, you mind and thoughts, your brain chemicals/hormones and how capitalism exploit your psychology and the weaknesses thwy open up for. Credit is a slippery slope and you can buy instant gratification and build a deep addiction without noticing, and soon you work to pay off dept on a monthly basis just to keep your head above the surface and to be able to breath, instead of saving a month and pay in cash. And from there it's easy to get into some real trouble if something unforeseen happens. To build credit score you can still use the card and pay it off immediately, acting as if it was cash, and not relying on the credit to be a cuision. Credit cards can be useful for emergencies but the goal should always be to build a savings buffer that can handle the typical "emergencies" that occur. Starting a long term savings plan with ETFs/index funds is even better, but building a cash buffer for a short term emergencies would still be the first step so that you don't have to touch the stock funds. It calls for being frugal to get a good start, and that in itself helps with looking at spenditure in a more healthy way. Although falling into the overly cheap trap is quite common, denying oneself living in favor of crazy saving. Middle-road based on awareness.

@SQAAD Simply because it makes us feel good. We get a shot of serotonin as we put others down since in that process of putting others down, we inadvertently lift ourselves above that other. The result is a sense of importance and status. Some become highly addicted to this behavior and complain excessively at everything and everyone. Often the need stem from low self-esteem and self-worth, and the need to rebalance the ego, by creating the false illusion of being, if only for that moment, something "better" than what one identify with. Usually unconscious, but sometimes with maintained awareness of that process happening. It also is a bonding experience where bonds get stronger around a mutual stance against another party, which becomes nothing more significant than collateral damage in that process. Strong relationships and group belongings happen around joint causes, and often the demonization of someone else or some other group. Also the source of deep polarizations. From both aspects, these are survival mechanisms, protecting ourselves and our egos, and protecting our social and group belonging, hence our survival in the world.

@Gianna Great, and thanks, glad to be able to help where I can ❤️ Looking at that quote, notice how you in a way open up for interpretation that make this about timing and your current state, and not about him. That is, at this time you are not interested in dating, and you want to focus on yourself. What he could be left hearing might be that "now" is not the right time, there is still hope, just keep trying, and at some time, time may be right. But that's great, and still is a good place to escalate from if needed

For sure, affects need action, that's what they are for, emotions are post-thought. Emotional attachment though, it is something different, that's getting emotional when things do not match our idea of what reality should be. Attachment to ideas trigger emotions. What is, is. What is, triggers affects, and they are calling out for us to take action. What the action is, is up to us. Affect > feeling > emotion (movement) Emotional detachment is simply not being emotional about what is happening. Affects happens, doesn't have to result in emotions. That which means nothing to us (thoughts/sense-making) causes no emotional respons in us. Without emotional engagement we are free

Heated and loud isn't emotionally detached. With detachment there is no cost and only freedom to choose to act remains. A lot of things that happen ultimately just is and there is not much point in intervention, as you say, it can even destabilize certain things. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There's still freedom to act as seen fit. Do what you can without being emotionally invested. It makes it easier to choose the right measures at the right time, to practice patience and then letting go means nothing. Fighting injustices broke me, and paradoxically led to salvation.

@Gianna Learning to maintain healthy boundaries, both internal and external boundaries isn't the easiest thing to do, and it's often connected to one's own self-esteem, as already mentioned, wanting to please people, up-play others, down-playing self, for various reasons, related to that self-esteem. Building ones ability to set boundaries is something that we have to learn to do in order to maintain self-respect and authenticity, and to do it in such a way that it doesn't become emotionally or energetically costly to us while doing so. Saying "no" to something you don't want should be as second nature as saying "yes" to something you want. If it's not, it needs deliberate practice. Maybe most important of all, while setting external boundaries, it takes directness and the minimizing of context and story as both context and story adds room for misinterpretation, at the same time as it dilutes the intended message. If you end up fabricating elaborate ways to sugarcoat the message in order to not hurt someone, then you're in trouble. It's not rude to communicate with clarity. I'd say it's more rude to be sugarcoating communication, making it unclear and potentially mislead someone through such vagueness. It's also wasting everybody's time. From a more holistic perspective, we also also have to look at our own behaviors to see if we ourselves are sending mixed signals, unintentionally opening up for misinterpretation. Are there patterns? Are we sending mixed signals? Are we friendly in a way that unintentionally invites men towards more than just friends? This might not be the case, but warrants some thought. Maintaining boundaries is just that, maintenance and needs to be consistent and clear, otherwise it creates discrepancies in others, leaving others to sometimes interpreting signals as inviting and sometimes as rejection, subconsciously adding information that benefits and protects that other's self. People, not only children, will try boundaries multiple times, such is just nature, and this is why directness and clarity is so important, so that the takeaway becomes increasingly direct and clear with each delivery, increasing the definition of the boundary. Giving exact examples isn't a great idea, as it's about learning and learning isn't as efficient when using template behaviors or phrases, as it becomes more role-play than authentic self, and as the anxiety in the doing this is a significant part of that learning. You did ask for some phrases though, and here's my take on it, with directness, clarity, respect, little-to-no room for misinterpretation and what three-step escalation could look like. Of course these needs to be paired with follow-up statements as needed to reinforce the message depending on how it's received, while not getting into a discussion or an argument, since this isn't something that can be discussed, it's a one-way street. First time: "I sense that you are interested in me as more than just as a friend, and that's not something that I want, I just want to be friends, and I want you to respect that, otherwise we shouldn't hang out anymore, are you OK with that?" Second time: "You don't seem to respect that I only see you as a friend, I really need you to stop coming on to me, or else we need to stop seeing each other, OK?" Third strike: "I'm sorry but we can't hang out anymore, you don't respect me only wanting you as a friend, goodbye" If the message hasn't gotten through at this point then it makes little sense to keep in contact. When delivering something like this, there's an obvious risk that things gets awkward afterwards, and the only thing you can do is to not add to that awkwardness yourself.

Is it rental prices or buying a place that is more expensive now? Maybe just renting a room or finding someone that needs a roommate? Maybe not a thing in India..

This is transferring own values onto someone else, if expecting someone else to live up to it. Even if that someone else has double standards, that's their values. It may feel wrong to you, but that's something you can own, and control - your choices and reactions that is. It doesn't mean that your values are unsound. It just means that you can't transfer your values onto others. You can inspire others to change. You can choose someone who share similar values to yours. But you can't expect others to adopt your values. This applies to all values, and all people, not just in this case, and to you.

How far off are you to be able to pay for a monthly rent of a small apartment or a room with the salary that you make now? Even if you have to live extremely frugally it sounds like you have to focus on getting out and distancing yourself from both the mental and physical abuse. I hope that you find a way.

You can choose partner whom shares similar or same values as you do, that's your freedom. But you can't demand someone else to adopt your values. If you do this, you are overstepping boundaries, and the result is someone else feeling shamed or put down for being a lesser person than you see yourself. I think that's essentially what makes these kind of topics impossible to keep constructive unless everyone really tries to give constructive explanations why they feel differently, so that it's easier to see what other perspectives there are, to easier expand one's own perspectives.

@fopylo You're very welcome, I'm glad to help, wherever help can be found. All of this got really condensed, and this really is a life journey of learning and insights, so just keep at it and keep in mind that there are a-million-and-one ways that our mind can and will trick ourselves while practicing/doing these kind of things, so stepping back, questioning why we think and react like we do, is warranted more than a few times ever day

@Hulk Unfavorable when looking for development. If you want to call it "bad" from the point of view that dogma prohibits or slows development down, then yes, "bad" in the sense that it's not helping us to grow if that's what we desire. Dogma is when you take something as such fundamental truth that you don't even see it as optional or a belief, and it is so obviously true to you and given that you wouldn't or couldn't question it. That is, completely stuck in the current belief. The use for dogma is to conserve energy by having absolute beliefs. You don't have to assess right or wrong by having absolute beliefs that serve subconscious and autonomous behaviors/reactions. There are some benefits with a fixed world view, especially from a conformist world view where we adopt and conform around beliefs such as religion and form societies. Easier to gather masses around joint causes if the reasons are absolute and unquestionably right/true. From a modern world perspective, fixed world views in the rapidly changing world is very limiting and change is hard and painful, more painful that it needs to be. You are per definition blind to your own dogma. To be able to deconstruct your ego and become increasingly aware of when/where you are exhibiting dogma, you will have to have accepted not knowing and accepting external indicators pointing towards where you are stuck, and where you need to detach from current beliefs. Cognitive development happens unconsciously until a point where development becomes conscious and self-serving, and it gets easier to detach from beliefs, and easier spot when exhibiting dogmatic behaviors. Until then, such feedback is seen as bad/negative experiences and our defense systems shut ourselves down to being able to accept that our beliefs inevitably are all false, incorrect or incomplete. Ego protecting itself.

Sorry @Carl-Richard I enjoy your posts, even though I would frame your messages somewhat differently. Nevermind above quote, forum glitch, not possible to delete on phone. Move along, nothing to see here @DocWatts It's our job to interpret deeper intent hidden behind the actual words trying to relay something that is at the limits of the posters ability. The very essence of cognitive development, and the core of this forum, is not the intent of debate, but the intent to relay something deeper than what our words are able to communicate, and the intent for others to respond to that intent. Debate is the result of lesser interpretation, or lesser intent. In that sense, the title of the topic is absolutely irrelevant, regardless how triggering or inappropriate it might seem. We need to own our own triggers, and choose not to engage with them. That's the only means to take the discussions to the next level in depth, to explore, with curiosity, to build understanding. And that's all and everyone's responsibility ♥️