@purpleyin / purpleyin.tumblr.com
People don’t owe you their downtime! And I don’t mean this in a harsh way, but in a “quit breaking your own heart” way.
It’s so easy to see a friend “active” and reblogging on tumblr, or maybe making a status update on Facebook and feel hurt they haven’t replied to our messages.
Different things take different energy. And someone being “online” but not actively talking to you does not mean they no longer love or care about you.
Boundaries are the lines you draw around yourself to keep you safe and autonomous.
Good boundaries are really strong and flexible. When they change, it’s because you chose to move them; you still know where they are and you’re still comfortable with them. If someone else pushes on them, they don’t break.
Bad boundaries are fuzzy and brittle - it’s often hard to know exactly where your boundaries are, and if someone pushes on them, they may shatter completely.
Some of these “default boundaries” include:
Some examples of more specific boundaries might be things like:
You don’t need to tell everyone you know all of your boundaries, because some people will never come close to crossing certain boundaries. But it’s important that people know what your boundaries are when they’re in the relevant territory.
So when it looks like sexytimes might happen, it’s important to talk to your partner ahead of time about what sexual boundaries you each have. When you’re headed toward a serious relationship, that’s the time to talk about the boundaries you have in that kind of relationship. When you get your own place, it’s time to establish boundaries with your parents about what it will mean for your relationship.
Some boundary violations are accidental, and when that happens, the appropriate response is to reinforce the boundary by making sure the other person knows it’s there. The people in your life should be aware of what your boundaries are.
When someone violates your boundaries, you also need to defend the boundary. That means you have to figure out how to protect yourself from having that boundary crossed again. Sometimes that means a simple conversation to let them know that boundary exists, sometimes it means taking time away from someone, changing the way you interact with them, or removing them from your life entirely. Only you can decide how best to defend that boundary in the context of your life.
Some examples of bad boundaries include things like:
Abusive people who want to take advantage of unformed boundaries will push on the “social default” boundaries to see if you know how to defend a boundary. If you don’t, they push on bigger and bigger boundaries and try to form a relationship where they’re in control. Be aware of that - if it feels like you have less and less control of what’s happening, that relationship is not healthy.
If you think someone you know has a hard time setting boundaries, give them extra room to set them and be extra careful not to exert any pressure. Don’t expect people in general to always tell you their boundaries - ask outright. “How do you feel about doing this thing?” is how you get real consent. Saying “We’re going to do this thing” and then doing it just because they don’t object may be crossing a boundary.
It’s important to pay attention to whether other people are setting boundaries (or may want to set them but are afraid to), and to talk about and defend your own boundaries as well, so everyone in the relationship feels safe and happy.
[ID: Green flags for people in your life:
tbh for a long time i really resented the advice "pick a partner that you would want to raise kids with" because i don't want kids and i hated that all relationships had to come from this place of procreation-first. what about toxic friendships, after all.
it took me a really long time to realize it's a bastardization of good advice.
many of us are recovering from being raised by parents/caregivers that were in toxic relationships or were toxic themselves. we learned behaviors, thoughts, and patterns from these people, and we spend our adult lives untangling and dismantling the harm done to us.
the advice should be - is this the person you'd want a child to emulate? is this a person you'd want a child even around? is this a person you can trust alone with a kid - any kid, mind you - and know that the child is safe, looked after, loved? is the relationship you're in one you'd want children to see and repeat in their adult lives? or is the relationship one you hope they won't follow, after all?
to be honest, i knew when i was in a bad relationship. i'd tell people - i know, i know, i should break up with him. i know, i know. she's not actually a good friend. but the reality was that it's incredibly difficult to escape the-devil-you-know. it was easy enough to train myself to be okay with it; i have very little regard for the-self and the process of cutting people out was simply too threatening for my mental state.
but i wouldn't put a younger version of myself through the same thing. i'd picture her in the same situation. i would tell her, broody as she is - leave, you're happier outside of it, never let anyone talk to you like that, you're worth more than this. i'd tell her when you let him cross your boundaries, the fault is his, but you need to understand you're rewarding bad behavior if you don't do something about it. i would wish, fervently, i could restart the relationship and do it all differently, be-young-again.
and then i realized: i am the younger version of myself. a future version of myself is begging me to leave. to take my happiness seriously. i am a kid to fifty-year-old-me. and i need to take my own advice. it's okay if that sets me up to grieve.
pick a partner that you would trust a younger version of yourself with. pick friends you'd want your younger self to grow up alongside. pick love that makes you feel like you want everyone to experience in their life and feel with others, something magical and shareable and full of mist. pick a love that feels like you can grow in it. pick a love like: i will be proud of this.
relationship stuff I want to see in fiction
there’s something so incredibly soft about the phrase “this made me think of you.” or, “this reminded me of you.” like!!!! being known is scary but then people see fragments of you in the world around them and can’t help but share that love and i think that’s beautiful.
A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.
this fucks me up every single time
I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.
After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.
She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.
Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.
The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.
The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.
Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.
I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.
This is so fucking important and I think it’s something I needed right now
Relationships get so bananas when you start deciphering the other person’s love language.
Like I thought I was just acquaintances with this person because they never told me details about themselves and we just talked movies and writing . But then they made time to have coffee with me and they showed up out of breath because they ran. Like. RAN to be on time for coffee with me?
And I was like “i don’t mind waiting” cause I never want to run
But they said they wanted every minute they could get because I’m so busy usually
Which is when it clicked that I didn’t get how much they considered me a friend because I just straight away didn’t see MY signs of affection in them and went “cool! Casual buds it is.” But now that I’m seeing their signs of affection, I feel a little silly for dismissing them like that even though I felt like we could be best bros.
Anyway, some people show affection through time or intensity or commitment and not vocally. I really have to remember that!
Fyi- just in case you didn’t know.
TOUCH got a bro that likes to give high fives? Back slaps? Are they a hugger? Do they not blink an eye at cuddles?
QUALITY TIME this bro will (as op stated) sprint to spend every minute possible with you. Every second that you guys are together is a declaration of affection.
WORDS does your bro tell you how amazing and great and fantastic and wonderful you are all the time? Guess what…?
GIFTS do they buy you coffee? Snacks, energy drinks, spot you at the restaurant? Did that one key chain remind them of you? Ding ding!
ACTS are they always doing things for you? Ie: Nah bro, I got this, I can do that, need me to get anything for you, I can help with…?
PRO TIP - The way people show love is often how they receive love as well.
Can I just say how much I love seeing this applied to friends / platonic relationships, when I’ve only seen it about romantic ones before?
Let's once and for all kill the idea that something isn't genuine if you have to ask for it. Communication is a vital part of all healthy relationships - and if you want people to give you what you need, you'll often have to say it out loud. The care your loved ones freely choose to provide once you tell them what you need isn't fake just because they couldn't read your mind.
Some of y’all think that holding hands and sharing a bed is immediately romantic, and this is why people cannot differentiate between romantic, platonic, and familial forms of love.
Nothing is EVER inherently romantic. The meaning of a gesture is determined by the people involved in it, not some random outsider.
The meaning of a gesture is determined by the people involved in it
Don’t give men a pass. These are real men. This is a man problem. This guy’s honest about wanting a doormat because he’s too stupid and undeservedly confident to realize how laughable and pathetic he is and comes off as. But plenty of men who are much smoother, who show you a good time, turn out to want exactly what this guy says: submission, sex, and undeserved gratitude for his existence.
I’ve read some of this stuff and it’s like NLP for incels basically. It’s easy to find.
A few examples:
I suggest straight women read as much of this stuff as they can, it’s obviously effective because it’s psychological manipulation. Some men are naturally good at this stuff, some pay for “courses” in it… Some become Elliott Rodger.
No. Just no. If he feels emasculated by change in venue then he is not the man for you. If he uses any of these PUA tactics on you, just walk away. Treat each other like people. Why is that so fuckin hard?!?
PUA = “Pick-Up Artistry”
NLP = Neuro-Linguistic Programming
This is horrible and gross to read. But as a survivor of emotional manipulation, emotional and sexual abuse myself, I feel this needs to be spread.
As a gay man, I can say I’ve seen this with gay men, straight men, lesbians, and straight women. Little controlling things build into big controlling things.
Little things to make the potential romantic partner feel insecure, or like they have to try harder.
Having to guess how the other person is feeling and being treated like they have to make up for not getting things right.
Things like “if you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you”.
There are lots of truly awful and toxic traits. Like telling you who you are allowed or not allowed to be friends with. Or wanting to know your login passwords for ANYTHING.
If someone is insecure enough to need to know your passwords for anything, then they should not be dating.
If you get weird vibes, get out if the situation. Period. You don’t need to be with someone if you think they are lying, and you don’t need to be with someone who CONSTANTLY needs to get proof if your intent.
People need to stop perpetuating the myth that polyamory can’t be healthy.
And a response from Anonymous, very important:
“Hey, one thing your infographic on polyamory leaves out is actually the relationship that caused me to have an aversion to it. You have a situation where one of the people wants the person to choose but I knew a girl who basically forced two people to do it because she couldn’t decide which one to date. Each one kept going “I don’t want you dating someone else” and she told them that if they loved her they’d do it. Since they both loved her, they lived through being really unhappy.“
There’s also relationship anarchy, which is a web of people dating each other and their partner’s partners! Through this you establish a community of a support system, which works well for queer, disabled, nuerodivergent, and other minorities!
I personally wanna see less 'you are not a burden/it's not work to love you' and more 'you are worth the work it takes to love you.' I KNOW I'm a burden sometimes. that isn't such a terrible thing! humans are strong. we can carry burdens. and it is work for me to be there for my friends, but it's work I'm willing to do.
we need to acknowledge this because pretending love isn't work will never make people like me feel less guilty for accepting love. we need to talk about it so people don't feel bad for having boundaries and not always being up to do the work. we need to accept it so we can properly appreciate what others do for us and what we're doing for them.
yes it does take work to love you. but guess what? you still deserve love, and you deserve people who are willing to do the work to love you. it doesn't make you bad. all love take work. and everyone is worth it.
Let’s talk about something called the “sunk cost fallacy”.
Say that you’ve bought a concert ticket for $50 for a band that you don’t know that well. Half an hour into the show, you realize that you don’t actually enjoy the music and you aren’t having a good time - instead of leaving the concert to go do something else, however, you sit through the remaining hours of the concert because you don’t want to “waste” the cost of the ticket.
Congratulations, you’ve just fallen victim to the sunk cost fallacy.
The “sunk cost fallacy” is something that all humans are prone to when we make decisions. Simply put, it’s the human tendency to consider past costs when we make choices, even when those costs are no longer relevant. When you’re deciding whether or not to stay at that concert you aren’t enjoying, you will likely consider the cost of the ticket when you’re making your decision - for instance, you’d probably be a lot more willing to leave a $5 concert that you aren’t enjoying than a $50 concert that you aren’t enjoying. But taking the cost of the ticket into account at all is a mistake.
When you’re making a rational decision, the only thing that matters is the future. Time, effort and money that you’re spent up until that point no longer matter - it doesn’t make sense to consider them, because no matter what you decide, you can’t actually get them back. They are “sunk” costs. If you decide to stay at that concert, you are out $50 and you’ll have a mediocre evening. If you decide to go leave and do something more fun, you are out $50 and you’ll have a better evening. No matter what you choose, you have lost $50 - but choosing to leave the concert means that you haven’t also spent an evening doing something you don’t like.
The sunk cost fallacy is sometimes also described as “throwing good money after bad” - people will waste additional time, resources and effort simply to justify the fact that they’ve already wasted time, resources and effort, even if it leaves them worse off overall.
Common examples of sunk cost fallacy in everyday life include:
Perhaps the most damaging example of sunk cost fallacy in everyday life, however, is relationships.
People often use the length of a relationship to justify staying in it. You’ve probably heard this logic - you may even have used it yourself: “I can’t break up with him or the two years we spent together will be for nothing.”
“If I leave her, it will mean I wasted the five years I spent with her.”
The reality, though, is that staying in a mediocre relationship doesn’t “give you back” the time you’ve already invested in that relationship. It just makes the relationship longer. If you stay in a bad relationship for five more years to avoid “wasting” the first two, you haven’t actually made those first two years worthwhile - you’ve simply spent seven years of your life in a bad relationship. There’s nothing we can do to recover time and effort (and in most cases, money) that we’ve already spent. But we can forgive ourselves, and we can stop letting our past mistakes continue to define our futures.
If you and your partner practice frequent, non-sexual consent, your relationship will be healthier and easier.
“Are you comfortable with me ranting about my day for a few minutes?”
“Oh, this is your poetry? Would it be okay if I read it?”
“Do you mind if I use your phone for a few minutes?”
“Wow, your meal looks awesome. Could I try some?”
It will save a lot of grief, especially in a developing relationship. Eventually, with consistent “yes’s” and “no’s” you can figure out more permanent boundaries and guidelines.
“I need to ask before ranting about my day or taking their food, but my partner is okay with me using their phone whenever. However, my partner does not like me reading their poetry unless they offer first.”
And this goes for friendships too! Even just stuff like “do you mind if I leave this door open?”
…I never fully realized it before but this is a big part of why my relationship with my husband is so conflict-free. Both because him doing this all the time made it easy to trust him, back when we were a new item, and because it helped ME break out of the toxic idea that you should never ask about a partner’s preferences because if you Really Loved Them you should be able to intuit what they want, all the time, about anything.
my one son is autistic so I ask ‘hug or no hug?’ I always knock and wait to be acknowledged before opening my sons’ bedroom doors (not just because I respect their privacy but because they’re teenagers and I don’t want to walk in on any personal activities) I don’t go into their rooms without asking I don’t touch their phones without asking (I’ll pick one up to take to them if I find it in another room but I won’t go through it) yesterday, my younger son walked into my room, stopped, said sorry and walked out to the hall and knocked on my door ‘because if I have to knock on his door, he has to knock on mine’ because their trust is important and I want them to know I respect their privacy
Consent is not just for sex. Consent is not just for sex. Consent is not just for sex.
!!!!!!!!!!!!! Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of boundaries respected by my parents and it warms my heart to see a re-blogger practicing this with their kiddos 💖 So important for every relationship in life.
My husband knew that my favorite meal was my mother’s breaded and panfried chicken breast, known in my family as “Becca Chicken”. He apparently got her to teach him to cook it for our first anniversary, and every now and then he will surprise me with it as dinner. He makes it even better than I can. love is a chicken cutlet indeed
get yourself a significant other who will make you perfectly breaded and fried chicken cutlets
