Thank you. I broke up with her last night. I wanted it to be on good terms, but it devolved into us venting about our issues with the relationship. It really fucking sucks right now. I looked through all the valentines cards and sticky notes she left for me over the past few years, and I wept. The highs really were high.

I have a support system, but it’s gonna be a while before the pain goes away. It’s brutal, but I couldn’t keep living like this. I haven’t felt like I could be myself around her for a long time; I had to be her ideal partner instead.

You were right about how I was living. I was trying not to be harmed by our relationship instead of enjoying it. And I can’t say how long it’s been like that. It just crept up on me, you know?

It was like I realized how much I’d been carrying this whole time. Trying to keep her happy to avoid being berated or yelled at, or told you’re not good enough. In the moment you can dismiss these things as temporary events, but they’re not temporary when they become part of your daily reality. I really think she wanted perfect, while I could settle for good enough.

Yeah, I think you’re right. I just needed to hear it.

It really fuckin’ sucks, but I think I’m just gonna make it worse if I wait. I’m just a little scared to admit years of my life were wasted, yah know?

You’re right. I should be asking my friends. But, a part of me also wants to know what a stranger would say. My friends know and care about me, but I think it’s worthwhile to see what someone totally removed would say if they knew how I felt.

And I won’t lie, maybe a part of me is looking for permission. I don’t want to feel like I’m crazy or making a rash decision.

I really appreciate it, though. It’s tough, and I don’t think there’s a ‘good’ answer. No matter what I do, it’ll be an unhappy outcome on some level.

In theory, it’s until you have resolved your issues. It’s more like the therapist mediates and asks questions to helo you understand your relationship dynamics. We made quick progress, but it dissipated over the course of a year.

By then, the therapy was mostly trying to help us retread ground and we both struggled with that fact.

I just remembered this thread. We were right. RIP 😔

You get downvoted for it, but it’s absolutely true. She had a real opportunity to distinguish herself from Biden, and for a brief moment I thought she would. Then she shifted to the right to draw in centrists.

Users here can stick their heads in the sand all they want, but like with the Clinton campaign, it won’t change the election outcome.

She’s handing Trump the race by imitating Biden. I say this as someone who will likely vote for her anyway: this is becoming a disaster for her. She cannot afford to lose Muslim voters in Michigan, and the continued bleeding of Hispanic voters spells even longer-term problems for the party.

On this site? Users of Lemmy in denial of her alienation of voters. She started strong and then pissed all of that good will away by announcing she’s just going to be a continuation of the Biden Israel policy.

And before anyone says “oh, the Biden administration is pushing for a ceasefire”. Nobody takes that seriously. You can’t push for a ceasefire and rhetorically and materially enable the annihilation of Gaza and the invasion of Lebanon. Any ceasefire proposals are performative.

The other shenanigans was that the secretary of state allowed other petitioners with the same issues to proceed on the ballot, namely marijuana and gambling referendums. The organizers should have been on their best behavior because the state was always going to selectively enforce the rules here.

The schools doing okay financially aren’t the ones cutting these programs for cost-saving reasons. In bigger state universities eliminating programs, the cuts are largely political. School admins are worried that state legislators will target school budgets in the near future if cuts aren’t made to “useless” subjects in the humanities and social science.

In regional state universities and private liberal arts schools, however, the situation really is dire. They’re cutting to survive. The US has started to experience a decline in college enrollment. Universities have known it would happen since the late 2000s, but not in the way it has.

Big universities are growing or maintaining class sizes, which is putting tremendous pressure on the regional and liberal arts schools as the available students evaporate. It’s pushed the timeline for change up at many universities and it’s only going to get worse.

Do I feel sorry for university admins? No, they should’ve taken action sooner, with real wind-down plans for students. But we’re going to continue to see cuts to small programs for decades to come; it’s unavoidable.

I did the same thing. The first privacy-oriented service I heard about was Proton. And, to be fair, they’re quite good. But the email search issues and struggles I had with their bridge eventually turned me off.

I left for mailbox(.)org and haven’t looked back. It’s great Proton has so many cool services, but the last thing I want is to get dependent on one company again, not after how hard it was to get away from Google.

I kinda don’t want to dip my toes in this, but here goes:

I agree that it’s occasionally a breath of fresh air. The issue I’ve always had with Hexbear is they’ve more or less replaced one version of American (and to a lesser extent European) exceptionalism with another. Where American nationalists consider America to be exceptionally great, Hexbear considers it to be exceptionally evil. They routinely attribute domestic incidents in different countries to American meddling–regardless of evidence–even when those events either achieve nothing for American geostrategic goals or actively harm them. America as the “great Satan,” etc.

Just an example because I remember it: Imran Khan lost an internal power struggle in Pakistan. He was probably the most west-friendly candidate left there, but Hexbear blamed a CIA coup https://hexbear.net/post/186331

In the same vein, they permit or even encourage Chinese aggression against the Philippines, within the Philippines’ own exclusive economic zone. You can’t substitute one form of imperialism for another. It’s a trap I see a lot of leftists fall into.

I think most of 'em are alright. Just growing into leftist thought still and grappling with the moshpit that is international politics. Also they’re funny lol

Thank you so much for this information. Your passion is contagious. I’m going to dive into all of these sources in the morning!

Have a wonderful day/evening/night!

So, as someone who has used the Internet since its very earliest days, what would you say about what the Internet is like today versus back then? Was it better? Worse? Any major online events that you can recall from that period?

I grew up at the very tail end of the old forums and certainly after the decline and death of old school chat rooms. Most of them died or went inactive while I was in high school/college. The version of the internet older adults used is almost alien to me.

Hell, today’s Internet is on its way to being alien too.

As someone who peer reviewed papers, and got familiar with the process, most reviewers do not take the time to seriously examine papers. I would compare my comments to other reviewers for the same paper, and holy shit they barely read it. I would spot pretty blatant omissions–bad methodology, incomplete sections that make a paper impossible to reproduce, poor quality figures, need for major revisions. The other reviewers would offer minor suggestions and leave it at that. And the chief editor will push it out the door with minor revisions that don’t address any issues.

I have seen some truly blatant shit get published. Like figures that have made up data, or that we’re straight up copied from the authors’ previous publication and presented as new. The for-profit publishing industry doesn’t give a fuck. Those issues might get caught 10 years down the road, like in that case, but it’s usually a slap on the wrist for tenured faculty unless it gets lots of attention.

Prof in my department when I was a grad student blatantly copied work from another researcher, and the only sanctions he got were a moratorium on taking new grad students.

Her reaction, and this is maybe me coping really hard right now, might be related to what happened last night. She attempted suicide last night and had the mindset to call my name before she did. Despite my pleas, she went to work this morning since she has no time off and doesn’t want to get fired.

We talked about what happened, and she admitted that she’s felt like attempting for the past couple months, which kind of follows what I was feeling yesterday. The past 3-4 months have been more difficult than usual.

I don’t know what my next steps are. I’m feeling from it and using this forum to vent in a safe way. There’s not much advice to give, I think. I’m just going to take this one step at a time.

I thought you were really insightful and I just wanted to give you an update because, if I was lost before, I’m really fucking lost now.

Last night she attempted suicide. I am reading these from my couch while we sort out what the fuck to do.

She went to the bedroom while I was reading on the couch around 8:30 after she took a shower. Within 5-10 minutes she called my name. I came in and she had a bottle.of her pills in one hand, and enough of them to kill a horse in the other.

She was shaking, but pretty numb when I gently took the bottle and pills out of her hands and held her. It took probably another 15-20 minutes for her to say anything else. Then she started sobbing.

This is the first time I’ve witnessed a suicide attempt, so I’m shaken up.

Anyway, thank you for the advice. It was thought provoking and I’m going to pick my way through it while I cope.

Thanks for the advice. I just got off work so I’m only now able to read these. I’m going to check this book out. It sounds like, if nothing else, it’ll give me another perspective on what’s going on.

I expect forgiveness to be part of my relationships, I just don’t know if I can forgive this. I think my ability to forgive has limits, and this incident is severe enough, in my mind, to test those limits. Forgiveness increasingly feels like a one way street for her and I. I forgive her, but she’s selective with what she’ll forgive and move past. It wasn’t always this way. It’s changed in the past 3-4 months, though.

She grew up in a dangerous environment. In a lot of ways, she’s always in fight or flight mode. Usually fight.

It’s something she is getting treated for. She’s on an anxiety med and visits a therapist once a month, but between that and a very stressful job, she’s worn down.

It’s a really complex situation all around and I don’t know of a straightforward way to deal with it.

I understand that. It’s hard to capture the depth of relationships on some forum. I’ll just say that we’ve both been through some difficult things, but we’ve supported each other. The past year or so, though, she’s been going through a lot more (relatives dying, dad now in prison, etc.) , and I’ve stepped up to the best of my ability.

Though she wants me to communicate more about how I’m doing, and she actually likes it when I do so, I just don’t have the time or emotional energy to do that and still be present for her. It’s a definite lose-lose. Because I know she’s not really in a good state to have me be vulnerable on the way she likes, but by not being vulnerable, she feels like I don’t trust her.

I try to approach this (and all my relationships) with a strong understanding that people aren’t perfect. We fuck up, make mistakes, and have to learn from them. Sometimes she doesn’t have that same grace. She holds waayyy more grudges than I do. I essentially do a monthly ritual of forgiving her for lashing out a bit when her cycle is on or her psychiatrist doesn’t give her a refill for her anxiety meds on time. But my mistakes are usually harder for her to move past. She does eventually, but nowhere near as often.

I am looking for a therapist for myself right now, actually. I think at least ironing out how I’m feeling before I approach what happened with her is important.

By virtue of having a disproportionately beneficial EU membership agreement, they actually caused friction with later EU members that received the standard agreements later on.

It’s hard to overstate how catastrophic the UK fucked up by leaving the EU. They joined on the bottom floor, had the leverage to negotiate a deal that gave them more benefits, let them keep their currency instead of promising to one day adopt the Euro, and had access to all the immigration controls they needed to deal with the ‘problem’ Tories perceived.

It’s incredible, really. Part of me still can’t believe they tossed all of that away. It’s got to be one of the biggest peacetime geopolitical fuckups ever.