Ladies, what have been your experiences with dating men that have unresolved and untreated intergenerational trauma?

herbivorouscarnivore · 2022-02-22T04:31:43+00:00

The ones I dated expected me to save them, which we all know isn’t how things work. My friends who dated these types for longer stretches were eventually at the receiving end of emotional abuse and general tyranny because these men chose to see everyone else as the problem rather than address their issues.

ThrowRA_lantern · 2022-02-22T05:02:13+00:00

If you’re looking for a specific example, one of my exes’ parents came from very war-torn countries and violent/abusive families so they had A LOT of trauma. My ex’s parents were also anti-therapy and basically vented all their problems onto their own children since they were babies, constantly traumatising them with morbid and gruesome stories about their home countries.

Then I stumbled into a relationship with their son, and whenever he did something horrible to me (he was an abusive bully who took pleasure in making me miserable), he would dismiss my problem and claim it’s NOTHING compared to what his parents had experienced. Basically, if i got upset with his abusive words, i need to shut up because it’s NOTHING compared to how his father was beaten relentlessly by crazy relatives and dumped by abandoned minefields. I couldn’t even ask my ex for the bare minimum without receiving a grandiose lecture about his parent’s struggles. While I see how these struggles were obviously horrible and unfortunate, they were always weaponised and used against me and discounting my own life and experiences.

vforvendetta87 · 2022-02-22T04:28:23+00:00

Well, I’m one of those people with un-healed trauma who also dated men with un-healed trauma. The result is catastrophic.

shoesfromparis135 · 2022-02-22T05:58:46+00:00

Don’t do it. They need to save themselves. I was raped by someone I felt sorry for and wanted to help. Please stay away from these men

asupernova91 · 2022-02-22T05:50:59+00:00

He was psychotic. Like to this day I’m convinced an actual sociopath or psychopath. Porn addiction, substance abuse, mental and emotional abuse, it was like you said a ticking bomb. I don’t think people who suffer from generational trauma are bad (men or women). I do and it’s hard to be messed up because of things that happened before you were even alive, but the difference is what you choose to do with it. If a man is self aware enough to go to therapy, address these issues and work on themselves, I would still consider dating them. Even if they didn’t have a good relationship with their parents, luckily, a lot of people can see in family members or family friends (even your friends parents) what healthy relationships look like and they take notes from those relationships.

If they’re just a walking red flag, unaware of their issues, and they make you anxious all the time, run. Oftentimes they don’t even recognize their own trauma and in their head they justify their sick behavior/have victim complexes.

ApartPersonality · 2022-02-22T06:48:12+00:00

My ex dealt with his trauma with total emotional withdrawal- he was a person with an avoidant attachment style. This… isn’t helping him. Over the course of our relationship he revealed a lot of his trauma to me, and it struck me that he trusted me with it. But it’s not my family, and I can’t fix it, and I don’t want to be forced to play a role in that dynamic. I decided that I couldn’t let this be my problem.

knitwit3 · 2022-02-22T07:14:39+00:00

Keep in mind that about half of men who are abusive had abusive fathers. My ex assured me that he was nothing like his worthless, abusive, deadbead dad when we first started dating. Spoiler alert: he turned out to be EXACTLY like his worthless, abusive, deadbeat dad.

I should have dumped him much sooner, but was too inexperienced to see the red flags for what they were. I'm on here learning, though, and I'll recognize red flags much sooner next time.

Platipus6 · 2022-02-22T05:17:08+00:00

The more you help them, walk on eggshells and coddle them, the safer they feel to regress so that you can re-parent them. Which could take years. And you're not a licensed therapist and you never consented or realised that's what you're doing. And it doesn't work because they don't want to grow up and take on scary, difficult adult responsibilities and accountabilities.

At the first sign of a man acting childish to get you to act maternal, nope the hell out.

GlamSunCrybabyMoon · 2022-02-22T06:12:33+00:00

My ex was so cruel to me when I was pregnant because he wanted me to drop out of school and get a job. One day in a fit of rage because he was mad I didn’t physically write out a list of things we needed for the bby, he screams at me “I don’t want you to be like my mother”. I get that he didn’t want his child to grow up like he did but he showed he wasn’t willing to change it himself.

He told me that he wished his mother gave all her children her last name, he said he wished she finished school so she can get a better job so she can spend more time with him, he said he wished that his mom went after his dad for child support so he didn’t have to starve. I did all the things he wished his mom did and he still hated me and demonized me for it.

He followed in his dads footsteps and had another kid to replace the other. He also followed in his step dads footsteps and treat his biological child better than his other bms children(which he hated when it happened to him).

His mother encouraged me to listen to him and do the things that she did, if I listened I would have continued their messed up cycle of abuse.

FrauleinJ · 2022-02-22T07:33:25+00:00

I’ve been with two men with unresolved childhood trauma, such a waste of my time and energy. They would use their brokenness as an excuse to stall anything they don’t feel like doing aka being committed to a relationship or more. They have a giant void in their heart so they will never ever be satisfied with you, always chasing for something else so they don’t have to think what’s truly missing in their life is the ability to heal. One of them did go see a therapist but for their anxiety attacks, even then, he blamed his mental disorder on me in the end.

2022-02-22T12:58:28+00:00

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Equal-Ear2312 · 2022-02-22T09:12:37+00:00

Bad.

The long version: very very bad.

My ex had a grandma that was a second wife. The first one died. The second wanted a divorce. She would leave for extended periods of time and "go away" / "get away" from a drunkard of a husband.

My ex didn't have to mention that his grand papi was physically abusive towards her. I drew that conclusion.

She divorced. My ex said he was very resentful of her because she broke the family and she continued to do her disappearing act until very old. And she didn't "take care" of him like the other grandma did.

But he had parents to do the parenting duh🤡

He literally wanted her to stay and endure the beatings of a drunkard and that her divorce was bad for him and his grand papi and for the family of countryside drunkards that they are... 🤡 Clowns!

Another guy I dated (no sex, just dates) had a single mom. And several step siblings. Though he loves his mom, he told me that life with a single parent was economically hard. They had to move places frequently so she could get a better teaching job. He went to university with her financial help and succeeded because of what she taught him. He tries to have a relationship with his father and the other family but says things are not ideal, but very strained, since it is hard to reconcile the abuse his father subjected his mother to with the fact that he now appears like a man that has it all (house, new wife, other kids). The other issue is that he lived with his mom and was a self declared sociopath.

Another one's dad died from too much alcohol. He was also violent. His mother is an educated type of woman, a former teacher (there's a pattern here) which ensured that this guy was also educated liked to read and had some intellectual affinities. She didn't put up with the drunkard and divorced. They didn't have an ideal life either because guess what? They had no money since the drunk ex didn't contribute a dime.

Another guy I went on several dates with but who belatedly confessed he wasn't yet over his ex 🤡 had the same pattern. This time, his father was a high ranking official, the parents divorced and both remarried. I would later hear from him that his father was extremely violent (for a high ranking official) and left the mother in a lot financial difficulties after the divorce.

Imagine men telling you these stories. Although they did not overtly resent their mother for not staying, they could easily see that financial issues had affected them greatly. They still didn't add 2 and 2 together. These women are all working women, educated. And even with a job and an education, a single parent household where the providing parent is female still earns less than a household with a male parent. Because women were paid less.

I know for a fact that my ex from the beginning had a conventionally abusive father. He would tell me how his father was mean to his mother but he couldn't see it as abuse. She was not an educated woman, was 100% dependent on him and the stunts pulled by her mother (the granny that divorced) put a lot of pressure on her up stay.

All of these men have deep family issues. A lot of intergenerational and transgenerational trauma but it is all coated in sexism. Not only do they not seek therapy but they don't see it as an issue that affects their current lives.

gold_sunsets · 2022-02-22T10:59:46+00:00

I had one who claimed to have trauma because his mother and sisters were feminists. He was in therapy. I'd just stay away from anything remotely like that...

starlight_sequence · 2022-02-22T15:35:04+00:00

Not necessarily intergenerational trauma, and he was in therapy, but... My ex used trauma like a trump card. If I wasn't constantly tending to his emotional injuries or giving him exactly what he wanted, it was "oh but my trauma, my trauma, you're so cruel for not being sensitive to my trauma."

It was exhausting.

Also it's worth mentioning that I am the granddaughter of two WWII refugees, one of whom was an Auschwitz survivor. My mother has unresolved trauma from their unresolved trauma, which is impacting me to this day. You know what I'm doing? I'm owning it. I'm going to therapy. I'm working through it. Men have no excuse not to deal with theirs.

millions_ofpeachs4me · 2022-02-22T04:37:12+00:00

It’s the same as dating a man with any other unresolved issues or trauma: they find ways to numb themselves, put the blame on anyone else (sometimes while getting very defensive of their family), and continue to deny their issues.

I don’t deny that intergenerational troubles exist, but I do think a lot of folks use them as an excuse for current bad behavior. As for how it all affects a partner, there’s not much difference between intergenerational trauma and a personality disorder. You still end up with an avoidant man-child (or woman-child for our wlw) and his spontaneous combustions.

The bottom line is that you, a partner or friend, can’t help any of it. This applies equally to all humans - they have to want to change or break the cycle, and that’s hard work. I don’t think people with deep seated issues like that should be in relationships at all until they’ve done the work. Wishful thinking on my part, I know.

crapcakes0987 · 2022-02-22T05:42:07+00:00

I dated a guy who had so much abuse in his childhood from his parents. Whether or not he was telling the truth… if he was it was pretty traumatic.

He told me his mom told him at a young age that he was a “mistake” and “one-night stand.” He was homeless for a year as a teenager because she kicked him out, telling me he fled his home country and was white trash, he had been r***ed by some lady in a bar, and his biological father had recently died, idk. And he was telling me this within the first two or three months. I have a lot of trauma too from an abusive parent but DANG, this was too much. He expected me to be his mommy-bang maid therapist and send him nudes afterwards like I was gonna feel bad for him after telling me this stuff. He was obsessed with porn. He also was not over his ex who was his first girlfriend. And guess why she dumped him? Because she said he was obsessed with sex. Disgusting. He needs god and therapy. He had a horrible life and I sympathize (even though he ghosted me after I refused to give him nudes and other physical stuff) but he needs to get off of dating apps and seek professional help.

MixWide · 2022-02-22T14:47:08+00:00

This might be bullshit but my personal theory is that there is a "critical window" for a lot of emotional regulation skills.

You know how if you learn a language after a certain age, you almost always retain a bit of an accent no matter how much you practice? I feel like the same is true about emotional skills.

Boys are actively discouraged from managing their own feelings, examining their impulses, and developing empathy. As a result, even men who later want to develop those skills will wind up "speaking with an accent."

ububTkuc · 2022-02-22T13:11:22+00:00

Dump them...unless you want to provide free psychiatric services, that is!

gingerwabisabi · 2022-02-22T16:14:05+00:00

Well, even as a sister of one, I'd been doing heavy heavy work on mostly self-therapy bc money for about 10 years. He had plenty of money and went to therapy a lot but only started actually perceiving and starting to look into our family issues about 10 years after I started - before that I guess he just complained to his therapists? He started reading a lot of the same books I had read, that at the time he had forbidden me from mentioning because they were "too upsetting," and telling me excitedly about everything he was discovering. I was so happy he had the energy to work through some of our background trauma now but it turned out he did not want me to do anything more than nod and show pity for his poor sad life. Giving even a hint that I was already familiar with some article or book, or could empathize because I, you know, GREW UP SUFFERING THE SAME THINGS, added fuel to a simmering hate. If they aren't working on stuff by themselves for YEARS before you come along, don't touch them with a ten foot pole.

Husband started seeking help 20 years before we met. His therapist actually told him to start dating a couple weeks before he saw me on OLD! I've never met another guy who got prompted to start dating again by their therapist 8-0

PicoPicoMio · 2022-02-22T18:59:51+00:00

My ex grew up with parents who went through a contentious divorce.

One parent had severe mental health issues and unalived themselves in very traumatic way, the other was completely emotionally unavailable and didn’t believe in therapy.

They took him in but neglected him as they moved on with a new nuclear family.

As a result my ex is dealing with a lot of unresolved childhood trauma that manifested in emotional unavailability and covert narcissism. He wasn’t sadistic, just really callous and selfish.

He went through a reinvention phase in his 30s and hated that I knew all his secrets and vulnerabilities. I had been there for him as his free therapist for years and I guess I reminded him too much of his painful past.

ItsFreezen · 2022-02-22T20:34:38+00:00

They don't seek help.

fruitpunchsam · 2022-02-23T01:15:10+00:00

Obviously, the experience is bad. I've only gone out with Asian men, so inevitably they've all had intergenerational trauma. As an Asian woman with my own trauma, I wasn't able to be a good romantic partner before seeking therapy for it. But men are unlikely to think that deeply about their trauma, which is a lose-lose situation. Not worth dealing with.

cryptohobo · 2022-02-22T20:40:55+00:00

How do you know if they have unresolved inter generational trauma or if they’re just a POS? I know I sound facetious here but it’s a genuine question. From what I can see most men ignore their mental health or dismiss having unresolved issues that they probably don’t even know what inter generational trauma means.

Oh and in my experience; he’d think the term IG trauma is some made up psycho babble, reassure you he’s fine, then proceed to ignore you for a few days because he has an avoidant attachment…due to the IG trauma that he’s unwilling to acknowledge/address lol. Throw in him gaslighting you or telling you what issues you need to work on, and forever moving the goal posts for good measure.

mothboon · 2022-02-22T21:26:44+00:00

My child's father is all this. He was raised by his grandparents because his mom left him in a bar with a bag of underwear. He had a lot of problems and was a criminal.. but here I swooped in to try to save him and bring joy into his life. By the end of it (. 8 years of constant abuse) I was so broken and wanted to take my own life.

I don't think his grandparents did f*CK all to raise him properly and just let him run wild because "bOyS wILl bE BoYs" ಠ︵ಠ hurr durr hurr

lolmemberberries · 2022-02-22T22:59:02+00:00

They refuse to do the work to change their behavior for their own sake or anyone else's. In short, awful.

sassyheather · 2022-02-22T09:07:24+00:00

Bad, extremely bad. I had an ex who hated his mom for cheating on his dad and he was openly cursing her behind her back in front of me. But had no issue with her paying his bills, plane tickets and basically covering his life abroad while he was unemployed.

I had another ex who hated his dad for apparently bailing on their family and making my ex deserve his love, according to him. Never met the dad, but it just seemed like he left my ex’s mom for the woman who was his true love and also my ex is a little shit who definitely didn’t deserve unconditional love served on a platter 😅 my ex then was put on such a pedestal by mommy dearest that I felt uncomfortable around the two of them and their relationship.

scorchedsouI · 2022-02-22T05:35:35+00:00

I don't have experiences with that. Why would I risk it?

Sisterstander · 2022-02-22T09:58:59+00:00

Welllll I have it too so the best way I can put it is … Toxic Exciting Fast Brutal Short-lived Ridiculous Petty Sexy Fun Spontaneous Unhealthy… And now that I have resolved some of it I feel like I can take the upper hand in a lot of situations where I previously would have relied on the unequipped man. Now I date a younger one and I like to think he picks up on some things . At 36 , I can’t help but wonder if I’ve actually leveled up a bit or if I just date a younger man to feel like I have 😅 I’m sure it is both

Devils_Tango · 2022-02-23T22:30:43+00:00

Currently dating a man who has been to therapy and phew! what a welcome change from my ex. He will also call out misogyny when he sees it. Gotta keep vetting but it’s a green flag for now!

Title	Ladies, what have been your experiences with dating men that have unresolved and untreated intergenerational trauma?
Author	Throwawaylikehay
Upvotes	195
Comments	52
Date	February 22, 2022 4:22 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/sye7ne/ladies_what_have_been_your_experiences_with/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/ladies-what-have-been-your-experiences-with-dating.1103575 https://theredarchive.com/post/1103575

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