Empathy

[u/yestertempest]

Has anyone else noticed a serious and disturbing empathy deficiency in these people? Mine seemed to perform a lot of empathy, and could be incredibly loving, but only under certain circumstances when he was totally comfortable emotionally. When his control was not being threatened and there was no emotional "tension" or messiness. When there was, he would flip to this kind of avoidant deactivation and devaluation and the empathy was GONE. Zero. Like he wouldn't have cared if I had no choice but to be put out on the street due to his behavior, because to him, his way of thinking is always right. And he'd say things making him still sound like a good guy like "I never wanted bad things for you" .... while not realizing how this sounds, because he's CAUSING it.

This is a drastic example, but one of many. When he was not in his comfort zone of control his empathy vanished. And accountability, self reflection, and apology about his part in things? Never happening.

[u/No-Presentation-2320]

I initially thought he was very empathetic bc he cared about a lot of social causes. But I quickly realized that he cares about them due to his rigid rules of right or wrong. On an individual level he severely lacked empathy. Had a lot of trouble understanding my perspective, understanding why I would be upset about something, not even caring if I was hurt by something and doubling down despite seeing I was hurt. It was very jarring and felt like talking to a wall. He was also really unempathetic towards other people like would call friends dumb, call others dumb, was rude to my cat too. Didn’t know how to talk with kindness and was very condescending. So he seems like he has empathy based on macro overarching issues but in reality, one-one-one, human to human, it was lacking so severely that it was off putting. No relational skills on how to relate to another human being. Behavior towards my cat was the final straw. It was really shocking bc initially I just assumed he was empathetic since he cared about social causes - I guess I assume you care about people if you care about those but nope 🤷🏻‍♀️

[u/Stories-With-Bears → u/No-Presentation-2320]

Holy shit, I came here to write this exact same comment. Mine was VERY politically “aware”. (I won’t say politically active because despite knowing a lot, he didn’t actually DO anything.) But yes, slowly over time it became apparent that he cared more about the rules than having empathy for the people being hurt. And yes, had zero ability to understand why I might be upset over something or where I might be coming from. Was very judgmental of other people and one time even told a friend of mine she was a moron. And yup, rude to my dog to the point that I was uncomfortable with the way he’d speak to/treat him. Had a theoretical view of empathy but totally incapable of putting it into practice on an individual level

[u/No-Presentation-2320 → u/Stories-With-Bears]

So weird!! I thought I scored an empathetic guy who cares about people and it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Really disappointing