I broke up with my girlfriend the day before my birthday. At

>>18498646

Doesn't sound like you could open up to her very much there near the end of the relationship. I think you'll be okay, OP.

>>18498646
at first I was angry but then I realized you were more thoughtful than I thought.
I think you made the right choice, especially because of that
>When I'd try to start a dialogue, say I disagreed, and just express my view, she'd shut down and say that arguments made her anxious
>she was never even willing to engage or discuss.

You made the right decision, anon, and I believe I understand your pain, but still :
"Then she got a tattoo. I didn't like it, but it was too late and irreversible. But at the back of my mind, I thought our relationship couldn't be truly longterm anymore. Someone with a tattoo isn't someone I'd want to have kids with; it'd just set a bad example."
Come on Anon; I believe of all your post this is the only thing that's 100% on you. That's pure prejudice. Who cares about ink on skin ?

>>18498646
You were dating a pseudo intellectual. Her retardation was too much for you and you made a decision. Good on you mate. Find a proper lady and be happy

>>18498646
OP made the right decision. Time shows a person's true colors, and sometimes underneath what you started dating and fell in love with was actually a piece of shit person. Don't regret it.

>>18498657
For lots of people, it's a no-no. My parents made a rule, said no tattoos or you're out, from the time we were little, My little brother actually got one when he was 19 and in uni, and they followed through and kicked him out. I'm not sure what the issue is, but if you're willing to kick your son out for that then it must run deep.

>>18498657
It was prejudice on my part. That's why I didn't end it there and then and actively worked to make myself see past it. I was introspective enough to know I shouldn't be judging her on that, and worked past it. If the tattoo was all, we'd still be together. It was all the other stuff.

And her lack of desire to talk about things was more the problem than our disagreements themselves. I have a very loving family and we also love to discuss issues on which we disagree. We can talk for hours during family gatherings, disagreeing, but always fruitfully. In the end, though, we all hug, and go our separate ways.

But with her, it was different. So, when she brought up cultural appropriation, I just expressed what I thought. I said I didn't really believe in the concept because culture isn't a scarce resource, so one person having it doesn't mean another can't. And because it's not hurting anyone, I don't see a problem with cultural exchange (it came up because I bought a novelty dashiki). She just shut down and kind of hummed along, and then changed the subject. Another time, when she didn't shave her armpits and said "fuck the patriarchy," I didn't even criticize her not shaving. I just said that I think blaming something like the patriarchy can often be akin to blaming the Jews, the bourgeoisie, the globalists, the Illuminati, etc--that it simplifies a complex world by casting all problems on one enemy. Again, she just shut down and didn't want to continue the conversation. Every time this happened, she would be quiet and not very open with me for a few days.

When I finally told her how I felt about all this, she said arguments made her angry, and that she didn't like to express herself around me because I judged her too much. The weirdest example is when she became a vegetarian. She didn't tell me; she just started ordering vegetarian food. I asked whether she was a vegetarian now, and she demurred and then said I was judging her decisions.

>>18498677
I don't think she's a shitty person. From talking to her, I discerned that she had a bad childhood and a very authoritarian father. It seems that she built up a thick wall around herself, and has reinforced it with ideology. But the beliefs are just subterfuge. If those were just her beliefs, then she could engage, defend, and debate them like I do with many of my friends who I disagree with. But instead, it seems the ideology is just a tool she uses to hide behind this wall she's built, which is why she can't engage. Not just with disagreements, but whenever she's in a bad place. That's why I still care about her. I wish I could have been the person to help her get out of her head and into the real world. But she was just too deep in there for me.

>>18498657
You can judge a lot about a person from their tattoos. Depending on what it is, you can judge their maturity, impulse control and long term thinking ability. But like I said, it all depends on the tattoo itself, nothing inherently wrong with tattoos as a concept.
What was her tattoo of OP?

>>18498855
It was a phrase in Greek to the effect of "you have suffered enough already." And underneath that is what she told me is the symbol for mental illness. I especially didn't like the fact that she was tattooing herself with a permanent reminder of her mental illness rather than trying to put it behind her or overcome it. It's like she was proud. I have nothing against mental illness. My father suffers from depression, and several people on his side of the family do as well, in addition to bipolar and schizophrenia. But my dad also never wears his depression on his sleeve (literally; my ex's tattoo is on her arm). I just slowly realized that her mental illness was a huge part of her identity. I mean, we all have problems and need people there for us, but I don't think it's good to identify so heavily with those things. I was always there for were when she needed me, and I tolerated whatever her mental illness caused, but she made it a part of her identity rather than something that she had to deal with.

>>18498913
That's just how some people deal with their mental illnesses man - as long as it's not in a self-destructive way, what's the problem with that? I understand that it may be difficult for you to directly understand without experiencing it, but mental illness is not as easy to dissociate from yourself as, say, the flu.

Take someone with depression for example. How do they know when the sadness they're feeling is "normal" or not? Of course sadness is an emotion everyone feels, and is healthy to a point, but for someone with depression it's very difficult to find the line between "normal" sadness that they can feel comfortable with feeling, and the "abnormal" sadness that they want to work to fix. It becomes very tricky to try and label similar parts of our personalities as "me" and "not me," and for some it becomes very destructive because they are truly unable to make that mental separation, and begin to hate that part of themselves.

Sometimes you beat things by accepting them, and incorporating them into your life. That sounds like what your ex has done. Everyone deals with these things differently - as long as she's not using that acceptance as an excuse to wallow and/or not deal with her depression (because that's just "how I am"), there's nothing wrong with that.