I've been in this relationship. Your own values are weaponized against you. Even if you know the flags, even if you know the patterns. Any attempt at a boundary is labeled as being a “bad communist” or ableist. The world is fucked up and people deserve care. But one person or even a polycule cannot replace an entire support system. I'm in a relationship now with someone who is disabled and struggling in many similar ways, but the relationship is not the same. There is accountability and partnership, and moments of connection that are genuine. People calling this ableist are missing the text stating that the others in the relationship have their own diagnoses and struggle. This is parallel violence that takes advantage of empathy. I'm sorry.
your values are totally weaponized against you. it’s so so so hard to square but you must choose yourself. you are not a support system, you are one who can help but cannot be the only one..
FWIW I didn't read the husband/boyfriend analogies as being about the puppygirl… they were about the lesbian who would never put up with that behavior from a man, but can't see it because it's coming from a woman. I can see why some would twinge at the comparison initially, but I don't think it was written as transmisogynist.
Great piece, immediately sending it to at least one friend who needs to find her way out of a similar (though monogamous) situation.
I read the original to my wife last night and she resonated deeply with what was written. For context, she’s a trans woman with an ex very similar to the puppy girl character depicted, though that dynamic was a bit different because her ex is a cis woman. The parts that really resonated was the lifting of that pressure you couldn’t have afforded to notice, and the coercive sex which I’m just going to declare as sexual abuse because what else are you going to call sex that you’re manipulated into having.
In the context of some of the backlash you received for the original, while I agree that the original had elements of ableism/transmisogyny that should be criticized, I still find the overall situation ironic. The dynamics of the polycule that enabled the puppygirl’s behavior got reproduced within the online space. And now you’re made to once again (in my opinion) over-apologize for your shortcomings while the puppygirl and her enablers thwart accountability. Art imitates life.
this is a relationship dynamic that replicates across numerous gendered dynamics. this is not unique to relationships between trans women. the ability to violently degender a party involved, however, should not be dismissed as inconsequential to discussion the account, especially in matters of material transfeminism. i am glad this article could help in some way, but please reconsider some of what you're cosigning here. it happened between your trans woman partner and a cis woman. why are we glossing over that aspect as immaterial?
the puppygirl is solely a rhetorical construct, in the context of this article. it is extremely misguided to attribute and criticism thereof to her. i do not agree in the slightest that these are the dynamics being reproduced. principled transfeminism CANNOT compromise on the matter of trans womanhood. that means we cannot ever accept a model of a trans woman that is "actually" behaving functionally as a man. there is absolutely no condition in which that is acceptable, even when discussing abuse.
"elements" of ableism and transmisogyny are in fact ableism and transmisogyny. i sincerely do not believe that should be swept aside as immaterial to the discussion at hand.
That is all well and good. However, real life is messy and praxis is also messy and lived experiences and reactions and feelings towards those experiences, even of the most principled people, are messy and imperfect.
The reality is that this specific relationship dynamic - where one partner is required to shoulder a disproportionate amount of emotional and physical household labour is historically a heterosexual one.
I believe what the commenter and the author is suggesting is that it is often difficult for marginalized people in relationships with other marginalized people (disabled, women, trans women) to see where these patterns and dynamics exist in their own relationships because of their status as marginalized there is a tendency to assume they as individuals are not capable of causing harm because they are not in a position of power because they as a group are not.
I’m saying we cannot conflate trans-women as a category and the structural power they do or do not possess within society with trans-women as individuals in relationships with other individuals because they can and do possess disproportionate power in their relationships and are therefore capable (as individuals) of replicating harmful relationship dynamics and imposing/replicating dynamics that would traditionally exist in a heterosexual relationship in which the disproportionate amount of visible and invisible household labour falls to the woman.
All this to say is nobody is suggesting that this is a trans-woman who is behaving functionally as a man but rather this is a trans-woman who is behaving in a way that is problematic and harmful to her partner(s) in a way that replicates traditionally male behaviour in a heterosexual relationship but is more difficult to see and criticize because of the social (rather than individual) relational, power and gender dynamics at play. People of all genders are capable of harmful behaviour and it tends to be understood based on the heterosexual gender and relational frameworks because we have not actually moved past those, because the gendered division of labour remains one of the pillars upon which our social lives are build and upon which the structures of politics, society, etc, are built and because that behaviour is traditionally understood as being that of the male partner in the social sense not necessarily in the individual sense.
It is a perfectly reasonable way to understand where harmful dynamic are replicated in individual relationships (by parties of all genders) but remains critical that we understand that social and familial relationships are built and function as a result of the invisible and discounted labour of women (who on the individual level are representative of anybody who performs the lion’s share of emotional and physical domestic labour)
I think that lots of people fall into this trap where they think their individual gender/political/social dynamics are perfect representations of societal gender/political/social dynamics and if we are seeking a truly well considered and principled feminism and trans-feminism we need to be able to understand that and distinguish the structural from the personal.
Again, nobody is suggesting that this trans woman is functionally behaving as a man only that they are occupying the position in harmful relationship dynamic that would in a heterosexual relationship and is therefore understood by society more broadly as the male one.
I also think it’s kind of gender-essentialist to suggest that there is something inherently male about certain socialized behaviours and therefore suggesting that it is bad praxis to « accept a model of a trans-woman that is actually behaving functionally as a man » there is no functionally behaving as a man only replicating behaviour that men are socialized to exhibit.
I discovered this essay through the backlash against it, and in reading it I was shocked by how vitriolic the response was. For transparency, I only read the updated version, not the original. I've been heavily reflecting on both the piece and the reaction for the past 12+ hours and decided I had to put my thoughts down, however unsolicited they may be.
Sincerely, thank you for writing this. I have been in this relationship (albeit not between transfems, rather nonbinary/agender people) several times in my life, and I've never seen anyone so efficiently and articulately dissect this particular dynamic of mother-partnering that is foisted onto people by weaponizing their own values against them. When I read the section about the pressure to deliver intimacy, something clicked into place in my mind about my own experiences that I had refused to process up until that point. The truth is that people's trauma, their low self-esteem, their fear of abandonment, can be real, and they can also still be the tool through which they continually (deliberately or otherwise) extract time and energy from others without reciprocity or gratitude (which is the real sin).
Seeing people describe your actions as a failure to "set boundaries" is shocking to me, in light of the pressure to perform sex and the paragraph in which a request to do the dishes becomes an hours-long comfort session about your girlfriend's mother. How do you set boundaries with someone who relies on you for their survival? Someone who has offloaded all of the work of living onto your shoulders? I have had to ask myself this question many times, and I have never found a satisfactory answer. This is clearly not an issue of disability, but rather an issue of someone who is, to some extent, voluntarily refusing the work of self-improvement while insisting to be validated that she is not, in fact, refusing the work of self-improvement. I have loved these people many, many, times, as friends, as partners, as a sibling or a child, I am so genuinely grateful to see this addressed in such a level and diplomatic way. You've put words to my experience in a way I haven't been able to.
Succinctly, reading comprehension is so important, and unfortunately the people that probably need this article the most are the ones who stopped in the second paragraph. But I will be thinking about this piece, in a positive sense, for a long time.
I don't understand what all the drama is about. Talking about emotional abuse in poly relationships is important. Talking about emotional abuse in t4t relationships is important. Thank you for writing this
Exactly. Sadly, any abuse in the poly lifestyle gets met with "this isn't true poly!" or called bigotry in some form. The truth is, the poly lifestyle is full of abusers hiding behind weaponized therapy speech and political framing. Every day this is attempted to be swept under the rug, more disabled, trans and ace people get traumatized.
This was a great read, especially as someone who works in DV/SV services. I may share it with my coworkers so we can educate ourselves about victims in polycules. I read the original post, so I’m not sure if this is included still, but I think it makes sense that an abusive trans woman may not recognize the history of women and unpaid labor and still re-enact those toxic dynamics. I think that part was important, especially since the post clearly acknowledges that that is not *all* trans women. I see myself in parts of this woman as well and at first I wondered if maybe actually doing the dishes and taking care of herself would help her, like it helped me. I would feel so much guilt when my boyfriend did the dishes that it would paralyze me. I would apologize so much it made me sick. But actually doing the things I needed to do ended up feeling so good. I’m still working on taking care of myself and eating better, and obviously this woman is dealing with more than I ever had to deal with. But that doesn’t make what she is doing okay. There is a lot of enabling here, and as I read the whole thing I saw why. It wasn’t safe not to enable. I am glad you are out of this situation now. This was, at the very least, an extremely toxic situation. It might not be my place, but I would even venture to say that this could be considered emotional, financial, and sexual abuse. Sending you love!
i got an email saying "can puppy wait for a follow up," do not fucking call me that. That is disgusting coming from you. Your edited article is no better. And it disgusts me that instead of taking any of the backlash to heart, you're calling people who take offense to this work puppies. It's as though in your mind, there are two people, the strong, virtuous people who will understand your work and agree with you, and the other camp. The degenerate, malebrained, puppies, who can't lift a finger due to their learned (malicious) helplessness, save for jumping to the defense of their lifestyle. But that's not how this is, you are just dragging an ex through the dirt. This is all on you. Grow the fuck up.
Reposting my comment from the original work, because nothing has changed enough to warrant a new comment:
this is pretty fucking vile, tara. the most charitable way I can see this article is that you endlessly enabled this person while keeping a mental tally of the things that you were actively enabling. and then you use this mental tally to write about how much you hate your ex, and manage to make it a hit piece about disabled girls in the process. i'm sorry you had to perform so much emotional labor, I know its hard and draining. but you never had to do any of this. you could have been principled, and stand up for yourself some, and set some boundaries. instead you just convinced yourself that this person is an evil man wearing the mask of a woman, and doing gendered violence on you.
Huh. And here, all I saw was endless manipulation from one person directed at the others in order to continue extending zero effort in their life.
Enablement was definitely an issue here, you are correct. I wonder which came first? Anyways, your comment gave me something to mull over, thanks for that.
Damn, tumblr outrage made me think this was the most horrible thing ever written. It’s a pretty earnest piece about caregiver burnout and resentment towards someone who you care about. I love reading about earnest contempt. Girls who are at fear of being dumped are reeling over this, but nobody’s obligated to take care of anyone to this extent. It’s not violence to put yourself first.
Tara is not being inconsiderate of puppy girl’s disabilities. If anything, she cared too much about it and ended up confused about what was really happening in this dynamic. This piece is about the lack of responsibility that puppy girl refused to take and made Tara feel bad for having needs too. Responsibility in relationships includes compromising (in any way or shape) to communicate to your partner that their thoughts and wants matter. That you are on equal ground, even if you might not be able to split things 50/50. Puppy girl caused a lot of confusion and chaos in this dynamic, but dumped the responsibility on someone else.
You can care for someone who is dealing with a lot and has trouble getting things done, but there needs to also be a balance of respect and understanding.
Also one more thing: I believe that the assumption that disabled people need to be coddled and don’t have the ability to take responsibility is ableist.
thank you for writing this, it left me speechless, i have not yet been able to describe the bars that composed the cage in which i lived for four years with my partner, and here you have come along and done it. you are not crazy, i am not crazy. thank you for your clear sight
I don't know where you saw hatred. All I saw was a woman who was fucking exhausted who had her own mental health to take care of who was put in a position where every "no" required an explanation and defense, and didn't matter at the end of all of it anyway. its really gross how many ppl come onto this post to tell a woman opening up about her abuse that SHE'S hateful.
i think we need to set some ground rules here. 1, no starting sentences with "as someone who ___, i really hated ___." stop doing bean soup and look inward. 2, everyone conflating an extra $700/m from a writer's salary going to puppy's rent with the relationship being transactional should not talk. you just shouldn't talk! money exists and it impacts our relationships. stop attacking the writer and start attacking those dishes.
do you really think it's productive to call depression and low self esteem "weaponized incompetence?" this article describes a shitty relationship experience, something overall pretty awful and abusive, but draws a line connecting to patriarchal abuses as if the matters of gendered violence in a relationship are wholly symmetrical.
i am not at all interested in the fact that these things happen in a vacuum. some boyfriends and husbands and fathers are shitty partners, sure. why is it so common? what societal forces shape these behaviors? why do so many of them get away with it so readily? in your example, a couple of women get together and realize how toxic their relationship had been. those fathers and husbands you eagerly compare her to go their lives without ever experiencing that kind of backlash. what's different here? and why draw the parallel otherwise?
no I do not think you should be some kind of relationship martyr for anyone, ever. but between parallels drawn to male abusers and conflating of these behaviors with a kind of kink this just feels wholly reactionary. it does not matter how many pleas to genuine transgender sisterhood you might make if you're sketching the portrait of a trans woman whose abusiveness indicates a *proximity to maleness.* when you're conflating an obvious disability and poor mental health with *malice* and *laziness.*
break up with her, yes. if shit sux hit da bricks. but it's cruel snd irresponsible to paint her as some kind of obstacle to true, idealized Trans Sisterhood. that's not only something that is not real, but it's also encouraging the exact kinda treatment of trans women i assume you're trying to prevent. better do the dishes, pay rent, make your appointments, take care of everything yourself, or you're the entitled big brother, the manipulative boyfriend, the lazy husband, right? it is a dynamic that replicates itself outside of t4t polycules with such frequency - women being coerced into domestic labor by means of abuse or manipulation, and in trans women's case, by casting aspersions upon their womanhood via accusations of male socialization - that I feel extremely troubled by this article's need to name a particular 'type' of woman responsible for these kinds of abuse.
I appreciate this article as an account of a certain kind of abuse, as other commenters seem to. I express my sympathies; if it's rooted in a real life experience, it's clearly very personal. I don't think anyone deserves to feel shame for leaving a relationship like that. I especially feel that no one deserves to end up in a place like that to start with! but the proximity and personal experience evident in the writing here is its greatest fault. too close to the trauma of a relationship like that. not taking a critical eye to the conclusions it consequentially draws about womanhood as a result.
Yes depression and low self esteem is weaponized incompetence when the person manipulates others into fulfilling all of their financial and sexual and emotional whims and shows no consideration towards the giver in return.
yeah cos no ones ever actually needed help before and the people with all the power in a relationship like that are always the best judges of whether their dependents deserve help.
you're an abuse apologist, plain and simple. This is a confession
People who cannot breakdown where they (despite their societal status as marginalized individuals) can do harm to other people in interpersonal social dynamics are an obstacle to true trans sisterhood and to liberation from gender essentialism and the patriarchy
Situations like these are hard. The puppygirl's suffering is real, as is her incapacity to make her situation better on her own. Like you said, she's not a bad person, she's not doing it on purpose. Her needs and diagnoses and scars are real.
But so is the structural extraction of labour. So is the emotional exhaustion. So is the sexual exploitation. So is the rent. So are the dishes.
If you'll forgive me a trite metaphor, the puppygirl is drowning. And like anyone who is drowning, she'll grab anyone who comes close to pull herself up, to get a breath. She'll try to climb them, she'll pull them underwater. Eventually, both will drown. It's not that she wants to hurt anyone. But swimming up to her, giving her yourself as a support, doesn't actually solve her problem and puts you in danger too.
I was in this relationship. I was told not to read this because of how "awful" it was, but I wasn't expected to see a version of the exact relationship I spent years being trampled in reflected back at me. I'm sorry to say that instead of leaving being my choice, mine froze me out and refused to speak to me until I did the work of being the bad guy. As far as I know, they're still together. I'm much happier now.
I'm sorry you've been here. I'm glad you're also out. I'm sorry so many have chosen the reading of you as the abuser, the ableist, the evil for venting about a situation where you learned to breathe again. My dishes aren't done, but I'm not in too much pain today. I think I'll get up and do them now.
Why do some people’s mental health matter & other’s don’t? That’s all I’m thinking reading the comments attacking the piece. The mental health struggles of some just materially matter more than others in our society & the ability to be a fragile woman means that your mental health just matters more. People dont come out & say that directly because it makes them feel bad but it’s true in our society.
We need to be able to call these situations abusive & why in order for them to stop happening & I just have to assume that the people who are criticizing are doing so partly because they have an interest in continuing the status quo.
I've been in this relationship. Your own values are weaponized against you. Even if you know the flags, even if you know the patterns. Any attempt at a boundary is labeled as being a “bad communist” or ableist. The world is fucked up and people deserve care. But one person or even a polycule cannot replace an entire support system. I'm in a relationship now with someone who is disabled and struggling in many similar ways, but the relationship is not the same. There is accountability and partnership, and moments of connection that are genuine. People calling this ableist are missing the text stating that the others in the relationship have their own diagnoses and struggle. This is parallel violence that takes advantage of empathy. I'm sorry.
your values are totally weaponized against you. it’s so so so hard to square but you must choose yourself. you are not a support system, you are one who can help but cannot be the only one..
FWIW I didn't read the husband/boyfriend analogies as being about the puppygirl… they were about the lesbian who would never put up with that behavior from a man, but can't see it because it's coming from a woman. I can see why some would twinge at the comparison initially, but I don't think it was written as transmisogynist.
Great piece, immediately sending it to at least one friend who needs to find her way out of a similar (though monogamous) situation.
I read the original to my wife last night and she resonated deeply with what was written. For context, she’s a trans woman with an ex very similar to the puppy girl character depicted, though that dynamic was a bit different because her ex is a cis woman. The parts that really resonated was the lifting of that pressure you couldn’t have afforded to notice, and the coercive sex which I’m just going to declare as sexual abuse because what else are you going to call sex that you’re manipulated into having.
In the context of some of the backlash you received for the original, while I agree that the original had elements of ableism/transmisogyny that should be criticized, I still find the overall situation ironic. The dynamics of the polycule that enabled the puppygirl’s behavior got reproduced within the online space. And now you’re made to once again (in my opinion) over-apologize for your shortcomings while the puppygirl and her enablers thwart accountability. Art imitates life.
this is a relationship dynamic that replicates across numerous gendered dynamics. this is not unique to relationships between trans women. the ability to violently degender a party involved, however, should not be dismissed as inconsequential to discussion the account, especially in matters of material transfeminism. i am glad this article could help in some way, but please reconsider some of what you're cosigning here. it happened between your trans woman partner and a cis woman. why are we glossing over that aspect as immaterial?
the puppygirl is solely a rhetorical construct, in the context of this article. it is extremely misguided to attribute and criticism thereof to her. i do not agree in the slightest that these are the dynamics being reproduced. principled transfeminism CANNOT compromise on the matter of trans womanhood. that means we cannot ever accept a model of a trans woman that is "actually" behaving functionally as a man. there is absolutely no condition in which that is acceptable, even when discussing abuse.
"elements" of ableism and transmisogyny are in fact ableism and transmisogyny. i sincerely do not believe that should be swept aside as immaterial to the discussion at hand.
That is all well and good. However, real life is messy and praxis is also messy and lived experiences and reactions and feelings towards those experiences, even of the most principled people, are messy and imperfect.
The reality is that this specific relationship dynamic - where one partner is required to shoulder a disproportionate amount of emotional and physical household labour is historically a heterosexual one.
I believe what the commenter and the author is suggesting is that it is often difficult for marginalized people in relationships with other marginalized people (disabled, women, trans women) to see where these patterns and dynamics exist in their own relationships because of their status as marginalized there is a tendency to assume they as individuals are not capable of causing harm because they are not in a position of power because they as a group are not.
I’m saying we cannot conflate trans-women as a category and the structural power they do or do not possess within society with trans-women as individuals in relationships with other individuals because they can and do possess disproportionate power in their relationships and are therefore capable (as individuals) of replicating harmful relationship dynamics and imposing/replicating dynamics that would traditionally exist in a heterosexual relationship in which the disproportionate amount of visible and invisible household labour falls to the woman.
All this to say is nobody is suggesting that this is a trans-woman who is behaving functionally as a man but rather this is a trans-woman who is behaving in a way that is problematic and harmful to her partner(s) in a way that replicates traditionally male behaviour in a heterosexual relationship but is more difficult to see and criticize because of the social (rather than individual) relational, power and gender dynamics at play. People of all genders are capable of harmful behaviour and it tends to be understood based on the heterosexual gender and relational frameworks because we have not actually moved past those, because the gendered division of labour remains one of the pillars upon which our social lives are build and upon which the structures of politics, society, etc, are built and because that behaviour is traditionally understood as being that of the male partner in the social sense not necessarily in the individual sense.
It is a perfectly reasonable way to understand where harmful dynamic are replicated in individual relationships (by parties of all genders) but remains critical that we understand that social and familial relationships are built and function as a result of the invisible and discounted labour of women (who on the individual level are representative of anybody who performs the lion’s share of emotional and physical domestic labour)
I think that lots of people fall into this trap where they think their individual gender/political/social dynamics are perfect representations of societal gender/political/social dynamics and if we are seeking a truly well considered and principled feminism and trans-feminism we need to be able to understand that and distinguish the structural from the personal.
Again, nobody is suggesting that this trans woman is functionally behaving as a man only that they are occupying the position in harmful relationship dynamic that would in a heterosexual relationship and is therefore understood by society more broadly as the male one.
I also think it’s kind of gender-essentialist to suggest that there is something inherently male about certain socialized behaviours and therefore suggesting that it is bad praxis to « accept a model of a trans-woman that is actually behaving functionally as a man » there is no functionally behaving as a man only replicating behaviour that men are socialized to exhibit.
I discovered this essay through the backlash against it, and in reading it I was shocked by how vitriolic the response was. For transparency, I only read the updated version, not the original. I've been heavily reflecting on both the piece and the reaction for the past 12+ hours and decided I had to put my thoughts down, however unsolicited they may be.
Sincerely, thank you for writing this. I have been in this relationship (albeit not between transfems, rather nonbinary/agender people) several times in my life, and I've never seen anyone so efficiently and articulately dissect this particular dynamic of mother-partnering that is foisted onto people by weaponizing their own values against them. When I read the section about the pressure to deliver intimacy, something clicked into place in my mind about my own experiences that I had refused to process up until that point. The truth is that people's trauma, their low self-esteem, their fear of abandonment, can be real, and they can also still be the tool through which they continually (deliberately or otherwise) extract time and energy from others without reciprocity or gratitude (which is the real sin).
Seeing people describe your actions as a failure to "set boundaries" is shocking to me, in light of the pressure to perform sex and the paragraph in which a request to do the dishes becomes an hours-long comfort session about your girlfriend's mother. How do you set boundaries with someone who relies on you for their survival? Someone who has offloaded all of the work of living onto your shoulders? I have had to ask myself this question many times, and I have never found a satisfactory answer. This is clearly not an issue of disability, but rather an issue of someone who is, to some extent, voluntarily refusing the work of self-improvement while insisting to be validated that she is not, in fact, refusing the work of self-improvement. I have loved these people many, many, times, as friends, as partners, as a sibling or a child, I am so genuinely grateful to see this addressed in such a level and diplomatic way. You've put words to my experience in a way I haven't been able to.
Succinctly, reading comprehension is so important, and unfortunately the people that probably need this article the most are the ones who stopped in the second paragraph. But I will be thinking about this piece, in a positive sense, for a long time.
I don't understand what all the drama is about. Talking about emotional abuse in poly relationships is important. Talking about emotional abuse in t4t relationships is important. Thank you for writing this
Exactly. Sadly, any abuse in the poly lifestyle gets met with "this isn't true poly!" or called bigotry in some form. The truth is, the poly lifestyle is full of abusers hiding behind weaponized therapy speech and political framing. Every day this is attempted to be swept under the rug, more disabled, trans and ace people get traumatized.
This was a great read, especially as someone who works in DV/SV services. I may share it with my coworkers so we can educate ourselves about victims in polycules. I read the original post, so I’m not sure if this is included still, but I think it makes sense that an abusive trans woman may not recognize the history of women and unpaid labor and still re-enact those toxic dynamics. I think that part was important, especially since the post clearly acknowledges that that is not *all* trans women. I see myself in parts of this woman as well and at first I wondered if maybe actually doing the dishes and taking care of herself would help her, like it helped me. I would feel so much guilt when my boyfriend did the dishes that it would paralyze me. I would apologize so much it made me sick. But actually doing the things I needed to do ended up feeling so good. I’m still working on taking care of myself and eating better, and obviously this woman is dealing with more than I ever had to deal with. But that doesn’t make what she is doing okay. There is a lot of enabling here, and as I read the whole thing I saw why. It wasn’t safe not to enable. I am glad you are out of this situation now. This was, at the very least, an extremely toxic situation. It might not be my place, but I would even venture to say that this could be considered emotional, financial, and sexual abuse. Sending you love!
i got an email saying "can puppy wait for a follow up," do not fucking call me that. That is disgusting coming from you. Your edited article is no better. And it disgusts me that instead of taking any of the backlash to heart, you're calling people who take offense to this work puppies. It's as though in your mind, there are two people, the strong, virtuous people who will understand your work and agree with you, and the other camp. The degenerate, malebrained, puppies, who can't lift a finger due to their learned (malicious) helplessness, save for jumping to the defense of their lifestyle. But that's not how this is, you are just dragging an ex through the dirt. This is all on you. Grow the fuck up.
Reposting my comment from the original work, because nothing has changed enough to warrant a new comment:
this is pretty fucking vile, tara. the most charitable way I can see this article is that you endlessly enabled this person while keeping a mental tally of the things that you were actively enabling. and then you use this mental tally to write about how much you hate your ex, and manage to make it a hit piece about disabled girls in the process. i'm sorry you had to perform so much emotional labor, I know its hard and draining. but you never had to do any of this. you could have been principled, and stand up for yourself some, and set some boundaries. instead you just convinced yourself that this person is an evil man wearing the mask of a woman, and doing gendered violence on you.
A hit puppy will holler
Huh. And here, all I saw was endless manipulation from one person directed at the others in order to continue extending zero effort in their life.
Enablement was definitely an issue here, you are correct. I wonder which came first? Anyways, your comment gave me something to mull over, thanks for that.
You totally missed the point of this piece. Which is extra sad because, from your reaction, it describes you
I hope she blocks you. You are yet another manipulative, gaslighting person piling on to someone who was in an abusive relationship.
its easy to be in an abusive relationship if you're an abuser
I love this response, I knew this essay would make the yt girls mad
i am a degen malebrain
bark bark
lol
And their name, I'm fairly sure, is meant to be "girl from "your puppy"", and this is also the first and only post they've ever read.
very obvious. this person needs to get off the web for awhile.
Damn, tumblr outrage made me think this was the most horrible thing ever written. It’s a pretty earnest piece about caregiver burnout and resentment towards someone who you care about. I love reading about earnest contempt. Girls who are at fear of being dumped are reeling over this, but nobody’s obligated to take care of anyone to this extent. It’s not violence to put yourself first.
Some of y’all are so annoying I swear.
Tara is not being inconsiderate of puppy girl’s disabilities. If anything, she cared too much about it and ended up confused about what was really happening in this dynamic. This piece is about the lack of responsibility that puppy girl refused to take and made Tara feel bad for having needs too. Responsibility in relationships includes compromising (in any way or shape) to communicate to your partner that their thoughts and wants matter. That you are on equal ground, even if you might not be able to split things 50/50. Puppy girl caused a lot of confusion and chaos in this dynamic, but dumped the responsibility on someone else.
You can care for someone who is dealing with a lot and has trouble getting things done, but there needs to also be a balance of respect and understanding.
Also one more thing: I believe that the assumption that disabled people need to be coddled and don’t have the ability to take responsibility is ableist.
Let me just say too this was before I read the second piece and realized Tara had said some of the same things lol.
thank you for writing this, it left me speechless, i have not yet been able to describe the bars that composed the cage in which i lived for four years with my partner, and here you have come along and done it. you are not crazy, i am not crazy. thank you for your clear sight
You’re welcome !
I hope you become a better person. there's clearly a lot of hatred and cruelty in your heart
I don't know where you saw hatred. All I saw was a woman who was fucking exhausted who had her own mental health to take care of who was put in a position where every "no" required an explanation and defense, and didn't matter at the end of all of it anyway. its really gross how many ppl come onto this post to tell a woman opening up about her abuse that SHE'S hateful.
Ah damn, it’s actually a worthwhile piece, fuck, sorry
i think we need to set some ground rules here. 1, no starting sentences with "as someone who ___, i really hated ___." stop doing bean soup and look inward. 2, everyone conflating an extra $700/m from a writer's salary going to puppy's rent with the relationship being transactional should not talk. you just shouldn't talk! money exists and it impacts our relationships. stop attacking the writer and start attacking those dishes.
do you really think it's productive to call depression and low self esteem "weaponized incompetence?" this article describes a shitty relationship experience, something overall pretty awful and abusive, but draws a line connecting to patriarchal abuses as if the matters of gendered violence in a relationship are wholly symmetrical.
i am not at all interested in the fact that these things happen in a vacuum. some boyfriends and husbands and fathers are shitty partners, sure. why is it so common? what societal forces shape these behaviors? why do so many of them get away with it so readily? in your example, a couple of women get together and realize how toxic their relationship had been. those fathers and husbands you eagerly compare her to go their lives without ever experiencing that kind of backlash. what's different here? and why draw the parallel otherwise?
no I do not think you should be some kind of relationship martyr for anyone, ever. but between parallels drawn to male abusers and conflating of these behaviors with a kind of kink this just feels wholly reactionary. it does not matter how many pleas to genuine transgender sisterhood you might make if you're sketching the portrait of a trans woman whose abusiveness indicates a *proximity to maleness.* when you're conflating an obvious disability and poor mental health with *malice* and *laziness.*
break up with her, yes. if shit sux hit da bricks. but it's cruel snd irresponsible to paint her as some kind of obstacle to true, idealized Trans Sisterhood. that's not only something that is not real, but it's also encouraging the exact kinda treatment of trans women i assume you're trying to prevent. better do the dishes, pay rent, make your appointments, take care of everything yourself, or you're the entitled big brother, the manipulative boyfriend, the lazy husband, right? it is a dynamic that replicates itself outside of t4t polycules with such frequency - women being coerced into domestic labor by means of abuse or manipulation, and in trans women's case, by casting aspersions upon their womanhood via accusations of male socialization - that I feel extremely troubled by this article's need to name a particular 'type' of woman responsible for these kinds of abuse.
I appreciate this article as an account of a certain kind of abuse, as other commenters seem to. I express my sympathies; if it's rooted in a real life experience, it's clearly very personal. I don't think anyone deserves to feel shame for leaving a relationship like that. I especially feel that no one deserves to end up in a place like that to start with! but the proximity and personal experience evident in the writing here is its greatest fault. too close to the trauma of a relationship like that. not taking a critical eye to the conclusions it consequentially draws about womanhood as a result.
Yes depression and low self esteem is weaponized incompetence when the person manipulates others into fulfilling all of their financial and sexual and emotional whims and shows no consideration towards the giver in return.
yeah cos no ones ever actually needed help before and the people with all the power in a relationship like that are always the best judges of whether their dependents deserve help.
you're an abuse apologist, plain and simple. This is a confession
haha, that gaslighting won't work on me bud! nice try though!
calling a trans woman "bud" yeah i know what you are.
People who cannot breakdown where they (despite their societal status as marginalized individuals) can do harm to other people in interpersonal social dynamics are an obstacle to true trans sisterhood and to liberation from gender essentialism and the patriarchy
Situations like these are hard. The puppygirl's suffering is real, as is her incapacity to make her situation better on her own. Like you said, she's not a bad person, she's not doing it on purpose. Her needs and diagnoses and scars are real.
But so is the structural extraction of labour. So is the emotional exhaustion. So is the sexual exploitation. So is the rent. So are the dishes.
If you'll forgive me a trite metaphor, the puppygirl is drowning. And like anyone who is drowning, she'll grab anyone who comes close to pull herself up, to get a breath. She'll try to climb them, she'll pull them underwater. Eventually, both will drown. It's not that she wants to hurt anyone. But swimming up to her, giving her yourself as a support, doesn't actually solve her problem and puts you in danger too.
People like puppygirl are 100% doing it on purpose. It's laziness, selfishness, and manipulation. There is no excuse for it.
I was in this relationship. I was told not to read this because of how "awful" it was, but I wasn't expected to see a version of the exact relationship I spent years being trampled in reflected back at me. I'm sorry to say that instead of leaving being my choice, mine froze me out and refused to speak to me until I did the work of being the bad guy. As far as I know, they're still together. I'm much happier now.
I'm sorry you've been here. I'm glad you're also out. I'm sorry so many have chosen the reading of you as the abuser, the ableist, the evil for venting about a situation where you learned to breathe again. My dishes aren't done, but I'm not in too much pain today. I think I'll get up and do them now.
Why do some people’s mental health matter & other’s don’t? That’s all I’m thinking reading the comments attacking the piece. The mental health struggles of some just materially matter more than others in our society & the ability to be a fragile woman means that your mental health just matters more. People dont come out & say that directly because it makes them feel bad but it’s true in our society.
We need to be able to call these situations abusive & why in order for them to stop happening & I just have to assume that the people who are criticizing are doing so partly because they have an interest in continuing the status quo.