> I don't see why you'd ever server a relationship over something like this.
I don't know more about your situation, so I can't help you with what you're missing. What I can say is that I have been in the same situation, and it seeps into every interaction. It starts off as one thing, and it becomes all-consuming, until you can't have a normal interaction with the person that doesn't get pulled into the conspiracy web.
I used to have a list of topics I would avoid around my Dad. What was truly devastating was watching all of the things I could relate to my dad about slowly get consumed into that web of topics that were all connected. What was more devastating was that my dad is a smart guy, and he's painfully effective at making the leaps he wants to make from where he's at. If you brought up any topic on the list, he would immediately run you around all of the topics on his list, and any time you make a substantiated claim on one thing, he'll jump to another thing, just to argue.
This story was devastating to me, because I wanted them to find a way to make this work out. And I was hopeful the father was going to be willing to believe that he was wrong given that he brought up the idea of the bet in the first place. But the giveaway to me was that when they discussed the stakes, the dad wasn't really considering losing as an option.
I considered that list and thought to myself "Yeah, I would take all of these bets, and yeah, if I was wrong about all of these I'd be willing to tell the person I was seeing something wrong about the world." But it was clear from the bet setting that there was no world where the father could believe he was wrong. He just wasn't anywhere in the same world as the rest of the world, and honestly, that's what scares me the most.
It feels like we have this incurable disease that makes people believe things irrationally, and there's a risk that anyone can catch this disease just by spending enough time online. What truly scares me about the 'cutting them off' piece here, is that it's a measure to protect yourself and it also represents giving up on the person.
When I cut my dad off, I explained to him my concerns that led to the decision, as well as that I was willing to talk again if he was willing to work on this and at some point I called in to check on how he was doing, and if he was making any progress, and the most baffling thing to me was that he didn't even register the part of my communication (written down) that explained I'd be willing to talk to him if he worked on this. Like, working on this wasn't even something he would consider doing to salvage the relationship, which was pretty devastating because of how long I spent trying to fix this relationship and make it work.
I don't know more about your situation, so I can't help you with what you're missing. What I can say is that I have been in the same situation, and it seeps into every interaction. It starts off as one thing, and it becomes all-consuming, until you can't have a normal interaction with the person that doesn't get pulled into the conspiracy web.
I used to have a list of topics I would avoid around my Dad. What was truly devastating was watching all of the things I could relate to my dad about slowly get consumed into that web of topics that were all connected. What was more devastating was that my dad is a smart guy, and he's painfully effective at making the leaps he wants to make from where he's at. If you brought up any topic on the list, he would immediately run you around all of the topics on his list, and any time you make a substantiated claim on one thing, he'll jump to another thing, just to argue.
This story was devastating to me, because I wanted them to find a way to make this work out. And I was hopeful the father was going to be willing to believe that he was wrong given that he brought up the idea of the bet in the first place. But the giveaway to me was that when they discussed the stakes, the dad wasn't really considering losing as an option.
I considered that list and thought to myself "Yeah, I would take all of these bets, and yeah, if I was wrong about all of these I'd be willing to tell the person I was seeing something wrong about the world." But it was clear from the bet setting that there was no world where the father could believe he was wrong. He just wasn't anywhere in the same world as the rest of the world, and honestly, that's what scares me the most.
It feels like we have this incurable disease that makes people believe things irrationally, and there's a risk that anyone can catch this disease just by spending enough time online. What truly scares me about the 'cutting them off' piece here, is that it's a measure to protect yourself and it also represents giving up on the person.
When I cut my dad off, I explained to him my concerns that led to the decision, as well as that I was willing to talk again if he was willing to work on this and at some point I called in to check on how he was doing, and if he was making any progress, and the most baffling thing to me was that he didn't even register the part of my communication (written down) that explained I'd be willing to talk to him if he worked on this. Like, working on this wasn't even something he would consider doing to salvage the relationship, which was pretty devastating because of how long I spent trying to fix this relationship and make it work.