This actually shows that you are still immersed in the past and his love, unable to extricate yourself, rather than truly recognizing the hypocrisy of this bourgeois love and the anger at men viewing women as sexual tools in this process.
Doing desensitization like this still demonstrates that you don’t want to think about the mistakes in this relationship; it’s still passive acceptance, rather than actively criticizing why it was wrong and why you can’t continue this relationship.
Why can a single emotional word explain being unable to extricate yourself? I’m not quite sure how to determine this “true understanding,” but I do feel a lot of anger about it, so I think there might also be some “venting” involved. And I am very aware of the dangers of being immersed in the past. I said I haven’t completely let go of these, so from this perspective, the narration might seem not fully accepting of the past.
You can’t say it completely like that. My process of questioning and criticizing is active; wanting to escape rather than run away is also active. And the reactions that seem passively accepted from him are also part of the necessary process of resolving doubts. To criticize, respond, and explain are all ways to deepen understanding of those thoughts.
This can involve many specific events. He has provided some explanations, but someone who experienced it firsthand can’t attribute everything in my memory to what he mentioned. I think I need to fully believe these explanations in order not to be self-deceived.
Language is the material shell of thought. When you mention sadness, I am more inclined to think that it is your personal disbelief at the shattering of his past “beautiful” image in love, that feeling of “how did you become like this.” Of course, there is another kind of sadness, which is sorrow for him taking the wrong path of bourgeois love, but I am not sure if you hold that view.
I can’t understand the difference between these two.
I had never realized before that my sadness also included the latter, and more of it is anger and confusion.
Escaping is more than running away; it involves a process of fully accepting. Escaping means wanting to break out of this entire circle, whereas if I just run away, I would look forward to the next bourgeois love.
I have a rough understanding of what you’re saying. I think it’s indeed because you were immersed in that bourgeois love affair that made you very satisfied and couldn’t extricate yourself. So even now, after Larry Tree revealed the truth, you still don’t want to fully believe that you only developed a bourgeois love relationship. In fact, you don’t want to believe these facts. Otherwise, why do you think the other party is now fabricating a bunch of cold, hurtful lies to tell you? This is indeed very hard to accept. You can raise your questions to clarify why the relationship developed in the past was wrong, and why you seemed to have even ‘happiness’ in such a flawed relationship. It seems you are currently only verbally acknowledging the facts and do not believe the specific reasons, which is why you feel sad and find it hard to understand, rather than being angry at the other’s wrong actions. And you feel fortunate that now, with everyone’s help, you can get rid of this wrong relationship and no longer be deeply trapped in the love pit of bourgeois solutions.
But I feel that behind the inability to understand might still be the fear of facing it. Because you haven’t thought about it, so you can’t understand. The most crucial factor in resolving the contradiction lies in the internal cause, which is if you don’t actively think about how I have hurt you in the past, and instead require me to expose my own faults, then no matter how many faults I expose, I don’t think you can completely get out of the quagmire of bourgeois love. It still seems that you need to completely deny this relationship yourself.
It’s hard to believe, perhaps it’s those false happinesses that make it impossible for me to understand how such a thin and cold word can summarize the entire relationship, because I have always trusted my feelings more.
I need to think more about this point.
This logic is a bit hard to understand. What counts as specific reasons? I can’t help but be angry at his wrong actions. Is this about the beauty he created in the past?
I have also had similar experiences to yours, only willing to trust my feelings, believing that family members, property-owning class romantic partners are sincere with me, otherwise why would I feel happy? But this is actually a matter of worldview. If you entrust your happiness and joy to having someone who can walk with you, chat, and so on, then when the other person provides these actions, you have reached some kind of commodity exchange. However, you didn’t know what the other person hoped to gain from you, which is why they were willing to give you what you wanted. For example, Larry Tree admitted that he actually wanted to develop a romantic relationship to serve his own sexual purposes (almost all property-owning class romantic relationships are for this purpose), and women are deceived by men’s sweet talk to achieve this goal, unable to extricate themselves. I can take myself as an example: I used to believe that my family genuinely cared for me, even my mom would say things like “I’ll keep the bride price for your marriage, I don’t want a penny,” to prove her selflessness, but in reality, this bride price is essentially a proof of selling the daughter. She hopes that through such means I can feel at ease being her “good daughter,” but in fact, I am just a good servant, able to be called upon and dismissed at will. Money can be there, and free family slaves can also be there.
Are you thinking about the logic behind everything you did in the past?
Then I probably wouldn’t have come here at all or paid attention to you. You can say I didn’t fully confront it, but why is it that I am afraid? Clearly, facing it is the motivation for me to do many things.
Perhaps this indeed requires more from oneself. I need to think more about how to completely deny it, and then come back to ask you for confirmation.
The bourgeois love relationship is a selfish commodity exchange, with the fundamental purpose of serving oneself. Maybe you think you also gain something you want in the exchange process, but you cannot immediately understand or realize the essence of this relationship and the inevitable tragedies that will follow. Women are bound as male family slaves, as sexual tools. Some people may be unwilling to admit this, believing they are still independent and have their own ideas. I used to think the same, but in reality, it is clear that even if you are not yet married, in a romantic relationship you have already fully entrusted your trust to the other person, and he is not completely honest with you. Doesn’t this also show that you have already fallen into the quagmire of bourgeois love, abandoning your status as an independent individual? One important aspect of capitalist oppression of women is the inculcation of the idea that love is supreme, causing women to indulge in this narrow practice of love, blind to the heavy oppression women face in capitalist society. This is the most insidious way to numb women’s revolutionary spirit and fighting will. I have other matters to attend to, I will leave now. Since I have had similar experiences, I can help answer some questions you might have. I hope you can raise any questions at any time.
I’m not saying you’re afraid to deny the bourgeoisie love, nor that you’re afraid to break up with me. I’m saying maybe you’re afraid to admit that the feelings you invested in the past were all in vain, afraid to believe that the love you put so much emotion into was summarized by me as “pornographic thoughts,” just as you said:
So you don’t dare to actively analyze and reflect on your past sins.
I don’t know what others think, I can only start from myself. Maybe I haven’t been able to convince myself that my dealings with all people and things are also commodity exchanges. Because it seems that many past events were not aimed at obtaining something for myself. Many times, I seem to just be doing an expressive act, not for the purpose of asking for something. So if I do something just to make the other person happy, but I feel a little disappointed if I don’t get a corresponding response, can I say that I am exchanging for the other person’s more positive response? The kind of response I get seems never to be the goal, just some additional things. My disappointment is more because I didn’t do well in this matter. Is it only when I don’t care about the response that it doesn’t count as an exchange?
I used to think so too.
My doubt still lies in that, in the case where I didn’t know he was not completely honest, I trusted him immensely and was willing to give almost all my sincerity in this relationship. I still felt that I was independent during this process, and acknowledging such a relationship would make my life richer and more interesting, and I could manage all this together, which would bring a sense of achievement. But it was not to the extent of love above all else. I also believed that being fully open about everything was not a problem because I trusted enough and always thought I could bear the risk of being hurt because I believed that, no matter what, it was an experience and growth. I just didn’t expect it to take this form. Was it wrong to do this without realizing the essence of bourgeois love? I find it hard to accept that being honest and sincere in such a relationship is not allowed and would double the hurt. Does that mean only mutual deception can prevent hurt? Although I understand from your many explanations that tragedy is inevitable, I still worry whether I shouldn’t have given so much in the past. I want to know if my mistake was only in not seeing these essentials clearly, or if the way I sincerely treat a relationship is also wrong. Is complete trust without regard for reciprocation a manifestation of abandoning personal independence?
I will remember this well and will no longer engage in such practices.
I don’t think your two perspectives are correct. Saying that complete trust and selfless sacrifice are too idealized (for the bourgeois) romanticizes the bourgeois love too much. The foundation of bourgeois love is based on exchanges made for oneself, for personal gain. Women who are deceived in such relationships are also pursuing their own happiness, engaging in these relationships with that goal. Ultimately, it’s just for personal or small-family interests, or for private desires, which is why they get deceived. It’s precisely because there’s no true selflessness, no putting aside personal interests, that people fail to see the true nature of bourgeois love and easily believe in those deceptive scumbags. It’s like telecom fraud victims hoping to get rich quickly, which leads to being scammed out of money. Women who are deceived in love are also seeking a reliance, wanting to achieve personal happiness. With this mindset, what’s so selfless about it? So, the lesson learned from being deceived in bourgeois love shouldn’t be to learn to deceive like the scammer, but to thoroughly expose this scam, to stop being deceivers and to stop being deceived. Truly transforming one’s worldview of individualism, abandoning personal interests, and choosing to dedicate oneself to revolution—this is for the collective good, for the revolution, and for the happiness of all humanity. Only through this process can genuine love emerge, because only in a cause where one truly sacrifices personal gains for others can one meet someone like that.
Yes, what I just said about not caring about what is sacrificed also targets this relationship as a small family or from an individualistic perspective. To be precise, it is just about not holding back in treating this relationship.
Is it that when the sacrifices made are solely for this relationship, it already constitutes love supremacy, and then such sacrifices are inherently wrong? I just want to know if my sincere efforts in handling this matter in the past were inherently wrong.
You shouldn’t be so attentive, because you’re using your heart in the wrong place. You’re putting your thoughts into fantasies, into things that capitalism cannot achieve. This is the biggest problem with love supremacy, because real life cannot be love-centric. There are different classes of love: bourgeois love is simply an exchange of interests, while petty bourgeois love is an attempt at equal exchange based on bourgeois foundations. Essentially, they are the same.
It’s not wrong to put effort into love, but it’s already wrong to have illusions about capitalist-style love itself. It’s like a person falling into poverty and wasting all their energy on buying lottery tickets. Or like a worker trying to keep their job and wages, and wasting all their energy pleasing capitalists.
To achieve true happiness, one must place their personal happiness below collective interests. Marx told us that the happiest person is the one who brings happiness to others.
