My (30/m) girlfriend (27/f) has always had a pessimistic and misanthropic side to her whereas I’m more humanistic and optimistic (we’ve been together for almost 1 year). Sometimes she can say some very mean things about humanity and other people she knows like work colleagues. But I mostly tolerated this because I felt her pessimism and antihuman views are a product of bad childhood experiences and maybe depression. Despite that, she’s very loyal to the people close to her in life, she’s always been kind and caring to me, so I felt she has her good side too. I have in the past told her that I don’t expect her to be positive about humanity, but the nasty stuff she says does upset me. She said she’d try to improve and think differently. She refuses to see a therapist about it due to the expense (we live in a place where mental health awareness is not as acknowledged as other places).
However, she recently said something that disgusted me. She told me that after she dies she would not want her organs donated because nobody else deserves a chance at life. I can understand being against organ donation for very private reasons, but to say you’d literally want to deprive someone else of being able to have their life saved sounds pretty horrible to me. I challenged her a bit on this, she admitted she’d give it to somebody she cares about, but beyond that she was very resistant to the idea of organ donation for ethical reasons.
As somebody who generally has a very ethical-conscious way of viewing humanity (my career is geared towards trying to help others), I found this view of hers disturbing and I feel like my attraction for her has dropped quite a lot. I’ve kept these feelings to myself and just continued the relationship like normal. I’ve been doubting whether I’m just overreacting to this, whether it’s fairly normal for other people to think like this and I’m just too judgemental, or something. However, I also feel like it’s fair to be disgusted and disappointed that she’s obviously not making any effort to change these views. If anything, she’s getting worse. How should I approach this situation?
**Tl;DR Girlfriend who has always been a pessimistic and misanthropic type said she would not want her organs donated after death because nobody else deserves a chance at life. I feel disgusted by this view and don’t know how to feel about her after she said something like that.**
5 comments
>How should I approach this situation?
By taking the time to analyze your relationship, consider things like “sunk cost fallacy”, and deciding if you two are as compatible as a long term relationship couple need to be for a harmonious relationship. Unfortunately, it’s a decision that only you can make.
I’m very much in the “help others” camp. I’ve been known to say “a rising tide lifts all boats, be the tide”. I’m overly generous with my time and I’m an organ donor.
But I also get that some people don’t want to be for whatever reasons they may have. Do I agree with their viewpoint? No, and that’s why I don’t spend a lot of time with people like that if I can avoid it. I just can’t be that close to someone so lacking in empathy.
That’s me though, not you. You have to decide if this is something you can accept or if it’s something that makes you two fundamentally incompatible. Neither answer is fully right, neither answer is fully wrong. They’re just answers that you need to determine for yourself and accept the outcomes of whatever actions you may take.
I was struck by your line that you tolerated a critical part of your girlfriend’s worldview because you had, or made, excuses for it. I don’t think a relationship is sustainable if we tolerate, rather than fully accept, key aspects of our partner’s character. Because eventually you come up to the edge of your tolerance. Which seems to be where you’re at. To be clear: I don’t think that you have to accept this aspect of your girlfriend. I do think that you want to be with someone who has core values that you don’t have to learn to tolerate.
>She told me that after she dies she would not want her organs donated because nobody else deserves a chance at life.
This is so cartoonishly awful that I’m assuming it’s just silly rage bait.
If someone I loved said something like that, I’d assume they were severely depressed and in need of mental health counseling. That’s just not the thought process of a healthy person, even a healthy angry person. That’s the sort of shit you think up when you’re spiraling inwardly and looking to take it out on the very *idea* of people.
You say she had a rough upbringing. Do you know if she’s ever sought trauma therapy for it? Because it definitely sounds like she could use some.
This organ donation question is such an unlikely hypothetical that I think you need to scratch it off your list of grievances. Getting mad/upset over a hypothetical issue (that doesn’t concern you and would mean that she is dead) is a huge waste of time and energy. Stay or go, but drop this as one of your reasons. “Expecting her to change” is like expecting to win the lottery.