What’s something that happened to you that changed you as a man

28 comments

  4. My wife was fired from her job in a technically legal way and made to sign a hush agreement NDA while 35 weeks pregnant.

    It made me realize that life isn’t fair and that other people go through levels of discrimination and experiences that I fundamentally never will go through.

    Have compassion for what someone else, from a different perspective than yours, goes through.

    There’s no shame in accepting that other people might have difficulties that you don’t face, there’s only shame in trying to pretend that your life experiences are universal and to be too prideful to ever listen to anybody else that might have had the same thing be so much more difficult for them than it is for you.

  6. I held my 8 month old son while he was having (what we thought was) an allergic reaction, waiting for the ambulance to come, when suddenly he went completely limp and his eyes rolled back. About 45 seconds later (or 5? Or 20? time kinda stopped) he came back and was ok, but it fundamentally changed my life and how I view and think about things. I can’t really articulate it, but in my mind my life has a very clear “before” and “after” that incident.

  8. Had to live by myself as a Mama’s boy at 19 yr old with all my family in a different continent and no way to see them. Knew nothing about anything either.

  9. 1. Social rejection/exile
    2. Losing my mother -because she babied me. The lack of self mediation experience made her death the unavoidable onset of a long journey of simply figuring shit out quick.

  14. Lost a girl I was with for a loooong time that I thought I’d be with forever. Was never the same since. In some ways better. In some ways worse. Just wish it would’ve happened sooner. When I was younger. Dated a ton of chicks since but meh.

  16. Lived long enough to realise that *anyone* can change.

    I think we like to think that our personalty or soul is like the same app or computer program our whole lives, but really it shifts and changes, we are made up of a lot of variables, things are both added and taken away, in the end there can be a total wipeout and you eventually have a different person.

    And so a person can still be walking around, but that collection of stuff that once constituted the personality that appealed to you is now gone.

    It can happen to anyone, fickle people who change, or somebody who doesn’t change for 20 years. It can happen due to huge life events, or for no reason.

    We’re all scared of our loved ones dying but we don’t live in fear of them irrevocably changing, even though it is quite common.

    The secret is learning to be happy with yourself and your own life, and then it won’t matter if people change and you have to say goodbye.

  17. Had a falling out with a good friend/love interest, broke my heart and led me on a horrible journey of self reflection. I hated what it made me see but guess reality is awful.

  19. Kind of the opposite of a lot of these. I joined a 12 step program called Adult Children of Alcoholics. That taught me that a lot of my unhappiness stemmed from the family that I grew up in, that alcohol was not going to help that, and that only I was going to fix my life.

    From there to 25 years of men’s groups, I have been on a journey of recovery where every year I get slightly less crazy and have slightly more fun.

  20. Found out my “soulmate” didn’t feel the same way.

    Lost a lot of naivety and innocence in that growing process, but it’s how young souls become wiser.

  21. Holding a dying man, after having to shoot him, and then trying to save his life.

    War is hell.

    I’m not special in learning the lessons of war, so don’t pity me.

    * thanks everyone for the comments and love. It’s much appreciated!

  22. 12/31/2009:

    In Afghanistan, my unit was one of the best of its type at that time; A Forward Surgical Trauma team. We had a 99% save rate on definite life or death surgery for the year. The two we lost, one was burned over 90% of his body. The other? A soldier who got stabbed by another soldier over a “FOB bunny”. Came to us because the other guy thought she was his and stabbed this dude. We cracked his chest and I was manually compressing his heart as we tried to save him.

    Dude lost his life for fucking some woman who was fucking someone else. In Afghanistan; not to a bomb, not to a gunshot, not to any of the other deployment occupational hazards. Some dudes get a thrill out of taking a woman from another relationship. Some dudes get a thrill from knowing the woman they’re fucking is fucking other people. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it.

    ​

    My team brought in the New Year with the death of this soldier, for the most ridiculous reason. We watched the ball drop in silence.

  23. I gave CPR to a 2-3 year old that drowned in a community hottub.
    Her mom was sitting on her phone and didnt notice her youngest kid wasnt around.
    Heard a child scream ( her brother found her laying on the bottom of the tub)

    It was the longest 10 minutes of my life. I had nightmares for a good while.
    She survived.

  24. Got divorced 6 months ago after a 10 year marriage, now at 34 I’m recording my first record and playing guitar for a living. Never been happier

  25. Uncle I was living with shot and killed himself. Two days later my girlfriend of 6 years broke up with me. 3 months later my little brother died in a motorcycle accident.

  26. Overcoming addiction – I never realized I was playing life on hard mode until I started playing on normal.

    Second is probably losing two relationships that were very dear to me. In hindsight, I was toxic/abusive in both. Hurt people hurt people. I came from a very tumultuous background. But experiencing the loss, realizing my role and mistakes in the situations, and then owning my mistakes and doing my best to never be that person again led to a lot of growth.

    It’s very humbling to realize somewhere along the way you became the bad guy. And it’s humbling to lose all of the things you worked hard to achieve. Loved ones. Careers. Reputations.

    I put myself through so much self development and self-work/therapy I honestly kind of had to reparent myself and tackle all the ways I was raised, so I could actually have and take care of the things and people I wanted in my life. But it worked out well, and I’ve never been more at peace or content with life.

    I still have a lot of guilt for what it cost the others involved. My addiction and behavior. But I’m grateful for what came from the adversity for myself, and from what I can see things have turned out well for the exes too. I thank God/the Universe for it.

  27. My elder cousin had his first baby , a baby girl. I was 17-18 then and was at peak of “Fuck Boy” era. I was excited to meet my baby niece because in my family daughters are rarely born so it was a very happy day to me.
    I was in Euphoria when I held her in my arms , she was tiny and precious. I was happy that day. Excitingly I asked my cousin “okay big brother, what’s next now?”, He answered playfully “nothing much ,I’ll make sure she stays away from guys like you”. I started respecting women from that day and never tried to take advantage of anyone.
    So yeah…. That changed me.

  28. Sexually assaulted by a girl when I was 21, after remaining a virgin for religious reasons.

    The event led to me having a nervous breakdown, because I had no support network in my family, and I did not possess the vocabulary to call it rape.

    Took about 2 weeks of being in my dorm room, peeing in bottles and just trying to survive before I just tried to get back up.

    Failed out of college, but also started dating and entering healthy relationships and eventually learned to forgive myself, be more compassionate with myself, and persevere.

    Went back to school and got a degree and job.

    I don’t really think I’ve worked through the trauma of how I internalized the event, but I’ve been able to share this with a handful of people.

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