this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
41 points (91.8% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35393 readers
5 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

This might sound pretentious or trippy. But it's just a thing I haven't found a proper answer for.

My paternal parts of the family are all dead, no aunts, uncles or cousins alive any longer. My maternal parts of the family suck, they seriously suck, no joke. I decided not to procreate (and had a "few discretions" regarding this) because I didn't want to pass the shitty genes, behaviour or guilt onto another generation.

I have an ex, some relations ago. And I really loved his mother, as a mother. I was a train wreck at one time, and she saved me and took care of me. I don't care that she isn't my real mother. But this was several years ago.

What really hurts is that my siblings and cousins tell me that what I felt for her was fake, as she is not a blood relative. As I have helped her more than I would ever have helped anyone else. I love her, but is it true love to love someone as a mother if they aren't your biological mother?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why not? Especially if other people tell you that your feelings are wrong, you might question them.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why not?

Because there's no reason to do so.

Imagine Sun. It's there. You see it every day. You know it shines in the day.

Do you ask yourself whether it's really there and whether it shines? No, you don't. That's because there's no reason to - you see it every day, you feel its effect. If you didn't, there would be some ground to question its reality. But you do, and therefore you don't ask this question.

Same with love, and not just parental, but any kind of love.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Spoken like someone who hasn't grown up with tons of trauma that makes you question every little thing you feel because you honestly don't know what's normal or "good" or "right". Bad people--especially abusive family--are VERY good at making you question natural inclinations, esp. if they are jealous that you might be finding something good that they haven't managed to grasp.

I hope you understand--because I am telling you, right now--what sort of damage your comment can do to people who were not lucky enough to grow up with a solid, loving foundation at home.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I hope you understand how wrong you are, because I grew up in a family that gave me enough traumas for decades of years. Some didn't heal to this day. You absolutely need to understand it, because your assumptious comment is enabling highly damaging, scornful and stress-inducing style of thinking and commenting, that has no place in online discourse.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I’m sorry, but no.

I THOUGHT loved people who were abusing me, until I saw what REAL love is. I thought I KNEW what love is. I THOUGHT love was, what I now know to be abuse.

It’s absolutely a valid question to ask, and your reply is literally gaslighting.

If you have no frame of reference for a healthy relationship, how do you KNOW it’s good, without asking?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It’s absolutely a valid question to ask, and your reply is literally gaslighting.

It's a valid question, but the answer is also valid and far from gaslighting. The process of questioning one's love/feelings > IS < an indicator, that there's something wrong, that it's not entirely complete, perfect, proper state of affairs.

It applies to many things. If you question your job efficiency, you aren't as efficient as you know you could've been. If you question your happiness, you're not fully happy. If you question your love, or the love someone else should feel towards you... Well, there's some imperfection in it too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

OP seemed very confident that they love the mother figure they’re talking about, they just wanted to know if that counted as loving them “as a mother”. I don’t think asking “what type of love does this count as” is an indicator that you don’t actually love someone. Or, at least, it’s not nearly as strong an indicator as having to ask “do I love them”.

I don’t think it’s uncommon at all to experience love and then have trouble figuring out what exactly caused that feeling—and having to do this questioning doesn’t necessarily imply that the love was imperfect or incomplete.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't see it that way.

You don't question what you feel is truth. And if you do it - enough that it warrants an online search - then it is a strong indicator, that there might, indeed, be some crack in the wall, so to speak.

Bear in mind that I acknowledge the vastness between "it's x" and "it's not x". I simply point out that if one questions himself, then it's "the vastness" territory already, rather than "it's x". How far it is into the "vastness", is entirely different discussion.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think that’s an unnecessarily high standard to hold love to before it starts to count as “true”. Though, at that point, we’re just arguing semantics. I agree that there’s many things love can be between “not love” and “true love”. I’m not sure we disagree on how much the love matters, just whether or not it counts as true.

I misinterpreted you saying “if the love can be questioned then it isn’t true” as meaning “if the love can be questioned then it is lesser, and OP is wrong to value their relationship with their ex’s mother so highly”. I see now that that’s not what you meant.

Thank you for responding, and have a good day!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No prob. It's often hard to properly put one's thoughts into words, especially if the language barrier stands in the way...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is a dumb analogy that just doesn't apply here.

OP is saying that she has unique feelings for this person but no point of reference.

As in... we both know the sun is "yellow" but IDK if your yellow is the same as my yellow.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Your analogy is weak.

It doesn't matter how you perceive the color of Sun as long as we both agree to call it "yellow".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Sure mate. That's pretty much exactly my answer to OP.

if loving this woman as a mother feels right to you then that's enough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What's a sun? You're trippin?