fairestcat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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agonyaunt2018-12-09 11:36 am
fairestcat) wrote in agonyaunt2018-12-09 11:36 am
Entry tags:
Tough Love: I Taught My Girlfriend to BASE Jump and It Scares Me
And now a more serious one:
My girlfriend and I met while she was going through a breakup. She wanted to learn BASE jumping, so I taught her before we started dating. Once things got romantic and she wanted to learn trad climbing and BASE jumping in new places, I wanted to do this stuff with her less and less because I would feel so terrible if she got hurt from something I taught her. What do I do?
Do you think your girlfriend is being reckless, or is more likely to get hurt than you are? If so, it’s worth sitting down and discussing your worries. There is a small chance, since she was going through a breakup at the time she started BASE jumping, that she’s drawn to adrenaline as a way to dull difficult emotions. If this is the case, it’s not your role to police her search for adrenaline; it’s to help her process those emotions. It’s also possible that your girlfriend wanted to learn about BASE jumping, in part, because of that one super-cute instructor—even if she went on to love the adventure for its own sake. She should know that even though you met her through BASE jumping, you adore her whether or not she decides that extreme sports are her thing.
My hunch, though, is that your girlfriend loves BASE jumping for the same reasons you do: the freedom, the rush, the way the world shrinks away and grows toward her. Your main job, as a supportive partner, is to celebrate her newfound passion just as you would one of your own.
It’s natural to feel nervous when your beautiful new girlfriend steps to the lip of a cliff, falls off the edge, and plummets like a wingless bird toward the waiting rocks below. But the humility might be good for you. After all, that fear you feel? That’s what all your loved ones feel, too, every time you jump into the sky. I’m not saying you shouldn’t jump off cliffs, of course; that’s your joy, your decision. I’m just saying that if you told your mom you’d talk to her at 5 p.m. afterward, you should call her at 4:52.
For now, be honest about how you feel. You are not responsible for your girlfriend’s decisions, but you also don’t have to continue teaching a loved one a dangerous sport if you’re uncomfortable doing so. Help her find a new instructor whom you trust—maybe even the person who taught you—and make sure she knows that you’re proud of her and believe in her. Then step back and watch her fly.
My girlfriend and I met while she was going through a breakup. She wanted to learn BASE jumping, so I taught her before we started dating. Once things got romantic and she wanted to learn trad climbing and BASE jumping in new places, I wanted to do this stuff with her less and less because I would feel so terrible if she got hurt from something I taught her. What do I do?
Do you think your girlfriend is being reckless, or is more likely to get hurt than you are? If so, it’s worth sitting down and discussing your worries. There is a small chance, since she was going through a breakup at the time she started BASE jumping, that she’s drawn to adrenaline as a way to dull difficult emotions. If this is the case, it’s not your role to police her search for adrenaline; it’s to help her process those emotions. It’s also possible that your girlfriend wanted to learn about BASE jumping, in part, because of that one super-cute instructor—even if she went on to love the adventure for its own sake. She should know that even though you met her through BASE jumping, you adore her whether or not she decides that extreme sports are her thing.
My hunch, though, is that your girlfriend loves BASE jumping for the same reasons you do: the freedom, the rush, the way the world shrinks away and grows toward her. Your main job, as a supportive partner, is to celebrate her newfound passion just as you would one of your own.
It’s natural to feel nervous when your beautiful new girlfriend steps to the lip of a cliff, falls off the edge, and plummets like a wingless bird toward the waiting rocks below. But the humility might be good for you. After all, that fear you feel? That’s what all your loved ones feel, too, every time you jump into the sky. I’m not saying you shouldn’t jump off cliffs, of course; that’s your joy, your decision. I’m just saying that if you told your mom you’d talk to her at 5 p.m. afterward, you should call her at 4:52.
For now, be honest about how you feel. You are not responsible for your girlfriend’s decisions, but you also don’t have to continue teaching a loved one a dangerous sport if you’re uncomfortable doing so. Help her find a new instructor whom you trust—maybe even the person who taught you—and make sure she knows that you’re proud of her and believe in her. Then step back and watch her fly.
no subject
The line between "I'm not comfortable continuing to teach you to do this thing," and "I'm not comfortable with you continuing to do this thing" is important. The first is a legitimate boundary, the second is not.
I do think Blair missed something important here though. If the LW is teaching their girlfriend these skills, than presumably they're doing them together. If LW is no longer comfortable with that, their girlfriend might be quite reasonably upset, and that's something they should probably acknowledge going in.
no subject
I'd argue that this is the kind of thing you probably shouldn't learn from an SO, anyway, unless you're an excellent, well-trained, certified instructor who has been taught how to teach loved ones. Teaching (or any sort of management or leadership position) is more complex with a loved one for any number of reasons, and most organizations tend to avoid it when possible.
It's more important here. If you're following your curriculum for, say, a programming class, and you tell your girlfriend for the seventh time, "you must run the tests before you compile", and she snaps at you, so you don't check her work because it makes you sad when she's grumpy, she might accidentally delete the database. If you're teaching her BASE jumping and you don't check her work, she could die. She should have another teacher, and there's probably an ethics document out there somewhere that says so, and you can show her that in the conversation.