u/pictochatkat

Confession/Rant: I’ve struggled with codependency for a long time, and I’m really hoping someone here has been through something similar because I genuinely feel stuck.

My ex and I were together for about seven years on and off. We broke up for around six months, eventually started seeing each other again, and honestly I never pushed hard enough to define what we were. Looking back, I know that was probably a mistake.

The hardest part is that even though we technically didn’t have a label, he was constantly telling me he loved me, that he was in love with me, and acting like we were rebuilding our relationship. He basically lived with me for almost three months. We spent holidays together, slept together, planned things together. It really felt like we were finding our way back to each other.

At the same time, he was seeing someone else.
I only found out afterward that while he was telling me he was with his family or busy, he was actually getting hotel rooms with another woman while she was away coaching soccer tournaments. Every single time I had a gut feeling and asked him if he was sleeping with anyone else, he’d beat around the bush, avoid the question, or give me some vague answer that never actually answered what I was asking.

I know people are probably going to say, “Well, you weren’t officially together.” I get that.

But if he truly believed there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, why lie? Why hide it? Why tell me you loved me? Why let me believe we were rebuilding something while actively pursuing someone else? That’s the part that completely broke me.

Eventually everything came out, and it shattered my trust. I know now I can’t go back. Even if he wanted to, I don’t think I’d ever be able to trust him again. But here’s what I’m actually struggling with:

I cannot stop checking his social media.

I’ve blocked him everywhere, but I still have alternate accounts. Every time I notice his following count goes up, I get this overwhelming urge to look. It’s honestly like an adrenaline rush. My brain convinces me that I have to know.
And almost every single time it’s another woman. Then I spiral.

I compare myself to her. I wonder why I wasn’t enough.
I wonder why he seems to move on so easily. I end up hurting my own feelings over and over again.

The weird part is I don’t even think I’m checking because I necessarily want him back. I think I’m checking because throughout our relationship there was always another secret. There was always something being withheld from me. My gut would tell me something wasn’t right, I’d ask him directly, and I’d never get a straight answer. Eventually I’d end up finding out on my own that my gut was right.
I basically trained myself to become hypervigilant because I had to be. I learned that if I wanted the truth, I usually had to go looking for it because I wasn’t going to get it from him.

Now the relationship is actually over, but I can’t seem to shut that part of my brain off.

It’s like my brain still believes there’s another piece of the puzzle out there, and if I could just find it, everything would finally make sense.

To make things even more confusing, he’s not completely gone either. He actually broke no contact on Memorial Day to reach out to me. He told me that he and the woman he cheated on me with weren’t together anymore because he “didn’t want me to think our beautiful relationship ended because he chose someone over me.” He still watches all of my stories too.

But then I look at his following and it feels like there’s a new woman every week.

So which is it?
Was I actually special?
Was I just another girl?
Is he lonely?
Is he trying to fill a void?

Or is he genuinely happier without me?

I know I’ll probably never get those answers, and logically I know they wouldn’t actually change anything if I did.

Everyone tells me to “just stop checking.” Trust me, I know.I wish it were that easy.

I keep trying to fake it until I make it. I stay busy. I work. I go out with friends. I’ve been trying to distract myself as much as possible. Some days I actually feel okay.

Then I see that following number change, and before I even have time to think, I’m already looking.
It’s like a compulsion.

For anyone who’s dealt with codependency after being lied to for years, does this ever actually stop? Did you eventually stop caring? Did you have to actively break the habit? Or did you just keep faking it until one day you realized you hadn’t checked in a while?

I know checking only hurts me. I know every single time I do it, I’m choosing pain.

I just don’t know how to convince the emotional part of my brain that there isn’t anything left to find.

TLDR: My ex and I were together on and off for seven years. While we were rebuilding our relationship, he was secretly seeing someone else and lying to me whenever I asked about it, which taught me to constantly search for the truth on my own. Now that it’s truly over, I can’t stop compulsively checking his social media, even though I know it only hurts me. Has anyone else with codependency dealt with this, and did the urge to check ever actually go away?

Confession/Rant: I’ve struggled with codependency for a long time, and I’m really hoping someone here has been through something similar because I genuinely feel stuck.

My ex and I were together for about seven years on and off. We broke up for around six months, eventually started seeing each other again, and honestly I never pushed hard enough to define what we were. Looking back, I know that was probably a mistake.

The hardest part is that even though we technically didn’t have a label, he was constantly telling me he loved me, that he was in love with me, and acting like we were rebuilding our relationship. He basically lived with me for almost three months. We spent holidays together, slept together, planned things together. It really felt like we were finding our way back to each other.

At the same time, he was seeing someone else.
I only found out afterward that while he was telling me he was with his family or busy, he was actually getting hotel rooms with another woman while she was away coaching soccer tournaments. Every single time I had a gut feeling and asked him if he was sleeping with anyone else, he’d beat around the bush, avoid the question, or give me some vague answer that never actually answered what I was asking.

I know people are probably going to say, “Well, you weren’t officially together.” I get that.

But if he truly believed there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, why lie? Why hide it? Why tell me you loved me? Why let me believe we were rebuilding something while actively pursuing someone else? That’s the part that completely broke me.

Eventually everything came out, and it shattered my trust. I know now I can’t go back. Even if he wanted to, I don’t think I’d ever be able to trust him again. But here’s what I’m actually struggling with:

I cannot stop checking his social media.

I’ve blocked him everywhere, but I still have alternate accounts. Every time I notice his following count goes up, I get this overwhelming urge to look. It’s honestly like an adrenaline rush. My brain convinces me that I have to know.
And almost every single time it’s another woman. Then I spiral.

I compare myself to her. I wonder why I wasn’t enough.
I wonder why he seems to move on so easily. I end up hurting my own feelings over and over again.

The weird part is I don’t even think I’m checking because I necessarily want him back. I think I’m checking because throughout our relationship there was always another secret. There was always something being withheld from me. My gut would tell me something wasn’t right, I’d ask him directly, and I’d never get a straight answer. Eventually I’d end up finding out on my own that my gut was right.
I basically trained myself to become hypervigilant because I had to be. I learned that if I wanted the truth, I usually had to go looking for it because I wasn’t going to get it from him.

Now the relationship is actually over, but I can’t seem to shut that part of my brain off.

It’s like my brain still believes there’s another piece of the puzzle out there, and if I could just find it, everything would finally make sense.

To make things even more confusing, he’s not completely gone either. He actually broke no contact on Memorial Day to reach out to me. He told me that he and the woman he cheated on me with weren’t together anymore because he “didn’t want me to think our beautiful relationship ended because he chose someone over me.” He still watches all of my stories too.

But then I look at his following and it feels like there’s a new woman every week.

So which is it?
Was I actually special?
Was I just another girl?
Is he lonely?
Is he trying to fill a void?

Or is he genuinely happier without me?

I know I’ll probably never get those answers, and logically I know they wouldn’t actually change anything if I did.

Everyone tells me to “just stop checking.” Trust me, I know.I wish it were that easy.

I keep trying to fake it until I make it. I stay busy. I work. I go out with friends. I’ve been trying to distract myself as much as possible. Some days I actually feel okay.

Then I see that following number change, and before I even have time to think, I’m already looking.
It’s like a compulsion.

For anyone who’s dealt with codependency after being lied to for years, does this ever actually stop? Did you eventually stop caring? Did you have to actively break the habit? Or did you just keep faking it until one day you realized you hadn’t checked in a while?

I know checking only hurts me. I know every single time I do it, I’m choosing pain.

I just don’t know how to convince the emotional part of my brain that there isn’t anything left to find.

TLDR: My ex and I were together on and off for seven years. While we were rebuilding our relationship, he was secretly seeing someone else and lying to me whenever I asked about it, which taught me to constantly search for the truth on my own. Now that it’s truly over, I can’t stop compulsively checking his social media, even though I know it only hurts me. Has anyone else with codependency dealt with this, and did the urge to check ever actually go away?

Confession/Rant: I’ve struggled with codependency for a long time, and I’m really hoping someone here has been through something similar because I genuinely feel stuck.

My ex and I were together for about seven years on and off. We broke up for around six months, eventually started seeing each other again, and honestly I never pushed hard enough to define what we were. Looking back, I know that was probably a mistake.

The hardest part is that even though we technically didn’t have a label, he was constantly telling me he loved me, that he was in love with me, and acting like we were rebuilding our relationship. He basically lived with me for almost three months. We spent holidays together, slept together, planned things together. It really felt like we were finding our way back to each other.

At the same time, he was seeing someone else.
I only found out afterward that while he was telling me he was with his family or busy, he was actually getting hotel rooms with another woman while she was away coaching soccer tournaments. Every single time I had a gut feeling and asked him if he was sleeping with anyone else, he’d beat around the bush, avoid the question, or give me some vague answer that never actually answered what I was asking.

I know people are probably going to say, “Well, you weren’t officially together.” I get that.

But if he truly believed there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, why lie? Why hide it? Why tell me you loved me? Why let me believe we were rebuilding something while actively pursuing someone else? That’s the part that completely broke me.

Eventually everything came out, and it shattered my trust. I know now I can’t go back. Even if he wanted to, I don’t think I’d ever be able to trust him again. But here’s what I’m actually struggling with:

I cannot stop checking his social media.

I’ve blocked him everywhere, but I still have alternate accounts. Every time I notice his following count goes up, I get this overwhelming urge to look. It’s honestly like an adrenaline rush. My brain convinces me that I have to know.
And almost every single time it’s another woman. Then I spiral.

I compare myself to her. I wonder why I wasn’t enough.
I wonder why he seems to move on so easily. I end up hurting my own feelings over and over again.

The weird part is I don’t even think I’m checking because I necessarily want him back. I think I’m checking because throughout our relationship there was always another secret. There was always something being withheld from me. My gut would tell me something wasn’t right, I’d ask him directly, and I’d never get a straight answer. Eventually I’d end up finding out on my own that my gut was right.
I basically trained myself to become hypervigilant because I had to be. I learned that if I wanted the truth, I usually had to go looking for it because I wasn’t going to get it from him.

Now the relationship is actually over, but I can’t seem to shut that part of my brain off.

It’s like my brain still believes there’s another piece of the puzzle out there, and if I could just find it, everything would finally make sense.

To make things even more confusing, he’s not completely gone either. He actually broke no contact on Memorial Day to reach out to me. He told me that he and the woman he cheated on me with weren’t together anymore because he “didn’t want me to think our beautiful relationship ended because he chose someone over me.” He still watches all of my stories too.

But then I look at his following and it feels like there’s a new woman every week.

So which is it?
Was I actually special?
Was I just another girl?
Is he lonely?
Is he trying to fill a void?

Or is he genuinely happier without me?

I know I’ll probably never get those answers, and logically I know they wouldn’t actually change anything if I did.

Everyone tells me to “just stop checking.” Trust me, I know.I wish it were that easy.

I keep trying to fake it until I make it. I stay busy. I work. I go out with friends. I’ve been trying to distract myself as much as possible. Some days I actually feel okay.

Then I see that following number change, and before I even have time to think, I’m already looking.
It’s like a compulsion.

For anyone who’s dealt with codependency after being lied to for years, does this ever actually stop? Did you eventually stop caring? Did you have to actively break the habit? Or did you just keep faking it until one day you realized you hadn’t checked in a while?

I know checking only hurts me. I know every single time I do it, I’m choosing pain.

I just don’t know how to convince the emotional part of my brain that there isn’t anything left to find.

TLDR: My ex and I were together on and off for seven years. While we were rebuilding our relationship, he was secretly seeing someone else and lying to me whenever I asked about it, which taught me to constantly search for the truth on my own. Now that it’s truly over, I can’t stop compulsively checking his social media, even though I know it only hurts me. Has anyone else with codependency dealt with this, and did the urge to check ever actually go away?

TLDR Looking to hire someone reasonably priced to help me declutter, organize, and get rid of a lot of stuff in my alcove studio.

I feel like I’ve reached the point where I need help from someone who’s good at organizing and purging. I live in an alcove studio and have years’ worth of clothes, shoes, and random stuff that I’ve accumulated. I’ve hired a professional organizer before and have had friends help with certain areas, but I still don’t really have a system.

Honestly, I used to have a cleaning lady and eventually stopped having her come because I felt embarrassed. My apartment isn’t dirty and it’s completely livable, but I just have so much stuff. I always felt bad paying someone to clean when the bigger issue is that I need help figuring out what to keep, what to donate, and what to throw away.

I think I’m too emotionally attached to things and get overwhelmed trying to do it myself. I don’t even know where a lot of things should live, so every time I clean up, the clutter eventually comes back.

Looking for someone patient and practical who can help me make decisions, purge, organize, and create systems that actually stick. Professional organizer or otherwise. If you’ve hired someone you loved, I’d really appreciate any recommendations.

TLDR Looking to hire someone reasonably priced to help me declutter, organize, and get rid of a lot of stuff in my alcove studio.

I feel like I’ve reached the point where I need help from someone who’s good at organizing and purging. I live in an alcove studio and have years’ worth of clothes, shoes, and random stuff that I’ve accumulated. I’ve hired a professional organizer before and have had friends help with certain areas, but I still don’t really have a system.

Honestly, I used to have a cleaning lady and eventually stopped having her come because I felt embarrassed. My apartment isn’t dirty and it’s completely livable, but I just have so much stuff. I always felt bad paying someone to clean when the bigger issue is that I need help figuring out what to keep, what to donate, and what to throw away.

I think I’m too emotionally attached to things and get overwhelmed trying to do it myself. I don’t even know where a lot of things should live, so every time I clean up, the clutter eventually comes back.

Looking for someone patient and practical who can help me make decisions, purge, organize, and create systems that actually stick. Professional organizer or otherwise. If you’ve hired someone you loved, I’d really appreciate any recommendations.

TLDR Looking to hire someone reasonably priced to help me declutter, organize, and get rid of a lot of stuff in my alcove studio.

I feel like I’ve reached the point where I need help from someone who’s good at organizing and purging. I live in an alcove studio and have years’ worth of clothes, shoes, and random stuff that I’ve accumulated. I’ve hired a professional organizer before and have had friends help with certain areas, but I still don’t really have a system.

Honestly, I used to have a cleaning lady and eventually stopped having her come because I felt embarrassed. My apartment isn’t dirty and it’s completely livable, but I just have so much stuff. I always felt bad paying someone to clean when the bigger issue is that I need help figuring out what to keep, what to donate, and what to throw away.

I think I’m too emotionally attached to things and get overwhelmed trying to do it myself. I don’t even know where a lot of things should live, so every time I clean up, the clutter eventually comes back.

Looking for someone patient and practical who can help me make decisions, purge, organize, and create systems that actually stick. Professional organizer or otherwise. If you’ve hired someone you loved, I’d really appreciate any recommendations.

My ex broke no contact today after weeks just to basically tell me “I didn’t choose someone else over you” and then immediately tell me I’m not supposed to respond and that we’re “continuing no contact.” Like ????

Meanwhile this is the same man who spent months telling me he loved me, sleeping at my apartment, being intimate with me, acting like we were rebuilding our relationship — all while apparently building something with someone else behind my back.

And now he suddenly needed to “clear my mind” for me. Convenient.

Honestly it read more like guilt management than genuine care. Like he wanted to rewrite history so he didn’t have to feel like the bad guy anymore.

So yes, I called and left a voicemail because absolutely the fuck not are you gonna break no contact to emotionally dump on me and then tell me I’m not allowed to answer.

Basically told him: you don’t get to decide how I react to something YOU initiated. And regardless of whatever technicality you’re trying to hide behind, you still lied to my face every day. You still told me you loved me while building intimacy with somebody else. That IS choosing other people over me whether you want to admit it or not.

And honestly? If this message was actually for me, maybe it would’ve come weeks ago when I was genuinely drowning trying to understand what happened. But instead it feels like he waited until it emotionally benefited HIM to say something. So stop acting like this was some selfless act because you care.

I don’t even want him back. I just genuinely think he’s cowardly.

I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore.

I’ve tried to be rational about this situation. I’ve tried to tell myself it ended for a reason. I’ve tried to distract myself, go out, date other people, focus on work, talk to friends, all of it. But every single night my brain goes right back to him and everything that happened.

My ex and I reconnected after already having history together, and we became deeply emotionally involved again almost immediately. We talked every day, spent all our time together, slept together, emotionally relied on each other, acted like a full couple, and rebuilt this intense attachment, except without clear labels or boundaries.

And because of that ambiguity, I think I spent months trying to convince myself that what we had was still safe and real even while my intuition was screaming that something was wrong.

I noticed shifts in energy. Random girls. Inconsistency. Distance. Times where things just didn’t fully add up. But whenever I would question things, I somehow ended up feeling like I was overthinking or being insecure.

Then he admitted that since FEBRUARY he had been seeing and sleeping with another girl and intentionally chose not to tell me while still continuing our emotional relationship the entire time.

That information genuinely broke me.

Because it completely changed the reality I thought I was living in. While I was emotionally attached to him, trying to rebuild trust and closeness, he was literally building a separate relationship behind my back and just… withholding it from me.

And now I feel stuck in this horrible cycle where I cannot stop replaying everything. Every conversation. Every inconsistency. Every gut feeling I ignored. Every moment I felt anxious and got told I was overthinking.

Everyone keeps saying “go to therapy,” “move on,” “block him,” “focus on yourself,” etc. And maybe they’re right. But the truth is I still want to call him. I want to yell at him. I want to ask him how someone can emotionally attach themselves to a person like that while knowingly betraying them at the same time.

Do I think he cares the way I care? Honestly no.
Do I think he’s still with the girl? Probably yes.
Do I think contacting him would even help? Probably not.

But I also feel like this situation is haunting me and I don’t know how to escape it mentally. I sit here night after night overanalyzing everything and trying to understand what was real and what wasn’t.

I think the hardest part is realizing that the relationship changed me psychologically. I don’t feel calm anymore. I don’t feel secure anymore. I don’t even recognize myself sometimes because I’ve become so hypervigilant and obsessive over details after spending so long sensing that something was wrong while being reassured that it wasn’t.

I just genuinely don’t know how people move on from this kind of betrayal without carrying it into every future relationship.

I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore.

I’ve tried to be rational about this situation. I’ve tried to tell myself it ended for a reason. I’ve tried to distract myself, go out, date other people, focus on work, talk to friends, all of it. But every single night my brain goes right back to him and everything that happened.

My ex and I reconnected after already having history together, and we became deeply emotionally involved again almost immediately. We talked every day, spent all our time together, slept together, emotionally relied on each other, acted like a full couple, and rebuilt this intense attachment, except without clear labels or boundaries.

And because of that ambiguity, I think I spent months trying to convince myself that what we had was still safe and real even while my intuition was screaming that something was wrong.

I noticed shifts in energy. Random girls. Inconsistency. Distance. Times where things just didn’t fully add up. But whenever I would question things, I somehow ended up feeling like I was overthinking or being insecure.

Then he admitted that since FEBRUARY he had been seeing and sleeping with another girl and intentionally chose not to tell me while still continuing our emotional relationship the entire time.

That information genuinely broke me.

Because it completely changed the reality I thought I was living in. While I was emotionally attached to him, trying to rebuild trust and closeness, he was literally building a separate relationship behind my back and just… withholding it from me.

And now I feel stuck in this horrible cycle where I cannot stop replaying everything. Every conversation. Every inconsistency. Every gut feeling I ignored. Every moment I felt anxious and got told I was overthinking.

Everyone keeps saying “go to therapy,” “move on,” “block him,” “focus on yourself,” etc. And maybe they’re right. But the truth is I still want to call him. I want to yell at him. I want to ask him how someone can emotionally attach themselves to a person like that while knowingly betraying them at the same time.

Do I think he cares the way I care? Honestly no.
Do I think he’s still with the girl? Probably yes.
Do I think contacting him would even help? Probably not.

But I also feel like this situation is haunting me and I don’t know how to escape it mentally. I sit here night after night overanalyzing everything and trying to understand what was real and what wasn’t.

I think the hardest part is realizing that the relationship changed me psychologically. I don’t feel calm anymore. I don’t feel secure anymore. I don’t even recognize myself sometimes because I’ve become so hypervigilant and obsessive over details after spending so long sensing that something was wrong while being reassured that it wasn’t.

I just genuinely don’t know how people move on from this kind of betrayal without carrying it into every future relationship.

I’ve honestly been carrying this around for months and I think part of me just needs to say it out loud because I still feel so messed up by the entire situation.

My ex and I had history together already, and after reconnecting, things became intense almost immediately. We talked constantly every single day, spent all our time together, slept together, emotionally relied on each other, acted fully like a couple, and built this extremely deep attachment again. It felt like we had naturally fallen back into a relationship, except every time I tried to get clarity on what we actually were, it somehow stayed vague.

And I ignored that because I loved him and because the relationship felt real. We weren’t casually dating. We were emotionally intertwined in every way. He would talk to me about personal things, future things, reassure me, spend nights with me, make me feel chosen one minute and then confusingly distant the next.

Over time, though, I started feeling anxious constantly. I noticed random girls. Weird energy shifts. Inconsistency. Times where I felt like something was off but couldn’t prove it. I would bring things up and somehow always ended up feeling like I was overthinking or being insecure. So I started questioning myself instead.

Meanwhile, while all of this was happening, while I was fully emotionally invested in him and trying to make sense of the relationship, he admitted that since FEBRUARY he had been seeing and sleeping with another girl and intentionally chose not to tell me.

That part honestly broke something in me.

Because it wasn’t just random hookup behavior after a clean breakup. He was still actively maintaining an emotional relationship with me at the same time. Talking to me every day. Letting me stay attached to him. Letting me believe we were rebuilding something real while he knowingly withheld the fact that another woman existed in the picture the entire time.

And what makes it even harder is that my intuition KNEW. My body knew something was wrong long before I had proof. I became anxious, hypervigilant, obsessive over tiny changes in tone or behavior because deep down I could feel the inconsistency between what he was saying and what was actually happening. But instead of trusting myself, I kept trying to be understanding and chill and not “crazy.”

Now looking back, I realize how emotionally damaging it is to be in a relationship where you are operating from genuine love and attachment while the other person is quietly keeping options open behind your back.

I genuinely think the experience changed my brain chemistry when it comes to dating. I overanalyze everything now. I struggle to trust people. I struggle to believe consistency is real. The second someone becomes vague or avoidant, I spiral because I remember how stupid I felt finding out the person I loved had been living an entirely separate reality without my knowledge.

And the worst part is I still miss him sometimes despite everything, which makes me feel even more pathetic somehow.

I don’t know. I think I just needed to get this out because it’s been really hard trying to process how someone can emotionally attach themselves to you so deeply while also betraying you at the exact same time.

whenever I would fight with my mom or go home or deal with her bullshit, I always felt like I had you in my corner and someone to understand how she treated me was wrong.

you treated me wrong and a completely worst way, but I still want to reach out for you in comfort in time like this.

i miss you so much but i also hate what you did to me

i’m genuinely trying to understand this and i feel like i’m going a little crazy thinking about it

i just went through a situation where my ex was basically living a double life. we were together for years, reconnected recently, he was staying at my place, telling me he loved me, we were having unprotected sex, all of it

and at the same time, he was seeing another girl. like full on valentines day weekend hotel, continuing to see her, lying to both of us

i found out, ended it, had him get his things, etc

now here’s the part i can’t stop thinking about

i’ve been debating whether or not to tell her. and something that keeps coming up from friends, and even my therapist, is that there’s a good chance she either wouldn’t believe me or wouldn’t care

and that’s what’s actually messing with me the most

because i don’t understand that mindset at all

like if i were dating a guy and i found out there was another woman who had been with him long-term, living with him, having unprotected sex with him, and had actual proof of that, i would want to know everything. i would ask questions. i would want the full picture

even something as simple as seeing an old but clearly serious post from years ago, i would at least ask about it. not in a jealous or threatened way, just in a “who is this person in your life” way

so i don’t understand why the default assumption is that women won’t believe other women in these situations

or worse, that they do believe it and just choose to ignore it

i keep thinking like… if women support women, if we’re all supposed to be “girls’ girls,” why does it feel like in these situations that completely goes out the window?

and i’m trying to check myself too

part of me wants to tell her because i genuinely feel like she deserves to know. i was in the dark for months and it affected my health and my ability to make decisions

but another part of me is like, am i just not fully detached yet? am i still trying to insert myself into the situation in some way?

and then another part of me is just stuck on the question of… why would someone choose to stay with a man like that, even if they knew?

that’s honestly what’s driving me the most crazy

is it denial? is it that people don’t want to “lose”? is it that they don’t want to believe they’re being lied to?

i just don’t understand why the instinct wouldn’t be to trust another woman who has nothing to gain from lying

has anyone been on either side of this?

like have you told someone and they didn’t believe you? or have you been told something like this and ignored it?

i feel like i’m missing something about how people think in these situations because in my head it seems so obvious