MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.
Five years ago, MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive – traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. MJ, who is 38 and works in PR, was looking forward to exploring Zion’s striking scenery; its vast sandstone canyon and pristine wading trails were on the list. But on the morning of their big hike, MJ was not feeling well. She could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.
As they made their way up Angel’s Landing, MJ’s partner started walking faster than her. “I could tell it was getting on his nerves that I was slow,” she said. “I was like, ‘Fuck it, just go ahead of me.’” He did without hesitation.
When she caught up at the top of the mountain, they took a picture together. Then her partner hiked down the mountain with a woman he had met on the way up, leaving MJ to finish by herself. They broke up shortly after that trip. (MJ asked to be referred to by her initials for the sake of speaking openly about a past relationship.)
Last month, MJ opened TikTok and heard the phrase “alpine divorce”, a label she now attaches to her experience in Zion.
I’m really glad to hear that therapy helped you, thank you for sharing that - I hope that helps other men who have similar struggles as you to take the plunge and get the help they need.
On a personal note, though, I just had a quick look at your comments and honestly, it feels like you still have a lot of unresolved issues here that you’d benefit from getting off your chest in a safe environment, so I’d suggest more therapy. I’m sorry that people have hurt you, and that isn’t your fault, but if you continue to let it dominate your life, it will hurt you in ways that you’ll never really understand.
Much love & solidarity.
Right, because you are clearly a therapist and my comments that you find disagreeable clearly mean I have unresolved issues… because if I was ‘healthy’ I’d be in full agreement with you, right? It can’t be there are multiple legitimate viewpoints and people have difference experiences. Nope.
You piss and moan about men, but I doubt you self-reflect enough to ask yourself why it is you have to shame and belittle others if you are such a ‘secure’ individual. Probably because you are still massively insecure and intolerant of anyone who doesn’t share your views on gender and you are projecting your ‘redemption narrative’ onto everyone else.
To me your post reads like someone who is desperately virtue signaling they are ‘one of the good guys!’ I’m sure plenty of your exes would disagree.
And the irony of my experience is that your reply, is ALWAYS the one I get for sharing my experiences. ‘oh no if women hurt you you clearly are forever in need of therapy forever because you can’t ever move on if you mention it’. As it isn’t a massive the issue with men isn’t that they are constantly and endlessly shamed and dehumanized the second they express negative experiences with women. It’s always their fault and their burden to never be publicly expressed.
Apparently I’m only ‘healed’ if I only ever talk about women as as victims of male abuse… never the fact that many women are awful people, because women are just people like men and both men and women are objects and subjects of abusive behaviors.
I’m not shaming or belittling you, I applaud you for seeking out therapy and I encourage you to continue to do so.
Can I ask what made you consider therapy in the first place?
No, you are shaming and belittling men.
And now you are trying to cast aspirtions that my ‘therapy’ is fake and false because it didn’t lead to the same conclusion as yours. Just like the idiots I meet who tell me if I am not in life-long therapy I must be emotionally damaged… which always comes from people who have spent their life in therapy never resolving their own issues. Project, project, project.
Post-edit reply: I’m not saying anything disparaging about your theraputic journey - again I applaud you for doing it, and I encourage you to continue. I think that’s really healthy. But you have to realize, that what you’re doing here, is you are taking something I wrote, which wasn’t aimed at you, personally - that’s a classic sign of an insecure person, right? Again, no shame there, I want to help you become the best version of yourself that you can be.
Nah I’m calling you out on your sexist commentary that men need therapy if they doubt some bullshit rage bait article that is trying to claim all men are plotting to abandon their girlfriends on the tops of mountains, based on one lady’s teary eyed tiktok vid.
The entire thing is absurd and manufactured to illicit outrage based on forced gender generalizations, and lots of folks here and eating it up. All you have to do is make the story a gay couple, or a non-romantic relationship, and the entire thing would collapse.
Do you think it would be as equally as ‘outrageous’ if it was a gay couple?
That’s not what I said - it’s totally understandable to doubt the veracity of the story, or to call it ragebait, and so on. I completely understand all of that, and actually I broadly agree.
What I’m actually talking about is how volatile some of these commenters are, who see a story like this, and react very strongly to it, who get really really upset and angry about the story. An emotionally well-adjusted person can just say, “this story is bullshit” without seeing it as a personal attack, right?
I can clearly see that a lot of people are being triggered by this story, which suggests to me that they would benefit from therapy, so that they can learn to manage their triggers and emotions better. Again, there’s no shame in being triggered or upset by a story like this, but if it gets someone so worked up that they need to go to war in the comments over it, that’s what’s happening, and therapy is the most helpful way to learn how to cope with problems like that.
I’m just confused now, because it sounds like you are talking about yourself and now doing a self-therapy session here in these comments about yourself. lol
Well, I suggest speaking to a therapist, and sharing this thread with them, and talking it through with them, I’m sure they can really help a lot.
Your feelings are valid, and I apologise if it came across that way, I definitely could have worded it better. It’s okay to be insecure, there’s nothing there to be ashamed of, as I wrote in my own post, I struggled a lot with insecurity myself.