Has anyone found ChatGPT too sympathetic towards an ex?

[Asq]

I have started using chat GPT to go over my relationship with my ex as certain things still bother me a lot and I never had anyone to talk to about it at the time. I have started using chat GPT to write down how I felt and go over situations I felt were wrong, but it often seems to “side” with him, I don’t know if that’s the correct term but it often seems to sympathise a lot with him. Is this normal? I have even said to it a few times that I felt like it was siding with him. I don’t want to say what the things are as the great reason for chat GPT is it doesn’t judge me for things, but is this anyone else’s experience?

Which again, is why it's dangerous. You can tweak it to the point where you're only getting back what you want to hear. And now send more and more people like you will be doing just that

I don’t need the freedom program we are not together it’s just to discuss things I need to go over as I said I told it originally that I liked that it was kind about him so it’s my own fault!

It doesn’t validate me at all and isn’t agreeable, thats what the thread is about, it sides with my ex even after ive told it about cheating and abuse. So yes the problem is me.

Sorry. Non-paywalled article.

www.euronews.com/next/2026/04/16/using-ai-for-basic-tasks-damages-a-persons-intellect-in-just-10-minutes-study-shows

Just stop it. It’s not helping you.

Evidently. Why go over and over the same things which you know are wrong. You don't even have to see him. Move on or at least try to (and no, telling a robot repeatedly about how bad he was is not "moving on")

I find chat gpt tends to blow sunshine up your arse at times. I often use it to help plan training programmes around my sport (rowing) and while the sessions that are mapped out are sound it is usually accompanied by a load of guff of the "as an elite high performance rower" variety. I am a decent club rower but it talks as if I am a current Olympian.

I can't believe your Chat is so unsupportive! I find it can be very fair but that's only when I ask it to respond as a highly critical, yet loving friend! Have you tried working on the prompts that you write? So, first you write something like:
"Please can you give me some advice on the following situation as if you're a £1000 per hour, top trained behavioural and couples therapist with over 20 years of experience."

It makes a big difference in the information it pulls from. Then give it a download of whatever situation in basic terms. Then sum up with how you're currently feeling and ask it to help you with these feelings. You definitely need to concentrate on understanding how you change your emotional response to him, rather than trying to understand him - fuckers like him never change, never admit their faults and never apologise! Understand yourself first - you're the most important one.

No but I’m raising his kids!

As I said, it is programmed and designed to be agreeable and validating. It cannot be rude. Either you're massively misrepresenting the situation and in actual fact your ex is not at fault at all, to the extent it is unable to logically side with you, or you're taking offense at something which isn't there. One of the key criticisms of "befriending" AI is that it's completely frictionless and avoids challenging you at all, so if you can't even get along with a bot under those circumstances, you have no chance of getting along with a human.

Thats why I started this thread as it’s the opposite for me it’s been very pro ex which I found strange so wanted to know if this was normal. Im not confused about whether what he did was wrong or not, I know it was, what im confused about is why it’s so kind towards him.

Well, he should be doing that as well. And it isn’t really a reason for you to be obsessing still.

No, if you read my thread you will see I realised what the issue was I told it I liked it in the beginning because everyone else calls him evil and monster I said I liked that it tried to see his point of view and didnt just paint him as a monster as it was refreshing to hear someone just not telling me how awful he was, that must be where I went wrong and I have already acknowledged this in the thread. It’s obviously taken that and ran with it

It is a computer program fgs, you don't need to say your pleases and thank yous.

OK, if you say so.

Well unless you think cheating and abuse isnt wrong 👍

Yeah I was trying to understand why he done the things he done, it did actually say to me because I was trying to understand him thats why it was responding it that way because I had initially wanted to understand him. I never gave it any prompts to begin with as I didn’t realise I was suppose to but have now.

The AI response is only as good as the prompt you feed. It can easily start to skew into tangents or particular patterns. Sometimes you have to start fresh.

If you understand the underlying word tokenization and algorithms, it’s a bit easier to see how this happens, but that doesn’t really matter.

I have to use AI for my career. I can’t join the anti-AI brigade if I want to stay employed. So you definitely won’t get any negativity from me.

With regards to the messaging, baring abuse, I do think it is helpful to see an ex sympathetically. My ex did some pretty awful things, but I don’t think he is an inherently bad person. We were poorly matched and that created friction. In that situation, we both made poor choices. Outside of that relationship, we are better people.

Well he isn’t a good person. Good people dont abandon their children

I will try it again in a new chat.

You do you and I'll continue as I am thanks. I write 'please' or 'thank you' as a habit. It doesn't do any harm and I'd hate to break the habit and start losing manners in other every day exchanges.

I work in mental health. I tell my clients that I do not use AI, nor will I either for my business or personal life.

I have a child working in academia and it's use is wreaking havoc with systems and coursework and, frankly, making people lazy.

Personal and life issues are too important to be trusted to something you can't trust, or fully check out the background sources of information use.

I wish you well.

because he’s an abusive twat.

there you go.

alternatively you could read “Why Does He Do That?” by Lindy Bancroft. Assuming you can still read human-drafted prose.

That is all the processing you need to do @Asq

Is daily life preoccupied with thoughts of your ex? Do you enjoy anything in life?

What you're doing is completely understandable. A good therapist is better. But a good therapist is also hard to find and (ultimately) very expensive.

Using something like chatgpt as a sounding board, and to get a degree of feedback, is not a bad thing. At all. But it's also important to understand what chatgpt actually is, and also what it isn't.

Don't feel bad for wanting some kind of review/analysis, but you do need to instruct it in such a manner that the conversation is objective/useful/safe.