My girlfriend and I have run into some tricky waters and I'm not sure how to navigate out so looking for some advice.
I'll start by saying I love her very much and she is my perfect girl in many ways - she makes me laugh endlessly and we have a great time together in our own little world. But she becomes someone else during arguments, someone much angrier - she had a strange childhood and I think has a lot of defensiveness as a result, quite prone to anger. I'm not the same, I like to think I'm a bit more diplomatic but once the argument escalates I'm there yelling too. We've lived together for 3 years now, been together for 5, split chores/bills etc
Most recent argument was over a tiny thing, telling the time. She will often ask me what the time is and I will reflexively say something like "twenty five to five". She likes to know the time down to the minute though - so she quite often gets stressed with me and wants me to give her the time to the exact minute.
This has come up before but it blew up super quick this time - she immediately started by saying that its something she hates about me, that she resents me and she claims its disrespectful and that its like I'm stealing time from her.
When she's stressed, her tone is often short and snappy which doesn't make me feel great. I feel like giving her the time in the exact format she wants is a favour, and why should I do a favour for someone that can't talk to me with respect? To me, it seems there's an easy compromise - ask nicely, get the exact time:
"What's the time?"
"Half 7"
"No, sorry - the exact time babe"
"Oh - 7:28, sorry"
I feel like that should be it. instead we're on the verge of breakup, both of us working from home shut away in different rooms - she wants me to just give her the exact time no matter what, which makes me feel like my feelings are worthless and she just wants obedience from me.
I've been a bit frustrated with our arguments in general so I've tried to follow online advice and steer arguments towards being positive things - viewing them as our problem to fix together instead of just battling each other. By understanding each other's perspective on whatever's being argued about and coming to some sort of learning or agreement or compromise then you turn a big fight into a positive thing. That's my aim, anyway.
I don't think she feels the same as me. She slams doors, storms into the room demanding we talk immediately, claims that I'm silencing her by taking time to think or cool off, accuses me of gaslighting her and generally escalates things beyond any boundaries I try to set like asking she doesn't do sarcastic impressions of me or call me names while fighting.
When I told her the way she speaks to me sometimes makes me feel insulted or like I'm worthless, she said she doesn't believe me and that what I was saying was a lie, that it was bullshit. Also called me mental a few times for good measure and said I was shitting all over her character. She also accused me of gaslighting her, which I've asked her to explain but she didn't really say how - just that she felt like I was gaslighting her.
She also said she's sick of me 'policing her tone', which I don't think I am - I'm not trying to control all her interactions like a puppet master, just asking her to use a nicer tone when she asks things of me. Ultimately she decided she was just not going to ask me the time anymore, and was going to set a boundary where we aren't allowed to comment on each other's tone of voice. So instead of us understanding each other's views/feelings and adjusting for that - instead we're not going to worry about our tone of voice anymore or share the time of day at all.
She also reckons that I have a habit of stomping all over arguments and twisting them to make them about me - she thinks that I've hijacked the argument by making it about my feelings instead of it being about her wanting the exact time, which she thinks is a reasonable request. I'd say that wanting to be spoken to nicely is a reasonable request too, but she doesn't see it that way.
I should clarify, she'll usually ask me the time when getting ready to go somewhere, so her phone and watch might not be to hand while doing hair/makeup etc. But not always - this argument started because she was wrapped up in a blanket and didn't want to reach out to get her phone.
Ultimately I'm not sure about the future of the relationship if things can blow up this quickly and I have to fight so hard to get any understanding - but I'm also worried if I might be abusive, I can't really tell at this point:
Am I being precious about wanting to be asked things in a nice way?
Is she right saying that I'm policing her tone? Is that being controlling?
Am I gaslighting..?
Am I attacking her character by saying her tone of voice annoys me sometimes?
Part of me thinks I should just resolve to giving her what she wants, but I mostly think it's unfair that my feelings are disregarded. Not sure what to do.
TL;DR - I feel like only my girlfriend's feelings are important in our relationship - if she speaks to me in a stressed or frustrated manner am I allowed to feel hurt by that or should I just deal with it and do what she asks?
Submitted March 24, 2021 at 12:01PM by LumpyClassroom2644 https://ift.tt/31cAbTw
No comments:
Post a Comment