Not enough writing this week. What a week it’s been though. All the ups, all the downs. And I’m still here. I really thought I was going to lose Sam. And at times during the fighting, she frustrated me enough to think it’d be better that way anyway. I felt like I couldn’t say anything without it being thrown back at me. I couldn’t defend myself at all without her taking it as an attack. And I understand; how could I not? We were both incredibly defensive, making everything the other person said feel like a direct, pointed attack. Things were misconstrued, twisted, mangled. And I really thought it was over.
But here we are. So far, we’re communicating better (as far as I can tell), and I think we’re actually pretty close to being on the same page (if not already there). It will continue to take time, effort, patience, understanding, all of that stuff. But instead of feeling resentful about exercising those virtues, I’m starting to reframe it as something I WANT to do. Because it IS something I want to do. And it has been that way, even though we both lose sight of that at times.
I’ve been realizing how certain things I’ve been doing have been affecting her (and myself), and I’ve been trying to start making a conscious effort to stay aware of them.
I’m nit-picky. I tend to come off aggressive when I feel hurt or offended. I don’t communicate my appreciation very well. In fact, I often express my appreciation in ways that undermine it and make her feel like I’m not appreciative at all (ex: calendar quote, I told her, “I’d like the quote better if I knew who said it,” when I should’ve just said I liked it—which I did—instead of being nit-picky and complaining about not knowing who said it. What do you think she took from that comment? Did she hear my comment and believe that I was appreciative? Or did she hear it and feel like she came up short? My money is on the latter. And that sucks, because in reality, I was super appreciative of the quote she took the time to find and the effort to write on our board. But the way I chose to express that was terrible, and it hurt her.). The worst part is that it’s really hard to realize how much harm I’m doing in the moment. It’s hard to stay fully aware of how my choice of words will be received. It’s hard because I know my intentions. But she doesn’t. I know she trusts that my intentions are good, but the more I say something carelessly and bring her down, the harder it becomes for her to continue to trust my intentions.
I need to work on communicating. I’ve done better about opening up and telling her things that are on my mind. But that’s not everything. I need to figure out how to communicate my feelings and thoughts in a way that ALSO clearly demonstrates my intentions. Because my intentions are generally good. And when they’re not, I need to continue to work to recognize that and find a different avenue to let them out. (I’ve been doing better about recognizing my temper and walking away when it gets too hot, but I need to work on doing that in a way that doesn’t call so much attention to itself, because then it just comes off as childish and selfish—and she knows that and has rightly called me on it several times.)
The hardest part for me has been being able to let her criticize me and point out my flaws when the flaws she’s pointing out are ones that we both possess. I always end up feeling singled out, and it pisses me off that she won’t ever communicate that she also has those flaws. It hurts. If she could just prove to me that she’s aware of her own flaws, I wouldn’t feel as singled out, and I wouldn’t feel as compelled to chime in and throw her under the bus too. The fact is I just get super defensive in those cases. NOT that she’s not right in calling me out for those things. Because she absolutely is. I get defensive about her excluding herself from those critiques (which almost always apply to her too). By doing that, I’m being singled out. And I defend myself (as I should be able to do). But when I defend myself, she then turns it around on me, saying that I’m making it all about me. By pointing out flaws that we both have, but singling me out for them, she makes it all about me.
I’m not trying to tell her she’s wrong about me; I just want to know that she understands we’re both guilty of those things. I know there’s a better way for me to defend myself than pulling her in with me, and I’m working on that. But when any attempt I make to defend myself gets twisted and nit-picked (I’m making it all about myself, I’m attacking her, etc.), it just spirals out of control, and before either of us knows it, we’re both fuming, with no chance of us finding any common ground until we both calm down (whenever that happens).
When I get confused by something she says, I try to let her know I don’t understand. Or ask her to repeat it in a different way. Sometimes that comes out calmly. A lot of times it doesn’t. A lot of times she takes it as an attack on her—even when I am calm about it. And especially in the cases that I’m calm about it and she takes offense, it frustrates me. And the more times that happens—especially in quick succession, which is sometimes the case—the harder it becomes for me to control that frustration before it accumulates into incredulousness and (more visibly) anger. No bueno.
We both have the right to defend ourselves. And when the other person unfairly accuses us of something, we should defend ourselves. But we both have a lot of work to do to avoid becoming unfair with our defenses.
