In the beginning, most of our disagreements were due to the shock of meeting each other and having to stay apart. When I met him, he didn't even have a smart phone, and I could not afford to visitit him. I didn't know at the time that he shuts down when he feels hurt (and he didnt know that I cry like a river when I am upset). It took som getting used to.
We have also had practical problems; his first visa got rejected, some of his friends did not think I was serious....Which we did not neccesarily fight over, but the mood was very much broken, broken spirit perhaps.
We have had some stupid fights; why on earth he would refuse to buy straws when I needeed straws, why he threw the cat at me once, once we fought when I was about to leave after a week's visits, we have fought over him being distant and sharing less than I wanted him to, over him offending me by a mistake....we do agree that from every disagreement or fight, we learn something. Plus he thinks it is kind of hot that I am feisty and have a temperament, he needs my ability to get pissed of and confrontational.
There is only one fight that (apart from when we fought during the first month and I was foulmouthed for the first and only time) we remember as ugly, and that was the one this summer. Even then, I knew we were fighting because of his reactive depresssion and that his emotional withdrawel was setting me in mayday mode.... But the fight itself was very "clean", from my side at least. It was just that we hurt so much, and in different ways. My husband got dragged into it and it was painful for him as well. In retrospect, having long visits in the middle of the most intensive season of SO may not be the best move and we plan to do things differently this summer. What lingers in the air for us, the huge practical problem represented by the fact that we can't close the distance through marriage. However, we have not given up on that issue and continue to work towards him coming here.
What is worth commenting, is that I find that our worst communication is when we are both very "nice". It is easy to overbid each other on politeness and not want to share the bad stuff. That is not good communication at all, that creates more distance than a fight does. But SO gets very exhausted when I want to spell out everything, so we have reasched a sort of compromise where we do a sort of impulsive debate together, with or without reaching a conclution, it satifies his need to fix things quick and without too many "rules", and it is predicable enough for my taste as well. Also, one of my goals is that SO will be better at phrazing how he feels, and that will have to include the bad news, and this is an adjustment for both of us.
We have also had practical problems; his first visa got rejected, some of his friends did not think I was serious....Which we did not neccesarily fight over, but the mood was very much broken, broken spirit perhaps.
We have had some stupid fights; why on earth he would refuse to buy straws when I needeed straws, why he threw the cat at me once, once we fought when I was about to leave after a week's visits, we have fought over him being distant and sharing less than I wanted him to, over him offending me by a mistake....we do agree that from every disagreement or fight, we learn something. Plus he thinks it is kind of hot that I am feisty and have a temperament, he needs my ability to get pissed of and confrontational.
There is only one fight that (apart from when we fought during the first month and I was foulmouthed for the first and only time) we remember as ugly, and that was the one this summer. Even then, I knew we were fighting because of his reactive depresssion and that his emotional withdrawel was setting me in mayday mode.... But the fight itself was very "clean", from my side at least. It was just that we hurt so much, and in different ways. My husband got dragged into it and it was painful for him as well. In retrospect, having long visits in the middle of the most intensive season of SO may not be the best move and we plan to do things differently this summer. What lingers in the air for us, the huge practical problem represented by the fact that we can't close the distance through marriage. However, we have not given up on that issue and continue to work towards him coming here.
What is worth commenting, is that I find that our worst communication is when we are both very "nice". It is easy to overbid each other on politeness and not want to share the bad stuff. That is not good communication at all, that creates more distance than a fight does. But SO gets very exhausted when I want to spell out everything, so we have reasched a sort of compromise where we do a sort of impulsive debate together, with or without reaching a conclution, it satifies his need to fix things quick and without too many "rules", and it is predicable enough for my taste as well. Also, one of my goals is that SO will be better at phrazing how he feels, and that will have to include the bad news, and this is an adjustment for both of us.
Comment