Dear anonymous03:

I feel fine, tired but fine, thank you for asking. And you are welcome! I appreciate your kind words and your honesty and assertiveness, that you respectfully disagree with me. Coming to think about it, this concept of respectfully disagreeing with a person is not something I ever experienced growing up: disagreement and disrespect were synonymous words! So, thank you for the refreshing experience of reading your post this morning, it is bringing a smile to my face right now!

anita

Hi Anonymous03

Just continuing with some additional thoughts.

I’m glad to hear that you don’t argue very frequently with your boyfriend. Once every few months is quite good. However, it seems like the past couple of times when arguments do happen, it has been quite bad.

I’m glad that he’s improved his behaviour in other areas like the leaving mid chat.

I can see why you were so hurt, not only did he bring up your ex, he mimicked your ex’s behaviour reminding you of the bad break up. I don’t know if the latter was intentional or not. Does he know much about that break up?

I can see why you’re concerned especially with the past 2 arguments being really painful and hurtful. I think that also makes it hard to let go of. These aren’t regular boring run of the mill arguments where you’re squabbling about something small and silly. It has actually been genuinely hurtful.

And with the arguments happening so infrequently, and being intensely painful, it’s easy to remember what the argument was about.

I would say that one good thing is that you can both comfortably take some time to discuss things at a later time. It’s a very good tool for descalating.

I think you did a really good job standing up for yourself with the discussion about the recent argument! Very well done!

I think you came up with an excellent strategy of shutting down arguments where your partner has been drinking.

I think the important thing to remember is that other than the infrequent intense arguments, the relationship seems to be in a great place. Would you agree?

re-posted, hopefully without the extra print:

Dear anonymous03:

* I am writing this comment while being closer to the ending of writing this post after two days of working on it. This is a.. lengthy post warning, as well as letting you know that I am writing this- as I explained below- for my sake also, not just for your sake. So, please feel comfortable to read- or not read, reply- or not reply- to any or all of the following. Also, your last post on the forums was ten days ago (Sept 23), so I understand that things probably changed since you posted here.. hours after I wrote this opening comment, I am adding: I am getting emotional toward the end of this post, so I am adding an emotional trigger warning.*

I want to re-read your posts and see if I can be helpful to you, and to myself (win-win is the goal). First, whenever a tiny buddha member shares about problems in a romantic relationship, being angry at the romantic partner (similarly to a situation in real-life), I am communicating with only one side of the relationship and not with the other. It’d be a fear- based/ people-pleasing behavior on my part, if I rush to the side of the person I am communicating with, so to not “make” the person (with whom I am communicating) angry with me. Like most/ all people, I don’t want to have another person’s anger directed or misdirected at me. So, in this post, I will face this fear of mine, fear of others’ anger  (and so, I am helping myself), and be as objective and honest as I can be, and in so, hopefully, I will be helping you.

I realize that I have a limited amount of information, only what you shared here, which paints parts of the total picture of the relationship, not the whole picture.  My intent is not- at all- to hurt your feelings or to distress you. I do understand though that parts of what is to follow may be distressing to you (and anger you, which is my fear).

Also, I realize that we all project all the time, this is how we get to understand other people. The problem is not that we project, but that sometimes we project inaccurately. I will be paying attention to the possibility that some of my projections may inaccurate.

On my part, there is some distress (like I said) in risking becoming the object of your anger. It is a fear particularly intense due to my childhood experience with a RAGE filled mother, rage that did not only spill but rained over me like a storm. So, my fear is not based on who you are, but .. on who my mother was.

I’ll get straight to the part in your original post that made the most impression on me when I first read it (I am the one adding the boldface & italic features): “Later, in the hotel, we were in his sister’s room, and he was telling us about how his uncle had insulted his mom, and how he has never forgiven him for that. After that story was over, I said, ‘Okay now let’s get to something important, let’s talk about booking tickets for tomorrow’s tour.’”- as I read this it was clear to me that you were rude to him, and I suspected that you were rude because (as you stated) you were angry earlier in the evening. I figured that you tried to hurt his feelings in a passive-aggressive way. I mean, clearly to suggest that his perhaps decades-long  feelings (“he has never forgiven him”) are less important than booking tickets for a day tour is.. undeniably rude.

Continued quote: “He was hurt by this because he felt that he was sharing something close and personal, and I was insensitive when I said, ‘let’s talk about something important.’ I hadn’t meant it like that at all, but I could see how that may have sounded, and realized it was hurtful… I realized my mistakes, took responsibility, and apologized. I said I did not think about it at all before saying any of those things, but I should have, and I’m sorry”-

– you told him  all the right things, as if taken from a conflict resolution book.. but “I hadn’t meant it like that at all” doesn’t read believable to me, given that you were angry with him shortly before this conversation took place. To clarify, I believe that you didn’t think to yourself, before saying what you said, something like:  I am going to say this to him so to hurt his feelings!  I think that your intent to hurt his feelings was instinctual, something a person often does when angry, and that on some level, you were aware of it, or could become aware of it..?

”We went to our room after, and it was clear he was angry and upset. When asked, he ignored me at first, but then told me about all this… He said I have been subtly insulting like that many times, but he has never said anything before. I was horrified that I had been like that, and I told him it was unknowingly done”- reads like you admitted that indeed you subtly insulted him many times, and you were horrified that you did so, or that you did it unknowingly.

”He said that the problem is that I do not respect him. If I respected him, I would not have behaved like that. I said I was not being disrespectful purposely, and that I was sorry I disrespected him”- reads like you agreed with him that you disrespected him, adding that you didn’t intend to disrespect him.

”I told him I’d like him to point out to me in the future if I said or did anything like that again. To which he said he wasn’t going to. He kept reiterating the same things dramatically for quite a bit, saying he could not understand how I could be like that…  how I could not have any empathy at all”- (1) he is making a good point: if you have no empathy for him on a regular or repeated basis (having empathy for him inconsistently, let’s say, not when you get angry… and you stay angry for long periods of time), that’s a big problem because without empathy, you don’t consider/ care how your words come across. (2) reads like he’s been frustrated for a long time and he feels quite hopeless.

”He then brought my ex-boyfriend up.. He then said to me, ‘I have limits. Once those are crossed, I will f*** off. You won’t know when. You won’t know anything. There will be no discussion. Nothing. It will be over.’”- he is definitely angry, understandably angry at you because you really disrespected him, and not only once. He is fed up.

”I was horrified that he would threaten me like that. I did not deserve such a breakup”-  he expressed to you how angry and frustrated he is with your repeated expressions of disrespect toward him. When typing the sentence I quoted here, you didn’t think about his desperation and what he deserves (which is consistent, dependable respect and empathy).

* If he was a more..  emotionally skilled individual, he’d say something like: I am so frustrated and so angry about you repeatedly disrespecting me that I feel like breaking up with you.. I love you, but I am also angry I don’t know what to do about it. (Last time I was angry,  I wasn’t that skillful. I wish I was, but I wasn’t. Maybe next time).

”He calmed down a bit after I apologized and said that he did not mean it when he said he’d leave without a conversation. It was just anger. What got me was that he did not apologize and take responsibility”- (1) Still angry with him, you focused not on the first part (what he said that was positive), but on what he didn’t say. (2) You put too much value in apologizing-and-taking-responsibility, delivered without adequate thought or regret, kind-of, perhaps, automatically repeating what is written in a conflict resolution book and crossing it off your list (as in saying: I apologized, I said something to the effect of taking responsibility, so I am off the hook/ I am Right.. and he is Wrong, for not doing the same).

”In another fight a few months…  I cried like there’s no tomorrow. I just wanted to go home. He spooned me. And turned me to him and hugged me to him, saying seeing me cry breaks his heart. And he was sorry”- he reads like a good, empathetic person.

”Finally, I calmed down a bit and told him, ‘You said I’d be a shi*** therapist.’.. he said he… was only talking about empathy. But he was sorry for saying it anyway. I did not believe him. But I said ok anyway because it was 3 in the morning. My face hurt from all the crying”- your hurt feelings are honest. I feel empathy for you for experiencing so much emotional pain. I wish you didn’t and that you wouldn’t suffer this way in the future.

* All of this does not mean that you will be a bad psychotherapist: first, you are still studying to become one, and this very experience with your boyfriend, which you expressed in this thread, can be part of your (informal) education toward becoming a good or even an excellent therapist. You can become a better therapist for having been empathy-challenged (in regard to your boyfriend) and overcoming it, a better therapist than one who had no such challenge. Overcoming it, you can offer your future clients a valuable, personal, hands-on experience in creating enough space in your anger to allow empathy to shine through and take the lead.

”I’ve acted ‘normal’ since then, but that night haunts me. We got back to our home towns (we’re in an LDR), and I haven’t been able to completely be okay with him. I’m a little distant”- lingering, long-lasting anger.

”I do not feel safe sharing anything with him now because I don’t know how it will be used against me. Am I overreacting?“- seems to me that he is a decent man, that he is not responsible for most of your anger and that you are reacting to the anger within you that was there before you ever met him, anger that gets triggered.

“he is really sensitive and feels attacked very easily… Sometimes when I share things with him, he acts like I’m overreacting or being too sensitive…I feel he just lacks empathy some times. And all this is draining for me”- you are both sensitive people, both having a problem with anger (it’s a problematic emotion for so many). Therefore, the two of you have to stop the WAR and sign a peace treaty: NO ATTACKS, no getting even, no lashing out. Take that Pause (see the NPARR  strategy I suggested to you in this thread).

“When he’s calmed down and vented after a fight, he does sincerely apologize for whatever I felt bad about and admits it was not cool of him to do so. He even asked me to let him know if I think he’s being abusive any time”- (1) he is a good, empathetic, conscientious person, best I can tell. (2) better not calm down after a fight, but before a fight.

“Usually after we fight, once we calm down, we are able to have an objective conversation about it, where we share what we felt. No judgments. No attacking. It’s an open space.”- it’s about (and it can be done) calming down, and when calm-enough, then have an objective conversation, no judgment, not attacking.. have that conversation before you fight, and a fight will be prevented.

“It does annoy me sometimes that he jumps straight to a break-up when we’re having a fight and have asked him that. Why he has to jump to a break-up the moment things get a little heated“- because things don’t get “a little” heated, not for him and not for you; things get heated a lot, and when that happens,  he feels cornered, powerless, and he needs a way out, a way to exert some power. Talking about/ threatening a breakup has been his way to get a sense of power/ a way out.

It shouldn’t be about how he (and you)  fighting differently.. it should be about the two of you not fighting at all. There’s a way to talk about and resolving things without fighting.

“He is actually a generous and very kind person. And he loves me very much and hurting me is the last thing he wants to do. That I know. And do not doubt one bit.”- you said it, but you doubt all of this when you get angry, don’t you?

“I agree. It feels like I am carrying hurt and resentment from past issues. And I think it seeps into current issues“-I agree.
<p class=”ContentPasted26”>In the beginning and toward the end of your original post, you wrote: “My boyfriend got a little angry and was sort of scolding me… I want to talk about all this with him.. How he didn’t have to scold me..“. In a following post: “He’d already been scolding me since over an hour”.

On 1-21-2021 (interesting date), you wrote in another thread: “Growing up, I did get scolded a lot, sometimes for doing things that weren’t even wrong… I was always terrified of my mother and was afraid of her scolds…  I was her emotional punchbag: She would return from work after having a bad day and immediately start scolding me for something as silly as my bag being on the couch… I would always wonder what I did wrong for her to hate me so. My therapist had recommended that I… record her scolding sessions and show her that this is not okay… I finally managed to tell her that her scolding me for the silliest reasons is not okay”-

– it is not far fetched to think that you are re-experiencing your mother’s scoldings in the context of your relationship with your boyfriend.. inaccurately projecting her into him.

You wrote to me, here on this thread: “I appreciate your insights, but respectfully, I do not think my feelings towards my mom are affecting things in this case“-

– in this case, you are dealing with a person who “is actually a generous and very kind person. And he loves me very much and hurting me is the last thing he wants to do. That I know. And do not doubt one bit“. In the previous, decades-long case (growing up with your mother),  you were dealing with a person who was not a kind and loving person.. to you. I looked for where you mentioned that your mother is, or was kind or loving to you,  and I didn’t find any such place.

“I’m not sure I want to be in a relationship where I’m scared of sharing anything with my partner because he may just use it to hurt me.”- replace “partner” with parent… and you get where the majority of your fear and anger is coming from.

Back in 1-21-21, you shared: “my heart starts beating really fast when she yells“- it’s this habit of fear and anger, the two emotions involved with the heart beating really fast, that gets triggered in the context of your relationship with your boyfriend.

“She seemed to be mad at me for something or the other“- a mother’s (a parent’s) anger, when uncontrolled, is a scary thing for a child, particularly scary because a child needs her mother to  PROTECT her. What kind of protection will a person who’s angry at you going to provide..?! I mean, whose there to protect you from her anger?!

“Even though I hate her, I love her, and I kind of not like it if someone spoke ill of her. I am protective that way… It is confusing, my emotions for her. Makes me laugh sometimes“-  the legacy she left in your life, is your heart beating really fast (easily triggered and intense, prolonged fear an anger). Naturally, you felt angry at her, but the mix of love and anger confuses you.

Like you, I feel (still) a mix of love and hate (anger) for my mother. It used to bother me a lot, when I found myself.. forgetting to be angry at her, and instead, feeling empathy and affection for her. I have learned, relatively recently, to not be disturbed by this mix of love and anger. They co-exist. When I think of her affectionately though, it is never in the context of how she treated me (good or bad). I feel empathy and affection for her only in contexts in which I am not part, like when remembering her interacting with other people. Or how she suffered in contexts not related to me.

I have no memory of a loving interaction with her, not a single one. The nature and longevity of her abuse of me, the shaming was worst, the hitting was bad.. I can’t respond in any other way to (the memory of) her touch but to cringe. It’s overwhelming to think how I was stuck in this, with her, and survived it. The emotional turmoil was intense and prolonged. So much so, that every single hour, every single day, my muscles twitch (motor and vocal tics), ever since I was 5 or 6 (I was told, I don’t remember). It’s my heart beating very fast and my muscles ..running away but having no where to go, no shelter, no refuge.

If you were my mother, reading this post, you would attack me big time, there would be figurative blood coming at me from the screen, her shaming, condemning, crushing words would be hitting me like swords, piercing the core of me. My heart is beating fast writing these words, I felt dizzy just now and had to stop. My mother is not the same as yours, but they have something in common: great anger directed at their daughters. Like yours, mine also yelled at me and gave me the cold treatment following each rage attack. Your mother was probably not as vicious as mine when it comes to SHAMING, but what she did to you was bad enough.

“While I understand how she has affected me, being mad at her doesn’t help me or us at all. I’m all she has, and vice versa too“- I hope that she is not all you have, or all that you can have. I hope that your love for her is not keeping love out of your life.

“I guess. So yeah, things have been slightly better since I told her how she affects me. She has been trying to change“- changing enough to love you? Or has she changed enough to get along with you?

This is the earth shaking realization that I had in regard to my mother: I loved her; she didn’t love me back. I would never shame her or hit her and delight in her pain (my mother had a small smile on her face when she saw me hurt). It was a one-sided love, and love for me is never coming from her. It would have been a dream come true to have her love, to experience it.. but it was not to be. You know how people go through romantic breakups, this is similar, but it’s the first heart breaking experience and it lasted for too long. It’s truly a heartbreak, and better complete the process of that mix of hate and love, with accepting that love is not coming from her. You then get to turn around and look for it elsewhere, look for it where it’s possible, in a person who is generous and very kind person… and hurting me is the last thing he wants to do.

anita

Hi Lella

I agree with you that the arguments are abusive. I’ve spoken at length about the abusive behaviours present during the argument.

However, OP suggested that they occurred very infrequently, twice a year and otherwise she enjoyed her relationship.

I’m not going to encourage someone to leave a relationship that otherwise they appear to be happy with. In my opinion, it’s is their decision how they feel about their relationship and how they wish to proceed.

You’re welcome to your own opinion. I’m sorry that my opinion makes you feel infuriated.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏

How are you, anonymous03? I hope my last very long message to you was not too much…?

anita

Dear Anonymous03:

I just re-read our communication on this thread and will now read your recent reply, reading and replying to one part before reading and replying to the next part:

“I feel I need to address what you said in your last post, for I do not agree with them and felt that what you think and said rather invalidates and dismisses my feelings and experiences. To be honest, it did infuriate me“- having re-read today the Oct 3 post you are referring to, I am not surprised that it infuriated you and I sincerely apologize: portions of my post were.. unskilled at best, accusatory.. I am embarrassed that I produced such a post.

I figure that the reasons for it are:  (1) I tend to focus on one explanation to a situation and then go back and interpret all past aspects of the situation according to that one explanation, not seeing the bigger picture and considering other explanations, (2) Interestingly, being so worried that you will get angry with me.. I was expressing anger with you. I think that I was re-experiencing anger at my mother by proxy of you, accusing you of what she- my mother- was truly guilty of: I accused you of often being angry (with your boyfriend)  because .. she was often angry with me. I accused you of often fighting with him, of being passive-aggressive and having no empathy for him when angry because.. my mother often fought, was aggressive and passive-aggressive, at different times, and she had no empathy for me the great majority of the time.

I never really confronted my mother in regard to these things, so.. I used you as a substitute for her and confronted you. I am sorry for having done this.. I didn’t know, wasn’t aware that I did this until this very morning.

“However, my intention is to let you know how your words have made me feel, not distress you, so I hope that does not happen. I want you to imagine me saying all of this calmly, with a soft tone. I am not yelling at you in any way“- this is very kind and considerate of you, and how emotionally intelligent it is for you to ask me to imagine you saying these things calmly, with a soft tone. I will do my best to imagine this.

(I will be selectively adding the boldface feature to the following quotes): “As I said earlier in this thread, I do not think I am ‘projecting’ my mother, and your repeatedly suggesting the same is invalidating my feelings and experiences”-

-On Sept 23, you wrote to me: “I appreciate your insights, but respectfully, I do not think my feelings towards my mom are affecting things in this case“. After you wrote this, I indeed repeatedly suggested that your feelings towards your mother were (greatly) affecting things with your boyfriend. That was disrespectful. I indeed invalidated your feelings expressed in that Sept 23 quote.

“While one’s relationships with one’s parents are influential, they are not all that influence one’s life and feelings. What you are saying about projection is reducing me down to a child with a difficult relationship with their parent. And by extension you are saying that the anger and hurt I felt at my boyfriend’s behaviour toward me was only a result of that difficult relationship, and I should not be feeling angry because it is misplaced anger I felt toward my mother”-

– I didn’t give you credit for being an intelligent and resourceful adult. I expressed an attitude that suggested that you are unaware… while all along, I was unaware that I projected my mother into you (and myself into your boyfriend).

“But I bet even a person who has a good relationship with their parents would be angry and hurt at their partner scolding them for an hour and personally attacking them with things they confided in their partner. I feel unsafe sharing things with my boyfriend because he used them against me, to hurt me, in a fight; feeling unsafe like that has everything to do with how he behaved with me (which has happened again since I last replied on this thread) and nothing to do with my mother”-

– having been invested in my projection of my mother into you, and my innocent, young self into your boyfriend,  I filtered out what you shared in boldface above.

“I did not feel unsafe like this with my ex. I think anybody would feel the same way. Saying my anger toward my boyfriend is a result of life-long anger towards my mother is dismissing my experience with my boyfriend. Yes, I was scolded a lot as a child, and it affects me if someone scolds me today. But wouldn’t it affect anyone, if their partner scolded them for a long time, irrespective of their mother?”-

– Yes, it would affect anyone. Maybe the fact that you were scolded a lot as a child is one reason (one of a few perhaps, keeping the bigger picture principle in mind), that you tolerated being scolded by him.

“Like I said, while relationships with parents are influential, your character and your perception of the world is based on an interaction among lots of factors. And yet, some things are objectively uncool, like your boyfriend attacking you. I feel you are reducing me down to this one part of my life and assume a lot of things about me, which is unfair to me. For example, in one of the threads, I had mentioned my mother was a single mother, and you immediately assumed that my father had left us, when the reality is that my father died a sudden death, and he actually loved my mother and me very much. Not only did you make an assumption, your choice of words was rather harsh, attacking my mother, which I really had not appreciated. I wish you would see me as a whole person, with lot many experiences you may be unaware of, instead of just a scared and angry little girl”-

– I assumed and jumped to conclusions while under the influence of a confused projection. I remember now: at first, I projected my mother into your mother. When you defended your mother, I got angry with you, feeling that.. you were defending my mother. This is when in my mind, with no awareness, I shifted my projection of my mother into yours, to => projecting my mother into you.

On Sept 11, 2023, in this thread, I wrote to you: “We communicated first in April 2021, and then in Dec 2021- Jan 2022. You were living with your mother at the time, angry at her, fighting with her and feeling guilty about it… It was/ is a very troubled relationship…  If you are still living with her,.. (are you?), I have no doubt that it affects your current relationship  negatively, and that it is a part of your anger at him. Any truth to what I am pointing to?“, and you responded two days later: “No, I do not live with my mom. I’ve moved out. And to be honest, things between us are fantastic.“-

– Looking back, this is where I got angry at you for.. siding with your mother (siding with her .. against me, according to my projection), and I shifted my projection of my mother into you. Having a fantastic relationship with her meant that you took my projection (of me into you) away from me.

“About my mother, we have a difficult relationship, and now I can see why because I see her as a whole person, not just my mother. I see all that she has done for me, all that she has given me despite some very serious difficulties she faced… I can see her understand things about me and see her actively try with me. I have chosen to let go of the bitterness I had about her, because really it was serving nobody.

“I am sorry that you had such a hard time with your mother. But I think you are projecting yourself onto me because you can relate to me in that both of us have a difficult relationship with our mothers. But my life and circumstances, and my feelings and thoughts and how I react to situations, are different than yours. I wish you keep that in mind too“-

– Thank you. I understand that your feelings, thoughts and reactions are different from mine.

“About this instance, I would like to clarify that I was not riddled with self-doubt when he talked about my becoming a therapist. I was hurt that he chose to throw it at me like that… I do not in any way disagree that I can be unempathetic and rude at times, but I was also 100% willing to work on it, which is why I told him to point it out to me when I am being like that, because I am unaware of it and would very much like not to hurt him. I hope my words are not too harsh, for I have done my best to be mindful of your feelings and be honest at the same time. Hope you’re doing well..”-

– Your clarifications noted. I am well enough, thank you. Your words were not harsh and you’ve done an excellent job being mindful of my feelings and honest at the same time. I am grateful to you for offering me this valuable learning experience. It is a gift, thank you.

I will close this post with my apology to you: I regret having directed my anger at you. You were always kind to me and did not at all deserve my anger. I will be mindful- in the future- to not reply to members while under the influence of projections-gone-wild, so to speak. I will do my best to never again confront my mother by proxy of any member in these forums.

anita