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greenstormWell.
I've been amazing at getting my life in order since I started this livejournal years and years ago. I know the sort of things that make me happy, I know what I'm interested in. I've become more competent at doing things I want to be competent at, and at making my life more livable. I go ahead and do the things I want to do, if not fearlessly, then at least with fewer worries about being "good enough" or "able to".
From a relatively isolated state I have developed an enormous host of wonderful, diverse, amazing people in my life who support me. I have become better at the subtle interpersonal compromise and acceptance that leads to long-lasting and resilient interrelationships. I'm better at knowing where my boundaries are, where my desires are... And have I mentioned I'm more confident? ;)
I still have a problem, though. When someone in my life wants "less" of something I'm good at dealing with that; I have lots of good stuff in my life, I like my people to be happy, and when they go off to do things that make them happy I'm happy for them. No fooling.
When someone in my life wants "more" of something, though, especially "more" time, commitment, or intimacy... that's where I have trouble saying no. Sometimes it's because I feel emotionally responsible for my close friends and sexual partners, not all the way but often. Sometimes it's because I'd "like" to spend that time but have a rather flat priority scale after school and work, so it's easy to accumulate more equal priorities than I have time for. Sometimes it's because I feel like I need "a good reason" that isn't just "I don't entirely feel like it right now" or my desire on that front is less valid than the person who wants things from me. Sometimes it's because I feel if I don't take up my opportunity Right Now I won't get it again (though less and less). And sometimes it's because I don't have the energy or desire to deal with any pain someone might have around rejection or scaling back, even if it isn't a large-scale or overall thing but just a "sometimes" thing.
I'm finding that's true in a number of my sexual relationships or connections right now, and it's worst where I see someone the most. That is to say, it's worst with Blake, less of a thing with Angus, and tapers off sharply after that.
And... you've seen this coming, right? ...Blake just doesn't have good communication/emotion management skills. So my hesitancy is being reinforced here. We're getting sucked into the spiral of arguing more, of my backing off physically and of my wanting to spend less time with him, of that making him feel more insecure and needy... you all know how bad relationship cycles go.
I like this guy a lot, in the beginning the relationship was a lot of fun, but now my life is probably less enjoyable than if I weren't seeing him. I'm not sure how to tell if this is a little blip or a trend or what. It's impacting school. It's impacting my *health*, fer gawdsakes.
And I no longer know, if I ever did, what I should expect or ask for in a healthy relationship. I mean, I know reactively: someone who can support themselves, who isn't extremely depressed, who can shoulder their end of the physical costs of life is necessary for me right now. But emotionally, what's the bar for ok? How many nights of staying up late arguing? How many boundaries bent (or do we call that compromise)? How much yelling? How much listening to deliberately painful rhetoric?
I'm starting to argue back, sharply, sometimes hurtfully. That's something Angus and Michael had trained me out of; they were nearly always considerate and careful with their communication, so I was considerate and careful back. Now that skill is eroding as it feels, not just devalued, but like a losing strategy in what's increasingly becoming a zero-sum game.
So this is no good. And I don't know what to do. Counselling? Cut it off? Reduce the facetime sharply and see if that makes things better? As with all my relationships this one grew at an unmoderated pace and it's harder to put the genie back in the bottle than not to take it out so far in the first place.
I've been amazing at getting my life in order since I started this livejournal years and years ago. I know the sort of things that make me happy, I know what I'm interested in. I've become more competent at doing things I want to be competent at, and at making my life more livable. I go ahead and do the things I want to do, if not fearlessly, then at least with fewer worries about being "good enough" or "able to".
From a relatively isolated state I have developed an enormous host of wonderful, diverse, amazing people in my life who support me. I have become better at the subtle interpersonal compromise and acceptance that leads to long-lasting and resilient interrelationships. I'm better at knowing where my boundaries are, where my desires are... And have I mentioned I'm more confident? ;)
I still have a problem, though. When someone in my life wants "less" of something I'm good at dealing with that; I have lots of good stuff in my life, I like my people to be happy, and when they go off to do things that make them happy I'm happy for them. No fooling.
When someone in my life wants "more" of something, though, especially "more" time, commitment, or intimacy... that's where I have trouble saying no. Sometimes it's because I feel emotionally responsible for my close friends and sexual partners, not all the way but often. Sometimes it's because I'd "like" to spend that time but have a rather flat priority scale after school and work, so it's easy to accumulate more equal priorities than I have time for. Sometimes it's because I feel like I need "a good reason" that isn't just "I don't entirely feel like it right now" or my desire on that front is less valid than the person who wants things from me. Sometimes it's because I feel if I don't take up my opportunity Right Now I won't get it again (though less and less). And sometimes it's because I don't have the energy or desire to deal with any pain someone might have around rejection or scaling back, even if it isn't a large-scale or overall thing but just a "sometimes" thing.
I'm finding that's true in a number of my sexual relationships or connections right now, and it's worst where I see someone the most. That is to say, it's worst with Blake, less of a thing with Angus, and tapers off sharply after that.
And... you've seen this coming, right? ...Blake just doesn't have good communication/emotion management skills. So my hesitancy is being reinforced here. We're getting sucked into the spiral of arguing more, of my backing off physically and of my wanting to spend less time with him, of that making him feel more insecure and needy... you all know how bad relationship cycles go.
I like this guy a lot, in the beginning the relationship was a lot of fun, but now my life is probably less enjoyable than if I weren't seeing him. I'm not sure how to tell if this is a little blip or a trend or what. It's impacting school. It's impacting my *health*, fer gawdsakes.
And I no longer know, if I ever did, what I should expect or ask for in a healthy relationship. I mean, I know reactively: someone who can support themselves, who isn't extremely depressed, who can shoulder their end of the physical costs of life is necessary for me right now. But emotionally, what's the bar for ok? How many nights of staying up late arguing? How many boundaries bent (or do we call that compromise)? How much yelling? How much listening to deliberately painful rhetoric?
I'm starting to argue back, sharply, sometimes hurtfully. That's something Angus and Michael had trained me out of; they were nearly always considerate and careful with their communication, so I was considerate and careful back. Now that skill is eroding as it feels, not just devalued, but like a losing strategy in what's increasingly becoming a zero-sum game.
So this is no good. And I don't know what to do. Counselling? Cut it off? Reduce the facetime sharply and see if that makes things better? As with all my relationships this one grew at an unmoderated pace and it's harder to put the genie back in the bottle than not to take it out so far in the first place.
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 01:07 am (UTC)Maybe try both counselling and more time apart? if nothing else, the time apart might take the pressure off and give you more time to get your bearings.
hugs.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 05:12 am (UTC)You should expect adaptation to the specifics of who you are and what patterns of interaction are serious-boundaries vs. flexible-boundaries. In you. That varies per-person.
For me, staying-up-late-in-conflict is not a big deal; I can tolerate more than a year of that, if some communication seems to be occurring. Whereas hurtful words said with intent are more like a 3-strikes-you're-out hard line for me. Maybe 2 or 1 strikes. Very short fuse.
So I think you should expect (or "demand") adaptation to who you are, should want to see a trend over time of recognizing and pushing your particular buttons less-often, when trying to resolve conflicts. That's a meta-expectation. Some people don't really hurt from screaming-match fights, so they don't need to minimize them. Some people don't really hurt from broken promises, so they can ignore those. The meta-expectation is the same: "adapt to who you're with".
Good luck. Really.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 10:42 am (UTC)This really resonates with me. I am going through the same thing right now. I felt like I had developed many healthy and effective ways of communicating and handling conflict (that at the time I took for granted that everyone agreed they were good methods and tried hard to use them) that were working so great... and then I meet someone who has no real interest in employing hypothetical ways of good communication (even if they work), he just wants to do it the way he's been doing it.. and it makes me have to throw everything I learned out the window because it doesn't work if only one person does it.
It has been improving slowly for us... I think in part because even though when we argue it is yelling and screaming a lot of the time, afterwards I sometimes notice that he behaves as though he has actually heard me, which helps me be not so angry and to be able to let go of things in arguments sooner.
Another thing that has been working for us is to get creative. We recently had an entire argument conducted on a piece of notepad paper on our kitchen counter over the course of 3 days. Even though we said the same things, it didn't bother me so much to read it, and I could walk away if it made me angry.. which gave me time to reply more calmly. Also, instead of having to repeat myself, the use of underlining and arrows was helpful.. Eventually we had nothing left to say except underlining things over and over again, then I decided we had gone as far as possible and I threw the paper away and replaced it with one that just said "I love you" on it.
Throughout that whole thing it never affected our face to face interactions, somehow we remained happy and affectionate despite the garbage on the paper. I don't know if it would ever work again but I just noticed that something completely creative ended up helping us.
As far as what to accept in your relationship, my best advice is to create a timeline. Say, in 6 months you will re-evaluate. If it has not improved, then you can choose to end it. Good relationships are worth short stints of hell as long as they improve, but the key is not to get trapped into a never-ending struggle. The way to achieve that is by setting a timeline on your struggles--by explicitly putting the price you are willing to pay in terms of your time to improve things.
It sounds like you already know it can't go on like this, so you need to make sure it does not go on forever one way or another.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 05:28 pm (UTC)