Harmlessly setting yourself on fire and not noticing for a while is pretty much objectively funny, sorry. I know you don’t want to look stupid, but I think most people have more respect for a person who can laugh at himself rather than someone who sulks around overly concerned about fitting in.
My 2 cents:
Shirt story seems funny and most couples I know would tell a story like that.
I’m no expert, but I think a therapist would explore why you feel diminished when that story is told and possibly remind you that you own your feelings, they arise more from your own internal processing than from something external.
A possibly informative link:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/08/30/we-are-responsible-for-our-own-feelings/
I’ve quoted two posts of yours that I think encapsulate your girlfriend’s problem with you:
No. I don’t. Most people wouldn’t. That’s weird, anxious thinking to go from “my shirt got a hole burned in it” to “I narrowly escaped needing skin grafts!” And it puts your girlfriend in an impossible situation in how she can talk about it, because she’ll sound like a nut if she treats it like a big deal to her friends, but you’ll be hurt if she makes light of your brush with serious injury.
Similarly, here you’ve constructed a hypothetical of the perfectly thoughtful and mind-reading girlfriend that no real human could possibly live up to. And then used that mythical construct to judge all the ways your girlfriend’s response fell short, based on hindsight and your own perfect knowledge of what’s in your head.
What you’re doing here is setting traps. Not on purpose, it sounds like, but for your girlfriend the effect is the same. She wants to go out and have fun and not have to worry that she’ll trigger one of two dozen invisible tripwires you’ve set out for her to avoid. She can’t ever be thoughtful enough to avoid all of them, because some of them aren’t based in reality. The reality is that you burned your shirt on a candle while chatting on a web cam. You didn’t narrowly avoid skin grafts, you just burned your shirt. So to her, she’s sharing a lighthearted story with her friends, maybe to help include you in the discussion and give you a chance to participate via some self-deprecating joking or playful back and forth, and you’re using it as an excuse to get offended and feel put-upon. It sounds exhausting, and I don’t blame her for being frustrated.
If I were you, I’d apologize to your girlfriend for being a drag and explain that you let your insecurity about the situation make you overly sensitive. It’s hard to say whether you guys can find an equilibrium point that works for both of you – it will take a lot of work on your part to grow a thicker skin and not look for reasons to be hurt or offended, and a lot of patience on the part of your girlfriend. You guys will have to decide if the other aspects of the relationship make it worth pursuing. Good luck.
To the OP. Is she your first girlfriend , or have you been dumped before ?
That’s what I was thinking, too - you’ve been together for a year, and you say most things are very good; it sounds to me like you have a serious communication issue, though. A relationship counsellor could be very beneficial to both of you, for both of you to figure out how to ask for what you want from the other person without setting off a big dramafest.
I also hate that shit - if you don’t want to be there and you’ll be a big dull dud all evening, just say so and stay home - I won’t force you to go. I’d rather you weren’t with me than come with me and ruin my evening too.
Re-read these (especially the last one) and again and again. They’re very sensible. And because it saves me the trouble of coming up with my own post to say the very same things.
Oh, and I DON’T think the relationship is over by any stretch of the imagination. This is the sort of stuff that all people have to work through. We’re not identical clones, and understanding what makes our SO’s tick is par for the course.
If you want to make such a trivial incident is a ‘deal-breaker’ though, that’s up to you.
Here’s the thing: you’re assuming that she knew that story would make you feel ‘diminished’. For the majority of people I know, it wouldn’t have that effect at all. It’s not like you did anything stupid - you weren’t soaking your shirt in petrol and waving it at the flame; you just got too close to a candle. I can see exactly why it wouldn’t even occur to her that this would make you feel ‘diminished’.
Being laughed *about *is not the same thing as being laughed at.
Me personally, I don’t tell third-party stories where someone else present is the butt of the joke, even if the joke is a straight-up accident like this one, unless I know for a fact that they’re grand with it. But that’s simply because I’d rather let them decide whether and when to tell the story.
You seem to have a tendency to attribute the worst possible motives to your girlfriend. You assume that she told the story because she knew it would make you feel diminished and didn’t care, rather than because she thought it was funny and figured it would break the ice. You assume she wanted you at the thing to be a designated driver, rather than because she thinks you’re great and has more fun when you’re there and couldn’t wait for people she likes to get to know you better. You asked what leaps out: what leaps out at me is that there’s no way this is going to be a healthy relationship if you keep attributing the worst motives to her.
Yes, what should have been an amusing anecdote that they both could share and laugh about for times to come, instead became a point of contention where we are now discussing it on a message board.
If you cannot laugh off stupid things that happen, or things that you have done, then there may be compatibility issues. These things are shared memories that become part of your relationship. Laugh about them, they are bonding moments.
Since lobotomyboy63 doesn’t see it this way then the relationship might be one that fails.
The ability to find humor in daily life helps keep life interesting. If you cannot laugh at yourself, and won’t allow others to laugh at you, you are too sensitive. And may end up being a pain to be around.
Using the generic “he” because I do not know the particulars. Does he make you laugh? Is your time together fun? Do you look forward to being together because you know it will make you happy? These are the important questions to ask about a relationship.
The GF may decide that the answer to these questions is, No.
Personally I found the fire story somewhat funny. It would have been funnier if it happened during the conversation with her family and then posted on YouTube. Of course I’m a fan of slapstick comedy.
Maybe she did cross some bounds by telling it to people not part of your circle of friends. At least she did it in front of you. She would probably have been told the story at her work in the near future. If my wife did something like that, I’d be telling.
Seems to me that your sensitivity doesn’t align with her empathy level. Possibly you can become less sensitive. Otherwise you two may not last.
This was really insightful, thank you.
I got partnered/married in my late 30s. I think when people spend a significant chunk of their adult lives unpartnered and living alone, as it sounds like the two of you have, there is a lot of adjustment required if you decide you want to be with someone. Especially in the first years, there can be a lot of highs and lows, even in a good relationship. You may feel very happy to have found them, and that their companionship/love makes your life much better and richer. But you likely also clash a lot because you’ve gotten used to being alone and having your own way.
There tends to be a lot of black-and-white thinking about relationships here on the Dope. Either it’s 100% wonderful all the time, or you should get out. I’m willing to say that my husband and I are very happy together, and committed for life–but that we sometimes have blow-ups similar to the one you describe. It doesn’t mean our relationship is horrible or necessarily doomed. Instead, we both recognize that we were unpartnered for a long time, and got set in ways that were not necessarily good for us, or developed bad communication habits.
For example, my husband is working on overcoming a tendency not to communicate enough. He tends not to say important things like, “I’m feeling really sick today” or “I don’t know how to do the thing you just asked me to do” or “I prefer to do X” or “I did X thing (because he thinks I won’t approve”. He tends to just go along, stew a bit in resentment, and bad consequences result.
For my part, I am quick to irritate and have a hot temper. Like your girlfriend, when I feel like I’ve done something wrong, or I’m frustrated, I get really emotional very quickly. I want to slam cabinets and yell for awhile before I calm down and talk about things rationally. This is especially bad because it has the tendency to make my husband feel less like communicating with me, leading to a vicious cycle.
All couples have incompatibilities to overcome. Anyone who says they are never frustrated with their partner/spouse is lying. I think the key question is, can you come together and work on it? Can you see progress being made? For me and my husband, we are very in love and committed, and we talk a lot. We always come together quickly and apologize and talk out how we should try to do things better the next time. And there are lots of positives in the relationship–we love being in each other’s company a lot, we share values and goals and interests, and we have no doubts about our commitment and our future together. That part is natural and has never been in question. This trust gives us both room to be imperfect and to come together and talk honestly and with sensitivity to one another. We see each other’s points of view.
So it concerns me less that you are a little touchy and she is a bit temperamental. Plenty of people have overcome more difficult incompatibilities. What concerns me is that you don’t make it sound like either of you feels very committed to the relationship, despite being together for a year. You sound hesitant, nervous, uncertain. You don’t sound satisfied by your communication on working out these issues. And it doesn’t sound like either of you is in a big hurry to repair the recent disagreement.
So I wonder if this relationship is really what you want for yourself? If not, I would move on. I think the real key to relationships is commitment. If both of you are “all in,” it is much easier to work on and repair these sorts of things than if you are both having lots of doubts about the future.
All my best to you as you work to figure this out.
This is an interesting way to put this - you can choose to change - you can try to be less sensitive. You can try to develop a sense of humor about it. You cannot change her. You can let her her know how you feel, and she may choose to try and change because of it - but if she doesn’t, that is that.
Over the course of our twenty years together (thirty as friends) my husband has made some changes to keep me happy, and I’ve made some changes to keep him happy. But there are other things I’ve learned that I need to let go and things he has let go. And there are things that he still bugs me about that I have no intention of changing and continue to be a point of contention - honey, let it go and stop bugging me.
I can only imagine the level of outrage the OP might feel if his GF casually complained to her other girl friends about how he never throws his dirty socks in the hamper or what a bad aim he is at the toilet bowl. which is something 99% of all women do. (Of course there is no shortage of men comlaining about their GFs too)
My opinion echoes that of Astro’s. If the OP can’t learn to grow a thicker skin, he just reduced his dating pool by a significant margin. Not something you want to do at 50+ years old.
If this thread had opened with a woman complaining that her SO introduced her as “Hey, this is my girlfriend Jane, you won’t believe this clumsy silly thing she did earlier this evening,” it would be going considerably different.
In general, when you bring your SO to a work-related thing where they know nobody, right out of the gate it’s awkward and uncomfortable for them. It shows amazingly poor social skills to drag someone to a work thing and them use them as the butt of your amusements.
And this stuff about stomping around the house, slamming things and cursing just because she was called out for an insensitive comment? Again, imagine how this thread would be going if it were a man going around the house slamming doors and cursing.
My coworkers talk about their SO’s pratfalls all the time. Sometimes the stories are are truly funny. Should I not laugh? Should I scold them for disrespecting their SO’s behind their backs?
The OP wasn’t being laughed at in a personal sense, since what happened to him could have happened to anyone. He’s entitled to feel hurt over it. But unless the girlfriend was all, “lobotomyboy was SOOO stupid the other day!”, then no, what she did wasn’t indicative of poor social skills. It’s pretty much normal to joke around like this. It’s also pretty normal to find it funny.
Details matter, that’s true. But we also don’t know the details of how the OP presented the matter to his gf on the drive home. Did he reasonably lay out the facts and tell her why it bothered him and ask her not to do it again, or was he sulking around and giving her cause to think she was walking on eggshells in fear of setting him off again?
OP, may I suggest that you learn to laugh at yourself. No really, If I “almost” caught on fire, not only would I make fun of it myself, and tell the story to anyone willing to listen, but I would expect my BF to. As a matter of fact, I know that he would take great joy and telling the story. It doesn’t sound like she was doing it to make you look “stupid.”
Gosh, I’ve had my share of accidents and ridiculous close calls. They make great conversation at gatherings.
It’s possible that you two are not a good match, but if you want to continue your relationship - then work at being able to make light of things like this and not take it personal.
I think for the most part it is very obvious when someone is trying to purposefully make you look like a dummy, don’t you think?
Laugh it off and move on.
Yeah, pretty much. And yukking it up about a story about an incident that has clearly not become funny to said SO just yet* only makes things more awkward and uncomfortable. Making an already awkward, uncomfortable situation even more awkward and uncomfortable for someone, in an environment where they can’t express their discomfort without looking like a whiner, a spoilsport, or one of THOSE couples who airs their disagreements in public (and lord, how we all loathe being around them)…that’s a total dick move.
*Some ultimately harmless, funny mishaps are physically painful, or scary, or embarrassing, or otherwise distressing at the time they happen, and that distress has to fade before the humor comes through. I think setting yourself on fire in front of your SO’s family can reasonably be classed in that category–it would certainly throw a scare into me, and probably embarrass me in the bargain, so I’d probably need at least a week before it was funny.
Yeah, you could refer to it as your “Richard Pryor moment”.