I understand where you’re coming from, but as humans, we’re really good at bullshitting ourselves and making stuff up that suits our narrative. If I want to feel like an abandoned martyr, I can make myself feel that way. In fact, half of the feelings I have are because of things that I make up in my own head or stuff I don’t want to deal with. So I stress myself out until I either have the information I need to get over it, or I just get over it. (FWIW, I’m the queen of psychosomatic symptoms. I get migraines, jaw pain from clenching, stomach problems, the whole ball of wax. Most of it is based on the bullshit I tell myself.)
If you’re in a close relationship with someone, it’s hard for them to validate your feelings when you’re feeling emotional. Depending upon the context, they wind up feeling attacked, then they go on the attack.
Case in point: a few hours ago, I had an argument with my husband. It started out innocuously enough. I was just trying to figure out how we could go out to lunch and do all the other shit we needed to do. What usually happens is the kids gravitate toward me and to avoid conflict we both just let it happen. It doesn’t bother me until it does and today it did.
When it bothers me, every other time in the two months since it bothered me last bubbles to the surface and I wind up venting. My beef isn’t really with him. It’s with the way things tend to pan out and the fact that I rarely get an opportunity to finish a thought. It adds up and after a while I boil over. I boiled over in spectacular fashion today and as a result, he felt like he was attacked and responded in kind. Which is why we’ve kind of stayed in our separate corners the last couple of hours.
It’s funny because my first thought was to pit about it. But I pit about it about every two months because that’s about how often it happens.
