Relationship Rant Thread #5

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It's not that easy though. Not at all. It's something that takes courage and guts, especially when there's a child involved. These things can turn quite nasty quite easily. I reckon the lass has got her head screwed on right though. Do whatever you think is right for you and your kiddy DJ (best name abbrv. on these boards!) and I'm sure things'll turn out right. Good luck and all that razz!

 

Wow. So today, I was ordering food with some friends and my phone rang. It was my girlfriend, and because I couldn't pick up, my friend did and was pretending to be me (as a joke). She was confused, but when I got on the phone, everything was fine. We talked for a bit, and then my friend told me to give me the phone back to him to see if she could tell the difference. Thinking it was a harmless joke, I did, and he finished the conversation (for about ten seconds, he basically just said goodbye). She couldn't tell the difference.

Now, when she finds out that for those ten seconds it was my friend, she flipped out. I am wondering why... she said "Don't you want to talk to me?", implying that because my friend had wanted to see if she could tell the difference in our voices, I don't like talking to her anymore. And she is wicked pissed, too. She told me not to talk to her, which is baffling to me because I wasn't doing anything in a malicious way... she has done something like that in the past (I mean the joke), and I wasn't angry at her for it, I was just confused.

I am honestly just confused...

 

Saber, f*** man, you got one hell of a moody gf.

And DJ, this definitively does not sound like a heatlhy environement to live... especially not with a 2 year old in the equation.

From what it seems, though, the idea has made it's way in your mind, and I daresay moving out likely would be the best for you and your wee one.

Best of luck. You'll do the right thing, I'm positive.

 

She's just a normal girl. They tend to be like that. You have to agree with them when you need to, and apologise when you need to to, just to keep them quiet.

 

I disagree with your description of what you must do to keep a 'normal' girl happy BA, but I can say that she seems to have quite a few more problems than normal girls, which is fine, it is just sometimes hard when she doesn't believe me when I tell her how I feel about her or what she means to me, etc, or when she gets irrationally angry at me for things that to everyone else seem fine.

 

Screw apologies and screw telling them what they want to hear. Screw that big load of hypocritic crock.

 

I'm with DotW on this one. I only apologize when I think I'm wrong. Otherwise, "sorry you feel that way but I didn't do anything wrong" is the most sympathetic reply you'll get from me.

You have to let the girl know that you're not a "pushover boyfriend" and that just because it's her way means that it's automatically "the right way". Especially at the start. Because if you start out like that and then suddenly stop taking crap, they turn it into a "you've changed" argument where they can suddenly take the offensive. It's happened to a number of my friends.

 

You have to put yourself in her shoes. Was she sat at home at the time? On her own? While you were out with your mates? You didn't put your mate up to answering the phone, but she doesn't know that. She's probably just feeling a bit emotional, and after some reassurance. Again, girls tend to be like that. If you just said "I'm sorry, I'll try and not let my mates have my phone in the future" then she'll probably say "It's ok, I'm sorry too how I reacted", then the job is a good one. Girls nearly always overreact at small things, especially when it's 'that' time. It's good advice mate .

Or, you could follow DOTW's 'get really angry' approach that the girls dig .

 

Hah. There's a difference between getting POed and being honest.

Maybe in your beautiful little hypocritic world it works the way you mention - but in mine things are different.

Don't like something I said? Do something about it. Don't want to talk about it? Hit the bricks, I'll just hang out with my buddies while you pout.

I'm gonna tell you a little secret, Barmy... DotW is a rude, crude, selfish A-hole. But that's who I am. Despite all my flaws, the one thing everybody can always count on about me is my often brutal honesty.

Woman might not always like the way I act, but they ALWAYS know where they stand with me.

I'd rather be single than bow down or do the carpet to keep a woman happy. I have the stones to stand up to a woman and I expect nothing less from them.

And if you think a woman with stones enough to stand up to a man doesen't exist, think again. My longest relationship ever was with a woman who ALWAYS had the stones to stand up to me and put me back in my place when necessary, and the opposite.

Honest, straightforward, no-nonse, know where you stand type of relationship - much better than your hypocritic crock.

 

Well, good luck and enjoy it buddy. I hope you find a girl who likes that.

Honesty is a good thing to have and I appreciate in people. I hope I'm the same - I just find it's sometimes not the best approach with women and often leads to arguments. A relationship occasionally needs little white lies and apologies, even when you don't think you did anything wrong. In my experience at least .

 

I rather have to agree with DotW too, to some extent. I mean, there's no need to be nasty about something, but it's irritating that it's become normal to say "Oh women, they get emotional sometimes, you just have to pretend like you're sorry and then they'll be happy" because that's not always true and dangit it just gives other women a bad image. Being emotional to the point of weirdness isn't something that can be excused because of gender (and isn't confined to gender. I've known some men that need constant useless reassurance because they take everything out of context.)
Speaking of which! After having what was strangely the easiest 'Big Talk' I've ever been through, we've come to a nice compromised solution. I'm going to change what was bothering him (he finally said) and I'm going to be less tactful when I'm telling him that something's wrong (Err, apparently he thought we had absolutely no problems because I'm too nice when I'm angry. I finally told him, in plain language, what all of the issues were--he was a little shocked by the whole thing). In return we're going to start going to counseling together, and individually AND I'm going to stay with my mom for a couple of weeks so we can reset. After that we'll see how it goes.
Thanks to everyone, so much, for their advice. Wish me luck!

 

Typical, Barmy, not normal. A normal person does not need false communication for appeasement. I know normalcy is a statistical figure and in reality probably no one is perfectly normal (which adds some colour, so it's not entirely bad), but what you describe is a very common anomaly rather than anything normal. I do wish you a good, kind, loving girl who will not need any form of compromise with your conscience on your part.

I follow the same philosophy - no apologising where I'm wrong, although I will say I'm sorry if I really am, even if it's not my fault. However, being sorry is not the same as apologising.

Yes, Barmy, that's true and it clears up a lot. What you describe now is certainly not admitting fault where there's none. Just maybe being a little bit more vocal in the apology than one would otherwise find proper. Once again shows you're quite an empathic guy. I think people who genuinely care will indeed exaggerate their apologies like that, just because they care for the other person. Caring is no longer in fashion these days, but I still find it extremely important.

Of course not! Women, just like men, want to solve a concrete situation. If someone's feeling sorry, that helps because it helps decrease the wrong in your mind and the injustice done to you diminishes, but a false pretence of apology serves no purpose - I would say it only irritates women more if they realise it's being faked.

As for getting emotional, men do that too - just in different ways. Different emotions, different expressions.

Or perhaps a little consideration for feelings, regardless of how rationally they are caused. If people care about each other's feelings, not only the matter and the facts, then they care for each other.

 

I realize that's what it sounded like, but that's not what I meant. I often mean to say something, but I write ends up reading completely different to how I mean it. It's like Chev said, if a girl is upset about something you did. You might not think what you did was wrong, but instead of just saying "I did nothing wrong!", you just be a bit more considerate of her feelings and apologize. You might not think you did anything wrong, but it's obviously upset the lass so just say sorry. That's what I reckon anyway.

 

Well, yeah, I can agree with that. It's easy enough to say "I'm not sure that I understand why you're upset, but I am sorry that I've done something to make you feel that way" as long as it doesn't come out as "I'm sorry that you're mad at me." Cause jeez, of course you're sorry that she's mad at you, no one likes to have someone angry with them.

 

Question: If you feel your partner doesn't treat you with enough respect and it gets to the point where you're ready to explode at them, what do you do? Do you just accept that they'll never respect you and end it before it gets nasty? Or do you try and word the problem so as not to cause offense and sort it out? Is it possible for someone with no respect to develop it?

 

There's a difference between having no respect, and just not showing it properly. The answer to your question depends on which case applies here.

 

I wouldn't go that far, Barmy. Say sorry yes, maybe, but apologise? Not in the sense of admitting fault where there's none.

 

Yeah, maybe something of a variation of what I said in my previous post?

@DotW

I'm with you on the whole honesty approach. I've always been honest in my relationships. That said, I don't believe it follows that you have to act like a jerk when you feel like it If I say something that offends her without meaning to, I'll apologize. That's different from knuckling under and apologizing for something you feel you have no reason to apologize for. The girl always knows where she stands with me, I practically come with a disclaimer I never ask my partner to do something that I myself am not willing to do and though I'll never do anything that I really don't want to do just for the sake of pleasing her, I've found that compromise is an important factor in maintaining a healthy relationship. Nobody is right all the time.



@Uri

Harbs is spot on imo, try and talk to her first and CLARIFY exactly which one the problem is. Maybe she's just not good at showing it? Or is unaware that you feel this way. Although I'm a very vocal person, I'm not a very "sweet" person and this lead to a number of incidents in my last relationship. But she let me know how she felt so I was able to explain to her that its not a problem, but just a.. personality quirk on my part. I like to let people know what I think, but I like keeping what I feel to myself. I'd always assumed that it would show even if I wasn't implicit about it but I guess it doesn't always.

 

Enag, I absolutely agree with you on that one.

However, I am humble enough to admit when I am wrong, but I do not believe in apologies - I make sure what I did doesen't happen again. My categoric refusal of apologizing rubs some people the wrong way... BUT apologies cannot undo what's been done.

And as for being a jerk... I'm a hothead with a notorious temper, and I tend to lash out at people who don't deserve it. This is why I love doing metalworking - it helps me channel that notorious temper of mine.

Solutions are better than compromises, to quote a friend of mine, but nontheless I agree with ya.

Barmy, my point is, you can't love someone you don't respect. I do like sweet, caring gals. BUT, my respect is something that has to be earned, and it is earned by having the stones to stand up to me.

I do like sweet, nice and caring gals. My ideal woman's personality is sweet, caring yet strong enough to stand up to me and put me in my place when necessary.

 

And therein lies the problem - I don't know which it is. But there's only so many times you can politely say things like "Please don't use the drier on my combi-washing machine unless you have to, it uses a ton of electric" only to be completely ignored (Sometimes I wonder if it is more intentionally disobeyed) or "I really don't think you should drive when you've been banned" to the same effect. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just these two things but it is regretfully almost everything I say, every request I make is as successful as convincing Gnarff that "gay is the way".

On the flip side of the coin, there is nothing *malicious* in it, just pure lack of any respect shown. I can usually just shrug it off with a sigh and shake of the head, but sometimes I can begin to feel extremely unappreciated, which usually leads to some form of argument.