Hey Everyone,
Bit of background I’ve been in a relationship now for around 8 months and it’s been really tricky to navigate. There’s a lot I’m trying to figure out about myself and I really want to understand ‘normal’ ways of dealing with conflict.
I want to start with an example from the other day. We went to a concert with her sister and her sisters boyfriend. I met the sisters boyfriend before and we had a few drinks until my girlfriend arrived.
When she arrived she tried to direct me but made a comment that was quite rude in the heat of the moment - ‘stop f*cucking talking to fast and direct me’.
When she got to the bar she asked if I was drunk and I said,’Yes, I’m not drunk I’m tipsy I’ve had two pints’. And she got really annoyed at the fact I was tipsy and started sulking.
When talking to her sister, I looked at her body language being closed and I made a childish comment saying ‘sorry I’m talking to fast’.
I then told her that I was sorry for the comment I made but also it made me feel bad when she swore at me. She then replied saying she was joking when, in my opinion, it was frustration because she was late.
Before we got the concert, I said, ‘are you sure you want me to come, I really don’t want this night to escalate into an argument’. We tried to talk it through on way to the stadium but there were things we didn’t see eye to eye on.
Before we sat down, I went to get another drink and say on the spare seat on the other side for a few minutes. I then went to sit next to her and apologised. I said I’m sorry if I was overly sensitive to a comment you made earlier and if I didn’t deal with this as maturely as I could have. I’m love you and I’m really sorry.
Her sister doesn’t know we say ‘I love you yet’. It honestly makes me feel like she’s embarrassed of feeling that way about me.
The rest of the concert she still said ‘we’re okay for now but there are things we need to discuss tomorrow’. I then replied ‘no can we discuss them now, I don’t want to be here and built it up if we’re going to discus them tomorrow’. She said no and the whole concert I was trying to make so much effort to talk to her. She would reply one word responses and she would make conversation with her sister. The situation overall was tense. I couldn’t leave because she would say that ‘I’ve left her alone’.
I felt really isolated because she wanted me to sit next to her and she didn’t want to talk to me. So I kept going to the bar during every interval to get a drink.
At the end of it, I was writing my feelings down on my iPhone notes so I could review how I felt the next day and she then asks ‘whoa re you messaging’. So I say ‘no-one but it’s funny that now you want to speak to me and care about me’.
At this point I’m drunk. When we left I said to everyone, please go ahead I want to go to a bar and have a drink alone. My girlfriends sisters boyfriend comes and says let’s drop the girls to a cab and we’ll go for a drink after.
I get to the cab stop, really awkward with my girlfriend. And now her sister starts telling me that my drinking is unacceptable and that it’s not a way to deal with my emotions. I felt fairly defenceless and worthless at this point and I lost it at my girlfriend and told her that I’m fed up of this relationship and want to end it. I even said that she has no emotional availability for anyone but her sister.
On reflection, it’s clear to see how both sides were immature and my response at the end was dramatised. But my girlfriend is now saying that she is upset with how I just dropped and dismissed her the other night.
But I want to know how ‘normal’ couples would deal with situations like this. I feel like I have this idealist view of being able to compromise one small things like this.
Is it normal to be off with someone for so many hours for something so small? (I found out the day after, she was listing things I was doing wrong after I apologised). When someone does ignore me, how do I deal with it? (I think this goes back to an insecurity of how I’ve been treated when I was younger)
How do couples usually deal with things they don’t disagree on? We usually argue for a minimum of 1/2 days - it’s rare we can ever deal with arguments quickly. There are so many times where she would be ‘grumpy’ at me for hours or days and then brush it off as it nothing happened.
Did her sister have a right to say anything to me? Bearing in mind, I couldn’t tell her half of my feelings because of the secrets between them
Just some other background on the relationship:
We’ve been talking exclusively for 6 months and officially dating for 2 months.
We’ve only been on 5 dates alone together because of the dynamic with her and her sister it’s mainly us double dating (she doesn’t really go out much without her sister but also can’t really open up to her sister).
I feel like I do a lot for her and I do it with love. She does appreciate it but I don't feel like I get much back. It's not calculative and I don't hold it against her but I do care for her.