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Author Topic: Who is more verbal in your relationship?  (Read 538 times)
calmhope

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Gender: Female
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Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Relationship status: living together for 5 years
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« Reply #30 on: March 23, 2015, 10:54:49 AM »

The energy spent talking about why they can't do something often far exceeds the effort it takes to actually do it. It is almost like an allergy or phobia to making physical effort times.

Involving us at times is almost so that we can be witness to their "doing things'. To just do it without witness or acknowledgement is simply alien. So it has to be talked about. Both the planning to do it, the actual doing it, and the acknowledgement after the fact. We have entire conversations about going to empty the dishwasher and an update when it has been done.

Oh, wow. Yes. I notice this behavior with my uBPso too.

In our home, it seems like there must be a conversation—mostly likely a conflict—about every little task. If I take it upon myself to do a chore myself, the reaction is often an annoyed "do you have to do that now?" or "why don't you just ask me to help?" and if I ask for help then it's "do we have to do it now?" or a disgruntled "fine" followed by no actual movement towards helping.

He has told me that he doesn't like it when I just take care of everything myself because he feels disengaged in the home and also because me being accommodating makes him feel like he's being high-maintenance. My response has been to try to do any chores when he isn't home, but then my work is invisible to him and he accuses me of doing nothing to contribute to our home since he is the primary breadwinner.

Wavewider, you've helped me see the behavior through a new lens. It's about validation. I should work on accepting that there is going to be discussion about basically everything whether I like it or not, and I should look for the feelings behind the protests and look for ways to frame the conversations differently.
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waverider
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« Reply #31 on: March 23, 2015, 04:24:23 PM »

We had a small dysregulation this weekend over Netflix. I was watching a show, he was chattering about wanting to see what else they offer, like a catalog. He looked it up on his computer, and declared he had to login and how pissed off that made him. I used the word declare for a reason.

I was only half listening, but I told him sorry he couldn't see their stuff that sucked. Another 15 minutes go by and he has repeated this 3-4 times by now. Finally, he asks me if there's a way he can see it on the Ipad. I told him I'm sure he could but he would still have to login.

It still didn't quite click with me. I was distracted because I was trying to watch my show, darn it. Well, he starts a mini frenzy about wanting to see the catalog and finally a realize he was ASKING me to log into Netflix on my ipad for him so he could see.

He didn't ASK me. I'm supposed to extrapolate what he wants based on his declaration of not being able to login on his laptop. Once he started getting amped up and repeat himself over and over, and I realized I was using JADE language, I stopped what I was doing, looked at him, and listened. I was not listening before, I was only hearing. He said then that he was really excited about looking through there and seeing movies and such he wanted to share with me, and he got frustrated that they wanted him to log in.

I told him then I understand. He was excited about something, and I was not listening to him. Another good thing was when he started ramping up during the dysregulation and trying to get mean, I calmly told him it was ok for him to be angry. He has that right. He did not have the right to be mean to me, and I wouldn't participate in the conversation if he was going to get mean.

He calmed down, and stopped being mean. He didn't apologize but that's ok. I was proud of him for being able to self-soothe enough to speak to me respectfully.

These kinds of events show me over and over how difficult our communication can be. He doesn't always talk like this, but when he does I don't always get right away what his message is. Also, he also has a hard time understanding MY message, particularly if he's dysregulated.

That is a good example of relationship management. You wont always read the message straight away and act in the optimum way. What you demonstrated is that you did catch on and steer the issue back onto the right track with the least fuss and not getting reactive or triggered yourself. Once you know you can do this you can stop being on guard all the time and relax a little more.

As a result it did not ruin your night

Redirecting is just as powerful a skill as prevention.

Doing the right thing (click to insert in post)
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waverider
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« Reply #32 on: March 23, 2015, 04:36:36 PM »

In our home, it seems like there must be a conversation—mostly likely a conflict—about every little task. If I take it upon myself to do a chore myself, the reaction is often an annoyed "do you have to do that now?" or "why don't you just ask me to help?" and if I ask for help then it's "do we have to do it now?" or a disgruntled "fine" followed by no actual movement towards helping.

It is likely he is reading your actions as a passive aggressive attempt to highlight that he is doing nothing. "I was just going to do that" etc. Don't start avoiding doing things as that is affecting you, and probably inconveniencing you. That could lead to resentment. A simple "I like to keep busy" and quietly go about your business while redirecting conversation onto something unrelated. Most importantly don't do things in a rush that can be interpreted as being quietly angry.

If he doesn't want to help, and he feels bad about it, that is his problem don't make it yours.

Being consistent and not reactive enables things to become accepted as "normal' eventually
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calmhope

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Gender: Female
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Relationship status: living together for 5 years
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« Reply #33 on: March 24, 2015, 02:35:47 PM »

In our home, it seems like there must be a conversation—mostly likely a conflict—about every little task. If I take it upon myself to do a chore myself, the reaction is often an annoyed "do you have to do that now?" or "why don't you just ask me to help?" and if I ask for help then it's "do we have to do it now?" or a disgruntled "fine" followed by no actual movement towards helping.

It is likely he is reading your actions as a passive aggressive attempt to highlight that he is doing nothing. "I was just going to do that" etc. Don't start avoiding doing things as that is affecting you, and probably inconveniencing you. That could lead to resentment. A simple "I like to keep busy" and quietly go about your business while redirecting conversation onto something unrelated. Most importantly don't do things in a rush that can be interpreted as being quietly angry.

If he doesn't want to help, and he feels bad about it, that is his problem don't make it yours.

Being consistent and not reactive enables things to become accepted as "normal' eventually

Thank you for your thoughts on this, waverider. I definitely agree that my uBPso perceives my actions—no matter how benign my intentions—as highlighting his inaction. He can be very sensitive about it.

I work from home, and so I may be a little more distracted by a full sink of dirty dishes than he is. And since I work from home, I have more flexibility to load the dishwasher, do a quick sweep, etc. during breaks. I don't complain about the chores, so in my mind there should be no bone of contention here.

Yet a common complaint during conflict is that I contribute nothing to our home and relationship. It does no good for me to JADE by listing all the work I do around the house, taking care of our pets, running errands, and freelancing full-time, often working nights and weekends to stay caught up with everything.

I appreciate your suggestions for handling this issue. I'm also adapting something that was mentioned on the recent Fed Up topic.

Here is my bizarre solution. If I ask her to do X she will not do it. But if I put it on my to-do list on the wipe off board in my office, she offers to do it for me and then does. I make a big deal of how much help that was to me and she offers to do the next thing on the list.  

Ours will be a shared to-do list. I suggested it to my uBPso and he's happy to give it a try. Fingers crossed that it helps us sidestep this recurring conflict.
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waverider
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Posts: 7405


If YOU don't change, things will stay the same


« Reply #34 on: March 25, 2015, 01:05:20 AM »

I work from home, and so I may be a little more distracted by a full sink of dirty dishes than he is. And since I work from home, I have more flexibility to load the dishwasher, do a quick sweep, etc. during breaks. I don't complain about the chores, so in my mind there should be no bone of contention here.

My situation is exactly the same. As i do random chores when they fit in around my work, almost like having a break from work, is no big deal once I get over the 'fairness" principle.

Yet a common complaint during conflict is that I contribute nothing to our home and relationship. It does no good for me to JADE by listing all the work I do around the house, taking care of our pets, running errands, and freelancing full-time, often working nights and weekends to stay caught up with everything.

I gave up trying to argue that point. The few times she told me flat out that i dont do anything, I went on strike so that she got a clear picture of what exactly nothing looks like. Doesn't dare say that anymore.

So I get on with what I am doing, don't stress too much about the unfairness (occasional frustrations but not that deep resentment). Makes my life easier to cope with, at the end of the day that is the goal.

Being told I don't do anything around the house is one of my boundaries that gets an immediate consequence (not an argument or JADE). I just stop doing anything until I get an acknowledgement.



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