How to handle miscommunications and misunderstandings

[Boogie74]

I’m recognizing patterns J has in looping her statements during arguments- often hijacking the entire conversation to repeat a perceived insult or hurt ad nauseam. 

Upon letting her vent her frustrations in several repetitive loops, she will take a pause (which never seems to be intended for me to even parrot or paraphrase to her my understanding of her position), she makes herself more and more angry at the situation- causing her memory of the situation to evolve into something that never existed remotely close to her understanding of how it happened.

I recognize that she is stuck on the emotional track- and she has trouble resolving the feelings she has- so she can’t change gears to also resolve the actual issue at hand.   

I’ve asked her what would help her to understand my recognition of my role in the argument or misunderstanding.   I also tried (and failed miserably) to explain that I have two problems in these cases- one- I misspoke or misinterpreted or misunderstood or said the wrong thing- and I am willing to apologize and take responsibility for that- but I ALSO want to clear up the confusion by correcting the misunderstanding to begin with.   

If I said “I’m going to the store to buy milk” and I meant “Creamer” (simplified hypothetical), I said the wrong thing and I still need to say “I said that wrong- I meant creamer”.  She doesn’t seem capable of understanding that the original situation still exists and needs rectifying- she interprets the correction to be “an excuse” or “I’m sorry I said that wrong BUT I want to make an excuse to get out of being wrong”.

Our situation today was because our dog was chewing on something and I wanted to know what she wanted me to do with it- we didn’t want to throw it away.   She claimed I said “I am going to throw it away unless you tell me immediately where to put it”.   I told her “I’m sorry I sometimes/often say the wrong words- I didn’t want to throw it away” and she claimed I can’t say “sorry I misspoke” and then change what I meant to say (which is ridiculous).   I told her “I want to take whatever responsibility for the misunderstanding- but I also want to resolve the issue and correct the miscommunication” and she seems to have absolutely NO recognition of that as a possibility.   In her mind, if you’re wrong about something you said, that’s it and there’s no resolving the conflict.

I can imagine a likelihood of her growing up in a household of black and white punishments/reward for original behaviors and zero tolerance for nuanced conflicts and rational thinking with two way communication and compromise- but that’s not my responsibility to her- I just want to find a way to give her the space to resolve or deal with her feelings and emotions- yet at some point communicate a correction to the situation at hand.

If this makes sense, any ideas?

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