We’ve been together for a year, moved in together after 6 months. This is the most healthy relationship I’ve ever been in. We’re both big on communicating and talking things out.
I have unresolved trauma from a past relationship (thought time would heal everything but that didn’t happen). I’m working on finding a therapist and I pride myself on being self aware and being in tune with my emotions.
That being said, whenever I’ve ever brought up something that’s bothered me or upset me, I end up feeling like the bad guy. He acknowledges how I feel but then always gets sad because he feels like he’s not “doing enough” or “doing things right”. This in turn makes me less inclined to communicate my feelings but I’ve done that whole “bottle it up, grin and bear it” bullshit and I refuse to do it again.
I make sure to try and speak in “I feel..” statements and after one conversation, he asked for me to bring things up as a “compliment sandwich”.
Well last night, I was very upset because he knows I’m upset about a family emergency that is happening this weekend. He was out with family which I was obviously fine with but he didn’t text me once in the 3 hours he was gone to check on me. My emotions were high so I wrote out in my phone exactly what I wanted to say to him when he got home, but my anxiety got the better of me and I wanted to solve the problem right then and now so I texted him instead of waiting for him to get home. This lead to me getting a response that made me even more upset (it wasn’t mean spirited, he just texts very dryly and I struggle to understand tone, over text and in person) so by the time he got home, I was an emotional mess. I started just rambling and totally forgot to include the compliment sandwich I had even written down in my notepad. He responded by reminding me of all the things he was going to do for me this weekend, and iterated that he feels like he’s not doing enough. Once I had calmed down a bit, I read him my note
Long story short, by the time we were done talking, he had apologized for his tone and I apologized for my behavior. Now the problem is that this has left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m mad. I’m sad. I’m upset. Because I feel like I can’t communicate with him anymore. Every time I do, I just end up with my feelings hurt because I’ve hurt his, regardless of how hard I try not to. He tried to cuddle me last night and I didn’t want us to be touching at all, which makes me even more upset because I really do love this man. But him throwing an originally kind, supportive gesture in my face has me angry. I don’t want his support this weekend if he’s going to hold it over my head. At the same time though, I want to tell him how I feel and try to work this out but again, I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
So I’m at a loss. I don’t know if I should just stop trying to communicate all together and let whatever happens, happen; or if I should keep trying to communicate and still risk hurting my bfs feelings, while still doing everything I can to keep that from happening.
TL;DR
As hard as I try, I always end up hurting my boyfriends feelings when I communicate my own to him in the most constructive, healthy way I can and it’s maki me want to bottle up everything.
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* This article was originally published here
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