fights with your boyfriend or girlfriend

don't they suck? if anyone cares to share their traumatic experiences, feel free. it would help me out, that's for sure. not that i got into fights often--but when it happens, it happens.

(i think i'm destined for a trip to Williams Sonoma today to truck home a massive load of i'm a jerk gifts)

they do suck, you have my sympathies. While I don't care to share any specifics, I will say that one thing about marriage is that over time you kind of learn that it's ok to fight and that you'll likely resolve things later. This in turn leads to being less worked up about the fight, which, in turn, often makes the fight itself a lot less severe.

Like our fights are so much less bad now that I've realized that I don't have to freak out that we are fighting about something -- which would in turn just get me more wound up and more defensive and intensify the fight.

same. it's gotten better. just had a moment of relapse recently...

they suck so much

ime it is often best for me to say "you know what i can't talk about this right now" and eventually i come around and am able to hear what my partner is saying

yes, they suck hard, but if your bf/gf violates your personal boundary, it is necessary to correct them. ime, big fights happen when your partner refuses to honor the boundaries you set and fails to understand or acknowledge their importance. giving in too quickly or easily will have very unfortunate consequences. once you've accepted unacceptable boundaries, changing their location looks to your partner like a treacherous betrayal of established norms.

relationships are hard.

but if your bf/gf violates your personal boundary, it is necessary to correct them

o_O

yes, they suck hard, but if your bf/gf violates your personal boundary, it is necessary to correct them. ime, big fights happen when your partner refuses to honor the boundaries you set and fails to understand or acknowledge their importance. giving in too quickly or easily will have very unfortunate consequences. once you've accepted unacceptable boundaries, changing their location looks to your partner like a treacherous betrayal of established norms.

relationships are hard.

― A is for (Aimless), Monday, March 12, 2018 3:02 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's true but tbh sometimes i'm just being a selfish dick

Classic.

Or no wait, not 'classic', what's the word for 'a thing that's so stress-inducing that it's probably shaved several cumulative years off of my life'? Because that.

once you both have a fair idea of what (if anything) is worth fighting over and how badly (if at all) you are allowed to behave while upset and what (if any) steps are involved in repairing the damage (if any) then these arent fun as such but theyre not 100% avoidable

its injured silences thatll kill you

sometimes i'm just being a selfish dick

then it's on you to hear that from the aggrieved party and apologize.

Oh god, my ex and I used to get into the worst fights. She pulled a knife on me in one of them. We kept dating for over a year after that.

ie man alive otm

xp woah

twas only my mum ever pulled an actual knife on me, rad

Had I been older/smarter (I was about 19 at the time) I'd have just tried to de-escalate from there but my brain said "she has a knife, you better also get a knife son" and then all of a sudden we both had knives. (No one was injured.)

jeez

~romance~

holy shit damn

pvmnic

Whenever my wife pulls a knife on me I just quote cider house rules. That usually settles things down and leads to passionate make-up sex.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQbhUyx8sEA&t=19s

once you both have a fair idea of what (if anything) is worth fighting over and how badly (if at all) you are allowed to behave while upset and what (if any) steps are involved in repairing the damage (if any) then these arent fun as such but theyre not 100% avoidable

its injured silences thatll kill you

― the clodding of the american mind (darraghmac), Monday, March 12, 2018 7:13 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ding ding ding

(@1:33)

xp

xxp - i would have thought that knife thing was so hot and exciting when I was that age

I feel really bad for laughing at that train of thought Simon, but I hope you really did conclude your inner monologue with "son"

maybe that was my problem with a specific relationship, I just didn't understand that theatrics were supposed to be "hot"

the only screamer weve ever had was over vacuuming while snoozing nothing else has ever mattered that much

hahaha yeah mine tend to be a bout STUPID SHIT. like this last one was about dining out. how....dumb. but yes, the injured silence bit hits home cuz i'd rather be trivial and get it out than live a quiet life of misery ffs.

glad i'm not alone here...

My parents have what looks to me like a preternaturally secure relationship and I also grew up with them raising their voices/getting testy at each other not infrequently, which I wouldn’t say I think I should emulate but it does take some of the sting out of a fight to have that in my background.

i would have thought that knife thing was so hot and exciting when I was that age

yeah no it was the product of a LOT of issues both within and the beyond the relationship that were going on at the time, I assure you it was not even a little bit hot

Gah damn. Violence or intimations thereof would be an absolute instantaneous dealbreaker for me. Glad as hell I've never had to deal with that, sympathies to anyone who has.

vacuuming while snoozing is very serious and a violation of respect imo

I envy silby a bit, my upbringing made me think that arguments that were even a little heated meant there were serious issues at play or acting out emotionally was a deep personal failing

tbh in retrospect this may have been a lot of projection on my part

physical fights are never a good thing

i can deal with some light verbal arguments and it depends on whether or not i can let them go

if i can't i move on

i have been with too many women who like to argue, have massive fights, can't really accept things for what they are, yet still want to date. this is like the dumbest thing a person can ever do yet i see people in this type of relationship all the time

i literally just gtfo in a snap

Yeah don’t stay with anyone capable of even threatening violence is a good rule imo xp

btw "passionate make-up sex" is something i have never known, it is likely to be bullshit

i need to learn how to gtfo of an argument in a snap when i KNOW it is just going nowhere fast and looping. at least be like "ok this is clearly spiraling, let's hit pause"

seems so easy? ...

it takes two to argue

the dumbest dynamic I ever experienced was an ex who would storm off and shut the bedroom door, and would insist it was so she'd have some space to think and cool off. but if I didn't try to talk to her through the door, she'd get angrier!

I was willing to give it a try, like sure, you go cool off and I'll go for a walk and we'll speak about it when I get back. But no, I said I was going for a walk and hadn't even made it out of the building before I got an angry phone call

some people are impossible, don't date those people if you can help it

i don't do drama

i don't do boyfriends, either, which makes it easy

hey surm i didnt say stupid shit i said vacuuming while napping ie very serious fuckin shit

xp mh my man

some people are impossible, don't date those people if you can help it

(some of you sound like my parents, may they rest in quiet)

I've taken Simon's advice there a little too literally and tbh going it solo has its ups and downs too

or maybe, one might say, no up/down action

tbh going it solo has its ups and downs too

having done it for over a decade, this is def true, but it still feels preferable to the alternative

anyway that's enough on that subject from me, this isn't the volcel thread

Simon, my man

tbh we could make a great thread of "arguments you had because you didn't want to say a specific thing or were withholding information"

there are some really funny dumb arguments when you just don't want to admit something

Hello this most pertinent of threads. I broke up with my partner of almost a year just the other day and it was because of fighting. On the whole we got on great but we would also fight, usually about once a week. it didn't help that we work in the same office so there would be that resentful period of silence, except right there in front of each other. the fights were fairly frequent, as I say, and often about the same thing (certain trust issues on her part leading to insecurity, which in turn made me feel distrusted and insecure).
slowly but surely an alarm began to ring in my head and it slowly dawned on me that this was taking its toll on my wellbeing. I was spending half the week in relative happiness and the other half stressed out and contemplative.
It's been a really hard few days. I keep questioning whether we could have made it work, sorted out our differences? was it asking too much not to argue as much? would it have been possible to see each others POV if we'd stayed together or would sensitivity have stopped us being able to get our points across? is it even right to break up with someone you actually get on well with generally because you find the arguments overbearing?
anyway, I'm sad and regretful about it and I know she is too. strange that this thread popped up today.

only thing id note is that all other long-term (i wont say successful tbh) couples i know fight very differently to any other so it would seem theres little use in doing what anyone else says

xp sorry to hear that dl

We take turns cooking depending on who feels like it or who is better at making something. But we both stay in the kitchen to assist, listen to a show and drink wine.

I only cook when my partner is not in the kitchen, because it does not work for her to see me doing things differently and perhaps messily. Otherwise I do the sous chef prep work and she makes the creative decisions, which is fine because has a much better intuitive sense about seasoning, balancing a dish during the process, etc.

to be a menu top i feel like you need to be a bit of a relationship top in general tho.

my ex would literally forbid things, like, "we eat too much pasta so no pasta for dinner" would be the command. even though i was going to make a really great dish like a nice slow cooked sugo di pomodoro with some breaded fried eggplant (＃`Д´)

and i was the cook in the relationship due to shorter working hours, less stressful job.

I hate fighting with my wife. Worst feeling.
We don't fight very often, and when we do it's usually about my lack of contribution to the household (I have only been working part time since June.)
LUCKILY I will have more work starting in a few months, and I definitely understand her frustration w me. I'm not a very driven or ambitious person.
On the other hand, I do nearly all the cooking, probably more than my share of the laundry, and we share other cleaning and cat-related chores.

But I hate fighting it sucks. I just want to get along and be happy. But I know sometimes u can't get along with someone when you're disappointed in them, and there is occasional friction.

ok that's my story.

xposts: DINNER.
I do almost all the cooking, as stated above, and I'm usually involved in the planning of meals.
But one of my huge pet peeves is when I make a meal (sometimes nice, sometimes real basic) and inevitably she will find somerthing wrong with it. "Maybe roast the sprouts longer next time." "Maybe don't add water to (whatever soup or stew or curry), it's bland." I think for me, where I know i'm not the financially responsible one in the relationship, I really do try hard to compensate in other ways -- like cooking, or surprising her by doing laundry, or whatever -- and it bums me out to feel unappreciated sometimes.

Also the sregular, "I'm hungry but I don't know what I want to eat."

and i should prob start or look for another thread on it, but menopause makes relationships a rollercoaster of emotion and hot flashes and cleaning binges.

Not up for talking about relationship conflicts but enjoying the OT tangent:

Sometimes I try to express everything in metric units for fun ("I'll pick up 908 g of chicken"). I thought UK people were as bad or worse wrt Imperial/metric inconsistencies, though? Does anyone in the UK say "I am 177 cm tall" (except wacky people like me)?

The city of Windsor is wacky compared to the rest of Canada: it's the only Canadian place I've been to where everyone uses the Fahrenheit system.

Canadian English is even more inconsistent than those three words, tbf: "airplane" instead of "aeroplane", m/l a crapshoot regarding "s" vs "z" in words like "analyse" or "realize" (I follow the old RCM conventions and use "s" after "y" but "z" after "i"), single quotes are usually for scare quotes and not quotations. I have to edit my spellings if I submit something to an American OR a British journal or conference.

xpost Ian. I am critical about meals F prepares or even restaurant food. Hopefully, it's the same with the wife where she isn't criticizing you as a person but instead...like there are just so many cooking shows on nowadays, everyone is a f'ing critic on food. I used to think I was hurting his feelings when I later added more salt or spice or lemon but it's just different palates.

I think it's mostly that I get mad at myself for not making things better, then I feel sad.

ian, I'm sure this isn't what you intended, but FWIW from one unambitious self-critical sort to another, I'm mad at your wife now

xpost I get it, I sometimes don't work and I also try to compensate by doing most of the household labor, back/head rubs, finding ways to save money, cut costs, etc. Just focus on the things that you can control. Also, making completely new things for meals sometimes makes people oddly super happy. Like I don't ask F what he wants to eat sometimes, but I like, for the first time whipped out some naan from scratch this weekend and some chana masala and he was giddy.

i have gotten really good at bringing her tea in bed on saturday mornings.

And about menopause, I can't even imagine what that is like, but I know when I am hormonal it has nothing to do with the other person, my brain is stalled, so many feelings, I just want things to magically be known and taken care of.

Don't be sad. You are the best, Ian. These times are hopefully temporary.

oh yeah, no, i'm not really sweating it!
menopause is insane tho. and i know it's not about me or directed at me, but sometimes it can be tough when your partner is irrationally angry/irrationally upset and there's really not much you can do about it :(

Yeah, when I get like that F just starts shoving haribo and wine into my mouth and hopes I go to sleep.

https://www.everydayhealth.com/menopause/mood-swings-in-menopause.aspx

oh so my post was about going *out* to eat

who cooks and what they cook at home is a different matter

But one of my huge pet peeves is when I make a meal (sometimes nice, sometimes real basic) and inevitably she will find somerthing wrong with it.

Ugh, I needed to hear this because my partner is low on work atm and tries to help out in other ways and I'm often kvetching about it. "dont put the plates on that bench" "whys this been left out" "this teas got too much sugar" lol I am a fucking harridan sometimes :/ (I'm not snappy! just a negative idiot). But tbh until recently for a stay at home dad he wasnt doing very much housework either (dishes, boys lunches/toy cleanup... that was about it). So our fights would be me coming home from a very stressful job, exhasted to the point of tears, only to find that before I could even cook dinner I had to clean the whole kitchen I'd only cleaned 12 hours earlier. And then I'd get "when is dinnerrrrr" on top of all that. AND cooking dinner is a massive PITA in our house because we have 4 people with completely different diets so have to take turns. Drives me and my OCD insane.

It's all very complicated!!! I think a key understanding that Helen & I have come to is that, as long as we're trying our best, it's important to be patient with each other. On the other hand, if she's been at work all day and she comes home and I haven't cleaned the kitchen and I havent done anything with my day.. yeah, she's got a right to be miffed.

And while I do enjoy cooking and am okay at it, anything that begins to feel like a chore is gonna be a drag.

probably the biggest fights in my marriage involved food. at home this was mostly my fault because despite knowing how much her life revolves around food, i had neither the cooking desire or cooking skills to please her.

on vacation it became a nightmare of indecision on her part. i'm not picky; i'll go anywhere. but for her every meal had to be somehow ~special~ (in ways that i myself was not qualified to select). sometimes this worked out great if she could plan in advance, like this one place built into the cliffs above grenada. on the fly, it turned into us walking fucking halfway around lake como because nothing was 'suitable' and going back to the hotel to eat leftover cheese.

i ate much better when we were together, but i'll be happy with the guilt- and disappointment-free turkey sandwich and hummus i have tonight

ps canada is great

every meal had to be somehow ~special~

This may honestly & truly be the foundation of my marriage (I mean on both sides, luckily)

This is a little surprising how much couples fight about food. I thought it would be more about money or just incompatibility (which I guess the food issues are moments of that).

I don't think it's surprising. Food is something you put in your body. Some might deem it a question of consent.

tbf our other huge fight involved whether major league baseball players should be expected to know how to bunt

I am not even touching that consent comparison.

mookie, is she a chef? I feel like maybe I met her a long time ago?

For me its not the food itself, its the "prepare and clean up" (to quote Kristin Hersh). Having one kid with coeliac and a refusal to eat most things, both kids vegetarian, mr adult-kid hating his damn vegetables, and no one seeming able to wipe a bench or a dish, I tear my hair out lol.

it's pretty important that i date a woman who has similar taste in food tbh

i don't want to come to my house smelling like something that i consider awful

actually a long term relationship

dating i guess it doesn't rly matter

i hate cleaning up the kitchen, not gonna lie.

Y you may have met her, idk! (she was pretty great apart from these aforementioned issues, btw.) she is not a chef, but i think she might now do web stuff for m0m0fuku, so

My partner was vegan for over 10 years (he eats some seafood now - no shellfish)). I will eat anything, everything but that also means I am extremely flexible with being veg. But he is also flexible with me eating bone marrow, offal or game meat when we go out. The cleaning is probably more upsetting if I felt like he wasn't equal in it or bartering in that regard. I really love clean floors so I am more than happy to take care of that.

divine mrs m also has the ~it must be special~ thing re food, at home its ok cos we can both cook p well but when we're out for *non foody* reasons its pretty aggravatory behaviour not to just satisfice imo

I don't think it's surprising. Food is something you put in your body. Some might deem it a question of consent.

― Moo Vaughn, Wednesday, 14 March 2018 22:51 (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you should be taken out the back and beaten

I have to say that eating cheese and drinking wine for dinner in a hotel room while on vacation ( F has hummus) is what I try to do at least a couple of nights. But I also really like to go to grocery stores in other countries.

Is that a personal threat or just a colloquial expression of toxic masculinity?

its a casual musing, delivered as airily as tbe original comment nbd

an idiomatic way of saying "fuck off mate"

hey try having arguments about food / eating out with a partner who has strict, ironclad rules about these things but will not discuss those rules and refuses to acknowledge they exist
apologies for venting, this thread is touching on a lot of hot topics for me

my wife got really mad at me this morning cuz i got transmission fluid on my jacket while working on the car and it is apparently a symptom of how i don't care about things and don't take care of them.

but boy you gotta do you!

hey dog latin sorry to hear about your breakup.

Can we talk about the most petty things we've fought with our partners about? yesterday it was about logic in website search filters.

had a huge fight - well more just me being harangued - with my ex because i laughed at a guy getting busted after he drove by a cop car while texting on his mobile phone

like for not hating the police sufficiently - and i do hate the police, i also hate distracted driving tho

understandably
i have to watch myself as a pedestrian with the damn phone it's awful and v dangerous

i rly think i came out of a lesson from this last fight, i have to be honest. i know "perfect from now on" isn't a thing (holla built to spill) but i learned that i have a way of going from really high to really low in a split second, and my sanity depends on recognizing those moments, and stepping the fuck back.

hi! so i made it until last Friday. April 27th. that's more than SIX WEEKS. no fighting! until Friday :( ugh that sucked. I got annoyed with the boo about something he said, but anger got the best of me and it quickly became:
(1) i said the wrong things
(2) i'm making my boyfriend feel like shit
(3) i'm a terrible person

which resulted in a me spiral and us having to talk about everything which was really annoying. i feel like i could have gotten in and out with an easy "hey, what you said kind of bothers me" instead of unleashing all that. we were able to resolve it and the night ended with a candid and chill conversation. didn't go to bed angry, woke up fine. it wasn't the worst, but it threw me for the weekend. i think both of us were exhausted from a long week. now trying to think about how i express my anger in the future. and that's my story.

6 weeks is great going surm. I wouldn't beat yourself over the odd argument. but it is worth trying to pre-empt arguments, pick your battles and work out how to address problems sensibly before things blow out of proportion. also worth trying to work out whether little bickerings are symptomatic of a bigger issue which isn't getting addressed.

<3 thank you for that