My boyfriend and I had a disagreement last Saturday and I’ve been coaching myself around it but could use some insight as I know this is an area that I want to learn/grown in for sure.
A little background, I said something that triggered him and he stated the response below – this is not the first time this ‘you don’t care’ issue has come up.
UM:
C: Man states ‘you don’t care as much as I care about you’ and ‘enough with your bargain basement coaching responses’
T: I don’t know why I’m bothering with this relationship
F: angry
A: fester, cry, complain, eat off protocol, process the anger, justify, rationalize
R: Create confusion and a thought storm and story about whether it’s worth being in this relationship
A few of the other thoughts:
T: I’m not good at relationships
T: I don’t know if this is worth my time
T: I’m not good with this stuff
IM:
C: Man states words
T: This is/are his story/thoughts/beliefs and I get to choose what I make them mean
F: aware
A: coach myself, get coached, get perspective, as what would love do, who do I want to be in this situation
R: I learn about how to handle things in a relationship/new perspectives
I sat with the anger, fear and sadness and then started to explore what was coming up – and my new thought feels true and good.
I’m getting a little stuck in that I realize his response, words, reactions are neutral. However, I also prefer to not be in a relationship and be yelled at and have to analyze what I say in order to not trigger him. Just writing that I realize that I have no control over that anyways.
This is new territory for me. I’m vacillating between coaching myself that if I get to choose what I make anything mean, I ‘should’ just set a boundary around the yelling etc. and work things through. What also is coming up is that I get to choose if I want to stay in this relationship or not, knowing that 1) I am causing my own feelings always 2) any person I’m in a relationship gets to be/do whatever they want and 3) I’m the only one who needs to be ok with what I decide/do etc.
It feels foreign to think/show up this way as I’ve always reacted to things like this and tried to ‘fix’ it by changing my behavior.
Who do I want to be? A loving and understanding and compassionate person that focuses on what I appreciate and love about people in the relationships I’m in – but that also chooses what relationships she stays in regardless of the reaction/upset of the other person.
Would love some perspective on this. Thank you.