Lately I have been feeling extremely angry at my boyfriend and I’ve been trying to get more conscious awareness around my thoughts when this is happening.  We are currently traveling abroad and it’s this amazing epic trip. Yesterday he told me he didn’t want to go do one of the markets we had planned to see – I said okay. I wanted to go to the market, but he doesn’t, I could understand why – it’s hot and he’s tired plus I have an extra day at the end of the trip so I’ll go then.

So instead we went to the pool, which I find boring when I’m in a foreign country. I was on my phone writing out some notes for an Instagram post I wanted to make. Little did I know he is secretly getting mad at me for “ignoring him” and now he thinks I’m mad that we didn’t go to the market. I told him I wasn’t mad. I actually wasn’t. I wasn’t thrilled about sitting at a loud pool right beside a speaker. But anyway he got snarky with me when I asked him a simple question and made a passive aggressive comment about me being on my phone and walked off to the beach for an hour or so and I went back to the room.

Later that night I brought up to him that if he had communicated that I was on my phone too much that I would have put it down. I didn’t realize it was bothering him. I was kind of bored and just writing some ideas down. This ends up in a massive fight where he tells me he feels depleted, that I always have to be right, he tries telling me what I want to hear, when I feel like all I’m trying to do is have an actual conversation so we can figure things out.

Last night we go out to some fancy restaurant that he wants to go to, I get dressed up, I have a few drinks because I know he likes to drink, and pretend to have a good time. He seems to have a good time. We get home and don’t have sex again even though I tried to initiate it. Now this morning he’s resentful and doesn’t want to go do the other cultural excursion we have planned because he’s tired and frustrated. I told him it was okay, I understand why he is tired (I do), and said for him to stay at the pool. So he stayed behind and will lie at the pool while I go visit a mosque. I’m not mad that he isn’t coming but I AM concerned that all he wants to do is lie by the pool and go to fancy restaurants and cocktail bars like a grown up Vegas party boy – I think this is a valid concern. I’ve voiced this concern to him (nicely) and was met with – surprise – another argument about how I’m wrong. It’s tense. We can’t communicate at all. Every time we get into any disagreement it’s basically a relationship threatening altercation. I’m afraid we don’t want to do the same things. I’m afraid we can’t ever talk about anything important without it being a fight. We talk about food and logistics and business, but matters of the heart are just off limits with him. I know he wants to be able to, but he seems unable. He said we could go to counseling, which I’m open to, but in the meantime I’m stuffing all my true feelings and concerns down down down until we go to counseling, and I notice it’s starting to breed feelings of contempt that are getting harder and harder to push down. I notice I push those feelings down with ruminations of rage and anger, and also sometimes smoking cigarettes (which is oddly effective).

So I’m in the car on the way to the mosque after basically storming out of the hotel saying we need to learn how to communicate so everything isn’t a fight.

Here are my thoughts:
He doesn’t know how to have a conversation
Everything is an argument
I’m scared he only wants to drink, eat and lie by the pool
Every time I try to bring up an important conversation it’s a relationship threatening issue
I’m afraid we don’t want to do the same things
I’m afraid we will live parallel lives
I’m afraid we aren’t compatible
I don’t want to live the rest of my life like this
This is his fault and his communication issue
I don’t know if this can be fixed
I can’t argue with him anymore
He’s going to break up with me
I want us to be happy
I’m scared to speak because I don’t want to cause an argument
I want more emotional connection
I want this relationship to work
I’m so mad that this is the result of the fact that I was on my phone and he could have simply asked me to get off
I’m allowed to be on my phone
He’s too simple for me
He tells me my concerns aren’t valid but I keep seeing reasons they are
We fight way too much
We should break up
He can’t resolve any arguments
This relationship is over unless we get counseling

I can also really believe that our differences make us better, the frustrating thing about that is I DID that yesterday. And he still accused me of being mad at him and “burying my face in my phone for 90 minutes” and it ended up in a fight that lasted all day yesterday and has leaked into today now too.

I am beyond frustrated and am trying not to stuff my feelings of frustration down. But I feel like I’m going to explode when these feelings aren’t pushed down in some way.

I’m trying to ask myself who do I want to be in this situation? I just feel like I don’t even know where to begin sometimes I’m just so fuming mad. Any help in where to begin is so appreciated.