All threads merged for the full story


At times I feel like I can't discuss my feelings with my boyfriend because he doesn't respect my feelings. I'll admit, I don't let go of things easily, and I can understand that having to listen to me expressing my feelings again and again annoys him. I do it because I want emotional validation from him.

For instance, if something happens and my feelings are hurt, and I explain that I am hurt, I want him to say that he's sorry and mean it, rather than defend himself. When he rushes to defend himself, I question the validity of my own feelings. I console myself with the thought that he didn't mean to hurt me. But after a while I realize I still feel hurt, and that whether he meant to hurt me or not doesn't change the fact that whatever he said or did was hurtful.

Of course, I only ever realize these things in retrospect, when I am calm. I find it difficult to put my feelings into words when I'm feeling hurt. However, revisiting old issues is annoying to him, and I can understand why.

For him, resolving an issue means finding a solution that prevents a recurrence of the issue. There is no sense of mutual understanding, and the solution seems ingenuine; it feels as though the solution is made quickly to avoid trouble. Whether he really believes that there is a valid reason for concern, or whether he is just trying to quickly pacify me, is uncertain.

While I appreciate his solution-making, I find it important to having my feelings accepted by him as well. If he empathized, I would feel understood and accepted, and the solution would seem to be genuine. I would know that he is making a solution because he understands the nature of the problem, not just because I say there is a problem.

Which is more important to resolving an issue, acceptance or solutions? Am I being too demanding if I ask for empathy? And should I be satisfied that he is offering a solution whether he accepts my feelings or not? I understand that we will not always see eye-to-eye on every issue, and that compromise is necessary in relationships. However, I feel that a small amount of empathy from him will help me to really put issues behind me, and prevent lingering, unresolved feelings.

John Grey made a fortune when he wrote a series of books based on his idea that "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." Each has its own communication style, which is what you have solidly bumped up against.

Susan moans that the cat has used the floor next to the litter box again, and her husband grabs for paper towels. Susan becomes upset. SHE will clean up after the cat. All she wanted her husband to do was listen to her moan that this is the umpteenth time the cat has missed the litter box. Susan wants to vent and wallow; her husband wants to fix it and move forward.

Women vent; men fix. She can't understand why he won't stand still and listen to her and empathetically give her a hug, "There, there." He can't understand why she just stands there crying. "For Peter's sake! Let's clean up the mess, and then you can bake me cupcakes!" he pleads.

All guys are same...
They can't take up things...
At times they won't even understand our feel for them...
Let you be calm to him for some days...
Do not discuss things with him...
He will come to you and ask you "what happened and why are you not telling me anything"...
I tried this and it worked out...
Maintain your own dignity... whoever it may be...

There is one problem that should be solved here and it is mutual understanding, i kind of see that u both kind of lack abit of mutual understanding. Basically you both got homework here,which i will explain below

The thing u must understand however is how u both solve matter, u both are different when it comes to facing matters, judging from your description i would say that he is kind of a person who deal with matters with more logic than emotions, while you on the other hand kind of deal with emotion than logic, ofc neither of u wrong in this matter it is just some kind of difference that u both have to deal with. His logical solutions did 'solve' the matters however u feel uneasy because somehow the solution he gave didn't fulfill some of your expectations which are emotion related ( for example when u want him to say sorry but he didn't ),which explains why you feel like that smehow his solutions are ingenuine.

I would say both, solutions without acceptance = solve one issue but produce another issue, while acceptance without solutions = not solving the current problem because focusing in just acceptance is like living in fantasy where u only want to hear things that comfort you while the answer to the problem isn't exist in the fantasy. I suggest you sit down and talk openly with him, ofc find the right time and situation when he feels comfortable so it won't end up offending him, try to make the talk abit light and not too serious but reaching the main issue.

Other thing is : take a look at the positive side that despite the solutions he gave somehow kind of ingenuine for you because it doesn't answer the empathy part that u need , the fact that he worked the solutions are somehow proof that he cares about you and the relationship, it is just that he doesn't understand you fully yet because like i explained above the way u both have your own way to approach matters

If you calmly tell him you rather have a hug than a solution, he will probably eventually get it. It may take a while oh maybe 10 times, but he will understand if you patiently tell him.

Takes a while for things to sink into our very thick skulls and even thicker brains. But by the same token, acknowledge his solutions positively, as you have been doing.

A mans mind is to cluttered with manly things to consider such womanly things, and none of us can read minds, or feelings (except the most obvious), that's a females job!! We do understand fresh cupcakes though, and will be more than happy to take out the garbage later, if we remember it, with all the manly stuff we have on our minds.

The point, tell him what you expect... calmly and repeat, until it sinks in.

It was in today's newspaper -- Israeli scientists have discovered that a woman's tears give off a subtle odor that a nearby man unknowingly inhales. As a result, the man's testosterone level goes down and he is inclined to walk away from the sobbing female. Thus, it is against his nature to turn toward her, give her a hug, or comfort her in some way.

Threads merged



Some time ago, my boyfriend, myself, and another friend fell temporarily out of favor with two mutual friends over a prank that involved my boyfriend and the other friend pretending to be quarrelling. Much to my surprise, my boyfriend became overwhelmed with guilt, to the point of groveling and begging our two mutual friends for forgiveness. He told me that he was saying a bunch of heartfelt stuff to them, and that for the first time he was being completely genuine, and that he was afraid to lose them, and that he was bewildered by the fact that he had a heart all of a sudden.

I became a little distant, and I guess he figured I thought he was being melodramatic, because he started to diminish what he had been saying before, saying he wasn't the type to grovel. I said that that was only true for me, because he seemed to have no problem apologizing and begging for their forgiveness. I admitted to him that I felt jealous. I know, that's probably the lamest reaction. But from where I see it, during our history of dating, he's done things -not just pranks, but things that were really very hurtful to me- and has never, ever had such an emotional upheaval as he did when they got annoyed at him.

So I ask myself why that is the case... why there's this disparity between his reaction to their anger and all his reactions to mine. There are several possibilities in my mind, and they're not really objective, but hell:

1 - I have a good sense of humor about pranks more often than not, so to him, it doesn't matter that he does the same to me and feels no real remorse. But even in non-prank situations, I find he does not take my anger as seriously as he regarded theirs. I've been angry with him for more serious things than a prank, so I don't think he considers the cause more significant in their case than in mine. Maybe my anger is just less significant than theirs to him?

2 - As far as I know, he's never felt so bad about anything he's ever done to upset me. And it may be just that I don't know. Maybe, despite the fact that I think otherwise, he actually has been guilt-stricken by things he's done, and just hasn't made it known to me.

3 - Conversely, it may also be that I'm not making my anger properly known to him. But then, there are times when I do express anger, and his reaction is usually confusion/anger (ie. What is your problem?) or to diminish it (But I didn't mean it, you know I didn't mean it, I didn't do anything, etcetera)

4 - He may be taking my feelings for granted. Like I said, I'm not so good at expressing anger, and most times I get over anger quite easily on my own, so he'll just wait for it to blow over. In fact, maybe he's just so comfortable with waiting for me to get over it that he doesn't feel the need to put a lot of effort into repairing the damage.

5 - Maybe I'm just jealous because the mutual friends are girls, acquaintances who have developed into our good friends within the past couple months. I've been friends with him for years before we even started dating, and he's never been inclined to be so apologetic for anything he's done to vex me.

6 - When I told him I felt jealous, he told me that he always does emotional-type things for me. My translation of this is, instead of being jealous that he's never that apologetic with me, I should appreciate that he does, in fact, apologize. I don't think he really gets it, but maybe being unappreciative is what's making me focus on the negatives.

All in all though, I'm very disappointed that he doesn't really make as much effort to make things right when I'm angry, whether it's a prank or something more serious, relying on my good sense of humor and my tendency to not stay mad at him for too long instead of making an effort to be apologetic.

I need objective opinions on the matter, please.

How do you react to him when he does something hurtful or otherwise vexing towards you?

Do you go silent and if you must speak to him make your answers very short and cold? Do you take on the feeling "If you don't already know what you did to hurt me, then there's not much I can do to help you fix it".

-OR-

Do you sit down with him and say "Earlier, when you joked that my hair was always frizzy, it hurt my feelings. I am already having a bad enough day with my hair and I really didn't need to hear it from you. I am sure you didn't mean to hurt my feelings so much, but you did and it really upset me."

Honestly, unless you're doing the latter, you can't expect too much out of him. Your friends made it perfectly clear that they were upset because they cut off the friendship.

If you're acting passive aggressive and not really letting him in on the fact that you're upset-then all you're doing is expecting him to read your mind. In relationships, my policy is always to be clear and communicative. If I'm upset and don't even want to talk to him for a while until I can speak to him without crying/yelling, then I simply say "I'm upset right now and really don't want to talk to you. Please give me a little bit." But I always calm down enough to explain why I got upset.

That kind of communication always gets the result that we both need: a mutual understanding of how an action has been interpreted, and the opportunity for a knowledgeable apology. Sometimes, I realize that I over-reacted and it wasn't him who upset me, it was just him on whom I took out my emotions. In that case I apologize to him.

I of course don't know if this information is even relevant to you, because you might be forward and direct as it is and he's simply inconsiderate of you. I just wanted to give you the above for introspection.

Thanks for the input. To be honest, I do have a tendency towards passive aggressiveness, which I have been trying to overcome by being direct and speaking up when he does something to annoy or otherwise upset me. I'm not the type to start yelling and berating him, but I do have a temper, so sometimes I need to take a step back and gather my thoughts before I can put them into words. Unfortunately, this step back involves very little speaking on my part, mainly because I'm afraid I say something regrettable out of anger.

I can't just say, "I'm mad, but I don't want to talk about it right now", because my boyfriend tends to get agitated and keep bugging me to find out why I'm mad, thus agitating me further. I could lie and say there's nothing wrong, just so he won't interrogate me about it... but if I do that, and tell him later that something was bothering me, then of course I'm in the wrong for withholding information. It's a lose-lose situation.

I have used the latter method you (southamerica) mentioned, but sometimes it seems pointless. Quite often he'll be confused, and say something like "but I didn't mean it/didn't do that/don't remember". If I continue to tell him how I feel, he'll say, "sorry then", as if to defuse my anger. The result rarely ever feels like it's worth the effort, so sometimes I'll just let it go and not say anything.

As for our mutual friends, they forgave us and we're on good terms again, so it's not like they cut off the friendship. The prank wasn't anything too serious.

You should say exactly that... "I'm upset, but I need time to cool off before we discuss it." People handle disagreements differently, so it is wise to discuss those differences when things are calm so that each of you can get a better understanding of what the other is comfortable with. This can help to avoid further hurt and angry feelings if someone doesn't understand why the other is not talking to them or won't open up to them.

When you let him know that something has hurt you, you can preface it with telling him you understand it wasn't said to hurt you (hopefully!), but it did just that. Keep it short and to the point.

I think too, while it can be seen as taking someone for granted, people do sometimes expect their partners to roll with their hiccups, missteps, and bad manners. They feel comfortable enough in the relationship that they know when they are not always on their best behavior, it is not going to be perceived as a slight against the other person.

Where else you can you let your hair down if not in the comfort of those you love and who love you? Knowing they love you unconditionally... and put up with some of those annoyances?

Certainly is doesn't give the green light for rudeness and disrespect, and those types of things should be dealt with.

I think you should be very careful, because what I see is a very cool, calm, collected person who makes the mistakes of burying her feelings, until they become resentments, that you turn on yourself, and blame him for it.

When you feel it, express it, so he knows exactly how you feel. At least then he will know when to shut up and give you a hug, and not advice or lip service. To counter this kind of passive aggressive behavior, sometimes you actually have to be brutally honest and express yourself very plainly.

The next time he asks what your problem is, or what are you mad about, tell him, and if you need a minute, tell him, and if you are tired of his solutions, tell him to shut up, and listen.

I suspect you are not use to letting people see the darker side of your nature, but your boyfriend needs to know the total you. So far he seems to not know the depths of your feelings, so open up.

My friend has decided she doesn't want us to be friends anymore. She has cited the following reasons:

1. I'm too absorbed in my relationship
2. I don't make as much effort as she does to do stuff together
3. I didn't notice that something was wrong until she did something drastic, and therefore I don't care
4. I've lost my individuality in my relationship
5. We don't have much in common and she has nothing that links her to me
6. We don't spend time hanging out like we used to
7. I've changed and she doesn't like who I am now

My defenses, which I stated to her, were as follows:

1. When she had a boyfriend that she ignored everyone for, it wasn't an issue. Sure I felt neglected, but I didn't disown her over it.
2. Okay this one I have to concede to her. There are times when she had asked me to do stuff, and I passed, sometimes with preference to hanging out with my boyfriend, other times just a preference for doing something else. I did try to point out a couple occasions where I hung out with her in the absence of my boyfriend, even blowing him off at times... but due to several reasons (her not remembering that I was there, the fact that it was just one or two times in the year) those don't count.
3. I did notice she was being strange towards me over recent times, but it didn't occur to me to ask if I had done something wrong. I thought she was just disinterested in me because we don't have much in common anymore.
4. I strongly disagree with this point. While my boyfriend and I are similar, there are many ways in which we are not the same. The fact that she doesn't know this means suggests that maybe she really doesn't know me anymore.
5. While we haven't been hanging out much together over the past year, we do share a long history together. Apparently this does not count for anything. I don't confide in her anymore; but this is because she has a tendency to disclose what I say to her to other people. So I either just deal with things on my own or confide in other people. I told her this, and as you can imagine it didn't help my situation.
6. I have other friends who I don't see on a regular basis, who I still hold in extremely high importance in my life, and who regard me in the same way. For them, spending time together was secondary to sustaining a friendship, especially when we had such a history together. However, the circumstances with those other friends are regarded as different for people who she doesn't talk to. (My reaction: Huh? O.o)
7. I know I've changed (heck, everyone changes!) but I don't think I'm a bad person. If she doesn't like who I am now, and doesn't want to know me anymore, then nothing I said or did was going to save our friendship.


All in all, we agreed it was time to part ways. I do feel guilty for not investing as much time in our friendship as I should have. Really, I do. I just find it unfair that it was not an issue when she was doing the same thing to me.

I'm sure there's a lesson that I can salvage from this trainwreck of a friendship. So now I'm asking:

- What are your thoughts on my situation? Is there something I can learn from this that I'm not seeing?
- Have you ever neglected a friendship? Share your experience.

The only lesson I'm seeing is that this is Life and things happen and we move on. Have I ever neglected a friendship? Of course, I have. The girl I was BFF with in high school reconnected with me years later, we emailed a lot, and then, when other things were going on in my life, I stopped for a while. She decided I had dropped her. We are no longer friends and in contact. I can tell you at least six similar stories about my neglect. I can also tell you stories about people who neglected me, and I eventually dropped them from my friends list.

No one was angry. It just was and still is Life happening. Any of them may reconnect with me or me with them, and we will probably pick up where we left off.

From birth to death, life is constantly evolving and people come and go. Family members will die, jobs will be changed, and friends will come and go. I ran into my best friend from high school several years after high school. We had lunch and I was completely amazed at how much we did not have in common anymore. But that's life, who were 10 years ago is not who we are today, and who we are today is not who we will be 10 years from now.

You have to always be ready to make adjustments to whatever life throws at you. As sad as it is, its just a part of life.

That's the lesson you must learn, because you never know when you will have these life changing events.

Consider yourself lucky that your friend and you were able to come to an agreement that it was time to end the friendship. That communication saved you both from a lot of heartache that sustaining a dying friendship could have caused.

I was in a friendship that didn't end so harmoniously, and that was partially due to my failure to communicate with my friend. Yes, I'd neglected the friendship, but I did put in an effort to keep it alive. I wanted to save it, but the two little girls who used to play in the back yard had grown up and grown apart.

Friends come into our lives to teach us lessons, and serve the purpose of friendships. Some are only friends for a season. When that season is over, cherish what you had, and don't resent that it's over.

You're out with your partner, and a mutual friend seems intent on trying to get your attention. You're sure that they're attracted to you, and you, being attracted to them but committed to your partner, do nothing while they throw themselves at you. You can't help but check them out, and they catch you looking. It's so obvious to you that they're flirting that you wonder if your significant other notices.

What would you do? And what would you want your partner to do, if they were in the situation?

a) Respond to the advances of the flirter. Flirting isn't really cheating, as long as you don't act on it.
b) Check the flirter out, do but nothing more... no harm in looking right? As long as you're not touching.
c) Discourage the flirtation, for instance by paying more attention to the partner. Avoids mixed signals.
d) Other (please explain further)

I guess it depends on how laid back your partner is, some people are OK with the "look but dont touch" approach. Me personally, I would be more happy with your last option.

We all know most of our partners or ourselves have a little flirt every now and again but to flirt openly in front of him/her is disrespectful.

I'd personally say discourage the flirting, it would be unfair on your friend and your partner to flirt with your friend. Would you be happy if you your partner was flirting? What if you we're the friend and you start to think you have a chance, it hurts to discover you don't!

I have always ignored and discouraged unwanted attention. Why lead someone on when you are not serious?

I think that's what my partner would expect of me. That's what I would expect of her.