In my relationship, I experienced all of the reasons listed, to some extent, but a LOT of:
- #1 Its a Power Struggle
- #6 Demand for Rationality
- #7 Problems have to be solved
I am a very "Type A" personality, so the thought of giving up my sense of control, the power in the relationship, was very hard for me to handle. It would be one thing if it were an equal division of power, but he had almost all the power almost all the time. A good friend of mine shared a quote with me and I think it fit my situation perfectly, "The power in a relationship lies with the person who cares the least". I think this is an amazingly powerful, and sadly true, statement. I dont know how much he really cared if I stayed or if I went. I felt like I was always just there for him when it was convenient for him, he rarely went out of his way to do something that I wanted to do when he didnt want to do it. If he didnt want to do it, he just told me "no". A theme that would repeat itself all the way to the end.
He also always demanded that I be rational. He was always very withdrawn when I wanted to talk about our relationship, and I think its because he expected me to come at it with a very rational approach -- you know what? Im sorry, but feelings and emotional connections are not rational. Rational theorys and thought processes cannot be applied to an irrational emotion. The rational side of me says to move on already and stop this nonsense about wanting him back, he's not good enough for me ... but my emotional side says hold on with everything I have. It is a constant struggle. Although in hindsight, I never gave him the option to talk or not talk about it. I always came at him rushing down a path that could not be stopped. I should have given him the option, if I would have asked him when a better time to talk about our relationship would have been, he might have been more receptive. Note to self: This is a MUST in the future.
Problems have to be solved, this was him to a T. It goes along with his demand for rationality. He always thought that the main reason for communication was to share facts that can be used for problem solving. Sometimes problems dont have a solution, they just need to be voiced so the other person knows whats on your mind. I always tried to appeal to this thought process tho, and when ever I had an issue, I would say things like, 'this way and that way didnt work, lets try another solution to solve this problem'. It seems that when I used these rational words, he was more receptive, but it would only last so long before we fell back into the bad habit that caused the rift in the first place.
I also read a great blog on Communication, about how we are better at communicating with strangers than loved ones. Why? Because we assume that those close to us understand us and therefore make assumptions about how they will react to our conversation -- which usually leads to colossal misunderstandings. We have no preconceived notions about strangers, on the other hand, and assume that they will take everything in context, will have no sense of humor towards our words and not have any understanding of underlying implications.
I think I took our communication for granted. It always baffled me that we were such good communicators when he was 5600 miles away, and when he came back, its like that communication went up in smoke. We would make comments about how we were always on the same page, and we knew eachother so well ... but did we really? When he was so far away, we were forced into strictly verbal communication, and when he came back, we moved almost exclusively toward non-verbal communication, and that was where the problem started. We assumed the other one was on the same page, but we werent. We took that connection we had for all those months when we were apart, and applied the same principle to when we were together. But the game had changed, so the same rules did not apply. I should have seen this.
Wow. Things are always so much clearer in hindsight.
Wow. Things are always so much clearer in hindsight.
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