This past weekend has been my birthday weekend, and I wanted to include my sufferer gf with my plans. Her stress about coming out to visit as well as meeting my friends was very high, but she insisted that she wanted to do it (I made it clear that it was completely optional, though if she wanted to come, I would make sure she was able to by buying her plane tickets, arranging transportation, having a place to stay, etc). She offered to take the load off by saying she had been an event coordinator in the past and she would take care of it. I felt awesome, told her how great that made me feel, and I even bragged to my friends that she was helping me take care of it. It turned out that she did very very little to plan (no reservations, no coordination, very little communication with others) which made everything go very stressfully this past weekend.
But everything has been a trial. She got stressed out when packing, so she missed her flight causing her to have to spend the night at the airport -- she left her wallet in the cab ride over, so she had no money to get home. She waited until the last minute to verify that everything was cool to travel on the next morning flight out, so she missed that one too and by the time everything was straightened out, she was on an 11:30am flight out (after having been there since 8:30pm). She and I were both very stressed at this point.
Per my "money" thread, I was also stressed because what should have been a $100 round trip flight had now escalated into being ~$700. I am not independently wealthy, so this was a big blow to my finances.
After she got here, she continued to miss deadlines. We were supposed to go one of my favorite clubs on Friday, and because we couldn't even leave the house until 11:30pm, some of my friends had to cancel and when we got there, I missed most of the main act. Then because she needed space, she would say "I'll be right back" and then disappear into the crowded club for long periods of time, causing me to stress out about where she was. Then at the end, she reconnected with me saying that guys were trying to grope her etc, I thought you said this was a safe venue, etc. I wasn't trying to reprimand at all, but I calmly said that we try to stay within our own group to avoid these things.
The next day I was supposed to have dinner with friends. We were all gathered at one friend's house to leave for dinner, and I asked when the reservation was for. It became quickly apparent that there was no reservation, and getting one at the last second for a group of 10 in Los Angeles on a Saturday night was going to be impossible. I quickly made alternative plans, called friends of friends who own restaurants, and was able to make a last minute res closer to where 8 of the 10 people were (causing 2 people to cancel). It was a good compromise.
So the group was ready to leave, and she wanted to take an additional 15 minutes to get ready, so I said go ahead, we will meet you there. 15 minutes turned into an hour and a half, and the group was actually already done with dinner, dessert, drinks, etc, and were coming back to the house while we were still there "getting ready".
I said hey, let's forget about plans, and forget about the group, let's just make it about us. This seemed to work well -- I was able to get a late reservation for 2 at a really great restaurant. We were having a good time there until she says she wants me to ditch work on Monday to hang out. I said I really can't, I have a client meeting which I can't miss. She gets angry and says she could have met with a lot of clients (totally hypothetical, she has not reached out to any of them) also but she did not because she wanted to be with me for my birthday. I told her that if she had important meetings, I would have gladly worked around that schedule, but I didn't know, but I just can't cancel my Monday meeting. This turned into passive aggressive statements of how I don't care about her, etc.
This made me upset. I had been bending over backwards all weekend (and more) to make sure she was comfortable, and she was throwing it back at me, so I was rapidly losing my cool. We got in the car to leave, and I said calmly that I didn't feel like it was fair. She started getting more upset and saying that she didn't want to hear it and just wanted to listen to music. I was ok with this and kept driving.
Maybe 5 or 10 minutes into the drive, she says she hates that I seem very upset. I tell her that it's because I have a lot of emotions that I'm feeling and feel with no outlet, and I really just want to be heard. She says she's listening, and I say that I don't love my work, it is just something that I have to do in order to pay for life so that we can do things we enjoy. She immediately gets defensive again and turns the radio up full blast (I have a very powerful stereo system in the car -- full blast is enough to permanently destroy your hearing).
This made me lose my cool. I immediately turned the radio off. It was the wrong thing to say, but I raised my voice and said "Why are you acting like a child!?" I was at this point crying.
She got upset and was no longer to listening to anything else. She fixated on the fact that I raised my voice and said that I was abusive. Since then we've tried to have small conversations, but it keeps going back to me being abusive, and she can't be in an abusive relationship.
I rarely lose my cool over anything, and I almost never yell. I study zen and meditate. It takes a LOT for me to get angry like that, and I can't even remember the last time it happened. But it did, largely because I felt like I was getting my buttons pushed constantly. I was being abused. So I raised my voice.
And now she has broken up with me. We had such a solid relationship up until this point. I moved 400 miles to be closer to her. And now I'm an abusive person that she can't be around.
I want to be sick.
It hurts.
But everything has been a trial. She got stressed out when packing, so she missed her flight causing her to have to spend the night at the airport -- she left her wallet in the cab ride over, so she had no money to get home. She waited until the last minute to verify that everything was cool to travel on the next morning flight out, so she missed that one too and by the time everything was straightened out, she was on an 11:30am flight out (after having been there since 8:30pm). She and I were both very stressed at this point.
Per my "money" thread, I was also stressed because what should have been a $100 round trip flight had now escalated into being ~$700. I am not independently wealthy, so this was a big blow to my finances.
After she got here, she continued to miss deadlines. We were supposed to go one of my favorite clubs on Friday, and because we couldn't even leave the house until 11:30pm, some of my friends had to cancel and when we got there, I missed most of the main act. Then because she needed space, she would say "I'll be right back" and then disappear into the crowded club for long periods of time, causing me to stress out about where she was. Then at the end, she reconnected with me saying that guys were trying to grope her etc, I thought you said this was a safe venue, etc. I wasn't trying to reprimand at all, but I calmly said that we try to stay within our own group to avoid these things.
The next day I was supposed to have dinner with friends. We were all gathered at one friend's house to leave for dinner, and I asked when the reservation was for. It became quickly apparent that there was no reservation, and getting one at the last second for a group of 10 in Los Angeles on a Saturday night was going to be impossible. I quickly made alternative plans, called friends of friends who own restaurants, and was able to make a last minute res closer to where 8 of the 10 people were (causing 2 people to cancel). It was a good compromise.
So the group was ready to leave, and she wanted to take an additional 15 minutes to get ready, so I said go ahead, we will meet you there. 15 minutes turned into an hour and a half, and the group was actually already done with dinner, dessert, drinks, etc, and were coming back to the house while we were still there "getting ready".
I said hey, let's forget about plans, and forget about the group, let's just make it about us. This seemed to work well -- I was able to get a late reservation for 2 at a really great restaurant. We were having a good time there until she says she wants me to ditch work on Monday to hang out. I said I really can't, I have a client meeting which I can't miss. She gets angry and says she could have met with a lot of clients (totally hypothetical, she has not reached out to any of them) also but she did not because she wanted to be with me for my birthday. I told her that if she had important meetings, I would have gladly worked around that schedule, but I didn't know, but I just can't cancel my Monday meeting. This turned into passive aggressive statements of how I don't care about her, etc.
This made me upset. I had been bending over backwards all weekend (and more) to make sure she was comfortable, and she was throwing it back at me, so I was rapidly losing my cool. We got in the car to leave, and I said calmly that I didn't feel like it was fair. She started getting more upset and saying that she didn't want to hear it and just wanted to listen to music. I was ok with this and kept driving.
Maybe 5 or 10 minutes into the drive, she says she hates that I seem very upset. I tell her that it's because I have a lot of emotions that I'm feeling and feel with no outlet, and I really just want to be heard. She says she's listening, and I say that I don't love my work, it is just something that I have to do in order to pay for life so that we can do things we enjoy. She immediately gets defensive again and turns the radio up full blast (I have a very powerful stereo system in the car -- full blast is enough to permanently destroy your hearing).
This made me lose my cool. I immediately turned the radio off. It was the wrong thing to say, but I raised my voice and said "Why are you acting like a child!?" I was at this point crying.
She got upset and was no longer to listening to anything else. She fixated on the fact that I raised my voice and said that I was abusive. Since then we've tried to have small conversations, but it keeps going back to me being abusive, and she can't be in an abusive relationship.
I rarely lose my cool over anything, and I almost never yell. I study zen and meditate. It takes a LOT for me to get angry like that, and I can't even remember the last time it happened. But it did, largely because I felt like I was getting my buttons pushed constantly. I was being abused. So I raised my voice.
And now she has broken up with me. We had such a solid relationship up until this point. I moved 400 miles to be closer to her. And now I'm an abusive person that she can't be around.
I want to be sick.
It hurts.