SusanofO
Posts: 5672
Joined: 12/19/2005 Status: offline
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I am a huge fan of giving people their own space, too - and very much needing my own, as well - and I do understand where the OP is coming from, as far as a need for physical space. I am a fan of having lots of room to move around in, and to escape to, for privacy, or to think, (or to cool off, if angry, if necessary). I think it's something that's good for me. I know it is one of the biggest reasons I stayed married as long as I did, regardless of whether it would work for anyone else, in terms of helping to preserve a relationship. I of course like being close to a partner, and cuddling, and doing things together, or-and talking, etc - but I think the other person should have room to breathe (and I like them to give it to me, too). I never say "I hate you", because I can't picture really meaning it -and there have been times I've been very angry, but not really still hating someone. Hating someone would demean me - someone who would provoke that much ill feeling in me, is most usually someone I'd consider beneath me being provoked into hatred by them. Seriously, this is how I feel about it. Although, I can become pretty angry at someone, if I feel really jerked around by something they've done to me. If that starts to feel to much like hate, I think I sometimes convert it into feeling hurt, instead (mostly because I know what I can be like if I am really, extremely angry, and it can be explosive. I don't like feeling it, or exposing someone else to it, rare as it is for me). Hurt is another story. Without going all "psycho-babbly" on you, here is how it works for me: If I am super-pissed off, and-or feel very hurt by someone (and I have a long fuse, so they have to have done something I find pretty intolerable, for me to get to this point), but - I can be rather good at saying stuff that provokes guilt (and usually in this instance, whatever the other person did usually should make them feel guilty, IMO). It's rare, but I've done it. I will say something like: "I can't believe that you would purposely be this hurtful toward me. What is wrong with you? Was I completely wrong to choose you as my partner, my love? I think you are becoming a stranger to me, an alien. I feel very betrayed. I feel like I don't know you anymore..." Etc. I do this really well, IMO - and if I say it, I mean every word, too. It is not manipulation, I am genuinely terribly, terribly hurt by the other person, if I bother to say something like this. Because I abhor fighting, and avoid it like the plague. If the other person has absolutely no reaction, or stops communicating if I say it, and doesn't try to mend things, I am floored by their lack of heart - I don't want to be with a cold stone of a man with no heart, and bad communication skills. In one case, their reaction to me doing this, did in fact cause me to leave them. I did not regret doing it, or leaving. Usually, if I ever get that hurt or reactive toward someone, I am about ready to leave, or ask them to leave. It is very rare, and I've several long-term, successful relationships in my life-time, but - I consider this kind of scenario to be a serious situation for me, and that is how I've handled it in the past, most of the time. - Susan
< Message edited by SusanofO -- 4/11/2007 12:04:23 AM >
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"Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all". - Emily Dickinson
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