"I hate you" [32M] [30F]
Backstory:
We had a rough patch this summer where she wanted to end things, and it opened my eyes that I needed to become emotionally intelligent. I was clueless. I bought Daniel Goleman’s book on emotional intelligence, got therapy, made a notebook, and really put in a lot of work and effort. It really did bring us closer together. It changed me massively for the better. We had been doing great for months. Until…
The event:
I had my hands full of clothes and something else. She found a piece of opal that had fallen out of my pocket on the table. She had no idea the backstory of the opal or how much it meant to me. I’ve had it over half my life. Its been to multiple continents with me. It’s been with me through many, many life events – both good and bad. Other than my gf, dogs, friends, and parents, it means more to me than anything. It’s been in my wallet for going on two decades. Well, she goes "catch" and throws it at me. It hits the counter and chatters. I lost it over the course of 5 seconds. "Fuck you. I hate you right now" and shut myself in the bathroom. I came out about 5 mins later, back in control, but the damage was done. This is our first "fight" in over 4 months. We have an exceptional relationship. Complete trust and honesty all the time. I love her with all my heart. This just came out. I cant believe I said it.
Next morning: As soon as I woke up I could tell something was off. She wants to part ways indefinitely as that is a hard boundary for her. I said dont accept that(I totally would thouhh), apologize extensively, and remind her how much we love each other which she agrees. She also agreed the relationship has been wonderful and the only reason for the split would be this incident. After more discussion, she asks for space to think. I agree. February would be our 2 year.
What I’ve done: I bought her an orchid, some nice lotion, and made her a photo book of our travels as a gesture of how sorry I am and what she means to me later that day. Currently, im giving her the space she asked for and we’re on day 4 with no talking.
I reread my notes and books from before about how to de-escalate those emotions and ultimately avoid an emotional hijacking like that. I want to make this woman my wife one day. I do not want to lose her and will go to any length to show her this is not who I am, as well as actually being able to make this never, ever happen again. I’ve journaled, made a list of talking points and am doing all I can to show her our love is worth it. I dont want to say things like that in front of my children when/if they come along. That hit me HARD. Then I realized in those 5 seconds I put her worth below that of a stupid gemstone. Never. Again.
I guess im just asking for opinions. Have you ever came back from a similar situation? How did you do it? From what you’ve read, would you find this forgivable?
Im currently waiting for her to reach out to me as the ball is in her court in my eyes.
Oh man you lost your girl over a rock
It’s looking that way isn’t it. Im just so disgusted with myself honestly.
Are you still in therapy ?
You say “it’s not who i am” and “i want to change”
It’s one or the other. Either it is who you are and you want to change, or it’s not who you are so why change? But since it’s what you keep doing, it is very much who you are right now. You can work on it to change, but it takes years. You say you’ve gotten therapy, but it takes hears of therapy to implement real change. Just because you got it under control for 4 years doesn’t mean it was just gone and all okay.
Your gifts mean nothing. They are just attempts at emotional manipulation, trying to make her remember you’ve had good times too. Why would it change what you did? You didn’t even realize how bad it was until the morning after, and only because she said she wanted to break up. Not because you were actually self-aware enough to see how abusive your behaviour is. Because what you are describing is abuse.
The only thing that matters is you putting in the work. Not buying flowers or things like that. If you have reduced the frequency or your therapy session, i would dump you in her shoes. And even if you go back to therapy, it’s not sure you will ever be able to build back what you had. You think it’s a beautiful relationship, but if she came to the point of wanting to end it twice, it means ut’s not that great from her POV. You’re just not thz one receiving the abuse, so ofc it’s good for you.
I have never, ever done anything like this before. You’re quite frankly taking a lot out of context. As soon as I came back 5 minutes later I apologized and new what I’d done. You’re painting me like im some monster, when that simply is not the case. What was happening before was not “abuse”. I just approached conflicts logically and left emotion out of it. It’s not like I was screaming or unkind.
Edit: Also – getting someone whom you love and wronged a gift to say im sorry is emotional manipulation? Ill admit i likely could have stopped at the flower, but that is exceptionally normal and completely alright. She has done the same to me when she has screwed up.
Edit edit: Does one moment over two years define me? I would like to think not. Alas, I would like to change so that this never happens again. Maybe you disagree. That’s fine.
I didn’t say you were abusive before. I’m saying what you did there was abusive. The way you behaved there, cursing her and yelling. And i said that you might see your relationship as amazing, but if she wanted to break up once already, it means it’s not as amazing as what you seem to believe on her part.
You said in your post that when you woke up, she told you she wanted to break up and you didn’t accept and said that you loved each other. That’s why inm saying you didn’t see how wrong what you did were until she told you about wanting to break up. You knew it was bad, but you didn’t think it was break up worthy.
You need to not idealize your relationship while treating what happened like a fluke. You might bot see it, but i’m betting it’s not the only time your anger has shown in an unhealthy manner, even if not directed at her specifically. You witnessing your parents’ toxic relationship shaped your own way of dealing with anger. It is a reason for why you acted this way. But it is not a justification and you need to work on it in therapy. Journaling is not gonna cut it. Journaling helps, don’t get me wrong. But it isn’t enough to fix this kind of things. You didn’t learn to manage your anger as a child and was basically taught to take it out on others, because that s the dynamic you witnessed. You need to break that dynamic down to overcome it. That is what’s done in therapy
Im sorry, but youre just jumping to a multitude of conclusions based off essentially no evidence. I appreciate your response, but it’s simply unhelpful and flat out wrong. I would go into more details surrounding our conversation, but you’ve made so many wrong assumptions that it’s not worth it.
Part of emotional intelligence is accepting other people have autonomy, and respecting their boundaries. You can’t “not accept” her hard boundary because it’s *her* boundary. Take this as a lesson and do some more work because I fear you are not done in your emotional intelligence learning journey.
I totally can accept it. We just went from madly in love to apart over the course of 12 hours. Im not trying to control her or anything remotely close to it. I feel like I really did a poor job of writing this. I guess I just have a higher tolerance for forgiveness and something blurted out that I know she didn’t mean – I would and have forgiven that and will 10 out of 10 times, because I love her and sometimes people say things they dont mean. Doesn’t make it ok or correct, but ive forgiven her for similar things before.
Even if you would (and have) forgiven her for similar instances, it sounds like she already forgave you and gave you multiple chances after your rough patch. For her, this is not a one-off situation. This is a continuation of the pattern of you not reacting appropriately to misdemeanors, even if there has been a gap between the last incident and this one.
I understand your perspective. You genuinely and actively have been working on yourself, making progress, etc. And she did something generally careless and broke something very important to you. But at the end of the day it’s not really about whether you would forgive her, or if we would forgive you–it’s about if she would forgive you and look past your transgression.
You can try to prove to her that you are genuinely remorseful and still working on yourself, but at the end of the day that’s all you can do. If it ends up being over between the two of you, just accept it and move on.
Yup. It’s not like I was yelling all the time in the first place. My issues were more that I would try to solve everything logically rather than listen to her emotions and how she felt. Either way, youre right.
Also – We truly have not had a single hiccup in those 4 months. You can choose to not believe me, but it’s been an amazing 4 months. We both regularly check in and report the same thing. She said herself that day we parted that she was planning a life together and had zero reasons to part other than this incident.
Honestly, I’d forgive you. You were disregulated and said something in the heat of the moment…and you were able to walk away and come back to your senses quickly. I hope she gives you the chance to explain what that gem meant to you and I’m a bit surprised it never came up before this. She definitely has a right to be angry.
I wholeheartedly agree she does. My chest has been tight for days. I feel awful over it.