Okay so I and my gf had kind of a disagreement one time. We were watching a show(not in person) and I felt as though she wasn’t really there because she was playing a game, and every time I looked over at her, I saw she would only glance once in a while at the show. I told her that it felt as though she wasn’t watching and I wanted to feel that she was fully there. She got upset and told me she was watching, that just because she’s playing a game, doesn’t mean she’s not watching the show. I ended up pausing the show bc I didn’t want to watch anymore, and she got upset .
(Bare with me, this connects to the title)
I later brought it up in a neutral way and I tried to express myself to her. I used “I” statements and tried as much as possible to avoid saying anything related to “you did__.” But that wasn’t enough. I said it in a low, neutral tone and said that I felt as though she wasn’t watching and it seemed that she would glance back and forth sometimes. I told her that I just wanted to feel as though she was there with me bc I was really excited for us to watch the show together. When she responded, I felt that the response was defensive. She told me that it was unfair for to say that and just because she’s playing something doesn’t mean she isn’t watching. She said she understands what I mean but she was the one that told me what was happening one time when I wasn’t there(I had gone to the kitchen to get food). Her tone and everything just wasn’t caring and it didn’t seem that she cared about the way I felt about it. She said that she’s not going to stop playing her game but then she said that okay whenever she wants to play it, she’ll just tell me to pause it. She said she felt as though she couldn’t express her feelings with me without me feeling invalidated. Basically that she can’t talk to me about her feelings when I mention my feelings. She probably holds a lot back and I really don’t want her walking on eggshells.
I got really upset because I felt extremely emotionally invalidated. I even asked her if she felt attacked bc maybe it was my fault that she responded that way but she said no. I told her that I didn’t appreciate the way she talked to me and I think she apologized? But I couldn’t tell if she really understood why I was upset. I don’t think she saw a problem with how she expressed herself bc she only agreed with her tone being mean but nothing else lol. But maybe I’m overreacting, I don’t know. I’m a sensitive person and idk, I just don’t know. This has been a thing in our relationship for a long time and it’s always been a thing. I’ve always felt emotionally invalidated in some way, whether it be through her facial expressions or the way she responds to my feelings whenever it involves something that I perceived a certain way from her.
Now with the therapy session(I’m sorry this is long). She’s always felt comfortable telling me about her therapy sessions and I had asked her one time if she was going to bring it up bc idk, I wanted us to have a different perspective and I wanted to see maybe if I’m wrong with how I’ve been thinking about things. She said maybe she’ll bring it up her next session. Her next session came and ended and she told me about it and she never brought up the situation. I knew it was going to sound wrong and it wasn’t fair but I still told her that I felt as though she didn’t prioritize me in our relationship bc this is something we’ve been struggling with and I wanted to feel as though she was trying to understand me, understand why I feel emotionally invalidated. She got upset and it was absolutely fair, and unfair of me to expect her to bring something like that up during HER session. I let my emotions get the best of me. I should’ve expressed how I felt in a different way, I should’ve told her things didn’t actually feel resolved but instead, I went the route that I did. She was really upset and told me it was unfair of me. She cried, she said for some reason, it really hurt her. She told me that she thinks loving forward, it’s best if she doesn’t tell me about her sessions. I felt terrible. I broke her trust and no matter how much I apologized, I knew I messed up. I ended up sending her a vm apologizing, and then I tried to explain why I did that. I told her how I’d been feeling. That I’d been feeling neglected in that area our relationship and I just didn’t know who to talk to about it. I told her that that day we had an agreement, my mind spiraled and I actually debated on whether we should break up or not because no matter how much I explained me feeling invalidated, she just never understood. Don’t get me wrong, she’s there for me when I need her, and she’s the best gf I’ve ever had. It’s just a sometimes, when it involves her, she just gets defensive and sometimes unfair. She responded to the vm saying how what I said was unfair and that we agreed to do relationship counseling and if that doesn’t work then we should talking about splitting bc the last thing she wants is either of us being unhappy. I got upset bc it felt as though she ignored everything else I said in that vm but I was probably manipulating her somehow by brining up my own feelings when she was clearly upset. Anyways, it’s a lot so I’ll wrap it up. She asked for space and it’s been almost 2 days, and I miss her a lot. Idk what to do.
td;lr telling my gf what to do and being an a**hole
Comments
She shouldn’t be doing other things during your designated bonding time
You don’t get to dictate how she has therapy sessions.
You don’t apologize by saying “I apologize but you made me do it because XYZ justification”
And you guys are in your teens and need relationship counseling? That’s a sign that you guys shouldn’t be together
You are completely in the wrong here.
Her therapy is for her benefit, not yours. If she didn’t want to tell her therapist about your argument, that’s absolutely fine. If you want to discuss that argument with a therapist, discuss it with your own therapist. Which you really should have.
You seem to be very controlling, and really upset when people don’t do what you want them to do. And that’s not a good thing. This is a you problem, not a her problem. You need to get to the root of why it bothers you so much that she didn’t watch a movie she clearly wasn’t enjoying.