yeah, believe me I know that! It's just harder when it happens to you. Also, pretty much everything has been put out there- every time it comes up, it gets resolved eventually, in fact it's becoming kind of a pattern.

Last time was much worse though, because usually we are very level headed "arguers", ie, we don't become rude or debate about crap that doesn't even really matter. Usually we actually come closer together afterwards, because we've resolved something that was standing between us. This was different because I felt he wasn't playing fair on me.

for instance, one convo went like this:

him: I've been honest therefore I have no reason to feel guilty
me: you said you felt guilty yourself. and secondly, honesty does not automatically absolve guilt. (I gave an example of this.)
him: that example is ridiculous.
me: no it isn't; it clearly shows that honesty does not auto-absolve guilt.
him: (and I quote..) "I wonder if you don't realize that I know very obvious things."

Ooh, suddenly i'm right, but i've insulted him by saying the obvious, which he at first opposed! it struck me as the most pathetic, desperate way to turn my argument against me.

He also said that he had never been consulted or talked to about exclusivity in the summer before I booked the flights.

no, I didn't. I DID however ask if I could live with him, to which he said yes.

seriously, nobody would agree to live with someone for 3 months if they didn't want to be exclusive. What was he gonna do, say "hey honey i'm home, btw this is my date. Would you mind waiting outside for a few hours?"

that kind of sneaky arguing isn't really debating a valid point or trying to come to a conclusion, it's just trying to weasel around with the words to absolve yourself of any responsibility. Not only that but it's almost like lying. He KNEW that living with me would mean exclusivity. Innocently saying "but you never said..!" is a sneaky technicality that has NO relevance to the main argument, or to reaching a compromise, it just tries to place blame.

That is no way to 'fight' fairly. If you love the person, you should be trying to avoid bullshit arguments and try to understand what they're feeling, tell them what you're feeling and try to *resolve* and compromise. Once that goes out the window, it is a completely different game. One we'd never played before; sure, I've gotten upset and hurt by things said before, but they weren't sneaky things like this, and I could later forgive them without a second thought.

he took the absolving himself of guilt thing so far, he basically said "I'm not hurting you therefore I don't feel guilty" (yeah, the "therefore I don't feel guilty.." thing was basically the main theme)

endless convo after convo was just about stuff like this, and I just kept arguing back.. at the point when you're trying to convince your lover to at least acknowledge that this is hurting you, you know something is ****ing wrong.

then he apologised, and did say sorry for hurting me.

I guess whenever something silly annoys me I think back to this. It's like my comms teacher said. If you say something hurtful, it does not matter how drunk you were or how sorry you are, you cannot make it go away.

(edit; kinda reminds me of something that my dad said.. We were having dinner, and my brother teased my about something and then quickly said "just kidding", and my dad said "I just read an article about how saying 'just kidding' doesn't really make any difference to the person".. so true.)

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I agree that trying to get technical on the whole "being exclusive" thing is pretty lame. If he's relying on an argument that weak, then he pretty much knows that you are right. I think people use those lame technicality things to save face because they don't want to admit they were wrong.

Let me make sure I am getting this though.. You are upset because he was being cheap in saying that he could still date other women when he originally said you could live in his apartment with him, along with the arguing, right?

When a person throws "just kidding" to the end of something clearly offensive, that is their way of making themselves feel better for having offended the other party. It's a way to remove the responsibility (guilt) for having hurt somebody else.

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Heil Frasbee

exactly. And I didn't even bloody want to be "right" because it should simply not be about who's right or wrong, or who's made mistakes. I will be the first to admit that I have made mistakes, and that I have at times assumed too much, etc. I am only human, but so is he. Fighting fair should be about protecting each other's sensitive points, not stabbing at them while proclaiming your own complete innocence.

so yeah, it's not the sandwich, it's not even the exclusivity- it's the way it was handled.


edit: (boy, I edit a lot.. and I sure can rant..)
so really, it happened, he apologised and totally explained himself, too. what's to gain by bringing it up again? --what, so that he can say he's sorry again? That doesn't seem right either, in fact it seems downright selfish.
I want to be with him- if I didn't, I wouldn't have bothered with the senseless convos in the first place. So why can't I just forget about it? *sigh*..

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Weil wenn du fühl dich nicht glücklich dann vielleicht ihr werd, traurig schlussmachen.

Ist er ein Freund deines Bruders? Dein Bruder sollte zu ihn sprechen.

... tut mir leid das Sprechen auf Deutsch, glaube ich, daß verständigen ist einfacher, wenn ich so.

ich weiss night.. würdest du deine geschwister in deinem liebesleben handeln lassen?

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Nein. Well, wenn könnte ich nicht selbe gemacht, und wenn sie sind ein Freund meiner Geschwister.

Ich denke jetzt was glaube ich du solltest tuen.

Well, you want to be with him, but I'm sure you have your limit. I must say, your limit is certainly well beyond my limit, that's for sure.

I cannot imagine how you got past the whole changing his mind at the last minute thing, let alone the exclusivity problem. Either it's somehow not as bad as it seems or you're just way too tolerant of bullshit. I would guess that your capacity to tolerate even more bullshit on top of that (i.e. sandwich issue) is pretty well compromised.

My willingness to spend any time and energy on someone who wasn't 100% enthusiastic and committed went away years ago. I realize that you're young and not even thinking about this, but I just want to put it out there: don't marry this guy. The experience you're having right now is important and the skills you're learning will be useful to you later on, but this, in my opinion, is not a great relationship.

He should be over the moon about the fact that you're there, and it doesn't sound like he is.

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I think all women really want is to be proven wrong about men.

yeah, my limit is too high, it invites shit like this! I realise that this is not just a bad thing for me, but also leads people to loose respect for me, and to keep treating me the same damn way, which in turn leads me to not fix the limit.

not to make pansy excuses, but my prime counterpart literally I guess till I went to school when I was 18 was my brother. And he's actually the nicest guy you could ever meet and I have a good relationship with him. But I had no real friends my own age (homeschooled), and you know kids. We competed in everything, and since he's older, he always, always won.

yeah yeah, I can see people rolling their eyes dissmissively already, but relentlessly having the fact that you're weakest and the dumbest rubbed in your face for years on end with no convincing source of validation available.. it makes you think you're not entitled to much from other people, and it sticks to your subconscious even when your not a kid anymore and your rational mind knows better.

The odd thing is, when we're *actually* together, he is super affectionate and happy, and all in all we have an awesome time. *sigh*.. I dunno. At the very least I promise myself that the next time something like that comes up, i'm sooo gonna say, "oh hell no, I've had it."

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Well, be reasonable. Don't storm off to the airport over a sandwich-refrigerator miscommunication.

I'm just saying you should be sure and see this relationship for what it is: it's not half bad. It's pretty good. It's You and Mr. Right Now.

...but you and I and everyone else on this forum knows you deserve a guy who worships you, would do backflips to get you to move into his apartment and would panic at the thought of not being exclusive with you. Maybe your boyfriend will evolve into that guy, and maybe not, but he's for damn sure not worthy of you yet.

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I think all women really want is to be proven wrong about men.

heh yeah, I'm aware of that. I realised it's not even relevant... being pissed about silly things just points to a larger problem.

aw *dreamy sigh* well, i'm not sure I know it, if I did, wouldn't I have it?

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I agree w/Giga^. Just gonna add my 2 cents.

re: sandwich, don't sweat the small stuff.

However, there seems to be a deeper problem w/your interactions, which the sandwich is a symptom of. You two are having trouble connecting emotionally in your arguments. He needs to learn that women often can't leap to the rational solution until the emotions are met. And get over his discomfort w/meeting them. There may be reasons why this gives him trouble that may or may not directly involve you. Do you respond defensively to him? Does he have general problems w/disclosing emotions? You would know best. Either way, I agree that you'll need to figure this out together for the relationship to progress.

oh, you're saying we can't be rational? huh? *smack!*

seriously though, those are some good things to think about.
we always get along great when we're actually together. I don't think it's so much about expressing emotions either- his whole family is far more expressive and "touchy-feely" than mine, actually.
I think basically it comes down to him being scared of responsibility, being held accountable, being tied down, etc.

It doesn't help that he usually over-does it; For instance, my brother visited for a week and slept on a mattress on the floor of his room. When he was gone, my bf said to me something to the effect of "it was nice to have him here, but god, next time he's not sleeping on my floor; I had no privacy or space." But he's just way too nice to say 'hey, would you mind sleeping in the spare room?', no, instead he pretends it's fine, puts on hold things that he might've wanted to do.

and he does the same thing with me. And then of course it's too much, and he sacrifices too much of what he wants just to make me happy- and I'm oblivious, of course
I guess that explains why this 3 month thing was such a big deal. It's easy to put things on hold when i'm only there for a week.

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i hate talking about it... but my ex girlfriend never wanted to be exclusive. that was always the big problem in the relationship. she eventually cheated on me... ahh hell, you guys know that whole part.

anyhow, you guys need to get that shit sorted out. tiay, you want to be with someone that is exclusive to you.

yeah, damnit. but the thing is- he is! he even as much as said it once I came here.

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