Girlfriend's rudeness and impatience making me reconsider engagement

LegacyUser

Hi there,

I've been seeing a girl for the past 5 years and we live together. There is a 6 year age difference (I'm younger) but we get on like there's none at all.

We've agreed the next logical step in the relationship is marriage, so I'm currently saving for an engagement ring. However, as time has gone on, one issue that has really been bothering me more and more is the way she can be impatient, critical and snappy with me. It's at the stage now that when it happens, I can feel this huge tension in my chest, and an enormous amount of resentment towards her.

I appreciate that on some of these occasions I probably am doing something annoying.
However, sometimes it seems completely unwarranted and the triggers for it seem quite random from where I stand, and the resentment it makes me feel towards her is something I've never experienced before. I am a pretty introverted person and have a tendency to bottle things up inside me, so I don't think she realises HOW unhappy I am about it, and the only way I can think of describing it is "emotional scar tissue" that is preventing me now from being fully comfortable and open with her.

The worst part about it is just how unnecessary it seems, at least from where I stand. We have a great relationship in so many other ways, and all my friends and family have commented on how good together we are. She is a very thoughtful and empathetic person, and if I or any of her family ever need anything she is there in a flash. When my Dad died a few years ago, she was amazing, and was supportive in a way that I never expected of anyone. In her actions, she is very kind, it is just sometimes in her words that she can be rude and thoughtless.

What a shame then to end it all over something that seems, on the surface at least, to be so avoidable. That is where my head is at now - potentially pulling the plug on the whole thing. We've talked about it on multiple occasions when it had boiled over, and each time she has admitted that she she has impatient tendencies. She works in a senior management role so her career requires her to be decisive and in control. However, this is not a requirement when she gets home. To give you a couple of examples, last night I was helping her order a part for her laptop, and when I wasn't filling in the order form fast enough with the autofill thing in Chrome, she snapped. I snapped back at her, closed her laptop and walked away, telling her she could do it herself when she wasn't being "a total bitch". She apologised later on.

On another occasion, she was sick and asked me to get her chewing gum from a drawer. I gave her one of the open packets, and when I gave it to her, she snapped again, saying that I had given her a "stale" one and there was an unopened one beside it. At the moment in time, I had to summon all my powers of self-control to not just throw it at her and tell her to go f**k herself. That incident really changed my perception of her, and it hasn't really reverted back

Both of us have clinically diagnosed mental health issues - depression and anxiety for her, and anxiety and OCD for me (talk about luck!). She had a difficult time growing up as her mum had what sounds like a lot like borderline personality disorder or some other type of mood disorder. I believe her impatience and snappiness has its origins in her own issues, so I try to take that into account when we have a row like the ones I've mentioned. However, it gets harder and harder to qualify your partners irrational mood and behaviour with each passing incident.

I've tried asking her is there something she is unhappy about, or frustrated with, but she maintains that it's her problem not mine. It's also a very lonely place to be right now. I don't really feel like I have any friends I can rely on to talk about it, as some of emigrated, and others don't seem as available as they were, hence me posting here.

Any advice is much appreciated, thanks!

retro:electro

I'll probably be disagreed with, but to me it sounds like BOTH of you are impatient, rude and snappy. I mean both those instances you've described there are pretty petty, and your reaction to both was also completely over the top. Did you apologise for calling her a total bitch? That was completely unnecessary in my opinion and hardly the stance to take when trying to diffuse the situation. I think you both need to have a good look at yourselves here, you're coming across every bit as snappy and ill mannered as she is.

Yellow pack crisps

You can hardly criticise your fianc when you name call her. You both have issues and you both have medical conditions and you could both attend therapy to work on your interactions with each other. Anxiety is bad enough when it's one person but when it's two together it can cause a lot of problems. Don't name call and don't get angry just stay calm and tell her she is not treating you nicely next time and have time outs. At least when you do discuss it she realises her own actions. Do you?

Ms Doubtfire1

The one thing I can say is that when resentment has started to grow it hardly ever goes away.It will keep festering and grow bigger and worse until you can hardly stand the sight of the other person anymore.With both of you having issues as well i would recommend to at least take a break, live together 'apart' as such and see where that takes you.

Big Bag of Chips

I have to agree with the other posters. You too are snapping at her, and calling her a "total bitch" is uncalled for. You admit yourself that these feelings towards her are building, and you can't seem to stop them. That in itself is a bad thing, obviously, if you are planning on spending the next 60 years or so together. It is obvious that these feelings are now influencing the way you respond to her. If your mother, or cousin, or neighbour had said something similar would you react to them in the same way? Probably not.

You are now both in a habit of snapping at each other and over reacting to the tiniest of provocation. You (both) need to pull it back a bit. You both need to be considerate of each other and mindful of how you speak to each other. You have decided to spend the rest of your lives together. That should mean that you have the utmost respect for each other. That you want to be happy and relaxed in each other's company. All couples will have little tiffs or disagreements, but it's how you handle then that will define you as a couple.

We all know 'that couple' who constantly bitch at each other and never seem happy together, and who ruin the atmosphere for everyone else! Don't become 'that couple'. Relearn how to communicate with each other. Tell your gf how it makes you feel if she snaps at you, but be prepared to hear how it makes her feel when you do or say something hurtful too. She has a lot of very good points from what you say. She is loving and supportive. Work with that! Have a chat with her, at a time when you are both loved up and relaxed.. not in the middle of or just after a row.

If you point out where she hurts you, you can give her the chance to change. If you bottle it all up, how is she to know? Better communication can solve most relationship problems!!

MeatTwoVeg

<Mod Snip.
Welcome MTV. Please read our charter before posting to PI again.
Key rule is if you can't offer Constructive Advice and in a civil manner just don't post. Due to the nature of the issues here we may be forced to action your posts otherwise.

Thanks.>

orthsquel

It sounds to me that you are both bottling stuff up and hiding it from the other person. You're not being honest with each other about what each other is feeling and both reacting negatively to fairly trivial things. Maybe you need to both put aside some time for an honest conversation with each other about how you both are feeling about each other's behaviours and reactions (and what's really behind it) and work on how you can communicate more effectively and respond better to each other. Maybe you can do that through relationship counselling if you're unable to talk it through with each other.

silverbolt

anna080 wrote: »

I'll probably be disagreed with, but to me it sounds like BOTH of you are impatient, rude and snappy. I mean both those instances you've described there are pretty petty, and your reaction to both was also completely over the top. Did you apologise for calling her a total bitch? That was completely unnecessary in my opinion and hardly the stance to take when trying to diffuse the situation. I think you both need to have a good look at yourselves here, you're coming across every bit as snappy and ill mannered as she is.

I would disagree as the OP's snapping appears to coming from long suffered silence. Which to be fair is his own fault for not speaking up sooner.

OP, youve really only got one course to you. Talk to her about it, tell her how upsetting you find it and that you would like her to work on her impatience.

As others have said this is not going to go away. AND looking at what you have said it is such a small thing. You both need to communicate

Tasden

Ms Doubtfire1 wrote: »

The one thing I can say is that when resentment has started to grow it hardly ever goes away.It will keep festering and grow bigger and worse until you can hardly stand the sight of the other person anymore.With both of you having issues as well i would recommend to at least take a break, live together 'apart' as such and see where that takes you.

This is spot on. You are both so filled with resentment a and then being passive aggressive towards each other which breeds more resentment and contempt.

Merkin

MeatTwoVeg wrote: »

<Mod snipped>

Care to offer any advice?

Ursus Horribilis

Are you sure that two people with mental health issues is a good mix? I think both of you should get help separately and as a couple and see how you get on then. Whatever you do, don't get married or have children (if that was in your plans) until you can see if you are in fact capable of living under the same roof.

December2012

look into meeting up with friends, if you don't have friends then look on meet up or boards beers or other groups.

You might just need to blow off some steam with some other people, share some laughs and relax a bit

You're both in bad habits, so maybe you need to just something to change the habits

meeeeh

Oh and I can be pretty explosive and rude when under stress. Arguments don't last more than five minutes and after that it's water of a duck's back.

You don't forget things as quickly. For me the quick outbursts are incompatible with long memory. I also wonder if your gf is under a bit too much stress. Anyway one of you will have to change, either she stops snapping or you stop taking things personally.

However I have to distinguish between occasional rude outbursts and someone constantly putting you down for the smallest things. (Who gives out about stale chewing gums?). If it's the later then my advice would be to run. It's not healthy to be in a relationship with a bully.

suicide_circus

Imagine your life without her. Never speaking to her again, never being intimate. How does that sound? Cause thats what you're talking about here.

DukeOfTheSharp

To be honest, I think it's unwarranted to say the OP is on the same level as his fiancee. If this has been a constant thing in his life, then snapping back is a method of compensation - albeit an unhealthy one - which shuts down any further unpleasantness.

To be honest, breaking it off may be best OP, because someone who can't separate their work life from their home life is never someone you want to be with. She's all about control, and that's not what a relationship is about. The fact that she snaps so often at things that are so simple is a huge red flag and shows that she can't handle minor inconveniences, and you've got to think about how that might escalate with a wedding, future financial issues, kids and so on. She chose her given career and can't seem to leave it at the door, now imagine you're married to someone like that, spending every day resenting the way they treat you, knowing that you'll get more and more angry at her. That's no way to live. If you look through some posts here, you'll find that people who get married oftentimes ignored their partner's short fuses, the lack of respect and their own resentment and end up in hellish environments. You can try to work on this, but more often than not, people like your fiancee don't want to work on their own personal issues. She might pretend, go along with it, but the chances of it always being this way - especially when she's working in her current position - is extremely high. From the sound of it, getting out of this situation is your best bet because your relationship is toxic at best, and at the very worst, it's abusive.

intheclouds

What kind of things is she saying when she snaps?

You say in the chewing gum incident she snapped and said you gave her a stale one when there was an unopened one beside it. Did she use abusive language or shout? I'm not sure why someone saying that would change your perception of them? Is there more to this?

Your own reactions are not good. The only behaviour you can control is your own so you need to look to yourself first. Instead of using abusive terms you need to learn how to detach and be calm. To walk away and assert that you are unwilling to help while her behaviour is unacceptable.

Unless you learn how to manage your own behaviour then I think you've no real chance of resolving this. When you get to a point that such small stuff causes blow ups, it's just too stressful.

Personally I could never live a life where there are regular explosions and arguments etc.. To me raised voices and heated disagreements are an extreme rarity and I couldn't live with someone who saw snapping or arguing as a normal way of life. It isn't.

LegacyUser

Hi OP, this would be my single biggest issue with my fiancee and I can feel the resentment building all the time too. To be honest it's something I've let go on for far too long and I know I should have stood up for myself sooner. I'm very bad at confrontation so don't swear at her or storm off, I just bottle it up and let it eat away at me.

She can be so kind and thoughtful in many ways but can also be very snappy and impatient and extremely rude. I know previous guys she was dating broke up with her after a few dates because of it. I have struggled with my self esteem and am not exactly Mr. Confident so I feel it can be really harmful when the person who is supposed to love me the most speaks to me like that. A more confident person would never put up with this I think.

For example if she spills something in the kitchen she will snap "Kitchen towel,  KITCHEN TOWEL! Ugh, too slow, I'll get it myself!" then push past me all within the space of a second where I've barely had time to think of react. Or like you, if we're browsing the laptop together, I'm "too slow" if I take more than a second to click a link she can see but I haven't spotted yet. "It's in the top right corner, THE TOP RIGHT! " then she roughly pulls the laptop out my hands to do it herself.

She snaps orders with no please or thank you, expects things done immediately and repeats the same word several times while shouting at me (move, move, MOVE!). I don't know how to make her see how much this all affects me and like you I can feel it creating a distance where I don't want to open up to her as much. It's seems to have gotten worse or more noticeable recently.

It felt good to get that of my chest but I'm not sure what help I can offer you OP, apart from maybe helping you feel less alone in this

daithi7

Guys,

Another poster alluded to it here already you can only control your own actions and emotions. In truth, none of us can fully control our own emotions, particularly when someone who is close to us is volatile and is pushing our 'buttons', as we humans are highly sociable, sensitive and empathic creatures. So it affects us, big time. Bullying affects us very badly, impacting on your self esteem, happiness and health.

So back to the actions, you'rere going to have to sit down with your other half and challenge them about their behaviour toward you. A bullying,unhealthy, relationship takes two parties to participate, the bully and the complicit bullied one. That may seem a little harsh, but by not standing up for yourself more assertively, and regularly, you are actually being some way complicit in your partner's bullying of you. Think of that for a second, you are party to things that are actually harming you. So change them!!

Wake up, stand up for yourself, challenge your partner to change their behaviour and attitude , and if they don't/can't/won't, then leave. Pronto!!


P.s. btw the worst thing you can do to a bully is refuse to be bullied I.e. if you leave, you completely depower a bully, and since power is actually what they obsessively crave , this really gets them.

P.p.s if you try to reboot a previously somewhat dysfunctional bullying relationship, it rarely works, but if it does it effectively means you enter into a new relationship with the same person. That needs both of ye to act and behave differently. Uncommon but not impossible always.

Your Face

My advice would be - dont have children.

Bandana boy

This sounds like work anxiety bleeding into your relationship , when is the last time she took a break from work , Have you discussed what pressures she is under in work and is everything ok ?

That would be where I start and I think solving/addressing any problems outside the home will solve the one at home , particularly as she does seem to agree she is behaving poorly when you call her on it.

That could be as drastic as change job or find a better way to compartmentalize work issues from home .