It is amazing how you can know someone for so long, and be so close and think you have an amazing grasp on certain things about them. I learned, last night, that you never stop learning about someone you love and are close too. The lesson didn’t come easy, and it sucked how it had to come to light, but it has changed my perspective on so much with Angel, and honestly could be the thing I had been missing this whole times about what I have been doing, too.
Plain and simple, I had a few drinks and was texting with Angel and at the end of the night, I told her I love her. I wasn’t looking for her to answer, I guess thinking I knew where she was emotionally, I never expected a response. I did, however, want her to know I think she is awesome, amazing and so important in my life, that I wanted to express it even still. I made a mistake. I then went our and walked my anger off and told her. But didn’t tell her I was back safe.
She got angry and called me, and I will admit I did too at her response. You see, to me I wasn’t expecting anything in response to the “I love you” comment. Actually, an “I know, lol” would have been more than I expected. I wasn’t saying it to do anything, but let her know how important she is. I didn’t think of the guilt it made her feel, because I didn’t think she felt any guilt. But she does, alot too. Because she feels like she can’t say it, and me saying it feels like a dagger to her and where she is emotionally. I never thought that for a second. I was dumb, to assume, she was so far past “us”.
Angel isn’t cold. She isn’t mean, despite her saying so. But she can compartmentalize, and she can do so without showing signs of the “box” she puts stuff in leaking any emotion. I knew she could do this, but I didn’t know how well she could box, versus let things go. So, for the last few months, I assumed that she processed it all out by how she was different. An assumption that caused a horrible fight.
It was bad, we were angry. Both giving our side of the story, both trying to prove our point. I tried to explain, and I started to use an argument tactic that Angel had used since we met, and I unknowingly adapted it, and it made Angel cry, and everything changed about the argument.
Angel is very logical, and in arguments she is even more logical. Here theory is, and I know, have the fight, get it out, move on. One of the things she does is repeat a statement back, but changes one or two words. I had always felt this was disrespectful, and correcting whatever statement I had. I felt it was her telling me what I said was wrong and “fixing” it. I learned that is not the case, and that my mind is forever changed now.
Angel explained that is a method she adopted through trauma from before she knew me. But, it was to apply how she sees that comment. She isn’t correcting me, she is showing how she see’s the subject matter. It isn’t a rebuttal, as I had always seen it as, it is a window into her point. My heart sank, as she cried and explained. I know the trauma she speaks of, as she has told me. Now, she was sad as she has seen me use it with her and that she is afraid I adapted it from a trauma with her. I hadn’t, I just felt it was a good tool to have for communication. She had said how she had seen me use it over and over, recently. I didn’t realize I had so much.
It crushed me, because I heard her crying and realized how many fights I would get emotionally upset about how she was correcting me, and that became a bigger hurt than the problem. For 3 years, I just thought she was being cold and mean, and she was sharing. She even said, she tried to explain it before, but it isn’t that easy to just explain. She is right. I knew and learned how she argued, and I tried to always keep that in mind. It is very different than me. I will make a more general statement, Angel needs to have specifics when she does. It took me forever to learn that she isn’t repeating a subject to test my response, she is doing it so she knows the information 100% and can wrap her brain around whatever the subject was. I had learned this, and before I did I used to let it anger me, as I felt she was playing “Got ya” during an argument. It would upset me so much, and now that doesn’t either. I have learned that she is trying to understand.
The same with “repeater” as I have called it.I used to think she was trying to correct my statement, and make me feel bad. That she was telling me “You were wrong” and saying what was right. Now, I know she is showing me how she see’s it, and not telling me I am wrong but telling me where we differ on the subject, and that is where you build the conversation to fixing the problem.
Would it change where we are had I known this information before? Probably. I used to take it so hard and it would eat me that I pushed that much anger, because I felt it was pure anger. It wasn’t, it was clarifying, she was trying to tell me her end. My heart hurts, because I never knew. But, now I do. I hope that however we move forward, that it makes it so much easier when problems arise.
Also, anyone not understanding why she responds and argues the way she does, believe me when I say I understand why she does, and honestly, that’s all that matters, she has more than earned it with all she has gone through before me and honestly, wth me.
~S.L.
Mind of Sir 