Wed 16 Apr 2008
Let’s say my significant other lives in a cabin at the bottom of a large slope. Let’s say that it snows a lot in the area, and the hill is more often than not buried in deep snow, so the possibility of avalanche is always in the back of everyone’s minds. Let’s say that one day, the avalanche becomes not just a possibility, but a definite likelihood, and fairly soon.
I think if my significant other, seeing this ominous and precarious hang of the snow, jumps into action and starts shoveling snow or doing whatever prophylactic measure is needed to prevent or mitigate an avalanche (yes, I realize now this is a bad metaphor to use because I know nothing about snow or avalanches or cabins), I would rally behind him, get on board and grab a shovel, or a blowdryer to melt the threatening snow (I dunno). Or maybe build a dam or dig a trench or a giant anti-snow wall. =P Whatever people do.
BUT, if I see that my significant other is just running around in circles in the cabin panicking and cursing the gods and feeling sorry for himself and unreceptive to anything to get him out of his woebegone mood, my instinct is to distance myself. I’m gonna look for a way out of this cabin, a window to jump out of when the avalanche comes, a way to someplace safe.
Is that WRONG of me? Am I supposed to stay in the cabin and get buried alive just because my significant other isn’t doing anything to help himself and when I tell him that he needs to do something or get buried, he tells me “I don’t need any more grief, I don’t want to talk to you anymore, GOODBYE” and slams the door in my face? Should I take this as a sign that his end of things aren’t going to come through and we’re not meant to be?
this touches on something that hits a nerve in me, but i’m not sure why. i think that i have a lot to say about this, so forgive the too-long comment that i am about to embark on here.
let’s first break down the situation into its component parts. let’s say that your significant other is in a damaging situation where there is a seemingly impending doom approaching. let’s also say that this seemingly impending doom will also negatively affect your quality of life if nothing changes. naturally, then, you want there to be some course of action to be taken so that you won’t be wrapped up in this impending doom. now, i am not going to say that i know what is going on here, really, but let me offer some perspective if i were in such a position.
let me put myself in your significant other’s shoes and let’s say that the impending doom is that all tapioca pearl manufacturers are going to cease production of pearls and pearl milk tea will no longer be available. after hearing such news, i would be stricken with fear and panic about the prospect of no pearl milk tea for me ever again. i mean, milk tea without pearls is ok, but no pearl milk tea ever again? what kind of nonsense is this? the world will be over.
my natural instinct here is to panic and feel sorry for myself. it is the easiest thing for me to do. this situation sucks and it’s overwhelming. i just don’t know what to do. for me, sometimes i just need some time to be overwhelmed and just run away and ignore the problem. it gives me some time to reflect. sometimes escape is easier, though, and if the cause isn’t important enough to me, i may never deal with it again. it could also be that the prospect of trying to deal with the problem seems so overwhelming that not dealing with it seems like the best course of action.
now, other pearl tea addicts may be telling me that i need to do something about this situation and if i am too overwhelmed at the time, this chatter is just going to be falling on deaf ears. it’ll be annoying. of course i wish i wasn’t in this situation! what am i going to do though? leave me alone!
yes, it does seem like i’m being unresponsive and i don’t care. this is where i think how one deals with a situation is really telling of many things in a relationship. how do you deal with crisis? in the real world, there are going to be times where life is going to throw you a pearl tea-less curve ball. what do you do?
stepping back a bit, you asked the question if it was wrong of you to start looking out for yourself since it looks like your significant other doesn’t seem like they care about their well-being and, by association, doesn’t care about your well-being. i think the best way to answer this is to examine the degree of hardship we are really talking about here. if, for example, your lives are truly threatened, then it doesn’t make sense for the two of you to go down with the ship. i don’t think that the analogy is quite so literal though, so let me offer you another tact.
instead of just writing off your significant other as being bull-headed, dumb, or useless and their seemingly self-destructive mindset is unflappable, ask yourself these questions:
1) what is the motivation for their behavior?
2) how do you think they perceive how you have approached the situation? do you think that they feel you are just nagging at them to do something about it?
3) do they realize that by their inaction there are collateral damages that you are being inflicted with?
firstly, maybe they are overwhelmed and are not yet equipped with dealing with the situation. if i were in such a position, i would try to empathize with how they are feeling and let them know that they are not alone in dealing with the upcoming calamity. maybe knowing that they have support from you and the two of you can face this will help start the beginning of some kind of resolution. just because their first reaction is one that doesn’t start resolution of the matter, it doesn’t mean that they are unable to find resolution.
secondly, it could very well be that they are being close-minded. being called such, of course, won’t help, but if you recognize that their stubborn close-mindedness is not helping the situation, maybe trying to open them up first in a non-confrontational discussion might help to start the dialog to resolution.
thirdly, it could also be that they are so wrapped up in their woe-is-me mentality that they don’t realize that other people are affected. tell them that you want to help and you don’t want to see the person being hurt in the way that they are going to be and you want to help. tell them that you want to be there to help them through this and that by him not doing anything it is affecting you too.
when it comes to the big questions like “are we not meant to be?”, you have to start by looking at the core issues. the core issue here is conflict resolution. through the course of any relationship there are going to be challenges that the couple either individually or together must face. with the impending doom of a pearl tea-free world, you have to ask yourself how do you want to deal with it? is it that you tell him, “look, deal with it” and he says “go away” and that’s the end of it?
is there enough in the relationship that you want to help him through his time of struggle and help find a way for the two of you to navigate through these waters?
a lot of this has to do with personality and dealing with each other’s personality. if one person tends to act in a way that is contrary to another person’s way, you have to ask yourself if this is something that you can deal with? some people may just say that it isn’t worth the effort and that they don’t want to deal with how their significant other deals with life. believe me, i’ve broken up with people because i couldn’t deal with my significant other dealt with life. i tried to reassure them or help them or do whatever i could, but for me eventually over time it just wasn’t a life that i wanted for myself. so i guess you have to ask yourself that question. is it such a big core issue that you know that it is something that will never change and you will not be able to deal with it?
no relationship is perfect, every one will have its bumps. the question here is whether or not you are willing to throw it all away or not. maybe it’s the case that this time it’s your significant other that needs help, but who knows, maybe the next time it’ll be you.
so going back to your entry, you say that you see that your significant other is just doing the headless chicken dance and feeling sorry for himself. seeing that makes you feel like they are useless and your initial instinct is to protect yourself. just telling your significant other that they need to do something or else they are screwed is a very confrontational declaration and it puts all of the onus on them. maybe what would help is if he felt that he had support in fighting off the evils of a pear tea-less world. it’s clear that he is wrapped up in some kind of inner turmoil and his reaction to you isn’t productive. i wouldn’t write him off immediately because of that, in fact, after the resolution of the issue at hand is dealt with, i would then express how you felt when the door was slammed in your face so it sheds light on your perspective, but i would say take things one at a time.
just my two cents.
OMG, I WROTE OUT THIS FUCKING LONG REPLY AND WHEN I CLICKED “SUBMIT” THE INTERNET BURPED AND I LOST IT!!@#$#@ *ADAMANT CUSS WORDS*
I’ll try again in summary form.
First of all, thank you for your thoughtful reply and analysis. I’ll address your comment in the order certain issues appear on your comment.
Re “escapist” solution, this is not a problem where escaping is a possibility. It’s not like if you were so annoyed with the pearl tea ban that you simply boycott all pearl tea and related items yourself.
I think you’re right that the significant other in question does need a period of panic (and bitching, maybe) before he gets it out of his system and then can address the problem in a more productive, solution-oriented way. That’s not how I deal with crisis; I instantly play out all possible solution scenarios in my head to decide on the best resolution to the problem. I may cuss and panic, too, but do I that WHILE searching for a solution because pure panic and griping is a waste of time to me. It suspends you in your crisis and that’s an awful helpless feeling. If I had the pearl tea crisis, I’d immediately be downloading all recipes I can find online to make pearls myself, meanwhile placing an order to 99 Ranch Market so I can stockpile packages of uncooked pearls.
Yes, dealing with his angry panic responses to me does make me feel like he doesn’t care about my well-being. But I feel selfish and guilty for even addressing my well-being, because I get the sense that he doesn’t think my well-being should be at issue. I know I’m expected to put my well-being aside and go along with the program, but if I stop looking out for myself, who would?
1) I don’t know the motivation for his behavior. I don’t understand it since I don’t handle crises the same way. I’m more solution-oriented, even if that means the solution is to beat into his head an understanding of what is wrong, so that he can learn to not let something like that happen again.
2) I think he perceived my approach of the situation with loathing and compartmentalizing. Like, I’m either with him or against him, and now he put me on the “against him” list of things attacking him. I think he feels betrayed, in the “Et tu, Brute?” sense. I’m now leading the avalanche.
3) I think he does realize that his inaction leads to collateral damages that I’m being inflicted with, but he thinks that this is a voluntary damage that I’m choosing to inflict upon myself. I think he feels that I shouldn’t see the collateral damages as damage, just as “Oh look, snow. Everywhere! Oh, okay.” Because I knew the cabin was in a snowy area when I first saw it, and I knew about the avalanche possibility. On my end, it’s just that I’ve meanwhile taken my guard down and allowed myself to believe (because he’d said so before) that the avalanche isn’t a likelihood, so that instead of reinforcing the inside of the cabin and doubling up on insulation, I’d instead been drawing plans for putting in a cute little rose and herb garden.
I think it’s too late for me to now address the issue tactfully in the methods you’d suggested. The door slamming in my face told me that. I was just so tired of the avalanche thing and so vexed at feeling helpless about it that the “bad” approach took hold of my tongue first. In retrospect I should’ve just taken a seat on the cabin floor, cooed to him soothingly, and then addressed it later after some processing time has passed. But that’s just not my approach to crises, I’m more impatient than that.
As for whether the difference in conflict resolution styles would end the relationship — I don’t want to think about that right now. I just know that I do often feel alone in trying to resolve a problem, and helpless cuz I’ve learned one person can not resolve a two-person problem, especially when the problem isn’t mine to resolve to begin with (even if I am affected by it in the end).
*scroll, highlight, cntrl-c to save onto clipboard first*
From previous posts, I think you’ve given him more than enough examples to show that you are on his side, that you are with him and not against him.
Is there a way that you can coax him, making him understand that now that you are a TEAM, what affects him will affect you. And that even though you have different ways of resolving issues, working together will only better both parties?
Or potentially he does know this, and maybe feels guilty for the problems that are now affecting you? And maybe in that, doesn’t want you involved to help solve his own problem?
k – I think he knows that it affects me. He just doesn’t think it SHOULD. That’s just gonna be where we’ll differ. I think what I need to do in his problems, is sit with him and toss a bunch of ideas around, but not tell him what to do and to let go and let him make the final decision, and just suck up that yeah, I’ll get pulled into the avalanche too, but what can i do about that? I can’t promise it won’t be frustrating for me, tho. I can’t stand having things that affect me (especially negatively) that I can’t have any control over. In a perfect world, things that affect me should be in my immediate, if not exclusive, control.
I’m sure on some level he does feel bad that I’m affected by all this (even while thinking that it’s ridiculous of me to BE affected), cuz he’d said way early on in the engagement that he felt bad he’s not in a good position in his life to get married right now.
I think that’s the root of it all — his situation in life is such that he’s not READY to get married, and I am. Altho in the mental realm, it’s the opposite.
I say torch the cabin and then he will be forced to leave it and not be threatened by the snow or avalanch. Obviously, this might work for your senario, but not in real life.
Sometime people want to be saved or want empathy. Sometimes the problem(s) are so big that you feel overwhelmed, depressed and just want to waloo (sp?) in it, until you see the light or light a match under your own ass. I’ve been there and it’s like people who care about you will give you advise, direction and instead of embracing it, you get mad. That’s what I go through sometime and maybe he deals with stuff the same way.
Doesn’t mean we are right or that our actions is justified at all. I always feel retarded and a lil immature after an outburst like that.
I say listen to your mind and keep yourself mentally healthy. You are good with sorting stuff out, looking at things from all points of view and will come to a resolution that will make you feel at peace 🙂
Yow. As cathartic as torching the cabin would be, every time you destroy the cause of your problems, you just make the other party more resentful and it drives them away instead of bringing them closer by eliminating the obstacle this way. Plus, it’s kinda sociopathic. (“Your parents don’t want us to be together? I’m sneaking in your house tonight and slaughtering them in their sleep!”) Yeah, wouldn’t want to do that in real life, like you said.
Thanks for your faith, and I think you’re right about giving people time to wallow until they’re ready to come out.
I think your fucking long reply didn’t get lost… isn’t it the first comment?
🙂