I (22F) am too sarcastic and it is hurting my relationship with my boyfriend (23M)

Submitted by ThrowRA425 t3_11dvjxe in relationship_advice

So I have always been a sarcastic person, definitely got it from my mother, she has an attitude. But my boyfriend of 2 years is genuinely just such a sweet guy and he never gets irritated with me and he is literally always nice to me.

Myself on the other hand, I can be a bitch. I am sarcastic and easily irritated which I know is something I need to fix, I am just unsure of how to fix it.

I know that my edginess drives my boyfriend crazy and he told me the other night that he hates when I get like that and he hates the way I talk to him sometimes, and I felt so awful when he told me that. I apologized and told him that I know an apology doesn't fix it, I want him to know that I also hate when I get like that. He said he knows that's not who I really am and he hates when I get into a mood and turn snippy because he knows I don't have to act that way.

I know that I am a kind person, but I just get so easily irritated I don't know if its my depression or hormones or what, but I would say that my threshold for frustration is super low. Like sometimes I want to scream because of the way that my boyfriend is pronouncing a word, or the way he put his shirt on, or the way he over explains things to me. I know these are all irrational which is the problem here. I really don't want my habit of becoming irritated to ruin an otherwise good relationship. Because, it really is a good relationship besides my attitude sometimes.

And its not just him, but he is the main target for when I am in a bad mood for whatever reason. I need tips on being a more chill and nice person. Like I really just need to chill the fuck out Im so embarrassed that I have irritability issues. Like I feel like as a 22 year old I should be able to regulate my emotions. Also my dad always had extreme anger issues and I dont want to be like him.

Any advice? Has anyone else ever been in my shoes where you're the asshole but you dont want to be lol

TLDR; my sarcasm and low tolerability for frustration is affecting my relationship

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Building_Burning t1_jab27rl wrote

This sounds like a really good topic to address in individual therapy. There are modalities such as DBT which help specifically with emotion regulation.

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MiggyEvans t1_jab3esf wrote

I recommend you take a look at Attachment Theory. I wish I’d known about it at your age. In short, people respond to fear of rejection and abandonment in very similar ways, based on how our parents responded to our vulnerability as early as in our infancy. You’d be surprised how much it influences every little moment in a relationship, even the things that make you snap.

The second thing is, you’re both very young and probably need to develop your emotional intelligence still. This is normal. Emotional intelligence, if you don’t know, means being aware of what you’re feeling and learning how to communicate it. When you have that awareness, it changes a moment where you (or he) might make a passive aggressive comment into a moment of clear and direct conversation about what you’re feeling. Example: Maybe he doesn’t clean up something very well and you feel like it means he doesn’t care enough about you to put in the effort, so instead you send a barb his way to let him know it annoys you, when it would be much more productive to say, “hey, when you do X, I feel like it means Y and that hurts my feelings.” Then he can respond from an informed perspective instead of being made to feel small or guilty first.

Basically, you have to learn how to translate your feelings into direct communication. Outside of jokes, Sarcasm is really just indirect criticism, which is not the most mature way to express something and certainly doesn’t prioritize respect for your partner. It’s clear that you do respect and admire him, so I’d encourage you to learn to speak what you’re feeling. As my therapist told me many years ago, feelings are always okay no matter what, but if you don’t get them out in a healthy way, they will leak out wherever they can.

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ThrowRA425 OP t1_jab6o5x wrote

This is so helpful I appreciate you being non judgmental too. I know a lot about attachment theory because I am a psych major and I know I could definitely benefit from therapy as well. I think the toughest thing relationship wise is that me and my boyfriend come from such different families. My family is kind of broken and we are not close and used to have a lot of resentment and fear of each other, while his family is extremely close and loving and they do family zoom calls to check in on each other and talk about anything. He definitely has more solid communication skills than I do so when something bothers him he voices it, but when something bothers me I shove it down until I either explode or express it as a "joke" aka my sarcasm.

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