Submitted by ThrowRA425 t3_11dvjxe in relationship_advice
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.
[deleted] t1_jab43af wrote
[removed]
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.
[deleted] t1_jabgf59 wrote
[removed]
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments