Critical Argument

When she returned that weekend, things were indeed tense. She had her mother with her because she was going to have a minor procedure at the doctor's office the following Monday. Therefore, we could not talk about my irrational behavior until Tuesday, when she was done with her procedure and feeling a little better. However, we cleared the air and agreed that I was not acting my best and that I shouldn't do that anymore.

Of course, when we went to the counselor the following day, he suggested that my behavior, while not an appropriate way to handle stress, was the result of some difficult realizations that were a result of my previous session with the counselor. I have difficulty saying what I want or what I need, and I am evasive when I am asked direct questions about said wants and needs. Therefore, I have often been trying to please my girlfriend by behaving the way I thought she wanted, especially during the first year of our relationship, which pretty well meant that I wouldn't get mad even though I may had a reason to.

For the better part of the last week, things have been fine between us, and I think we're over my outburst. We've enjoyed several nice dinners together, and we have even gone out. I have also been getting my work done, which has been a good thing because I am still in danger of losing my job, but I have more hope that I can keep it than I did before.

Still, there are problems. For example, there is the issue of argument drift. While we don't have the 'knock-down-drag-outs' that we used to, we still find occasion to argue about things. The sessions with the counselor are the days which we argue least, and then every day following, we argue a little more and more.

Tonight, she made typical statements about how the majority of men suck. I agreed that there are a lot of sexist men out there, but not all of them are bad. She then pointed out some of my personal hobbies and suggsted that they are juvenile. I suggested that interest in the kinds of things I pursue are not exclusive to men. But because I was contradicting her or disagreeing, she began to get irritated. I don't know if she realizes that she gets irritated when I disagree with her.

I think I am coming to the realization that I really don't want this relationship. I get bossed around too much, and I am not allowed to have my opinions about things. Everything that she wants to talk about is a political issue which I am not on the right side of, and my emotions are not as valid as hers. At least this is how it feels. There still are nice moments between us, but don't know if they can cancel out all of other stuff anymore.

Big Trouble and Anger

So...I really blew it this morning. But, as always, I need to give little back story.

She has several conferences that she has to attend as part of her job, about a couple every few months. So, as she was really busy on Wednesday getting ready to leave, she couldn't attend the counselor meeting like we normally do together. However, even though she couldn't go, I still went. I needed to talk to the counselor about why I was not getting my work done. It really might have to do with something other than the relationship. The counselor gave me a little bit of hard time because, as everyone has been telling me, they can't force me to make any changes. I have to want to change myself. (By the way, I know that this is classic psychologist wisdom, and that it is a cliche, not to mention the punchline to a couple of jokes.)

The way he suggested that I motivate myself was to think of myself in terms of mythology or heroism. I have a dragon that I need to slay in the work that is left to do, despite my ongoing ever-deepening personal problems. Therefore, I need the courage of a hero to get through my dark moments, and fighting my through the pain, achieve what I know needs to be done.

However, this morning rather than find the courage I need to find, I took the exact opposite choice. During the late afternoon, she called me from her conference to talk to me about her day. It was a normal, and okay, maybe even a little sweet phonecall. After all, she just wanted to talk to me and find out how I was doing. Before she left, she had told me that she has realizations about just how much she loves me, but only when she is away on these kinds of trips.

However, after I had told her that I been home all day and awake since 8:00 a.m., she asked me how come I did not pick up the phone when she called me at 9:00 a.m. I told her I didn't know, and that I might have been in the shower. However, I am also a little annoyed at her because these kinds of questions makes me feel like she is checking up on me. I don't say anything more, but she isn't satisfied with my answer "I don't know, and I can't remember." For her, there must be a reason, and that, somehow, I do recall. She keeps asking me where I was and how come I did not answer the phone. Getting angrier, I tell her I don't know. I am pretty sure that her insistence on the question is a result of her being suspicious of me: am I being faithful to her. Knowing this, that any little innocent thing can turn into a full blown episode of her mistrust concerning my faithfulness, makes me angrier and more upset. I tell her that I am getting upset; and then I tell her that I want to talk about something else, and that I do not want to answer any more of her questions. She persists in asking me.

At this point, I really lose it and say some mean and horrible things. I start yelling to the point that I am sure the neighbors can hear me. Part of the reason why I am so on the edge is because I haven't got any work done, but I know that this is not an excuse for my behavior. Anyway, I way overreact, screaming at her at one point to "shut-up and listen to me!"

Of course, this is one of my worst moments, and she naturally hangs up on me. I am not surprised, but the next fifteen minutes, I still don't care. But then with some distance from the event, I begin to calm down. I realize that I stepped way out of line, and even if I was upset at her accusations, I should never have yelled at her or raised my voice. Surely, there was another way, a more appropriate and mature way, to handle the situation.

I had tried to call her back about 10 more times. The first three phonecalls were made when I was still angry, so I left messages that were more angry demands that she call me back. The next seven or eight phonecalls were remorseful apologies for my behavior and pleas for her to call me back. Yet, despite all of these attempts throughout the day, she has not called me back yet, and I am doubting that she will anytime soon. I hope that she will call me tomorrow, but I'm not going to count on it.

I have to say that it is my firm belief that I screwed things up with her. I took a potential ally, someone who could help encourage to get my work done, and I turned her into an enemy. Even though I told the counselor that I had some of my work done, I really haven't done any of it. To top things off, I have just received a $1000 dollar bill in the mail asking me to pay for something that I did not know I needed to pay for. I don't have the money, nor do I know where I can get it. Tomorrow, I will make more of an effort to really get my act together. Today, I don't fully know what happened or why I did what I did, but I do know that I screwed up big time.

Behind in Work

I am very much behind in my work right now, but taking advice from the counselor, I am not going to complain about it and try to shift the focus on the relationship. When I think about how far behind I am in work, I can no longer say: "The reason why I am having trouble at my job is this relationship." While it is true that relationships do affect you in every aspect of your life, it is also true for me that I need to learn how to develop some personal "grown-up" responsibility and recognize that there are other decisions that affect my ability to get the work done.

For example, one of the things that is preventing me is my feelings about the toughness of the work. Perhaps in my desire to write a perfect report, combined with the recognition that the report is far from perfect, I have found an excuse not to work. I have paralyzed myself. Another thing that affects my ability to get work done is my poor time management. There are times during the day when I can work on the report, but for some reason, I don't. Then when I need to devote time to the relationship, I complain that I can't get my work done. The counselor pointed out that this is unfair to my partner.

As for the relationship itself, I am trying very hard to learn that my partner will never be perfect, and that I shouldn't expect her to change very much. She is, right now, pretty much as she will be in the future. The various minor arguments or disagreements we have right now will continue into the future. Yet, maybe counterintuitively, this recognition is somewhat liberating. Rather than feel that something has gone wrong with the relationship when she gets upset, rather than feel that I must figure out a way to adapt somehow so we avoid arguments, I can confidently feel that her imperfections are manifesting themselves and believe that they don't have anything to do with me. This realization, of course, is rooted in my love for her. I realize I can love her, but believe she is wrong and say so. I know I can make decisions for my own best interests which may run counter to what she wants or desires. I am committed to not being selfish, but I am also committed to being fair to myself. To that end, I will be working all day today. I know that this might upset her, but it is something that I have to do in order not to be fired in mid-August. We shall see what happens.

Counseling Session

One of the things that has recently come out of the couples counseling sessions that I have been going to is how I "give up my power" to my partner, or to other people. For example, when I said that I was depressed about being dressed down by my superiors a couple of months ago, and then further explained how that incident has made me feel even less motivated to complete my work (all of which is true), the counselor pointed out that I had given my superiors the power to derail me. He says that I should understand that their opinions or that incident does not explain me as a person, or describe my worth as a person.

While this kind of advice may seem blatantly apparent to an objective outsider, I was not aware that I was allowing that to happen to me. I realized a couple of things: first, I do my best to avoid other people's negative feelings, and second, I need to take responsibility for how I want to lead my life, and try not to blame other people for preventing me from doing so. While I still feel that it is true that other people, and sometimes circumstances, force you into positions you'd rather not be in, you always have the power to decide how you want to respond to it.

It was most upsetting to realize that I was seeking other people's approval and that I wanted to avoid their bad moods, angers, or frustrations. The counselor observed that maybe the reason for this is that I recieved a lot of anger and criticism as a child from adults, especially my parents. While I love my parents, this is true. I know my parents have their own issues, and that they still do, but they did yell at me a lot, and may be they yelled too much, especially for things that weren't my fault.

When I left this most recent counseling session after making these realizations, I realized that I had an unexplained anger towards the counselor himself. And I am mature enough to know that this may have more to do with the fact that he may be right about all of this more than any other reason. During the last two days, I have used this realization to help interact with my girlfriend. Although she has been angry at me for what I think are silly reasons, I have not let it affect me as much as it would have before. I think that, in some ways, I really am making some progress and that the time and money that I have invested in counseling is actually helping me out.

Saturday Market vs. Work

Yesterday, we went to the Saturday Market, even though I had a ton of work to do at the office. But, I need to give you some background first. On Thursday, I met with my boss to discuss my current problems at work, and why I have missed several important deadlines. It was explained to me that I needed to have all of my outstanding reports completed by August 5th; otherwise, if I couldn't finish the reports before then, I should start looking for other work and a new career.

On the one hand, I should have seen this meeting as an absolute blessing because the boss would have been within rights to fire me right there on the spot. Yet, on the other hand, I was depressed and humiliated by the meeting because I had to explain why I had messed up in the first place, and explain why I thought that things would be better in the future. Other than lame excuses, I couldn't really point to anything tangible that would prove my reliability to the boss. I half didn't believe I could really turn things around myself, despite my desperate desire to. After the hour-long meeting, I took a long walk around town to figure out what I needed to do to save my job, and how I was going to reorient my priorities. If I lost my job, there still was no guarantee that I could also keep my relationship. It has been, and still is, on the rocks. Therefore, getting fired from my job is a lose-lose situation. If I lost the relationship and kept the job, even though I would be devastated, I'm sure I could still recover enough to move on.

So, at our couple's counseling meeting, because I was stressed out about my job situation, we launched into a discussion about how I felt the relationship takes away time from my getting stuff done at work. Of course, the counselor suggested that no one could work as long as I was proposing I should because everyone needs a break now and again. (I had wanted to spend every day for the next four weeks working from dawn 'till dusk doing nothing but work.) The counselor suggested that I divide up my time between work and the relationship, taking the necessary breaks I need with my girlfriend in order to take care of the relationship itself and not get "burned out."

This seems like good advice, but I still have a problem with it. First, I am in crisis mode, and it is hard for me to think about much else without feeling some degree of anxiety about work. Second, it seems to me that, when I do take breaks with my girlfriend, for one reason or another, the break extends to the whole day, and I wind up getting nothing accomplished. Half of me wonders if, somewhere, deep inside, my girlfriend doesn't want me to succeed. If I get fired, in some weird way, that means that I will not have something else in my life that takes attention away from her--perhaps she thinks that, if I get fired, I will focus entirely on her and her needs.

This is where the Saturday Market comes in. I had promised her awhile ago that I would go to the Saturday Market with her, and we talked about this at the counselor's office. At the time, with some help from the counselor, it seemed that this would be a good compromise. This was an example where I would not focus too much on work and invest time in the both of us. However, just like I feared, this trip was not a break within a day, but it took the whole day. That night, there was no time left over for working on my reports because the house needed to be cleaned, things needed to be put away, and dinner had to be cooked. By the time 10:00 p.m. rolled around, I was too tired to get anything more done.

Today, Sunday, I am back at work trying to bang out a report that has the new deadline of tomorrow. My boss is expecting the first report on her desk sometime on Monday. While I am glad to be at work trying to catch up, I regret the time lost yesterday, and I am hoping that the time I spend here today will not become the topic of an argument that we have tonight. It seems to me that, in a perfect relationship, people sometimes support their partner when they know he or she has a problem that needs to be worked out. I hope that this is something we can learn how to do for each other, because, I am sad to say--I need that support right now. I'm trying not to be selfish, but on the other hand, I don't want to lose my job.

The Good and the Bad

I debated about whether I should post this, but I figured that one of the functions of this blog is to provide me with a kind of physical record and a measure of objectivity when considering the various aspects of this relationship. Often, in the midst of things, it is easy to forget what happened a week or two ago.

We took a trip out east into the desert because she had some work to do there, and I figured that if we were going to work on the relationship, then we needed to be together. I have to say that two out of the three days were not really good days. I personally did not get much work done, and she was in a bad mood. And, of course, when she is in a bad mood, she directs most of it at me. Some of it is normal relationship stuff, and some of it is deserved. I can be a little cranky when I'm hot and frustrated. Of course, some of it is her negative outlook on things, and part of it is the context of the whole relationship. It is hard to think that things will be okay in the future if so many things have not been great in the past. Her car was overheating in the desert and that put some stress on both of us. Frankly, at the end of our trip, I was looking forward to being home and getting back to work.

On the first day back home, things were pretty much still strained between the two of us, especially since I had spent most of the day at work. However, on the second day, after spending the morning together, we worked together the whole day doing household chores. We needed groceries, we needed to make dinners for a couple of days, we needed to do laundry, and we needed to clean the house. For the most part, we got along and even had fun together. We watched some of our favorite television shows together, and she made me something cool to drink as something nice to do; it was a "just because" thing.

Today has been pretty much the same, we spent most of the day together having fun and finishing other chores. Again, we made dinner together, and I think that is one of the positive things that is going on in our relationship. Previously, I had told her that I don't like it when she calls me name when she is angry, and during minor flare ups of frustration these past couple of days, I have seen her catch herself from calling me a name. That effort on her part meant a lot to me.

Later the same night, I returned to work to try and complete some projects for an important meeting on Thursday. In fact, this is the area that concerns me most right now. I really need to have all of my ducks in a row by Thursday afternoon for the meeting with my boss. I'm already in some trouble, but I'm hoping that the boss will be able to help me sort most of it out. We'll see.

Tomorrow, we see the counselor again. Those days are always difficult for the both of us, but I still think that they are helping. I'm hoping that the counselor will be able to help get some perspective on the bad days we had this week and provide us with some advice on how to extend the good days.