1st Tiff after 1.3 years

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-11-2006
1st Tiff after 1.3 years
3
Fri, 08-11-2006 - 1:09pm
I got into a tiff last night with someone special in my life and I am not sure what to say to make things better. HElp???
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 08-11-2006 - 2:11pm

"I'm sorry for the argument." works well. If you could provide more info, we could help you out more.

Jen

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-11-2006
Fri, 08-11-2006 - 2:46pm

Hi there,

For the sake of simplicity, I will say that neither of us have been very good at expressing our feelings about each other. I let my actions do more talking that I acutally talk. He does the same. However, I can only speak for myself when I say that I am hesistant to totally share all of my feelings for reasons that are not his fault. (call it baggage I'm trying to rid myself of.) We tend to talk in metaphors, often giving anologies to describe the way we feel about the other. Last night, I asked for clarification about a particular statement he'd made, and he stated his statement was triggered by something I'd said a couple of months back. Only he misinterpreted what I was trying to convey. Of course, I should have been more clear, but since he didn't ask follow up questions, I made the assumption ( I know a bad thing) that we were on the same page.

Things have been really nice. the tiff was not bad at all, it just left a bad taste in my mouth and I now feel like it will change the pace of what we have. I just would like to find a way to address the tiff without making it a big deal, but also letting him know how i feel. we're supposed to have dinner tonight :)

~L~

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 12:39am
Sorry to be coming in so late, Lailaa81, I know it's far too late to address your concerns at dinner; it's come and gone by now. I have to tell you that giving you any kind of reasonable answer isn't easy, and I'm sure that's why you got such a limited response. Your explanations are vague and general, making it very hard to address. I myself am not at all sure what really happened.


If you both communicate as poorly as you say you do, I'm surprised this is your first argument. If it's a matter of frustration being built all along but not addressed by one or the other of you, which sounds like may be the case, that would be understandable. I'd say basically, the only way you can resolve communication problems is to face them head on with him (this would mean open communication between the two of you), examine the problem areas and each of you agreeing and resolving to be clearer, as well as to ask questions of each other if you're not clear. Neither of you will be perfect, but you can be better and you can continue to get better. You indicated you are hesitant to be open with him and say this is due to issues that preexisted your relationship. I don't know what you're doing to resolve those issues, but I hope a therapist is involved. Of course, until you've resolved your issues and are able to communicate openly with him, it will continue to be a problem between you, and, as you know, it's affecting your relationship.


A few articles that are very good on how to argue constructively are:

Ten Rules For Fair Fighting
Verbal Fencing With Someone You Love

Dos and Don'ts For Fair Fighting
Conflicts - Points to Remember

A lesson plan for better communication can be found here:

1. Lessons in Communication & Assertion
2. Lessons cont. - Steps to Assertion
3. Lessons cont. - Language of Assertion
4. Lessons cont. - More on Communication

If you want to repost with the specifics of what happened in your argument, you'll almost certainly get a lot of great suggestions and insight.








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"Experience is what you get
when you don't get what you want."

~ Author unknown








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does not change the facts"