A Heated Arguement ... Literally
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| Tue, 07-04-2006 - 11:39am |
My bf and I have been together for 2 1/2 years. Imagine it would take a broken air conditioner to get us to have our first real spat.
My landlord is not the best (I'm working on moving out as soon as I can). Not very on top of things as far as the maintenance department goes. My air conditioning has been broken for a week now (it's been in the upper 80s the whole time - it's just shy of 90 in my apartment)- after working for 4 days because it was broken the week before that and it took 3 days to get it fixed then. The AC person can't fix it now because the landlord's been lax in getting him the supplies he needs. As a tenant, there is not much I can really do (and not violate the lease) outside of placing phone calls. I've called both the AC man (a couple of times) and the landlord (finally last night because I was getting impatient with the lack of a response), but apparently not enough. Working closely with the public, I refuse to become the impatient,annoying, nasty, self-entitled customer I have to deal with every day. Because I won't call and harass my landlord every 5 minutes, BF said I "deserve to sit in that apartment and sweat". How nice, right? I'm hot, sweaty, frustrated, and instead of support from my supposedly loving boyfriend, I get slandered. I understand he's frustrated too, but! 'Course he still lives at home with mommy and daddy, so he's not entirely versed in the real world yet (he thought the whole vacating notices were a courtesy, not a contractual agreement). As ridiculous a comment as he made, I'm surprised how much it truly hurts and how much it makes me wonder about when worse things will come along. I am a contradiction. I hate working with people, really, but I have one of those people pleasing personalities. It makes me happy to make other people happy. I'm also fairly stubborn. It takes a lot for me to give in, I try to compromise, but it doesn't suit him. "If you'd just listen to me, then you'd get a lot farther. But you won't because you're so bullheaded". That is what he told me last night. He's become very good at telling me what to do about certain things, but then when I say I will, he immediately turns around and says I won't. He's the baby of 4 brothers, and I think used to getting his way with things (oh the stories I've heard from his older sister in law). I'm an only child and used to dictating myself without having the democracy of siblings. I love my boyfriend dearly, as stubborn and spoiled as he can sometimes act (just like me)...but this whole thing has made me second guess everything. If he gets this frustrated over this and tells me I "deserve" the situation I'm in, how will he react when something much worse comes along? Am I going to get verbally slapped every time something doesn't go right and I realize my influence is limited, but don't do exactly what he says? Is this just a symptom of a possible bigger problem? I don't want to over-react and be like " I just don't think it's going to work out, we should break up" just because of this spat. A child of two divorces from tumultuous and abusive relationships, I don't want to throw in the towel prematurely. I want to work through this whole thing if I can. But back even 24 hours ago when I was looking toward a sort of near future of sharing a place together and a semi distant future of a possible marriage, it scares me that this whole thing has made the sound of screeching brakes echo in my head.
Sorry it's kind of long, but I'd appreciate anybody's opinions on the whole matter.

Honestly, I think you're probably blowing it a little out of proportion because you're under a lot of stress about the whole thing. I would suggest reevaluating the situation when you are air conditioned again. :)
Being physically uncomfortable can really throw a person off their normal happier self. In your case, it might be making you get overly upset over a relatively minor offense. In his case, the heat might have been getting to him to and it might have shortened his temper and caused him to say somethign out of character.
Talk to him about. Let him know it hurt your feelings.
If you're still concerned about your relationship, after you've both cooled off (figuratively and literally), then maybe you two should discuss that you are less assertive when dealing with people you don't know well then he is. Then talk about how that may or may not affect your relationship.
I am more assertive in those situations then my husband. Which means that I'm usually the person who does all the complaining to the gas company, cable company, phone company, etc. and because i have to dela with them I get to pick who it is I am dealing with. This way I don't get frustrtaing by him not taking care of things as fast as I'd like or being as asseryive as I would like.
There are other things he's better at like haggling. I totally suck at car buying or anything else that involves a lot of price negotiating, it stresses me out big time. So I do the complaining and he does the haggling.
I figure I'll chalk it up to the fact I was the only person he could let his frustrations out on, because not like he can call my landlord and gripe and have it make a difference- he doesn't live here or pay the rent.
Once he gets his own apartment and is familiar with the tenant/landlord relationship, maybe he'll realize he sometimes can't get his way by pestering or bullying (besides, I need a good relationship with the landlord so she gives me a good recommendation for the new apartment!) Besides the fact I can't bring myself to be a total witch to the lady (as bf directed, I was to call her and cuss her out), she is nice, she just sucks at being a landlord.
Booksandk9s,
He doesn't sound like he has much empathy as a person. If that was one of the men I'd dated, they would have been over asap trying to fix it for me and/or calling one of their mates to do it. They would never tell me that I deserved to be hot and sweaty. He should try and help you instead of putting you down and making you feel worse. I think it's a sign of things to come.
Feisty
I was thinking about this situation a bit.......and was curious about a few things.
1. Is your bf the type of guy to do things and get them done? or complain about them? are you the type to get things done, or complain?
2. It sounds like your bf is okay with bullying people into getting what he wants, even if that means cussing ppl out and literally harrassing them.....is that how he is? Is that the type of person you want?
3. Were you complaining a lot about the situation, but then saying, "oh well, nothing I can do right now?" I ask, because, although I'm one too allow someone to vent, if they bitch about things constantly, but then don't take any action, yes, I get irate and upset. My dh will do this, and I finally snap, "well do something abut it then". Not all the time, but at the times he complains over and over again about the same thing and does nothing to change the situation.
4. It actually kinda worries me that he refused to talk about things. Did he even apologize for it? Say the heat got to him, and he feels that is what it was? or just said he'd rather not discuss it because its in the past? if its the latter, I'd have a big problem with this. The fact that you were okay to overlook it, well, that's okay, but I'd make sure this wasn't a habit.
I nkow this was a once in a lifetime thing, however, people show thier TRUE selves in the hardest times. It took the a/c and heat for you to argue, however, during that time, he also hurt you, then later refused to discuss it. There will be a next time, I hope you keep your eyes open to how he handles diversity btwn the two of you.
It was
Actually he did help me fix it, as far as it could go. We blew out the main circuit breaker for my apartment and lost ALL of my power trying to turn on the AC unit. I called the landlady and she just said "Do you have a place to stay for the night? I'll have my handyman come look at it tomorrow" TOMORROW!? So bf spent about an hour looking at everything, and eventually, with the help of his friends' dad, got all my electric back on except to the AC. The AC was drowned out with all the rain, shorted a fuse and the wire needed to be completely replaced (so says the AC guy, at least). So it's not like he didn't do anything.
He can be pretty empathetic though, don't let this one situation paint him in his entirety. I get pretty bad migraines and when I do, he's always there to take care of me.
1. Is your bf the type of guy to do things and get them done? or complain about them? are you the type to get things done, or complain? He's the type that complains, and then gets them done.
2. Until this point, I've never been in a situation with him where he was the 'powerless' party to something that needed to be done. So I can't say if he is that way normally. I've never witnessed him bullying or harassing anyone else into something, usually if people take too long to react, he goes about it on his own.
3. We both were complaining about it, and yes I was saying there was nothing I could do, because I really couldn't. I'd made all the phone calls I could make (talked to the landlord Tuesday night, the AC guy Wednesday and Thursday nights, the landlord I left a message for on Monday, and finally talked to the AC guy Tuesday morning again - even though it was a holiday), asked all the questions I could ask, I basically just had to wait for them to get it done. I consulted with a friend who used to be a landlord and he was advising my next step if it didn't get fixed by the end of the week (which would have made 2 weeks without AC) was to send a certified letter (he also mentioned about holding rent in escrow, but being the *good* tenant I am, I pay my rent a week early every month so a bit late on that one). My landlord has it written in the lease that I cannot hire anyone outside without written consent, or else I'd be liable. So I think my hands were pretty much tied.
4. He said he didn't want to discuss the issue again because he'd end up getting angry about it all over again. I really think I was just the outlet (and yes, I know it's not right, but everyone vents on the wrong person from time to time) because of the triad of people involved, I was the only one available. You know what I mean? Oh and I certainly would not let it be a habit, absolutely not.