And part of me is like “okay he and I are both agnostic leaning atheists” and part of me feels sad and irritated about a traditional meal being used for his breakfast hours ago
And now I’ve upset both of us by mentioning something that never used to be a big deal, but now it is because my dad who would have kept this stuff alive is now dead
traditions help you feel connected to family and it can be bittersweet when you lose someone and those traditions become a reminder of that for better or worse
i think its fair to say that you are still rebuilding the concept of family stuff without your dad. things might pop up that you never thought about before
I think he thinks that saying sorry is enough and then when I want to talk about it to figure out how we got here and how we can prevent that in the future he just says I’m sorry louder
i'm also a little worried about you being concerned about it being a matter of you being the only one who cares about it? as if you're being out voted and therefore shouldn't be upset? like that isn't how things work. things that are important to you are important and the people around you shouldn't be shitty about it.
idk this sounds like a pretty typical sergio move from some of the other stories allison has shared. taking something or doing something with something that isn't explicitly there for him and then making her feel bad when she's upset by that. :/
I think he thinks that saying sorry is enough and then when I want to talk about it to figure out how we got here and how we can prevent that in the future he just says I’m sorry louder god it is so rough to deal with people thinking that "sorry" is a magic conversation-ending word that solves everything instantaneously, and that wanting further
yeah that really bugs me, personally. it makes it into a like, well i said sorry and was guilty so it's okay that i have already done the thing that was bad
And I come back from doing laundry and he’s gone. I don’t know where he is but I suspect he’s off being upset with himself because his phone keys and dirty dishes are still here so that’s cool
also idk like, if I saw a pretty clearly special-looking bread show up that I knew I hadn't paid for, I would absolutely ask if I was allowed to use it before just making toast with it. LOL
Yeah. Part of that is my own hang ups about food. I come from a family where my dad would get very particular about his food vs the family food so I didn’t want that to be my house because of all the unhealthy eating habits that enforce d
Sounds like a bit of a mix of thoughtlessness and ignorance. Not ignorance in the super pejorative sense but ignorance in the sense of 'this is something I have by happenstance and upbringing not yet been exposed to'
yeah, they really are. in my experience, effective boundaries mostly feel like ongoing negotiation. it really ISN'T clear all the time what the right thing to do to respect someone else is, so you have to keep in constant communication. it's more about not assuming than anything else.
Yeah, as a "sensitive person" in that way I get where the "sorry"s may be coming from; there's a sense that every additional instance of bringing up something that's already done (and can't be changed to didn't-happen)
almost entirely means "here's a checkmark in the score I'm keeping against you, you're not allowed to leave this conversation, I have notes on this to be mad about later and they're LONG notes, AND FURTHERMORE,"
instead of "let's brainstorm how to not have this happen again." Sounds like it's really hard to get through that it's about boundaries and not him being infinitely critiquable, and he can't figure out how to dial down his go-to coping mechanism for that core belief.
(Which, if I can massively project, may have once served him as a way to "regain control" over situations like that by distracting the critiquer, to whom the actual thing under discussion was only important as a way to start the diatribe.)
honestly, I used to feel that way with my partner (that it's always me with the boundaries and not her), but recently I've started to figure out it's more that it's me with the communication skills. LOL
so it's just my role in the relationship lol. I'm sure he also has boundaries, and I'm sure he's probably awful at identifying and communicating them to you without conflict.
Can relate, learning that boundaries are allowed as a conflict-averse person (and that "conflicts" are not all equally dire and don't all require the defcon-whatever response) has been A PROCESS. /o\
hahahah yes. I have definitely been helping her get a lot better about understanding that not everything is a conflict, and even if it is a conflict, it's not all defcon 4.
like, hypothetically this whole exchange with Sergio could've gone like this: "Oh, my aunt dropped this off for the holiday. I was hoping we could all eat it together as a family." "I'm so sorry, I should've asked first. Can I buy some replacement challah? I know it won't be the same as your aunt's, but I want to make up for it."
"Thanks. I know it's silly, and we haven't done it before, but it just makes me think of my dad and I wanted to do something to remember him this year."
(learning that emotions are as much physical events as in-the-mind ones, and there are techniques to deescalate the limbic system and get back to baseline so the frontal cortex can turn on again, was a game-changer for me)
I think he thinks that saying sorry is enough and then when I want to talk about it to figure out how we got here and how we can prevent that in the future he just says I’m sorry loudergod it is so rough to deal with people thinking that "sorry" is a magic conversation-ending word that solves everything instantaneously, and that wanting furtherThing that I hate
With
The boundaries and not him