lillamy

...in a constructive way.

So, I'm in a great marriage to a very good man. I love him to bits. He's not an A. But he's got codie tendencies just like me. So when we have a disagreement, it's almost like the two British upperclass twits holding a door open going "After you"... "No, after you"... "No, I insist, my good man!"

We can't fight. We just don't know how. We both apologize because we don't like having conflict with a person we love, and then we both withdraw to our corners and feel sad and hurt and worried that the other person is going to love us less now that we've disagreed.

We're learning and we'll solve this riddle too. There's no doubt. But my part of is that I have to figure myself out. My own reactions to conflicts are triggering to me -- because they tell me I still can't find middle ground between "we are like made for each other" and sort of isolating myself mentally and emotionally (like I did in my A marriage). There's no "we can disagree and still be OK" -- I assume that if we disagree, it will drag out for days or weeks, that he will bring it up again, that he will let it fester for a while and then explode in a storm of accusations and name calling and screams and... and that's not him. That's the ex. That's what the ex would do.

And so in the middle of trying to figure out this relationship, I still have to figure out and sweep out the corpse of the old one. (Let that be a lesson to you, children -- make sure you're good and done with the mayhem of the A marriage before entering into a new one... )