subject: You're Abusive Like Donald (ks) [print this page] The ending of a relationship is usually a fraught time, generally as much for the person deciding to make the break as for the person being broken up at. Maybe "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", but a woman scorning could usually run her a close second, and even though we guys may (stereotypically, in the least) approach these things with different methods, it is probably just to say that we're all able of letting out words that can make us get embarrassed if we said them in much easier situations.
Now I have on no account met Donald; for all I know he might be the perfect gentleman. In spite of this, suffice to say that's not how he seemed in KS's map of the world - I was aware that what she said to me on this occasion was, well, intended (is that the right word, though?) to be very critical.
Then how did this quote get its place in the sun? Where is the learning? Very well, luckily for me, although the ending of the relationship arrived as a huge and disagreeable surprise, I was 100% certain that I was not abusive. And so I set about producing a translation of KS's words, and what I came up with was this:
I had hoped that this relationship was going to be truly great
I now believe it isn't, so I am baffled and, naturally, disappointed
Of my two earlier major relationships, one was signified by boredom, the other by abuse, and there is no way I can see you as uninteresting!
Thus my unconscious map of what failing relationships are like implications you should fall into the other group
And as I'm feeling perplexed and disappointed (see above), I hurt
Loads
Therefore I am frightened I presently don't have the resources to look for a third alternative
Normal service will be continued as soon as possible
Now of course I didn't impose this translation on KS (for the reason that flying crockery hurts!), but it helped me to have a word with her, and my, feelings at the end of the relationship without including an extra emotional burden to the process.
Yet regardless of the great fortune of being in a space on this occasion where I will be able to handle this seemingly harsh criticism reasonably proficiently, the circumstances set me thinking. How many times had I been confronted with words, often just as brief and so often considerably less directly critical, that I'd taken quite personally, resulting in a toxic cocktail of anger, self-pity, confusion and/or self-recrimination? And how much fallout had I lived with as a result? It was a very frightening thought.
So I resolved:
Always translate.
And do it ingeniously.
Give the speaker the benefit of the doubt, for their sake, yes, and - particularly - for the sake of my own present and future happiness.
