Girlfriend is mean to me but then wonders why I’m quiet

Over the past few months I’ve noticed my girlfriend being very short with me, I’m a jokey guy and like to have a laugh but recently she’s come to say I’m annoying her etc or she complains about stuff I do. Two most recent examples being when I have a bad day at work I tend to try and leave it behind when I get home but one day I had a particularly stressful day I was talking about it to her and her reply was “I really don’t care enough or have the energy to listen to this.”

And then another example was her friend invited us to a baby shower, we were going to go and my parents said they’d give us a lift so we can have a drink. But at the last minute my girlfriend changed her mind about wanting to go, as my parents would have insisted we go to have a rare night out I thought it would be better to tell a little white lie and say my girlfriend had been called into work and that’s why we can’t go anymore (this was the same excuse my girlfriend told get friend we can’t go) but when I repeated this to my parents my girlfriend flew off the handle at me and started calling me a liar and asking why am I so comfortable lying.

With both of these incidents I decided to just keep quiet as 1. I can’t be bothered saying something back and getting into a petty argument and 2. If she finds me so annoying when I talk I’d better just keep quiet. But after both of these incidents she wondered why I was quiet, after the work incident I went outside and did some jobs in the garden for about 3 hours so I didn’t speak to her for that length of time.

After the baby shower incident I’d say I was quiet with her for just shy of 2 hours I just went and sat in the living room and read my book etc. I think that time she knew she’d upset me as the rest of the day she was being over nice to me.

Any advice or anything if or when this type of thing happens again.

Reply 1

DMCG1801

Original post by Anonymous

As I understand it, a healthy relationship needs many things to survive. One of the most crucial is clear communication, especially regarding issues which affect the relationship itself. It sounds to me like the issue here is a lack of clear communication leading to uncertainty and a level of misunderstanding surrounding the nature and feelings of both parties involved.

My advice would be, at the first instance of identifying an issue which is leading to a misunderstanding and/or level of uncertainty, the way to resolve this is to communicate this clearly and constructively.

Instead of presenting an issue confrontationally (not saying you’ve done this!), if you present it from the perspective of wanting to ensure that they are okay and to develop an understanding of how they feel, hopefully you should be able to arrive collectively at an understanding.

A common issue when approaching this is the lack of clarity leading to one party “dismissing” the feelings of the other as invalid due to a lack of clarity surrounding the situation. Whatever happens, be constructive, assure them that how they feel is valid and that you are there to support and understand their perspective, and most importantly, be clear in your communication and this should avoid uncertainties/unexpected situations such as this.