Acc, it does help. What you said appeared an unconstructive insult because it was so vague and subjective; since I didn't understand what you were talking about I could not envision or possibly do anything about what you suggested I was doing.
Your explanation takes it out of vague insult territory and into the realm of constructive criticism, so I appreciate that. However I'll have to explore more to find an example because I'm pretty sure it was a lot more subtle than "so there" - I don't believe I've said that or would.
But in the abstract... When I think someone has said something to me that's both wrong and hurtfully expressed, I can believe I respond strongly.
Cat's not a good example because I don't recall being actually mad at her. There was a series of times where she said I had not changed, and I knew that I had changed because I would proceed to tell her how, but I also knew that there was some other kind of change she was really looking for, which I didn't really understand. That was pretty frustrating. But I feel like her challenges and my justifications provided an opportunity to look harder at what I was doing. I'm not sure my justifications were offensive to her; I think if she wasn't trying to help me get somewhere she wouldn't have bothered coming to my thread.
Crazyville yes, I've been mad at. She's a very smart and funny person and I know I'd like her a lot in real life, but the way she used to speak of her H could almost be channeling my H speaking of me. It's excruciatingly hurtful at times. When she came over to criticize me on the day we were telling our kids we were breaking up their family, I was very upset. I don't even think I said I told you so, nor cited any facts as is my usual argumentative style. I think I just told her that was pretty crummy. And she apologized. I'm actually not sorry that I didn't accept that on that day.
But we do get a little closer to what the issue is that I'm working on with my sister. It's like this: if I don't like what you said, I feel mad that you said it in the first place. It's a control thing. I don't do it to everyone. It's like only certain people get so close inside your personal boundary that they can hurt you and you want to be able to control their ability to do that by making sure they have all the information they need to arrive at only the right conclusions in the first place.
When I first walked into IC with my H the very first thing we discussed was the difficulty of understanding and accepting different realities, and the necessity of learning how to navigate between those realities without hurting each other. I got a fair amount of practice at that with H while he lived here. I learned to try to understand the interpretations he was placing on certain facts that caused him to have certain emotions, while my interpretations of the same facts led to different emotions. I learned to recognize the boundary of my own reality, so that his words and nonverbal messages could come up to me and be evaluated before I would react, so I could respond with my own sense of identity/beliefs/thoughts and not simply react at gut level.
I think this thing with my sister is similar. I find myself wanting to control what comes out of her mouth, and so being angry that it did, rather than being able to let her have her own reality that's different from mine. Again, I think you have to be very very close to someone to have that kind of a problem. You're so close that you fail to understand how different you perceive things, and that that is OK.
I also notice when I'm not taking good care of myself, my fuse is shorter, so that's in play too.
Anyway, hope I haven't bored everyone to death.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
