Exactly - and the calmer and cooler you get, the more you start to recognize the level of denial you had been living in beforehand, tethered to the emotions of your partner.
Some form of denial definitely sprung from overconfidence earlier in our R. I witnessed W on occasion speak to people in a nasty, abrasive, disrespectful tone - like her dad, her mom, the clerk at the department store. It was offputting but didn't happen all that often and she had many many great qualities. And I knew for sure the she would NEVER speak to me like that, after all I'm Gekko, no one talks to me that way. I think one of the morals of my story is that if you see your significant other speaking to others in a harsh way, it's only a matter of time until that attitude is going to be directed at you.
