My bf is also very quick to hear a lot of what I say about the R as an "attack." I think the war/conflict-tainted language is inappropriate and inaccurate.
Early in our R, I said that we needed to establish what I called "an assumption of good will" between us. By this I meant that the default condition for our interactions would be for each of us to assume the other meant no harm. IOW we would BEGIN with that assumption until proven otherwise. I guess I should have been suspicious when he wouldn't agree to that! Yikes! He said he couldn't agree to ANY assumptions at ALL, implying that he had made that mistake in the PAST and didn't plan on doing it again (and then promptly rode away on his Huffy bike!)!!
I think NOW after over two years, he sees that that was a reasonable assumption, and pretty much agrees to it. But he's still on a hair trigger where criticism (or anything with a whiff of cricitism) is concerned.
Why did I stick around? I'm still asking myself that one...
