Discussion on MrsCAC4 thread - Making assumptions

[haphazard]

Like NJ I grew up in a verbally volatile home with a lot of witty intellectual sparring as well as straight forward rows. No-one backed down easily, but the person with the best made "case" was generally thought of as having won. We weren't particularly sore losers about it even as kids. My first LTR was with a guy who also enjoyed the mental exercise of having a good argument about something and who would also allow himself to be convinced if you were convincing enough. Life was never peaceful in either of these situations and sometimes it could get very stressful especially if the emotional undercurrent was negative.

So when the R with xBF broke up I was ready like NJ to live in a peaceful home

I married a quiet conflict-avoider. I felt in control. However, I missed the verbal sparring of my childhood, and found myself provoking my H. He never reacted in the way that either of my parents had, and it was confusing. So I would up the ante. This pushed my H even further away, and he would become jerky and sarcastic in return.

A huge 180 for me in my marriage has been to drop the drama. We are civil and kind and polite to each other now, and it is so different. It's a wonderful positive change, and I am still getting used to it. But I still miss some of the verbal stimulation from the past.

And I can certainly relate to this.

Fearless said: In (her xH's) family there was no strong emotions EVER shown so it seemed that he was just afraid of the unknown.

Again this is just like my H. He grew up in a home with no conflict, if his parents needed to have heated discussion they would go and sit in the car. To me this could only have increased H's fear of conflict

I do miss it. I miss being able to have a fun argument without rancour where you admire each other's skill at making the points and I miss being able to come to a negotiated settlement about something by arguing and hearing each other's case. I HATE the fact that H uses feelings to trump logic.

If someone won't engage in the debate, feels angry because you are "contradicting" them (i.e. have different POV) and then tells you you have no right to invalidate their feelings of anger .... that to me is just like a kid taking his ball home because he's losing the game. You don't do it, and everyone knows you don't do it, no-one tells the kid he's entitled to those feelings they tell him to get back to the game and stop being a sore loser.

Fran