I've tried for ten years not to take it personally, and it's just not the way I'm wired. What I want to find out is if there's some way for him to communicate in advance that he's approaching the point of no return so that we can either prevent it or (more likely) at least deal with it civilly.
Let me give you an example: My family were yellers, so it wasn't unusual to scream at someone when they'd upset you. As I got older, I realised how much I hated this behaviour, but of course I'd been trained in it since an early age. All the same, there are ways to spare people's feelings. Once bunj was making a copy of a mix tape I had and accidentally taped over part of the first track on my copy. He was so responsible about this--telling me as soon as it happened and offering to buy a copy of the album the song was from (not a trivial offer given his budget at the time)--that I didn't want to make him feel any worse than he already did. But I was still mad that something I valued had been damaged.
So I told him calmly, "I'm about to get mad. Don't take it personally." I then spent half a minute hopping around the room and cursing and, when that was over and I had it out of my system, I told him he didn't need to worry about replacing the album. So even though I got mad, he didn't feel victimised. (At least, that was my impression; I'm not sure how he remembers the incident.) That's all I really want: Go and be by yourself if that's what you need to do, but just make it clear beforehand that you're not doing it to punish me.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 03:44 pm (UTC)Let me give you an example: My family were yellers, so it wasn't unusual to scream at someone when they'd upset you. As I got older, I realised how much I hated this behaviour, but of course I'd been trained in it since an early age. All the same, there are ways to spare people's feelings. Once
So I told him calmly, "I'm about to get mad. Don't take it personally." I then spent half a minute hopping around the room and cursing and, when that was over and I had it out of my system, I told him he didn't need to worry about replacing the album. So even though I got mad, he didn't feel victimised. (At least, that was my impression; I'm not sure how he remembers the incident.) That's all I really want: Go and be by yourself if that's what you need to do, but just make it clear beforehand that you're not doing it to punish me.