Oh friend. Listen, I get it. I’m a full blown extrovert that has always been attracted to introverts, and at times their need for space feels personal to me, when it isn’t at all. I have worked through this a lot in therapy to calm my brain that sets off the alarm when they need that decompression time that I just don’t relate to. Their need for this is absolutely not about me.
So here’s the thing. What he said was fine. It hurting your feelings because you take this personally is also fine! The issue is what you did with it after. Silent treatment is not fine. It’s really awful to go through on the other side, and if you’re honest with yourself, it’s a form of punishment. It’s one thing to take a breath to stay calm, but to hold the other person hostage in anger and silence without any type of communication is unkind and uncalled for. Frankly, it can be manipulative. Adults don’t need punishments, they need communication.
You have to communicate. If something hurts your feelings, you have to say “hey, this hurt my feelings because…” and have that conversation. I know for many with issues around confrontation this feels scary, but I promise that conversation feels SOOO much better than what was done here.
There is a book called “Attached” that I would highly recommend to both of you. Discovering your attachment styles will help you understand yourself and why you react the way you do to certain things, while discovering who your partner is and why they react they way they do. It’s a really good one to go through together and discuss. You will learn a lot. It has helped me and my partner (another introvert with high anxiety) understand each other tremendously better than before.
I don’t think you’re done here if you give a sincere apology and talk about how you plan to handle things in the future (not the way you handled this), then also finally talk about how you felt and how he felt. I would then ask him to go through this book with you to strengthen your understanding of each other so this can be avoided in the future.
Marry her in 4 months ?
Oh friend. Listen, I get it. I’m a full blown extrovert that has always been attracted to introverts, and at times their need for space feels personal to me, when it isn’t at all. I have worked through this a lot in therapy to calm my brain that sets off the alarm when they need that decompression time that I just don’t relate to. Their need for this is absolutely not about me.
So here’s the thing. What he said was fine. It hurting your feelings because you take this personally is also fine! The issue is what you did with it after. Silent treatment is not fine. It’s really awful to go through on the other side, and if you’re honest with yourself, it’s a form of punishment. It’s one thing to take a breath to stay calm, but to hold the other person hostage in anger and silence without any type of communication is unkind and uncalled for. Frankly, it can be manipulative. Adults don’t need punishments, they need communication.
You have to communicate. If something hurts your feelings, you have to say “hey, this hurt my feelings because…” and have that conversation. I know for many with issues around confrontation this feels scary, but I promise that conversation feels SOOO much better than what was done here.
There is a book called “Attached” that I would highly recommend to both of you. Discovering your attachment styles will help you understand yourself and why you react the way you do to certain things, while discovering who your partner is and why they react they way they do. It’s a really good one to go through together and discuss. You will learn a lot. It has helped me and my partner (another introvert with high anxiety) understand each other tremendously better than before.
I don’t think you’re done here if you give a sincere apology and talk about how you plan to handle things in the future (not the way you handled this), then also finally talk about how you felt and how he felt. I would then ask him to go through this book with you to strengthen your understanding of each other so this can be avoided in the future.