“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” -Soren Kierkegaard
This is always true, but feels especially obvious looking back on past relationships and the fights you’ve had with people you care about. No one wants to be the “crazy girlfriend” or the “bridezilla” or the “bossy bitch friend,” but it’s safe to say that most of us have been in one of those positions at least once despite our best efforts to be reasonable. I know I have been! But I don’t often find myself there anymore, because fortunately for us, what is learned from the past can often be applied to improve the future. So I’m going to share how I avoid being the “crazy wife/girlfriend/friend.”
First, don’t ignore your feelings. That will only allow them to build up until you freak out, which is the opposite of what we’re going for here. You are allowed to feel betrayed if your boyfriend is flirting with some chick who wants to snag him from you. You are allowed to feel hurt if your best friend bails on you at the last minute. You are allowed to stand your ground and be heard when you feel someone is mistreating you in some way. Your feelings don’t even have to be reasonable or warranted. You can just be sad or be angry or feel fragile because that’s how you feel. It might be hormones running amok. It might be that some underlying issue that you haven’t recognized yet is the cause of your unhappiness. But you are allowed to feel. You can’t control how you feel, and that’s okay.
What you can control is how you react to your feelings. That does need to be reasonable, at least most of the time, if you’d like to maintain somewhat stable and meaningful relationships with other people. So, you may feel angry and not be able to pinpoint WHY, but you can’t just snap at your best friend because of it and without any warning or good reason. Or, if you DO, you should immediately apologize once you realize what you did, and make sure to explain that you’re feeling cranky. Make sure she knows that it’s not her fault and you shouldn’t have taken it out on her. That’s the first step in not coming off as a crazy person. Control your response to your feelings, or if you can’t, always sincerely apologize for your outbursts once you calm down.
I’ll admit that sometimes I’m not great at this. I may be cranky from a long day when Seth asks me a question about some task that needs to be completed or some bill that needs to be paid. In the moment, it feels like one more thing on the giant pile of “to-do’s” that is my life, and my response can often be snarky and sharp. But I’ve gotten to the point where I immediately recognize that it’s not Seth’s fault I had a crummy day, nor is it his fault that other things require our attention, and I apologize. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m sorry. I’m just cranky today and thinking about one more thing to do was the last straw.” I say something along those lines fairly frequently, but I am always forgiven. Acknowledging your mistakes goes a long way.
The second step is trickier. If your feelings are rooted in something specific, you need to confront that situation. That sounds terrible to me, as a person who generally hates conflict and just wants to be happy. That said, I have learned that the longer you wait, the harder it is to bring up something that is bothering you, so it’s best to just get it over with. I’ll give you a few examples. I have a friend to thank for the first one (thanks Coco!).
Let’s say that you’re planning your wedding. All is going smoothly except that your fiancee’s best friend treats you as if you do not exist. He used to get along with you just fine, but when your fiancee began spending more time with you and less with him, he began to freeze you out. Now, he barely looks at you when you’re in the same room. He doesn’t interact with you, speak to you, or acknowledge your existence. As your fiancee’s best friend, obviously he expects to be in the wedding party, and your fiancee expects this as well, but as the bride, you can’t imagine being totally ignored by a member of the bridal party on your wedding day and don’t really want this person around to spoil your big day.
Both sides have valid, but opposing views. This could go poorly in many ways. If you choose to ignore the whole situation, the offending friend will be present in the bridal party, treat you poorly, and put a damper on what is supposed to be an extremely happy day. That’s not right. But if you walk up to your fiancee and demand that the offending friend be excluded from the bridal party, you’ve certainly got a fight on your hands. Your fiancee will likely fight for his friend because he wants to have those closest to him with him at the altar (and even if you win out in the end, both your fiancee and the offending friend will likely resent you for it). And your fiancee may win out, which puts a big black cloud of animosity over your wedding day since you’ll be angry every time you are treated poorly by the offending friend and he’ll be angry that you tried to oust said friend. If you try to talk to the friend directly, you may have success, but it’s unlikely. The offending friend clearly doesn’t care what you think of him and doesn’t care about your happiness, so why would he do anything to spare your feelings?
But there is one way you might both end up happy. You have to have a reasonable conversation with your fiance about how his friend is treating you. That doesn’t mean the conversation won’t be tense or even result in some yelling, but you can’t allow your feelings to get out of control in the moment. Instead of banning the friend, you have to explain to your fiance that the offending friend ignores you or treats you poorly, and that it hurts your feelings. You have to tell him that the friend’s actions show a lack of respect for his future wife and your marriage, and that it’s not acceptable. Make sure you don’t blame the friend. Instead of “Dan treats me poorly and I won’t tolerate it,” try, “I feel like Dan ignores me because he resents our relationship and that because of that he isn’t going to be supportive of our marriage. It hurts my feelings and makes me feel like he won’t respect me as your wife. Since I know you want him to remain a part of our lives, would you please talk to him about it?” This communicates why you feel the way you do in a way your fiance can relate to, and it gives him an opening to remedy the situation so that his friend can still participate in the wedding and you won’t resent having him there. The offending friend (“Dan”) will likely respond better to your fiance than he would to you, and if he values the friendship over the long term, it’s likely that he will make an effort to please his friend. If he doesn’t, your fiance may decide his disrespect is unacceptable on his own, now that you’ve pointed it out, and you don’t have to be the bad guy.
You can apply this ability to almost any situation once you have it figured out. The key is to explain WHY something bothers you in a way that the other person can relate to, and to explain it calmly enough that they are actually listening when you say it. Most importantly though, never give the other person an ultimatum unless you’re prepared for them to choose either option. I offer you my second example.
Let’s say your boyfriend hangs out with a female friend frequently. You think she has a crush on him, but you tolerate his friendship with her because you are not a controlling monster and you trust him (hopefully). But as time goes on, you notice her becoming more and more bold about trying to win over your boyfriend. She may flirt with him frequently in public, and even in front of you. She might touch him just a bit too often or sit on his lap. Whatever it is, she makes you uncomfortable, and she’s always pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable just a little bit farther.
If you ban your boyfriend from seeing her, or say something like, “You can either date me or be friends with Sarah, but not both,” it’s going to piss him off. Nobody likes to be told what to do or to be given an ultimatum. And he might stop talking to Sarah. But he’ll resent you for it, she will too, and it won’t be the last you hear about it. It’ll be fodder for fighting from that day forward. It will brand you as controlling, jealous, and bossy, and be an example of how you can be unreasonable when discussing other, totally unrelated things. He also might dump you and keep hanging out with Sarah instead. Oops.
On the other hand, you could say something like, “I think the way that Sarah interacts with you is inappropriate. She’s always flirting with you in front of me. I think it shows a lack of respect for me and for our relationship. And she’s always touching you (or sitting on your lap, etc). How would you feel if another man did that with me? When you let her do those things, you’re encouraging her to keep disrespecting us as a couple, and it makes me feel embarrassed and like you don’t care about my feelings.” This communicates that the behavior is inappropriate, but doesn’t demand that he cut Sarah off. It does allow him to relate to how you feel about the situation. As a result, he may have a talk with Sarah about her behavior. He may simply discourage her from certain actions in the moment. He might just stop talking to her. Or he might do nothing and allow the behavior to continue.
That’s the only “problem” with this method of conflict resolution. It allows people to make their own choices. But isn’t that what we all want? We all like to have control over our own life and our own choices. By reasonably laying out the issue at hand and explaining your feelings, you are compromising by allowing the other person to weigh both sides on their own and come to the best conclusion. If you trust someone enough to become vulnerable and explain your feelings, you obviously care about that person. And hopefully, they care enough about you in return to make a decision that makes you both as happy as possible. And if they don’t? Well you are also allowed to make your own decisions, and that includes the ability to dump a boyfriend, friend, etc if they don’t care enough about you to be considerate of your feelings.
I hope this helps you in your next conflict. I hope it’s far in the future, and may the odds be ever in your favor.