Hey there everyone,
My girlfriend and I have been dating for about a year and a half now. I've noticed that in terms of conflicts within our relationship, it seems to happen on a monthly basis, and things usually get pretty heated.
The way the arguments usually happen are with her being frustrated (were both uni students, shes in nursing so of course shes stressed) about something completely different than me (school for example) I let her vent and try to talk with her but she ends up getting more frustrated, which she then moves on to being frustrated with me. After getting frustrated with me, she moves onto a large list of things that I do/ or dont do that bother her and tells me them one by one, which then I take personally as harsh crticism and try to defend myself, which then starts the arguments.
This is the way it always happens. I'm not here to defend myself and ask for you guys to tell me that I'm in the right. I see that I contribute to the situation by not taking into consideration that shes frustrated about something entirely other than me, what I dont like is that her frustrations always lead to her picking on me and get taken out on me, and I've mentioned that to her. Now the issue with communicatio, is that I dont talk with her, which is more so her perspective than mine. So lately what we've both been trying to do is really communicate with each other and use "I" statements, and such. For the most part, yes, it has worked, am I an expert at communication , no, so its a definite work in progress. She also states that I never say nice things to her... this is also a constant in our arguments. One thing I truly do not know how to do, or to put out verbally, is these nice things that I dont say to her. I'm a fairly quiet person, always have been, so yes I can own up to the fact that I dont say much in terms of "oh you look pretty today" or "good job on so and so" ( its more so the former than the latter), but the way I show how much I love and care about her is by doing. I actually do a lot for her.
We got into a huge fight yesterday, and the issue of me never saying anything nice was brought up again. Her usual reasoning for saying that, is the fact that when we do get into an argument, I end up saying that she is spiteful. In my view, she does get spiteful, she gets mean, and usually ends up saying things that are really not nice, and she seems so quick to resort to saying those things. I'm the type that stays calm for as long as humanly possible in those situations, but she usually ends up pushing buttons more and more as she gets riled up, which is why I end up saying she is spiteful. I try so hard not to say any thing verbally abusing, but I feel that as her aggression and anger in the situation rises (which yes, it keeps going up), I cant take more of what she says, and it results in some harsh things being said. No, its not to the point of saying that shes worthless or any sort of thing like that, its more so petty name calling (bitch gets thrown in there, and thats usually as far as I will go). I just feel that everytime we get into and argument, her anger gets the best of her and it sets me off, and things just go down from there.
So two parts to this; What am I doing wrong to add to the situation, and how can I/we go about constructively arguing? and,
for me personally, how can I get more confidence in saying encouraging and nice things to her?
The thing is, I dont not want to say things like that to her, but because I am that quite type, I just dont know how to go about doing it, for me, its not as simple as "just doing it". Can anyone help?