Never Enough

At night, she wanted to watch a movie with me and suggested two movies from her home country. Although I would have preferred to watch something else that night, it seemed important to her and so I picked one. The movie, which had English subtitles, actually turned out to be captivating and I enjoyed watching it. However, I got annoyed from a habit of her: she would repeatedly explain to me what is happening in the movie, adding “you don’t understand” or asking “do you understand?” I felt being lectured, as if I was unable to figure out the plot on my own. She had shown this habit in other contexts before and thus I decided to tell her after the movie was over that I don’t like it. I said that I find it annoying being told “you don’t understand,” because it makes me feel stupid and adds nothing to the point that she is making.

She didn’t take it well. She got offended and immediately thought of leaving. It was too late at night to catch a train, so she would stay overnight but wanted to leave the next morning. I tried to de-escalate by saying that I was trying to express myself, but it didn’t work. She punished me with silent treatment and we went to bed, where I thought of myself of being a clumsy clot and why I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Tears came to my eyes as I felt like a failure.

After a couple of minutes in bed, she asked if she can hug me. Yes, I was in desperate need of a hug. She explained to me: “This is not how you speak to your girlfriend.” She asked me to be more kind and suggested to sugarcoat criticism with, for example: “I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but I get the feeling that…” However, considering that I was stressed from the dental surgery, she decided to stop being mad at me.

I mean, she had a point. I was a bit direct and talking about it at night was not the best timing. I was completely willing to accept her narrative: I treated her badly and must put in more effort. I must be kinder to her, because she deserves better. She was generous enough to overlook my misdoing this time. I was glad to get another chance to prove my worth to her.

I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether my action was inappropriate and whether her reaction was appropriate. The key insight here is how this incident established my codependency on her: my emotional satisfaction depends on whether she is satisified with how I treat her. If she gets dissatisfied, she punishes me, which makes me feel worthless. My underlying trigger for getting annoyed in the first place was that I felt inferior and disrespected by being told “you don’t understand.” Maybe it coincided with a harmless habit of her, to which I was overly sensitive, but speaking from today, I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that she was lecturing me to establish hierarchy. She actually stopped saying the phrase to me, except for when it occasionally slipped out. Her underlying trigger for getting mad was that she felt belittled and feared being controlled.

The next day, my Ex explained to me that she gives silent treatment regularly when angry. I didn’t think much about it; sulking in silence seemed surely better than a screaming fight. After having gotten silent treatment multiple times throughout our relationship, I would revise my point: silent treatment is a passive-aggressive form of emotional abuse.

When I drove her to the train station some time later, we held hands and talked again about the incident. I got emotional and tears started rolling down my eyes while I was telling her that I felt like a failure in that situation. When we arrived at the train station, we kissed passionately and I felt emotional intimacy. She then said: “I’m still mad at you,” and left me behind in my car puzzled.

I asked her on the phone a few days later why she said that. She replied that she was teasing me. From today’s point of view, she had identified one of my weaknesses and used it as emotional leverage to punish me. Narcissists are said to be unforgiving. Even after I believed we reconciled, she had the desire to demonstrate superiority over me. The movie incident would later become one of four reasons that my Ex cited for the failure of our relationship.