[CleanSlate]

(08-16-2018 04:41 AM)Noir Wrote:  

@jetset
The more time your LTR spends in your time, the higher the extent of 'marking her territory' behaviour will occur.

Some like to categorize this as shit tests but they are simply methods of pushing the boundaries, on a subconscious level.

Women have the beautiful habit of doing mundane actions, framed as an 'us' benefit when in reality, they are simply falling back in to habitual behaviour and expecting your approval. For most men, this approval comes in the form of a long term normalization of the behavior through lack of addressing it.

Your case strikes me as something similar.

I noticed this a lot with couples who have been together for a long time or older.


First come the little actions such as moving things, tidying up and basically 'shaking' your status quo and feng shui.

Sometimes to make the place more feminine and other times to make it more 'her friendly'.

You will react if you feel this is unwarranted, threatens/infringes your space and boundaries and moreso if you see no reason to do so.


Second comes the retaliation by us, in which we question the rationale behind it.
When we question the rationale, the woman sees it as a question of character, not action. They think we are not giving the 'benefit of doubt' and that we ignore that it's essentially, good intentions, bad executions. Of course, the execution is not always necessary.

It’s similar to Patrice O’Neal’s stand up where he discusses how you are comfortable on the couch and the woman crawls on to you in some twisted love wine, intertwining her legs and putting her weight on you while saying ‘aint that better?’

Third, comes the drop which overflows the cup, the outburst, which is what happened in your situation.

Subconsciously, you were probably grinded by smaller actions, her lounging on the couch, her lack of effort in maintaining her appeal and basically, a feeling that she is not pulling her weight. It makes feel like she’s taking you for granted at times, doesn’t it?

When you take this into consideration and juxtapose this vs the other points and her behaviour, you're left thinking: 'why would you do this', 'what benefit does this have' and 'you have no right to be pissed off, you should know me by now to view things the way I view them'.

So to answer your question, you're not out of order to get pissed off, it’s normal but it’s –EV (poker) in the long term. Essentially, if you were to do this 1000 times, the negatives would outweigh the positives and this is a crucial mentality to have.

I would encourage you to pick 'what' pisses you off though, more carefully.

I learned this from Dan Ariely - When I am about to make a decision, would I make the same decision 1000 times for this action?

When someone apologizes to me over something small, I tell them 'how can I take your more significant apologies seriously, when you dish out apologies over tiny indiscretions?'

It detracts from the value of the apology.

Well, if you get angry with little things like this, then when you get pissed off over something serious, it will be swept under the rug. The message is lost and a character assumption is made. 'You are always like this' or 'You have anger problems'.

Guess what?

This will just infuriate you more. (little to her, might not be little to you but what she sees is what you're dealing with).

View these little indiscretions as stepping on lego. It's fucking sore but short lived.

The flipside is that whenever you lose something, you will blame her and that also spirals.

When I successfully dealt with these situations, I would remain calm and my advice would be:

a) communicate that she is fucking with your feng shui -> frame this as a respect thing

b) to zoom out, put herself in your shoes and to see how it's annoying

c) start moving her shit around when you go to her place and watch her freak out. Then bust out the same shit she tells you. (my favourite)

d) I showed her the Patrice O Neal video and whenever she would do something remotely close to this, I would tell her AIN'T THAT BETTER? with a shit eating grin. It's like a Pavlovian hook that gets them understanding.

When you do discuss this, you are disappointed. Never angry, just disappointed.

Frame-wise-

Not: "how could you do this?" or "you're batshit crazy"

Rather: "you're better than this" or "I would have expected you to communicate this, at this stage of our relationship"

For what it's worth, this is completely natural and a consequence of you responding to her being in your space and changing the status quo.

You have control over what pisses you off though.

Source: I have been in this situation too many times


How did your chat with her go?